Free Grace Women

In Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, a pompous clergyman gives the following advice: 

 “You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your presence.”

 Both the character receiving the advice and most of us would agree that that is not a good definition of forgiveness. However, it is often easier to determine what a word doesn’t mean than to explain its true definition.   Two components are essential to defining forgiveness well: the definition must be clear, and it must be Biblically based.

If it’s not clear (my standard is whether you can explain it to a 6-year-old), we either don’t really understand what it means, or we don’t know how to apply it well.  

If it’s not Biblically based, then we will misinterpret a number of Biblical passages and teach and apply things that God did not say, just like the ill-informed clergyman. 

To get a Biblical understanding of the word forgiveness, I looked up all the passages I could find that included the words “forgave,” “forgive,” “forgiven,” “forgiving,” and “forgiveness,” as well as the different occurrences of the Hebrew and Greek words that were translated to get those English words.  I used a concordance for the NASB 1995 text, and all the Scripture quoted in this blog is from that translation.

Here is a brief summary of my findings.

Old Testament

Of the many times the Old Testament mentions forgiveness, I could only find two verses in which forgiveness is without the person asking, sacrificing, or being punished, and those two are regarding breaking a vow (Num 30:8 & 12).

For most of the Old Testament, forgiveness is something that occurs in response to a request for forgiveness or after punishment has been imposed.  A number of verses in Leviticus and Numbers follow a formula in which the offender brings a sacrifice to the priest, who then offers it, making atonement, with the result that the offender is forgiven.  All these sacrifices didn’t give anyone everlasting life, so why were they there?  To show a pattern that sin isn’t to be ignored, but should be acknowledged as an offense against God (Ps 51:4).

Apart from sacrifices, humans asked forgiveness of God or were forgiven by God (Num 14:19-24, Ps 32:5, Dan 9:9&17-19)–usually with a connotation of shortening or finishing punishment–or listed forgiveness as an attribute of God (Neh 9:17; Ps 99:8, 130:4).  Additionally, there are times God said He won’t forgive, and times people asked God not to forgive certain other people.

In several verses, the specific meaning of forgiveness can be textually inferred.  In Genesis 50:17, forgiveness means Joseph won’t take drastic vengeance on his brothers; in Exodus 32:32, it means to not destroy the nation of Israel; and in 1 Samuel 25:28, it is a request for Nabal and his household to not be slaughtered.¹  

By the end of the Old Testament, we have seen that forgiveness does not mean a lack of punishment, and is not something that happens apart from someone (usually the offender) acknowledging the sin.  Furthermore, forgiveness does not seem to equal letting go of bitterness—God is the one who forgives most often, and the Bible describes Him as omniscient and good, not like the petty pagan deities that have to be cajoled into a good temper by their worshipers. 

Before we try for a complete definition of forgiveness, let’s look at some New Testament verses.

New Testament

In the New Testament, we find verses like Matthew 6:15, “…if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions,” which makes us want to know exactly what this word means!

As mentioned, Christians should forgive as God forgives (Mt 6:12-15, Mk 11:25, Eph 4:32, Col 3:13), and, fascinatingly, the apostles are given authority to forgive or retain sins after Christ’s resurrection (Jn 20:23).

John the Baptizer preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and Jesus forgave sins several times (in the account of the paralytic—Mt 9, Mk 2, and Lk 5—Jesus apparently forgives a man’s sins in response to others’ faith rather than the man’s own). 

Repentance for forgiveness of sins is to be preached in Christ’s name (Lk 24:47), and Christ’s blood is poured out for forgiveness of sins (Mt 26:28).

John 20:31 makes clear that a person must believe that Jesus is the Christ to have everlasting life (and Martha’s phrasing in her answer to Jesus, John 11:25-27, shows us that to believe Jesus is the Christ means to believe that He gives everlasting life); yet after Jews believed in Acts 2:37  what Peter said about Jesus, Peter still told them to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and to be saved from that generation.  Neither repentance nor baptism is a condition of receiving everlasting life; the generation of Jews who were around for the national condemnation of Jesus (Mk 15:11-14) needed the public proclamation of baptism to receive the Spirit. Paul is also told, “Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16), three days AFTER his face-to-face encounter with Jesus, and presumably three days after he believed that Jesus is the Christ.  The Gentile Cornelius and his household received the Spirit as soon as they believed (Acts 10), which continues to be the pattern for the church today.  

After that first generation of Jews who were present during Christ’s ministry on earth, the coming of the Spirit and the forgiveness of sins happen at the same time that a person receives everlasting life.  Also in the New Testament, there are times and places where sins are NOT forgiven believers (Mt 6:15, 1 Jn 1:6-10).  In contrast, in John 3:16, 5:24, 11:25-26, and many other places, Jesus affirms that the kind of life He gives cannot be lost.  (That’s what the word “everlasting” means—also, John 5:24, 11:25-26)  So it seems that both forgiveness of sins and everlasting life are received via the power of Christ’s death and resurrection (and both are received when one believes in Jesus for everlasting life), but they are not the same thing. Sinning after believing still causes problems, though it doesn’t get rid of the believer’s everlasting life and God helps us grow and gives us a lot of grace.

Conclusion

The explanation I have heard that fits best with the Biblical evidence is that forgiveness means “receiving back into fellowship.”  When we confess our sins, God receives us back into fellowship.  Unbelievers are out of fellowship with God, and believers who are blatantly choosing to live in sin are also out of fellowship with God.² The apostles weren’t given the ability to let people into the Kingdom or keep them out, but to look at the situation and decide whether someone should be received into a present experience of fellowship or not, based on Christ’s teachings.  Furthermore, the apostles were called to be shrewd (Mt 10:16): forgiveness does not mean “sweep everything that happened under the rug,” or anything close.  There are still punishments for many actions, and there are still violations of trust that should change what roles Christians will allow the offender to undertake.  (E.g., if someone has been proven to have abused children, they should not be allowed to work in a church’s children’s ministry, even if they have repented.)

Furthermore, while bitterness is something Christians need to address (Eph 4:31-32), having bitterness over an injustice you have experienced does not mean that God won’t forgive you.  Refusing to have fellowship with a believer who has wronged you, and then repented and asked your forgiveness, does carry the risk that God won’t forgive you–and that would mean that you would be out of fellowship with God.  Some of the details of being out of fellowship with God include God not hearing your prayers the same way (Proverbs 15:29), and your life not displaying God’s character to the world as it otherwise could (Heb 12:14).

Even with this definition of forgiveness, there are a few verses that don’t fit as neatly as I would like.  Maybe I will understand how they fit later, or maybe I will come to a better definition of forgiveness.

If this is the first time you have heard this definition of forgiveness, I don’t expect you to agree with me.  But I would encourage you to get a concordance, or use a Bible search program, to look up the words yourself.  If you know the original languages, or have a tool that allows you to reference them, check the uses of the original words as well.  Based on the Bible, what is a clear definition of forgiveness?

Please comment below!

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1.  For the original language enthusiasts among you, my understanding is that these three references are among about a dozen that come from a Hebrew word (nasa) more often translated “lift,” “carry,” or “take.”  There are a few words translated “forgive” even fewer times, and one (salach) used for “forgive” more often.  ↩︎
2. Please note that that is very different than struggling with sin, which all believers continue to do during their life—blatantly choosing to live in sin is when we either say that sinning is okay, or insist that something isn’t sin when we know very well from the Bible that it is.  Even a new believer who is doing something wrong that they don’t yet know is sin would not be a believer who is blatantly living in sin unless they are not trying to learn what the Bible says and don’t listen when a Christian they trust tries to teach them.
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