Christian Forgiveness
Christian Forgiveness
Written on 13 September 2026.
A Christian is often told that forgiving somebody means going back to being friendly, cooperative, and trusting towards that person. Somebody does evil to you, and afterwards you are expected to restore the relationship. If you will not do that, your Christianity is questioned. You have not really forgiven. Maybe you are not even saved.
But where does the Bible say that forgiveness requires all of this?
The command to forgive is real. So are the commands to withdraw, to avoid certain people, and to beware of somebody who has done evil. We cannot build a doctrine of Christian forgiveness by reading one set of verses and ignoring the other.
Forgiveness and salvation
Jesus gives a serious warning about refusing to forgive:
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
— Matthew 6:14–15, KJV
I do not think this should be explained away. A Christian has received mercy and should not treat mercy towards others as something beneath him. But neither should these verses be made into a different gospel, where everlasting life depends on how successfully a person manages every injury and relationship.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
— John 6:47, KJV
I understand Matthew 6 as a warning concerning the believer's dealings with his heavenly Father, rather than a statement that everlasting life is repeatedly lost and recovered through our treatment of other people. That is an interpretation of how the passages fit together. It does not make Jesus' warning unimportant. A Father's displeasure and correction are serious without being the same thing as the loss of everlasting life.
But even somebody who interprets Matthew 6 differently still has to establish what forgiveness means. The passage does not say that you must trust the offender again, invite him into your home, or continue participating in his church.
A person can hold an ethical philosophy of universal friendliness without believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. So friendliness by itself cannot define Christianity, and refusing renewed association cannot by itself prove that somebody is lost.
Forgiveness does not require company
Paul writes:
And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.
Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
— 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15, KJV
These instructions belong together. Have no company with him, but do not count him as an enemy. Paul does not present separation and brotherly concern as opposites.
The passage concerns disobedience to the apostolic instruction in that epistle. It is not a command to cut off everybody who disappoints us. But it does establish something important: continued company is not an unconditional Christian duty. There are circumstances where withdrawal is the instruction.
This makes the familiar accusation difficult to sustain. If having no company with somebody necessarily means that you have failed to love or forgive him, why does Paul command it?
Forgiveness concerns how we deal with a wrong and the person who committed it. Trust concerns whether that person can be relied upon. Reconciliation involves a relationship between people. These things are connected, but they are not interchangeable.
Somebody may ask for forgiveness while remaining unreliable. Forgiving him does not make his promises true. Nor does it make it wise to put him back in the same position where he caused the damage.
Jesus also speaks about repentance in connection with forgiveness:
Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
— Luke 17:3–4, KJV
Notice that rebuke is present. The wrong is acknowledged. The offender turns again, saying that he repents. This is not a picture of the injured person being required to pretend that nothing happened while the other person denies everything.
Christians differ over how to relate this passage to commands to forgive while praying. But neither passage makes restored access or unquestioning trust the definition of forgiveness.
Paul remembered the evil and gave a warning
Paul's words about Alexander are especially relevant:
Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
— 2 Timothy 4:14–15, KJV
Paul identifies the man, states that he did much evil, and warns Timothy about him. He also leaves his recompense with the Lord.
He does not say that remembering the evil is itself unforgiveness. He does not tell Timothy to demonstrate Christian love by trusting Alexander. His instruction is to beware.
The passage does not describe every aspect of Paul's inward attitude towards Alexander. We should not pretend that it does. But it plainly shows that an apostle could speak truthfully about harm, warn another believer, and invoke the Lord's judgment. Christianity did not require him to turn the offender into a trusted friend.
There is a difference between keeping an accusation alive through lies and remembering a real danger. There is also a difference between slandering somebody and giving a truthful warning. Forgiveness does not require us to erase those distinctions.
Leaving vengeance with God
Romans gives the Christian a direct instruction:
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
— Romans 12:18–21, KJV
The instruction is not that evil does not matter. God says that he will repay. Vengeance belongs to him.
One way of understanding forgiveness here is that I relinquish my personal claim to make the offender pay, while leaving the matter with God. I do not have to declare the wrong good. I do not have to decide that judgment would be unjust. I refrain from making my own retaliation the answer.
But forgiveness should not be reduced to outward restraint alone. A person can avoid retaliation while spending his whole life nursing resentment. The command reaches further than merely keeping our hands still. We are also told to do good, including meeting an enemy's hunger or thirst.
