Forgiveness is a powerful force.
On Jan. 8, 1956, five American missionaries — Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, and Roger Youdarian — were murdered by the tribe of Indians they were seeking to reach in Ecuador. Two years later, Elisabeth Elliot, Jim’s wife, and Rachel Saint, Nate’s sister, went to live with the tribe, forgiving them for murdering their relatives.
Over time, members of the Waodani tribe were converted to Christ. Years later, Nate Saint’s son, Steve, moved his family from Florida to live with the Waodani people. Nate’s children now call Mincaye, a tribal elder and the man who speared Steve Saint’s father to death, grandfather.
Forgiveness is a powerful force.
On June 17, 2015, 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof entered Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and gunned down nine people, including the pastor. Two days later, relatives of those murdered appeared in court with Roof and extended forgiveness to him. Nadine Collier, daughter of one woman who was gunned down said to Roof, “I forgive you. You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And may God have mercy on your soul.”
Forgiveness is a powerful force.
On Sept. 21, 2025, Erika Kirk, wife of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, stood at a microphone in front of thousands gathered to remember her slain husband’s life and work. Millions more watched on TV as she looked into the camera and stunned the country with these words: “That man — that young man; I forgive him.” This a mere 10 days after the alleged assassin — Tyler Robinson — gunned down her husband at Utah Valley University as he spoke on stage during a TPUSA rally.
What would motivate such mercy, such unmerited forgiveness? Erika Kirk nailed it with her next sentence: “I forgive him because it is what Christ did, and it’s what Charlie would do.”
Forgiveness is a powerful force because it sits at the heart of the Christian faith, at the epicenter of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But are all Christians required to forgive when they’ve been on the receiving end of sinful treatment or injustice? Might it be okay to hold just a small grudge? Maybe harbor a small desire for revenge? But if our Christian faith requires us to forgive, is there an outer limit to it? Maybe just once because, you know the old cliché, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
Thankfully, modern Christians are not the first to ask that question. Jesus’s disciples, sinners like us walking with the Savior, pondered it as well, in Matthew 18.
Is He Serious? Seventy Times Seven?
Peter, ever the mercurial leader among the Lord’s disciples, naturally was the one to ask Jesus a pointed practical question: How often must I forgive my brother if he repeatedly sins against me? Surely Peter thought he was being effusively magnanimous in suggesting seven times (Matt. 18:21). But Jesus, the genuinely bountiful One in conferring grace, issued what must have been a shocking corrective: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22). Our Lord’s words do not represent a matter of strict multiplication with a product totaling 490. In God’s arithmetic, seven is the number of completeness. Jesus is telling Peter — and us — that a follower of Christ must be willing to forgive a person who has wronged him every single time.
Jesus illustrates his point in Matthew 18 by telling the parable of an unforgiving servant in which a servant is forgiven a financial debt of staggering size but falls under divine judgment when the forgiven servant refuses to forgive a debt owed him that amounts to a pittance.
Jesus concludes with this sobering piece of application: “So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt. 18:35).
In other words, an unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart. The unforgiving heart is subject to God’s eternal wrath because it demonstrates that the unforgiving person never understood the heart of the gospel and the infinite level of debt owed and paid at Calvary.
Tough Sledding for Our Hearts
Why are bitterness, unforgiveness, and spitefulness often more attractive to our hearts than forgiveness: Several reasons:
1) We believe others have done something too wicked to warrant forgiveness.
But Paul called himself the chief of sinners. He persecuted Christians yet was by no means beyond redemption. His reconciliation to God transformed him into the greatest church planter and theologian the world has ever known.
2) We suffer from what Paul Tripp calls “identity amnesia.”
We forget that we, too, were once living under a load of debt we could never pay that Jesus has paid for us.
3) We enjoy playing the martyr.
We love the role of crying “poor me.” We love having others pity us and see us as a victim. Victimhood is trendy (and even potentially lucrative).
4) We enjoy asserting our “rights.”
We have a strong sense of injustice, especially when we perceive that we’ve been wronged.
5) We enjoy the drama that comes with anger and hatred.
We nurse our grievances, rehearsing time and again, year after year, the crimes committed against us, stirring up deeper bitterness and resentment. We are like Frank Costanza on Seinfeld and his airing of grievances central to celebrating “Festivus for the rest of us.”
6) We can make non-repentance an excuse for ongoing spite.
It’s true that forgiveness can only be fully granted when it’s received. The unrepentant don’t admit the need for forgiveness and therefore cannot accept it. Still, we must adopt a posture that is willing to be fully reconciled.
7) We fear being taken advantage of.
What if they only pretend to repent? We don’t want to be a doormat or a laughingstock. But forgiveness necessitates taking a few risks.
8) We underappreciate the debt God has forgiven us.
Could we refuse to forgive the relative trifles of others if we thought frequently of the free pardon we’ve received in Christ? That kind of thinking trivializes the gospel and diminishes our experience of it. We’re never being more like God than when we are forgiving another person from the heart.
Posture of Forgiveness
But what if the one who has sinned against us does not admit his or her guilt and sees no need to seek our forgiveness?
Ideally, repentance on the part of the offending party should precede forgiveness. But if not, Romans 12:18 and 19–21 are instructive: “If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men. … Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.”
What if it’s a serious offense against you and the offender hasn’t repented? Ken Sande, in his excellent book, The Peacemaker, helpfully recommends a two-stage process:
(1) Have an attitude of forgiveness.
This is unconditional and is a commitment we make to God. Seek to maintain a loving and merciful attitude toward someone who has offended you. We mustn’t dwell on the hurtful incident or seek vengeance or retribution in thought, word, or action. Pray for the other person and stand ready to pursue complete reconciliation.
(2) Accomplishing full reconciliation is conditioned on the repentance of the offender and takes place between you and that person.
It may involve talking to that person and could involve other people (Matthew 18 — church discipline). Minor offenses should be overlooked and put away even if the offender has not expressly repented —“Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).
How can we be more forgiving? A few things here:
(1) Learn to see the grace of God in others, even those who offend you.
How could we possibly treat a person for whom Christ died so shabbily?
(2) Remember the day of judgment.
As J.C. Ryle reminds us, there will be no forgiveness on that day for unforgiving people: “Such people would be unfit for heaven: they would not be able to value a dwelling-place to which ‘mercy’ is the only title, and in which ‘mercy’ is the eternal subject of song. Surely if we mean to stand at the right hand when Jesus sits on the throne of His glory, we must learn, while on earth, to forgive.”
(3) Once we forgive, we must not keep a record of wrongs against us.
Else, it’s not forgiveness or genuine love (See 1 Corinthians 13). Many people keep a list of wrongs and bring it up perennially. This destroys relationships and deprives us of peace and freedom that comes from genuine forgiveness and reconciliation.
Ultimate Reconciliation: Calvary
The ultimate illustration is, of course, the cross, and that’s Jesus’s point because He knows He’s going to the cross. Look at Jesus’s words in Matthew 18:23: “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.”
The gift of salvation is immeasurably great. Unless we are comparably merciful to others, God’s mercy has not had a saving effect upon us, and we will pay the consequences. A transformed heart must result in a changed life that offers the same mercy and forgiveness as has been received from God.
Colossians 3:13: “… [bearing with one another] and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.”
Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
When we forgive another person from the heart, we are releasing them from owing us any further payback. The price is paid. The debt is squared. The wrong in the relationship has been made right. We’ve been forgiven an incalculable debt. Let us extend the same mercy to others.
Forgiveness is a powerful force.