What does the Bible say about forgiveness? 

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on forgiveness. 

• 2 Chronicles 7:14, forgiveness and healing (if my people humble themselves and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive them and heal their land) 
• Psalm 78:37-38, compassion and forgiveness (God forgave their iniquity)
• Psalm 103:2-4, forgiveness as one of God's benefits (the Lord forgives all their iniquity) 
• Psalm 103:12, vastness of forgiveness (God removes our transgressions as far as east is from west)
• Isaiah 4:3-4, forgiveness and cleansing (the Lord washed away the filth)
• Isaiah 43:25, God alone forgives (I alone will blot out your transgressions and will not remember your sins)
• Isaiah 55:7, abundant forgiveness (let the wicked return to the Lord, who will abundantly pardon)
• Micah 7:18-19, forgiveness and compassion (God pardons iniquity and passes over transgressions, for the sake of God's love and compassion) 
• Matthew 6:12-15, forgive us as we forgive (the Lord's prayer)
• Matthew 18:21-22, repeated forgiveness (how many times should we forgive?)
• Mark 2:5-7, faith and forgiveness (Jesus tells the paralyzed man his sins are forgiven) 
• Mark 11:25, prayer and forgiveness (whenever you pray, forgive) 
• Luke 17:3-4, repentance and forgiveness (if there is repentance, you must forgive)
• Acts 2:38, forgiveness and baptism (repent and be baptized)
• Acts 13:38-39, forgiveness through Jesus (those who believe are set free from their sins by Jesus' death)
• Acts 22:16, baptism and forgiveness (be baptized and have your sins washed away)
• Ephesians 1:7, forgiveness through Christ's blood (we have redemption and forgiveness, according to the riches of his grace)
• Colossians 3:13, forgive each other (bear with one another and forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven you)

Sermon ideas about forgiveness 

A sermon on forgiveness should acknowledge that forgiveness is a tough topic, full of questions and puzzles. Suppose you have been cheated out of your life savings by your friend and money manager, and you have discovered his fraud. Now you have to face a terrible truth: You have been betrayed, and you never saw it coming. 

Some questions 

What would have to happen before you could forgive this person? Would he have to repent? Suppose you never see him again. Could you forgive him anyway? As a Christian, must you forgive him? How soon? For his sake or for yours? What if you try to forgive him, but can't? May your pastor urge you to forgive? Doesn't that just add a load of guilt to your trauma? 

Anyhow, isn't forgiveness too good for traitors? Isn't there something almost unjust about it — something that trivializes the offense and encourages the offender to repeat it? May people just go around hurting other people, changing their lives forever, and then casually accept forgiveness for all the litter they leave behind? 

Suppose you eventually do succeed in forgiving the litterer. Does this mean you must take him back into your life somehow? Does it mean you would not testify against him at his fraud trial? Does it mean you like him better than you used to? 

These are some of the questions and puzzles that arise in any discussion of forgiveness. This topical study will address some of them. We'll begin with God, an overflowing fountain of forgiveness. 

The signature exhibit of God's grace 

A sermon on forgiveness will highlight that God's willingness to forgive sinners is the signature exhibit of God's grace. According to the Bible, God does not remember our sins. He removes them, blots them out, pardons them, washes them away, treads them under foot, casts them into the depths of the sea. These expressions suggest that sin is odious to God and that God wants it gone, out of mind, out of the way, because sin taints our relationship with God. 

The Bible is full of references to God's righteous hatred of sin and indignation against sinners. So forgiveness consists of God's removal of sin in ways just mentioned, and of dropping justified anger against sinners. God "does not retain his anger forever." Instead, God cloaks sinners with "steadfast love and mercy." 

In the New Testament, the classic Pauline way of describing God's reconstrual of sinners is that God sees them "in Christ." Because Jesus Christ has atoned for their sins, sinners are now united with Christ, justified by his death and resurrection, cloaked with his obedience, covered under his policy. 