Even here, Paul still calls the person an enemy. Giving him food does not mean appointing him as your adviser or returning to his control. A particular act of mercy does not create an obligation to maintain a relationship.
And peace is qualified: if it is possible, as much as lies in you. You are responsible for your own conduct. You cannot make another person honest, peaceful, or willing to stop doing evil. Sometimes leaving is how you cease participating in the conflict.
Praying for judgment
The Bible contains prayers asking God to act against enemies. These are sometimes called imprecatory prayers.
Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me.
— Psalm 35:1, KJV
David asks God to fight against those who fight against him. He does not simply ask to feel more agreeable towards them.
And this subject does not disappear when we reach the New Testament. The slain saints in Revelation cry out:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
— Revelation 6:10, KJV
They address the Lord as holy and true while asking him to judge and avenge. The desire for divine justice cannot therefore be dismissed as necessarily ungodly.
This helps explain how refusing personal vengeance can coexist with asking God to judge. The wronged person places the case before God instead of assuming God's seat himself.
It does not follow that every angry prayer expresses God's judgment correctly. We can misunderstand events and people's motives. Nor does it follow that asking for judgment cancels Jesus' command to pray for those who persecute us. But the biblical prayers prevent us from defining forgiveness as the belief that God must never punish the offender.
Mercy is real. Judgment is real too.
Samson's prayer was personal
Samson makes the subject more difficult for anybody who wants one simple rule covering every event in Scripture.
And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
— Judges 16:28, KJV
His request is personal. He asks to be avenged for his two eyes. We should not rewrite his words into a prayer that contains no personal grievance.
The account then records his final act:
And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
— Judges 16:30, KJV
Samson asks for strength and then possesses the strength to accomplish what he asked. Since his history repeatedly connects his extraordinary strength with the LORD, I think the natural reading is that God answered his prayer. The passage does not contain a separate sentence saying that God approved every part of Samson's motive. That distinction should be preserved without emptying the event of its meaning.
His conflict with the Philistines also had a larger setting:
But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
— Judges 14:4, KJV
Personal injury and Israel's deliverance meet in Samson's history. So the claim that God could never empower a man whose action included personal vengeance is too broad. Samson is a serious counterexample.
But the opposite claim would also go beyond the text. Samson's calling does not mean that any Christian who feels wronged has received permission to retaliate. A recorded act of deliverance in Judges is not a standing instruction to imitate it. Romans still says to Christians, “avenge not yourselves.”
We should allow both passages to speak. Samson prevents us from inventing a God who never acts through severe judgment. Romans prevents us from turning Samson's history into our own authorization.
Ehud was a deliverer
Ehud presents another problem for the idea that God's approval can always be identified by gentleness, openness, and cooperation.
But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.
— Judges 3:15, KJV
The narrative identifies Ehud as a deliverer raised up by the LORD. He then uses secrecy to obtain a private encounter with Eglon and kills him. The account ends with Moab subdued and the land at rest.
Calling this murder already adds a moral classification which the passage itself does not supply. The text presents it within Israel's deliverance from an oppressor. It does not present Ehud as a private individual settling an ordinary personal dispute.
Ehud therefore does not directly explain what forgiving a neighbour means. His relevance is to the wider claim about God's character: the Bible cannot be reduced to a philosophy in which God invariably requires cooperation with those exercising power, or condemns every forceful deliverance because it was not friendly.
As with Samson, the narrative has its own authority and setting. Our belief that we are right is not equivalent to Scripture identifying a person as a deliverer raised up by God.
You can forgive and remain outside
Christian forgiveness does not make evil harmless. It does not turn an unreliable person into a reliable one. And it does not give the offender a permanent right to your presence, attention, home, or cooperation.
The believer is commanded to forgive, to refuse personal vengeance, and to show mercy. He is also instructed to exercise discernment, beware of harmful people, and withdraw in circumstances where continued company is wrong. Those instructions belong to the same Bible.
I think much confusion begins when forgiveness is made to serve the preservation of a relationship or institution. The injured person is told that the Christian outcome must be his return. But that outcome has been assumed before the Scriptures are considered.
A church is not entitled to your continued attendance because somebody there invokes forgiveness. A person who has harmed you is not entitled to renewed trust because he calls your caution bitterness. Whether there should be further contact is a separate question, to be judged truthfully in light of what has happened and what the person is doing now.
You can leave the matter with God and leave the association. You can refuse revenge without pretending that the past was good. And you can remain outside without making your return the proof that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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