Forgiveness and Justice: A Gospel Answer to an Agnostic’s Anger

Editor’s note – Every believer eventually meets someone who can’t square the cross with cruelty they’ve lived through. This author met that man at a Dollar General counter, wearing his anger around his neck. What follows is a real, unfinished exchange about whether forgiveness betrays the oppressed or protects them from becoming what hurt them.

The Encounter

I was picking up a few things at Dollar General the other day in my hometown, and I was shocked to see the guy at the checkout counter wearing an inverted cross around his neck. With much surprise, I blurted out to him, “Why is the cross upside down? That’s not right! It should be right-side up!”

The Conversation

He answered me calmly, stating that it stood for his individualism. I said, “You don’t believe God exists then?” and he said, “No, I don’t believe you can know if God exists or not.” Then, I said, “Well, you’re actually an agnostic because atheists believe that God does not exist.” He quickly agreed that he was an agnostic and started explaining why he wore the cross that way. He couldn’t reconcile the fact that Christians are forgiven for everything they’ve done wrong if only they repent and accept Christ as their Savior. He said that the people who had oppressed and continue to oppress him and his people should never be forgiven. I listened quietly, handed him a tract titled “Why You Can Trust the Bible,” and he took it.

I was about to leave the store when I stopped, turned around, and asked him if I could send him an email. He agreed and wrote his email address on a piece of paper. I thanked him and left quickly because he had other customers to check out.

Editor’s note – Notice what the author didn’t do: argue theology at the counter. They asked one honest question, handed over a tract, and left room for a relationship instead of a lecture.

The Emails

As soon as I got home, I composed an email to him, concerned that he had misunderstood God’s view on oppression. I said that he was right to view injustice as evil, and that God viewed it that way too. I brought up the fact that God doesn’t approve of the oppression, cruelty, or racism inflicted on Black people, or any other people group for that matter, and mentioned that those were sinful acts against people made in God’s image. I also said that God will certainly judge them for those sinful acts.

I then told him that I certainly didn’t know why God permitted this evil but emphasized the point that the Bible doesn’t downplay or hide human brutality, and neither does it tell the oppressed to call it good. It says God sees, hears, and will bring perfect justice in the end. The cross proves that God chose not to remain distant from human evil but experienced it Himself. He allowed His Son Jesus to suffer horrible injustice, torture, and death for the purpose of defeating sin and death, and to reconcile mankind to Himself.

Since the young man was adamant that his oppressors deserved and should receive punishment rather than grace, I mentioned that God may permit evil to occur, but He never commands or morally endorses it. I stressed the fact that sin offends His justice and separates people from Him, and racial oppression is sin against both God and one’s neighbor.

I explained that God’s grace and forgiveness are offered even to oppressors, but only to those who truly repent. Their deeds were not excused; the consequences for them were transferred to Christ. I also explained that the Bible promises that history’s wrongs won’t ever be forgotten. It plainly and repetitively assures people that God will judge every person with complete righteousness. “God ‘will repay each one according to his deeds.'” (Romans 2:6).

Editor’s note – This is the tension worth holding: Scripture refuses to let injustice fade into a slogan, and it refuses to let vengeance replace God’s justice.

I ended my first email to the young man by asking him what injustices were mostly on his heart, and what experiences led him to draw these conclusions. The following was in his reply email.

“Yet God’s grace and forgiveness are offered even to oppressors who truly repent – not to excuse their deeds, but because Christ’s atonement is sufficient and repentance entails turning from evil. This statement is the reason why I believe what I believe. I don’t believe in forgiveness for those who committed the biggest atrocities against my people. In my lifetime, oppression will never go away, and a little part of that is bc of people trying to forgive evil, just like the statement above does.”

Editor’s note – Take his objection seriously. He isn’t rejecting grace out of stubbornness; he has watched grace get used to silence real suffering.

I answered him back by saying that I understood why that statement about repentant oppressors felt so unbearable. I assured him that atrocities against him and his people weren’t small wounds and that forgiveness was never meant to minimize them. Forgiveness didn’t mean that perpetrators would be protected from the consequences of their crimes or that the victims should be silenced. I explained that forgiveness means refusing to let the sins of oppressors become the thing that poisons your own heart. It places the final vengeance and judgment squarely in God’s hands. I told him that God’s grace toward repentant sinners showed that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient even for terrible, unbearable sin. I also mentioned that people who remain proud and cruel aren’t demonstrating repentance.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the young man didn’t answer me back. I pray for him every day to give God a chance to heal his hurting heart. I haven’t been to that Dollar General again for a while, but I plan to. The next time I see him, I may simply thank him for the brief conversation we had and let him make the next move. I’ll mention that I’ll be glad to answer any questions he may have about God, the best I can. If he gives me a chance, I’ll let him know that forgiveness isn’t indifference to sin, and explain that if sin wasn’t so serious, then Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die to pay for it. I’ll let him know that hatred and revenge can’t heal the injustice done, and that God’s mercy doesn’t weaken His justice. I’ll also say that God’s grace is only offered because Christ bore the judgment, not because oppression is trivial.

A Word from the Editor
Forgiveness like this isn’t manufactured by willpower; it’s received from a God who absorbed human cruelty at its worst and still opened His arms to the guilty. Scripture never asks the wounded to pretend the wound isn’t real – it promises that God sees every injustice clearly and that vengeance belongs to Him alone, not to us (Romans 12:19). That promise, not our own capacity to forgive, is what makes real forgiveness possible.

Editor Comment: The OT revenging God vs the NT loving Jesus can be hard to reconcile, especially for the lost, but even for the believer, when confronted. My final street theology, knowing the reality of the Trinity and my own weakness in fully understanding the Creator of the universe, is that, as believers, we need to trust that our God IS love and that all will be made clear on the other side of the grave. That approach may not satisfy our desire for complete answers, but it is an honest assessment of why, at its most fundamental level, God allowed Lucifer to become Satan (and our sin nature followed) in the first place. Bottom line… as you said, forgiveness is what He calls us to in all matters of our sinful hearts.

This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.