The father of the Prodigal Son 

In Jesus' longest and most famous story, the father of the prodigal son absorbs his son's insulting request for an early inheritance and his refusal of their culture's expectation that he take care of his father (Luke 15:11-32). In effect, the son tells his father to drop dead. The son shames his father and then runs off to a "far country" where he shames himself by wasting his inheritance. He sinks low enough to feed pigs and to hunger for what he's feeding them — a setup so miserably unclean to a Jew that it becomes revolting to him.  

When he comes to his senses, he trudges back toward home, rehearsing his filial confession of sin. But his father sees his son from a distance, overflows with compassion, and runs out to embrace him, kiss him, and welcome him home before the son croaks out even one word of his confession. The son's return was remorse and repentance enough. 

God's forgiveness and our forgiveness 

In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul yoke God's forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. In Matthew, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray and then comments on just one of the petitions: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. His explanation is intimidating. He says that God will forgive us only to the degree that we are willing to forgive others. In other words, forgive or be damned. This is a hard teaching that needs a good commentary, especially since in Romans 5:8-11 Paul testifies that "while we still were sinners Christ died for us," reconciling us to God. 

This does not stop Paul from urging the necessity of our forgiving others. He says in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 that just as God has forgiven us, so we also must forgive. 

Why such stern imperatives? 

Neither Jesus nor Paul spells out the reason, so we are left to surmise. Surely one reason is that forgiveness of others is so obvious a sign of gratitude for having been let off the hook ourselves that failure to do it amounts to a demonstration of ingratitude. And ingratitude amounts to a demonstration of alienation from God. If we will not forgive, we appear to be ungrateful and we appear to be alienated from God. 

No community without forgiveness 

A sermon on forgiveness can point out another reason: We cannot have peace and we cannot have Christian community without a good deal of traffic in forgiveness. Forgiveness helps to restore unity, and unity brings peace. If the goal of God's whole program is the establishment and reestablishment of shalom, then forgiveness is one of the main instruments of peace. 

Forgiveness softens hearts 

There's a third reason, which L. Gregory Jones eloquently develops in his book Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Eerdmans, 1995). Forgiveness is so urgent because we are hard-hearted people who need to have our hearts softened. Our own sin hardens our hearts against God and against others. We then become bad forgivers, uptight, closed in, jealous of our prerogatives and jealous of our status as victims. Under these circumstances, forgiveness is mortifying to us. So we shrink from it. 

Yet the gospels and Paul combine to say that mortification of our old selves is necessary in order to open the way for vivification — the coming to life of our new selves. We have to die before we can rise. And forgiving another person is a shot to the heart of our old selves — the jealous, self-protective, hard-hearted selves. 

Forgiveness is self-sacrificial 

Forgiving the sins of another is one form of dying and rising because it is self-sacrificial. And the main thing we sacrifice when we forgive another person is the anger we have a right to. Someone has wronged us and is to blame for it. We are justifiably indignant at both the wrong and the wrongdoer. Our indignation is righteous anger. 

Christians who want to live out the gospel, who want to forgive as they have been forgiven, now have a tough assignment: namely, to soften their own hearts, to dissipate their anger against the offender. 

But is that really possible? Can we actually act against one of our own emotions, and one of the most powerful ones at that? 

The answer to this question has to be yes. God does not assign impossibilities. That we ought to do something implies that we can do it. And people who are good at moving against their own anger develop a sequence of moves that make up a craft or an art. We learn forgiveness the same way we learn a musical instrument: by having a good teacher or two and by lots of practice. 

A gift of God 

Christians do not deny that the ability to forgive others is also a gift of God. All the virtues of Christ and all the fruit of the Spirit are both God's gift and our calling. So too with forgiveness. The readiness to forgive others is an implication of love, and of patience, and of goodness, and of self-control, all of which are fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). So we are gifted and enabled to forgive by God, who is our ultimate teacher, but we are also commanded to practice this ability. And there's where the craft comes in. 

What's involved in the craft of forgiveness? 

When we are trying to forgive an offender, to drop our anger against him, the craft of forgiveness calls us to think purposefully and generously about the following realities: 

• I, too, am a sinner, much in need of forgiveness, and I have been forgiven a very great deal. It would be fitting for me to forgive those who have given offense. The idea is that from those to whom much has been given, much may be expected — in forgiveness as in all else. 

