Three times in the past week I’ve found myself closing in on our 5:30 PM EST deadline and today also turned out to be a busy day. So we’re going to do something different.
You may remember many weeks back I shared a question that a cousin of mine had asked, and then my response. That’s the format today as well, and you can decide if I answered this well.
Paul, I have a question for you. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us “if you forgive people for stepping out of line, your heavenly Father will forgive you too. But if you don’t forgive other people, your Father also won’t forgive you for stepping out of line.”
Is it acceptable to the Lord just to forgive, (sincerely, mind you) or are we obliged to actually inform the offending person that they are forgiven?
What’s your take on this?
My answer:
I always appreciate your questions. They are always challenging.
You are sort of asking two questions in one here because at the end you raise the possibility that the person who has committed a transgression against you may not even be aware that they have done something. I think you would need to inform them that’s something they have done has hurt you greatly but that you are prepared to forgive. But there could be a number of factors working against that. It could be a person from your past that you currently have no way of getting in touch with. Or they could even be deceased.
Returning to the text, Jesus does appear to be saying that the forgiveness we receive in some way corresponds to the forgiveness we are prepared to offer. A few verses earlier he stated this again in his model prayer where we are to ask him to forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us.
To use a phrase I like using because it makes me sound more educated than I am, the obverse also attains. It’s a fancy way of saying that the opposite seems to be true as well. If we don’t have a forgiving nature we cannot expect to receive God’s forgiveness.
Or can we? The biblical model of forgiveness is to forgive 70 times seven. So how much is God prepared to forgive us? I would say a whole lot more. And isn’t the concept of grace that it comes without any strings attached?
So then why does he appear to be saying but God won’t forgive us if we are unforgiving sort of person?
I think there are several possible reasons and below is a link to a website that offers two of them of which the second one is most interesting, especially when you consider the parable of the man who was forgiven a great debt but did not repeat that forgiveness to a person who owed him a much smaller amount. The original forgiveness he received was rescinded. [Readers: See Matthew 18:21-35] Is this a teaching moment for Jesus to cause his hearers to think about grace and forgiveness, or is it a principle of the Kingdom where all forgiveness is subject to terms and conditions?
I think there are also some things in the context we have to keep in mind and that is that a lot of The Sermon on the Mount is stated in the extreme. Jesus was quite fond of using hyperbole to wake up his audience!
Anyway, here is the link which should provide you with more of the type of answer I think you were originally looking for. If you want to find more things like this type “Matthew 6:15” commentary into a search engine.
Here are three paragraphs from that website I want to highlight:
Matthew 6 does not teach that our eternal destiny is based on our forgiving other people; however, it does teach that our relationship with God will be damaged if we refuse to pardon those who have offended us. The Bible is clear that God pardons sin by His grace based on Christ’s work on the cross alone, not on man’s actions. Our right standing before Him is established on one thing only—the finished work of Christ (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10). The penalty for the sin that is rightly ours is paid by Christ, and we obtain it by grace through faith, not by any righteous deeds of our own (Ephesians 2:8-9). No one will be able to stand before God demanding that his sins be forgotten simply because he has forgiven others. Only when we are born again and given a new life through God’s Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ are our sins forgiven…
…To be sure, an unforgiving spirit is a serious sin and should be confessed to God. If we have unforgiveness in our hearts against someone else, then we are acting in a way that is not pleasing to God, making our prayers and a proper living relationship with Him difficult. God will not hear our prayers unless we also show ourselves ready to grant forgiveness…
…A second biblically plausible interpretation of Matthew 6:14-15 is that it is saying anyone who refuses to forgive others is demonstrating that he has not truly received Christ’s forgiveness himself. Any sin committed against us, no matter how terrible, is trivial in comparison to our sins against God. If God has forgiven us of so much, how could we refuse to forgive others of so “little”? Matthew 6:14-15, according to this view, proclaims that anyone who harbors unforgiveness against others has not truly experienced God’s forgiveness. Both interpretations strongly deny that salvation is dependent on our forgiving others…
Ruth Wilkinson, who occasionally contributes to this page, also wanted to respond to my cousin’s inquiry in light of my response. She got back to the original intention of the question when she said,
The forgiveness process isn’t complete until the person has been informed.
Readers, do you agree? I said,
I would add there may be circumstances where doing so could make matters worse, so you need to discern this for yourself.
So how do you think I fared with this?
Do you have someone you can go to for discussions or questions like this? Do you have people who use you as a sounding board?
Christianity 201 
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