12Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body (Col. 3:12-15).
These verses appear in a passage of Scripture in which the apostle is exhorting believers to throw off their old earthly desires and practices when they come to believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior and to put on the new self and be renewed in the knowledge of the image of God. Paul teaches that Christians should forgive other Christians for their offenses because the community of believers in Christ should be an example of reconciliation just as Christ has brought reconciliation to heaven and earth (Col. 1:20-22) as well as to sinners (Eph. 2:14-18).
As we learn from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians, God expects us as Christians to have a compassionate, kind, humble, and patient bearing with our fellow believers and when our brothers and sisters in Christ trespass against us, we must forgive them as the Lord has forgiven us (See also, Eph. 4:32).
Not only does our forgiveness of fellow Christians serve as an example to the Christian and secular world, but it has another purpose. We find this described in Mark 11:25 where we read “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” “Believing prayer brings one into God’s holy presence, exposing our need for His forgiveness, a need that obligates us to forgive others (Matt. 6:12, 14, 15; 18:23-35) and to seek their forgiveness for sins we have committed against them (Matt. 5:23, 24).[1] This verse extends our required forgiveness to non-believers (“anyone”). We are to have an ongoing forgiving attitude to all who trespass against us. Failure to forgive others is an impediment to our prayers for forgiveness from God.
Scripture states in a more direct way that all believers must forgive the trespasses of anyone but if not, God will not forgive the sins of the offended believer. Matthew 6:14, 15 states “14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” This does not state that God will revoke His justification of the believer for failing to forgive others. Your sins were washed away when you became a believer and that never changes.
The two verses in the previous paragraph refer to the daily prayerful requests for forgiveness during the Christian’s sanctifying walk with God. God requires that we forgive others. So when a believer is before God asking forgiveness and he or she has the trespasses of others against you that you haven’t forgiven, then you are in disobedience before God and God expects us to forgive others before we come to Him for forgiveness.
Some might question why believers should ask forgiveness of sins when God deemed them righteous when they became a believer and forgave all past, present, and future sins and promised the future consummation of their salvation and eternal life in heaven. John MacArthur has addressed this issue in his commentary on Matthew 6:15 as follows:
“This is not to suggest that God will withdraw justification from those who have already received the free pardon He extends to all believers. Forgiveness in that sense—a permanent and complete acquittal from the guilt and ultimate penalty of sin–belongs to all who are in Christ (cf. John 5:24; Romans 8:1; Ephesians 1:7). Yet, Scripture also teaches that God chastens His children who disobey (Hebrews 12:5-7). Believers are to confess their sins in order to obtain a day-to-day cleansing (1 John 1:9). This sort of forgiveness is a simple washing from the worldly defilements of sin, not a repeat of the wholesale cleansing from sin’s corruption that comes with justification. It is like a washing of the feet rather than a bath (cf. John 13:10). Forgiveness in this latter sense is what God threatens to withhold from Christians who refuse to forgive others (cf. 18:23-35).”[2]
The Bible also addresses how often Christians must forgive those who trespass against them. In Matthew 18:21, 22, the apostle Peter asked Jesus this very question “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Peter was surely aware that the Pharisees taught that the answer was only 3 times, since God forgave the enemies of the Israelites only 3 times (Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13). Here, Jesus intends the phrase seventy-seven times to mean innumerable times. He wasn’t giving Peter a specific number of times. Jesus was teaching that we should forgive our trespassers an unlimited number of times — as many times as they trespass. He was saying that we should grant forgiveness unendingly (cf. Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13).
There is another point we need to consider in addition to the foregoing. We should forgive without considering an apology or repentance from our offenders. Human forgiveness must be unconditional. Failure to forgive is disobedience to God. So, we must forgive the trespassers and let God deal with the response of the offender.
But, Jesus gave us directions regarding a brother or sister believer who trespasses against us. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus gave instructions about dealing with a fellow believer who sins against you.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
The goal here in this passage is to restore the brother or sister in Christ with love and gentleness. But if after all the steps have been attempted and he or she has not been restored, then “let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Regarding an unbeliever, I think Jesus gives us the answer from the cross “And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Leave it to God to deal with the unbeliever. Jesus was speaking of Jews and Romans involved in His crucifixion. “The ignorance of the Jewish and Gentile conspirators against the Lord and His Messiah (Acts 4:25-28) does not excuse them, but it leaves the door to repentance open (1 Tim. 1:13-15; cf. 1 Cor. 2:8).”[3]
God requires Christians to forgive all transgressors, believers and unbelievers, for their transgressions against the believers. We are to forgive unendingly, every trespass. To not forgive all will result in God not forgiving the offended Christian for his or her day-to-day sins until repentance for and forgiveness of those sins has happened. We are also not to hold our forgiveness back for repentance or apologies from the trespasser. Further, we are not to hold grudges as this will impede our walk with our Lord. And lastly, we should follow the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17 to attempt to restore the offending brother or sister to an obedient walk with God.
NOTE: Though Christians are to forgive all transgressions, yet this does not prohibit the offended Christian from considering any civil remedies under the law that are available to him or her as a citizen of a given jurisdiction, should the transgression rise to the level of a civil crime or tort. For example, if the transgressor harms the Christian by speaking false words about the offended Christian, he or she has a right to recover damages in civil court in order to stop the defamatory speech. Nevertheless, Christians must forgive all transgressions against them even if the transgression warrants filing charges or a law suit against the offender.
[1] R.C. Sproul, gen. ed., The Reformation Study Bible, Mark, n. 11:25, (Reformation Trust Publishing, 2015 (ESV)), 1760.
[2] The MacArthur Bible Commentary. John MacArthur, Matthew, n. 6:15, Thomas Nelson, 1935.
[3] Sproul, Luke, n. 23:34, 1838.