• The offender and I have a long relationship together. (This may not always be true, but consider cases when it is.) We have shared stories, shared memories, a shared history — all of which are imperiled if I do not forgive. These things are precious to me. The relationship is important to me. I want it to continue. So let me forgive that we may live another day to love and tell stories and eat together. 

• The offender may not be wholly to blame for the offense against me. Was this person born irritable, for example, so that it is hard for him to control his temper and to control the sharp tongue that is attached to his temper? Temperament is a mitigating circumstance. So are environmental influences. Someone who was more beat up than brought up may still be responsible for what he does with his anger, but if he assaults me and if I forgive him for the assault, I will bring to mind that he had been much abused. 

• I may be partly complicit. In family squabbles, mature peacemakers will search their own heart for anything they may have contributed to the problem. Did I provoke my spouse by assuming once more that things must go my way? Did I foster carelessness about obligations by making promises to my child and then always making excuses? What's my complicity here? 

• Most heart-softening of all is the offender's repentance. In Luke 17:3, it looks as if Jesus assumes that repentance will typically be part of the picture when we are busy with forgiveness. "If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive." Jesus doesn't say that repentance is a condition that must be met before we forgive, only that if somebody does in fact repent, then we must forgive. Indeed, he adds that if the same person sins against you seven times a day and then repents seven times, you must forgive. The offender's repentance softens our hard heart. And we are especially softened if the offender can describe to us exactly what he did and why it was so wrong. Now he joins us in understanding why his offense was so painful and alienating. But notice that there still is something left to forgive. The offender's repentance doesn't cancel the debt and remove all reason for our anger. If somebody assaults a precious child and is later repentant, it's not as if the repentance pays back for the offense. After all, the child, and people who love the child, will still have to deal with the damage and struggle toward healing for a very long time. Indignation is still relevant. There is still much to forgive. But repentance is a softener that helps to melt some of the victim's anger because it shifts the power balance between offender and victim; some of the pain of the offense is now shared by the perpetrator, who has to live with what he did. 

• Christians take a long view. We believe that evil will not win, cannot win, should not win. We believe in the victory of Jesus Christ over evil. We believe in the judgment of God. So, as a collateral consideration, we may deliberately bring to our minds that even if we cannot get justice where an offender is concerned, even if we cannot get repentance, we aren't the only offended party. God has been offended as well, and God is able to sort matters out with perfect justice and love. Some people who are trying to forgive hand the matter over to God for adjudication. Meanwhile they pray the psalms of lament. In their lament, they pray their anger into the heart of God. 

The craft of forgiveness consists in making a move against our anger — an anger we have a right to. We make this move successfully when, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to bring collateral considerations to mind that help us drop our anger. 

Reconstruing or reimagining the offender 

Besides attempting to soften her own heart, a forgiving Christian will also try to reconstrue or reimagine the offender: he is, after all, a human being, created in the image of God. Maybe he is by temperament and upbringing only partly to blame. Maybe I start to look at him as a person God loves and for whom Jesus died. Maybe, as a Christian told to love my enemies, I at least wish him well, including his repentance and conversion. 

A generous act 

Forgiveness is a generous act, intended chiefly for the good of the offender and for the good of my relationship with him. This is the clear import of the Bible. Forgiveness is pure, liquid grace. But forgiveness also benefits the forgiver. When we forgive, we can sleep at night. Our blood pressure goes down. The skies look bluer and the sunlight brighter. Forgiveness may be a generous act of grace, a gift to the offender, but it is also a gift to the victim, and it is not wrong for the victim to know that in God's universe doing good can also be a way to do well. Scholars can cite study after study in positive psychology on the benefits to the victim who forgives. 

Acting against our memory 

Although forgiveness centrally has to do with acting against our anger toward an offender, it also has something to do, secondarily, with acting against our memory. We can bracket our memory of the offense by muscling it aside when it comes to mind and by no longer dwelling on it or discussing it with others. We can disremember the offense, letting it slide toward oblivion, writes Miroslav Volf in Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Zondervan, 2005, pp. 173-77). In doing so, we are following excellent precedent. It's God, after all, who does not remember our sins. 

