What Does the Bible Say About Forgiveness?
Forgive as you have been forgiven — the Bible's teaching on pardoning others, being pardoned, and what forgiveness does and doesn't mean.
The Bible commands believers to forgive as God has forgiven them: “be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). Forgiveness in Scripture is not a feeling but a release — and Jesus set no upper limit on it: not seven times, “but, Until seventy times seven.”
Forgiven people forgive
Every command to forgive in the New Testament leans on a prior fact: you were forgiven first, and at greater cost. Paul’s instruction to the Ephesians and Colossians makes God’s forgiveness in Christ both the model and the motive. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus binds the two together so tightly that we ask to be forgiven “as we forgive” — a clause that has unsettled honest readers ever since.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
How many times?
Peter thought seven times was generous — the rabbis of his day suggested three. Jesus’ answer, seventy times seven, is not arithmetic but abolition: a number you’d lose count of is a number you were never meant to keep. The parable that follows, of a servant forgiven millions who chokes a man over pennies, makes the stakes unmistakable.
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
What God's forgiveness looks like
Scripture describes God’s pardon in the most physical images it can find: sins removed as far as east from west, cast into the depths of the sea, blotted out like a cloud. And it holds out the offer plainly — confession met with faithful, just forgiveness and cleansing. The believer’s forgiveness of others is meant to be a small copy of something vast.
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Quick answers
- Does forgiving someone mean trusting them again?
- No. Forgiveness releases the debt; trust is rebuilt by truthfulness over time. Scripture commands forgiveness unconditionally but treats trust and reconciliation as things wisdom may restore gradually — or, where harm continues, guard against.
- What did Jesus say about forgiving others?
- That it has no quota (Matthew 18:22), that it belongs in our daily prayer (Matthew 6:12), and that refusing it while claiming God’s own is a contradiction his parables expose (Matthew 18:23–35).
- Is there a sin God won't forgive?
- Jesus speaks once of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as unforgivable (Matthew 12:31) — a settled, final rejection of God’s own rescue. The consistent witness of Scripture is that everyone who comes asking is received.
