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This page is about forgiving those who wrong you, and seeking forgiveness when you have wronged someone. If someone is hurting you, or has abused you, read If You Are Not Safe first. Forgiveness never requires you to go back into danger, and it never requires you to keep a crime from the police. The rest can wait until you are safe.
Forgiven People Forgive
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:32 (KJV)
Christ taught us to pray, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Then he added a warning, If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:12, 15).
He told a parable to show why (Matthew 18:21-35). A king forgave his servant ten thousand talents, a debt no servant could ever repay. That servant then took a fellow servant by the throat over an hundred pence and threw him into prison, and the king delivered him to the tormentors. It is a parable, a story told to teach, but what it pictures is real. Your debt to God is beyond counting, and God really does forgive it in Christ. A heart that will not forgive the small debts owed to it is in real danger, for Jesus ends, So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses (18:35).
You do not earn God’s pardon by forgiving others. Christ alone paid for sin. But a heart that has received mercy learns to show it, and God gives the grace to do so.
In the fifth petition, which is, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.
Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 105
When You Have Wronged Someone
If you remember that thy brother hath ought against thee, Jesus says, leave your gift at the altar, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matthew 5:23-24).
- Name it plainly. Say what you did and call it sin. I lied to you. I spoke against you behind your back. Not “if I hurt you” or “mistakes were made.” The one who offends his brother is to declare his repentance to those that are offended (WCF 15.6).
- Leave off the “but.” I was wrong, but you provoked me, is not a confession. It is a second accusation.
- Ask, Will you forgive me? Then let them answer in their own time.
- Make it right where you can. Under the law a man who wronged his neighbor was to confess, repay what he took, and add unto it the fifth part thereof (Numbers 5:7). Zacchaeus promised to restore fourfold whatever he had taken by false accusation (Luke 19:8). Pay back what you took. Correct the lie you told.
If you have been violent at home or made your family afraid, do not press them to forgive you or to let you come back. Read My anger frightens my family. If you broke faith in marriage, read If you are the one who broke faith.
When Someone Has Wronged You
Most offenses should simply be covered. The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression (Proverbs 19:11), and charity shall cover the multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). The careless word and the small slight can be forgiven in your heart and never mentioned again.
Some sins are too serious to pass over, or they keep standing between you. Then Jesus says, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone (Matthew 18:15). Go gently, to win your brother, not the argument. If he will not hear, take one or two others, and then tell it to the church (18:16-17). If he repents, forgive him, even seven times in a day (Luke 17:3-4).
That pattern is for ordinary sins between believers. It is not for abuse or crime. Do not go alone to face someone who has hurt you or a child. Go to the police and to your elders.
What Forgiveness Is and Is Not
To forgive is to make a promise. You will not hold the sin against them, bring it up to wound them, or pay them back. Recompense to no man evil for evil, and avenge not yourselves, Paul says. Instead, if thine enemy hunger, feed him (Romans 12:17-21). It is not first a feeling. It is a choice made before God, and you may have to make it again each time the memory comes back.
Forgiveness does not mean these things.
- Pretending it did not happen. Joseph forgave his brothers, and still told them, ye thought evil against me (Genesis 50:20).
- Trusting at once. Forgiveness is given. Trust is earned back over time.
- Staying in danger. Never. Getting safe is not a failure to forgive.
- Keeping a crime from the police. God gave the ruler the sword against evildoers (Romans 13:4). Reporting a crime is not revenge.
Reconciliation takes two, and it may take a long time. Paul says, If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men (Romans 12:18). Some of it does not lie in you. If the other will not repent or make peace, you have done your part when you have forgiven and kept the door open as far as it is safe.
When They Never Make It Right
Some who wronged you will never say they are sorry. Some have died. Reformed teachers differ on how to speak of this. Some say full forgiveness waits for repentance, for Jesus said, if he repent, forgive him (Luke 17:3). Others stress that we are to forgive whenever we stand praying (Mark 11:25). Both agree on what you must do. Put away bitterness and revenge, and give the wrong to God. Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord (Hebrews 10:30). He will judge rightly.
Look at Christ. While they crucified him, he prayed, Father, forgive them (Luke 23:34). He committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:23). That prayer was heard. Weeks later, in the city that crucified him, about three thousand repented and were baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:36-41). He died for sinners and rose again. If you have never come to him for your own pardon, start there.
Then search your heart. Feeling the pain again is not the same as refusing to forgive. But if you nurse the grudge and want them to suffer, that is bitterness, and God says to put it away (Ephesians 4:31). A heart that flatly refuses to forgive is the servant in the parable, and it should be afraid. Do not despair. Bring it to Christ and ask him to make you willing.
What to Do This Week
- Pray the fifth petition slowly. Ask God to forgive you, and name before him the people you need to forgive. See the Lord’s Prayer as the pattern.
- Go to one person you have wronged. Confess it plainly with no “but,” and make right what you can.
- Let one small offense go. Do not bring it up again, to them or to anyone.
- If a serious sin stands between you and a brother, go to him alone and gently. If it is abuse or a crime, go to the police and your elders instead.
- Pray for someone who wronged you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you (Luke 6:28).