“Forgive quickly, it’s the Christian thing to do.” This is a popular saying and is often accepted and quoted without close examination. God forgave us of our sins, the reasoning goes, so we should be quick to forgive others who sin against us, even if they don’t repent of their sin. If we don’t forgive everyone, doesn’t that reveal an ungrateful heart that likes to nurse a grudge? Psychologists tell us it is better to let go of hurt and bitterness as soon as possible, so they don’t control our lives. We are often counseled to forgive others because forgiveness is therapeutic. End of discussion.
God’s word commands us to forgive, and we have to be honest with ourselves, forgiving is hard. When Jesus told Peter to forgive someone 77 times, Peter was probably troubled by a personal relationship, and Jesus’ words couldn’t have been easy to hear. For us, saying “I forgive you” to someone who has truly sinned against us is one of the most difficult things we ever do as Christians. We know deep down that forgiveness can be superficial. Sometimes we equate forgiveness with ignoring serious problems and feelings that will return to haunt us—and we know that this suppression is not true forgiveness. Authentic forgiveness is not cheap or easy.
Let’s look closer at Christian forgiveness and what it means to authentically forgive. Firstly, when do we forgive? To know the answer to that question, we need the clear words of Jesus without all the glossy psychobabble that surrounds us:
“Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).
When the offender repents, our Christian forgiving is to be radical, real, immediate, and unconditional. We have a magnificent reason to do so:
“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).
But what if the offender does not repent? In that situation, offering forgiveness to the person is not possible. Many Christians, however, will object to this reality about the process of forgiveness.
Author Lewis Smedes, for example, advocates forgiving everyone unconditionally for our own well-being:
“Realism, it seems to me, nudges us toward forgiving people who hurt us whether or not they repent for doing it…we need to forgive the unrepentant for our own sake. We need to forgive people who do not care if only so that we do not drown in our own misery.”
Remember, though, that Jesus said, “if he repents…” as a requirement of forgiveness. God forgives sinners only when they repent. Real, authentic forgiveness has a glorious, long term purpose, greater than our mental health. As John Stott wrote:
We are to rebuke a brother if he sins against us; we are to forgive him if he repents—and only if he repents. We must beware of cheapening forgiveness…If a brother who has sinned against us refuses to repent, we should not forgive him. Does this startle you? It is what Jesus taught… “Forgiveness” includes restoration to fellowship. If we can restore to full and intimate fellowship with ourselves a sinning and unrepentant brother, we reveal not the depth of our love but its shallowness.
Extending forgiveness mainly to make me feel better, “therapeutic forgiveness,” has little power to restore genuine fellowship with others. Though I may feel good about myself, the other person can remain callous and unloving:
“We cannot pursue a vulnerable, trusting relationship with someone who hardens against us in this way. If they have so little concern for how they have damaged us, then the idea of relationship with them will likely be just a pretense. The offender who is unconcerned for her violation against us does not want to really love us. We cannot continue to entrust ourselves to her unless she repents” (John McKinley).
This reality that the unrepentant cannot be restored to intimate fellowship is why Jesus instructed us rebuke those who truly sin against us. But be warned! Jesus also knows our sinful tendency to judge others without extending grace. “Pay attention to yourselves!” He knows how we love to store up grievances against others, even for small annoyances, because it feels good. It is easy to build up little offenses into great evils, and we want cosmic justice! There is a petty kind of rebuking that we all dream of, waiting for that day we can unload on someone so deserving! Andree Seu describes this internal obsession well:
“O my brothers, you cannot imagine the exquisite verbal retaliations I have hatched in the idle hours, each more perfect than the last: theologically impeccable, legalistically faultless, poisoned prose polished to a lethal point. Must I now relinquish these? Must I kill the little darlings? Are they not to see the light of day? Such a waste!” (Andree Seu, WorldMag).
Our godly rebuking cannot be “poisoned prose.” When spoken without trying to punish, exaggerate, beat down, or venting our wrath, a gentle rebuke clears the air and can heal. Stay calm, be patient, and be ready to listen. You want the other person to acknowledge sin, and you also want restoration of fellowship, if at all possible.
The person who sinned against you may never acknowledge any wrongs done. What then? Jesus commanded us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us, praying for them. He did not command us to fully trust or to expect close friendships with everyone. For an abusive or dangerous person, distance may be necessary to protect you and your family. God does not ask us to pretend that our abusers are really good people, deep down. They need a miracle of grace, just as we all do.
We don’t need to fear our fleshly enemies, for our battle isn’t against sinful humans but against spiritual powers that war against our souls. We don’t fear Satan, because we know that the Lord Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15). We live with confidence because “it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10), and because Jesus suffered the terror and punishment of hell.