Must the offender repent before we forgive? Here eminent Christian thinkers differ. Nicholas Wolterstorff argues that simply to forgive an unrepentant offender is to insult him and demean oneself. You are not treating the offender or the offense with moral seriousness. You are trivializing both (Wolterstorff, Justice in Love, Eerdmans, 2011, pp.173-74). On the other hand, Volf contends that our forgiveness, like God's, should be unconditional. It doesn't require repentance in advance. The offender must accept the blame inherent in being forgiven, or else he rejects the forgiveness and changes a forgivable sin into an unforgivable one (Volf, Free of Charge, 183). 

Needless to say, the matter is complicated. 

We might forgive a person and still not trust this person for a time. Suppose one of your children has a short history of stealing family money. It would be possible to forgive your child but also quit leaving money lying around. It is even possible to forgive a family member but also to get the locks changed on the house. 

Allowing consequences 

It may also be possible to forgive a person but still require the person to bear some of the consequences of the offenses. Suppose, for example, that your child drives drunk and smashes up the family car. You eventually drop your anger and normal relations return between you and your child. You could rightly say you have forgiven him even though you refuse to hire a lawyer to fight his DUI ticket or the huge change in his insurance status. He may need to take these consequences and learn from them. What you forgive your son for is his lapse in love for you, his lapse in justice toward you, his lapse in holding the family trust. 

Not necessarily a return to previous relationship 

A sermon on forgiveness can recognize that forgiving a person does not mean that the relationship with this person returns exactly to where it was before, even if the offender repents. Depending on the nature of the offense and the depth of the relationship and the depth of the offender's repentance, the relationship might actually get stronger. Jacob and Esau might have been closer after their reconciliation. Same with Joseph and his brothers. It is possible for relationships to be stronger at the places that have been repaired. 

At the same time, I think we all know that some relationships even after repentance and forgiveness will probably never get back to where they were. Abraham may have repented of trying to pass his wife Sarah off as his sister, and Sarah may have forgiven him for doing it, but things were never again quite the same between them. 

Even if a person repents and you forgive, there may be respects in which you cannot go back to where things were before. This might, for example, be a person against whom you have given up your anger. You can speak quietly with this person and take the Lord's Supper with him or her. But this might be a person you never laugh with again. 

Forgiveness may take a long time. In public lectures on forgiveness, Lewis Smedes used to say that forgiveness is a journey: "the deeper the wound, the longer the journey." We might have to entertain the possibility that truly grievous offenses committed against a person might take until eternity to forgive, especially if the victim doesn't have a long time to live. 

Not for weaklings 

Forgiving those who sin against us is fitting for people who have been forgiven. But the actual machinery of forgiveness is often hard to start and hard to maintain. This shows, I think, that just as forgivers offer grace — softening their own anger, or even letting it drop altogether — so forgivers need the grace of God even to get into the mood to try it. Forgiveness is not for weaklings. This takes spiritual muscle, and it's therefore a discipline that needs both God's grace and our practice. 

Excerpts about forgiveness 

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about forgiveness: 

• "Do you tremble and shake for fear, and with a penitent heart desire forgiveness? If so, then I say again, in my Master's name—who spake nothing but love and mercy to penitent sinners, who said, 'Neither do I condemn thee'—Jehovah now declares 'I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.'" Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon from The Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching  

• "Our heart's natural inclination being otherwise, again and again we need to hear our Lord's call to forgive and then to set our heart's intention toward doing so. Our Lord rehearses us in this life-giving pattern and drill every Sunday morning 'in the sanctuary.' There we plead for him to forgive us, and there, in turn, we make our pledge to forgive others." Book Quote, Scripture Meditation or Sermon, Song or Hymn by Dale Cooper from Calvin Institiute of Christian Worship  

• "The truth is / I've had a hard time / with forgiveness. / Revenge or resentment / Are easier..." Poetry by Esther Cohen from On Being