By Peter Amsterdam
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Within the Gospels we read of Jesus being whipped, beaten, and then nailed to a cross. As He hung there, waiting to die, some of His last words were “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Forgiveness was His response to an unjust trial, being lashed by a whip which lacerated His skin with unimaginable pain, the hammering of spikes through His hands and feet, and being left to die in agony. While on the one hand this is a very surprising reaction, it also makes perfect sense when we read what Jesus taught about forgiveness all throughout His ministry. He not only taught it, He embodied it, both in His life and in His death. He practiced what He preached.1
Jesus’ forgiveness reflected His Father’s forgiveness. In the Old Testament, when God revealed Himself to Moses, He said of Himself, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6–7).
God was saying that forgiveness is one of His divine attributes, it is rooted in His character. This point is made again and again throughout the Old Testament, as we see in the following verses.
You are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Nehemiah 9:17).
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love (Micah 7:18).
We’re also told that when God forgives our sins, those sins will never be held against us. “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). (See also Hebrews 8:12.) The magnitude of God’s forgiveness is seen in statements such as these: “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). And “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
God, by nature, is forgiving. And true to His nature, He made a way for us to be forgiven through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. In a sense we can say that Jesus’ sacrificial death was the embodiment of God’s forgiveness. And if we wish to follow the example set by Jesus, we need to forgive.
Jesus made it clear in His teachings that we are to forgive others, as we can see in the following verses:
Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21–22).
Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone (Mark 11:25).
“If he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:4).
Jesus also made the point that there is a correlation between our willingness to forgive others with God forgiving us, when He taught His followers to pray “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” And He went on to say, “If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:12, 15).
In the parable of the unforgiving servant, Jesus told of a servant who had been forgiven an astronomical debt by his master, and after being forgiven his debt, refused to forgive another man who owed him a small amount of money (Matthew 18:23–35). The master then told the unforgiving servant, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.” Jesus then said to all who were listening: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:32–35).
When we forgive others for things they have done to us, this reflects our understanding of divine forgiveness. We are to forgive others because we have been forgiven. Jesus died so that our sins could be forgiven, and we are called to forgive others when they sin against us or wrong us. That’s showing Christlikeness.
What forgiveness is and isn’t
When someone hurts us, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we are called by Christ to forgive them. In order to do so, it’s important to know what forgiveness is and what it isn’t.
Some hurt is done intentionally. We are assaulted in some way physically, verbally, or emotionally. We are betrayed by someone we love—a spouse, a family member, a close friend. Some hurts we experience are minor, but eventually become major if they are repeated over and over again.
Forgiveness isn’t denying the harm or wrongdoing someone has done to us. It’s not making excuses for why they hurt us, and it doesn’t minimize the seriousness of the offense. It doesn’t mean that the offense stops hurting, or that it is forgotten. Forgiveness is not resuming a relationship without changes; it’s not an automatic restoration of trust. Sometimes there are consequences to be faced even after the act of forgiveness.
Forgiveness looks at the wrong done to us, admits that it has wounded us, and then decides to forgive—which is actually a decision. It’s recognizing that the hurt was personal, unfair, and deep, and choosing to forgive the person or persons who hurt you. Forgiveness is making a conscious decision to let go of the inner negative feelings we have toward someone who has hurt us, to leave them behind so that the hurt no longer negatively affects us.
As Kelly Minter explains in her book, The Fitting Room: “Forgiveness is looking in the face of what our offenders have done, recognizing their wound for all that it is, and then choosing to forgive. It has nothing to do with denying the wrong of those who hurt us, but has everything to do with changing our hearts toward them.”
Sometimes we want to wait to forgive until the person who hurt us apologizes to us for what they have done. We want them to acknowledge that what they did was wrong, and to express sorrow for doing it. But if you wait for someone to ask for your forgiveness before forgiving them, you may end up carrying your hurt for the rest of your life. We’re not told only to forgive if we first receive an apology, nor is our forgiving contingent on someone else telling us they are sorry.
There are cases where we are hurt by those whose own problems spill over on to us in some way. For example, parents’ marital problems may hurt their children, but that isn’t intentional hurt on the part of the parents. Sometimes we’re hurt by those who make mistakes. At times someone may even be trying to do something they think will be beneficial, but in the end some people are hurt by the final outcome.
In such situations, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that just as others may hurt us unintentionally, we also do things which result in hurt to others which we didn’t mean to cause. When we do, and we realize what has happened, we of course hope that those we hurt will forgive us. And therefore we should also be willing to forgive others. As Jesus said, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12).
There is also the factor that not every hurt that we experience needs to be forgiven. Many of the injuries we feel in life are caused by the actions of others who mean us no harm. We live in a world where we regularly interact with people who often say or do things with no intent to hurt others, but sometimes these things do cause hurt unknowingly. Such encounters generally don’t cause us deep or lasting hurt. Forgiveness is personal. It’s one person forgiving someone else who has personally hurt them.
The act of forgiveness
Understanding that Scripture tells us to forgive others and agreeing that we should do so is one thing. But the act of forgiving someone who has deeply wounded us can be a difficult and gut-wrenching task. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”
The Greek word most often translated as forgiveness is aphiemi, which is used to express letting something go, or canceling a debt. When we forgive someone for what they have done, we release them from a legitimate debt. We acknowledge that we have been injured or wronged, our trust has been betrayed, and our life has been marred by someone else’s hurtful actions. But we also understand that we, too, are sinners, that we offend and hurt others, and that we have been forgiven for our offenses by God. When we forgive, we make the decision to let go of our pain, our desire for retribution, our anger and negative feelings toward the person who hurt us. We put the person, and their actions, into God’s hands—and we move on.
Placing actions which have hurt us deeply and the people responsible for them into God’s hands means that we have entrusted them to Him and we can let them go. We no longer need to dwell on what happened or why, for we have committed it to God. Having done so, we are able to release our negative feelings toward the one who caused us injury, let go of resentment and anger, and allow our own emotional healing process to begin.
It can be natural to feel that if you forgive someone, it excuses them for what they have done. It doesn’t. Rather it sets you free to let go of the pain of the offense, to move on without your feelings of ill will toward the person who harmed you constantly plaguing you. When we forgive others, we generally begin experiencing a decrease in our negative feelings toward that person over time. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we start to have positive feelings toward them, though that can and sometimes does happen.
If we wish to continue to have a relationship with the person who hurt us, the next step after forgiveness is reconciliation. Of course, sometimes it’s not possible to reconcile, because the other person is no longer in your life. It may also be the case that although you have forgiven the person, they are not someone you feel inclined to have a continued relationship with, or it is not beneficial for your spiritual life or emotional well-being. This doesn’t mean that you haven’t forgiven them.
While forgiveness can be complex and has many aspects, it’s clear that Jesus, by His example and His teachings, emphasized forgiveness. He instructed us as His followers to forgive, and He didn’t put caveats on that command. If we truly desire to be more like Jesus, then we are called to forgive others for their trespasses against us—as hard as it may sometimes be—because God has forgiven our trespasses against Him. “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13).
Originally published September 2017. Adapted and republished February 2026. Read by John Laurence.
1 Points for this article were condensed from the book Forgive and Forget, by Lewis B. Smedes (New York: HarperOne, 1984).