The doctrine of hell changes our entire outlook on forgiving others. As Adventists we were taught that there will be no eternal hell to punish the wicked, only a quick suffering, then annihilation. However, no one taught us more about hell than did Jesus, and we need to trust His words. Forgiveness of sins becomes infinitely more serious when we see the eternal consequences for those who do not accept Jesus’ sacrifice and forgiveness. When we are tempted to feel bitter over those who abuse us, we need to keep the eternal view in mind. Hell is real and terrible, and we cannot wish it on our worst enemies. We fear Him who can throw both body and soul into hell (Mt. 10:28). God’s justice is far beyond ours.
Christians forgive generously because the Son of God became sin so that we can know Him and see His glory. Let us give over our anger, our desires for revenge, over to the God who works everything for good. He will deal justly with the unrepentant, and we can trust our Father to bring His peace to our broken hearts. †
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Martin,
I so appreciated this piece. I have long been concerned about the rather shallow talk of forgiveness that some evangelicals are prone to. Forgiveness in the absence of repentance is neither meaningful or biblical. Forgiveness is not an acceptance of ongoing unrepentant abuse, mistreatment or bad behavior. While God’s forgiveness means we will not face the eternal consequences of our sin, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be shielded from the temporal consequences of our sin, including broken relationships. While we should seek restoration of relationship through forgiveness, relationship implies at least two parties who desire restoration, which brings us back to repentance as necessary part of real forgiveness. All this is to say, I completely agree that we need to think about real Christian forgiveness in a deeper more biblical way before glibly saying, “You just need to forgive them and move on.”
Your comments are perceptive. Sometimes we have to turn the wrongs done to us over to God to deal with them because we cannot directly forgive the perpetrator for them. God takes care of us and of the damage in our hearts, and He becomes the One who deals with the other person and not us. “Forgive and move on” sometimes asks us to deny what is really true in a situation. You are so right.
Although I believe I understand and agree with your meaning, that forgiveness does not equal trust and reconciliation in a relationship. I fear that the concept of “you don’t have to forgive if they don’t repent” could also be misconstrued and misused, making someone feel that it is okay for them to hold onto their hurt, anger, bitterness, etc, if the offender is not repentant. Which of course is just going to poison and destroy the injured party, not the offender. On the cross Jesus prayed that his Father would forgive the unrepentant ones who were crucifying him. Perhaps it is semantics. But I believe we should be constantly working through forgiveness for the numerous offenses against us— both the daily mundane (getting cut off in traffic) and the life-altering horrific (being betrayed or abused by someone who is supposed to love us). Otherwise we will fill up with and drown in an ocean of resentment and bitterness.
As someone who has been on the brunt of “your angry, your bitter because you haven’t forgiven I disagree that not forgiving allows basically for self pity.
This type of thought runs through the heart of Adventist and what it actually does is spiritually abuse the victim. The bible is clear on the conditions of forgiveness something I’d learnt many years ago. To accuse someone of holding onto resentment just because they haven’t forgiven “just like Jesus did on the cross” adds a further burden.
Another line put out is that unless you forgive we won’t be forgiven Matthew 6:14-15.
It’s a misnomer to assume that we will be filled up and drown in an ocean of forgiveness and bitterness.
It took almost 30 years for the person in my family to apologise for the abuse in my childhood, I wasn’t bitter or harbour resentment I had righteous anger for two reasons. Firstly that I was supposed to forgive and therefore we can all move on didn’t feel right and didn’t allow for justice. That by not forgiving I was disobeying God was a big guilt trip.
Once this person apologised I instantly forgave because they had asked for it, I had tried the whole I forgive him thing to make other around me feel better, but it didn’t help me to forgive someone who hadn’t repented.
Forgiveness is a difficult process and it is not for anyone to say what someone should or should not do, or assume that they are bitter and want to hold onto their anger.
I just want to say that in situations where we cannot forgive a person directly because they did not ask for forgiveness, we instead turn the person and their wrong over to God. Jesus on the cross, for example, did not say to the Roman soldiers, “I forgive you; you don’t know what you are doing.” No…they did not ask His forgiveness.
Instead He turned them over to His Father to forgive. He did not carry the weight of their sin against Him and make things right with them directly but trusted His Father with their sin. (All this besides the fact that His death carried the weight of all our sin…but Jesus didn’t offer them that forgiveness because they didn’t repent. He instead trusted His Father to draw them to receive forgiveness.)
Forgiveness does not mean “forgive and forget”. It requires remembering what happened so we can protect ourselves in the future. But it means that we give up our right to get even or to normalize the relationship if there is no repentance on the part of the offender. We trust God to provide for our broken heart what the offender could not do, and we release them from the debt they owe us of fixing what they “broke”. Instead, we trust God and let go of our drive to repair the relationship, to be understood, and to get the offender to repent and make things right. They become God’s responsibility, and our hearts trust Him instead of longing for what we do not have because of the offense.
Carrying the weight of abuses done to us when there is no repentance is a weight that will crush us. Jesus carried that weight in His body on the cross; we trust Him and let go of our drive to retrieve a relationship that it is no longer possible to have.