I recently heard a sermon about forgiveness that dealt specifically with how Christians should be forgiving others. My purpose is not to belittle the preacher or the sermon but rather to shed light on a common error made often by preachers and teachers of the word. I believe when it comes to forgiveness the problem is that as believers in the church we have heard so many sermons on forgiveness that have all said the same thing that we generally just believe that the message given must be a biblical one, but it is not!

The common theme throughout these messages is very simple, forgive everyone all the time for everything they have ever done to you. Religious leaders like Billy Graham have even gone on television urging us to throw out a blanket forgiveness on political figures who have stumbled. They say this is the Christian thing to do, but when forgiveness is studied in the bible a very different picture is produced one that doesn’t jive with the forgive everyone all the time theory.

My first realization of the error of this thinking came in a pastoral counseling class. My professor was urging us to counsel people in our church to forgive everyone all the time, that it would bring them healing and allow them to get past certain sins that others may have committed against them. This certainly is a good and necessary goal but let’s look at forgiveness in the bible and get a clear biblical understanding of what forgiveness is.

First let’s look at the way forgiveness operates with God. God calls all men to repentance, saved and unsaved. He grants forgiveness to anyone that asks for it. But there is a key distinction to be made…He only grants forgiveness to people that ask. Secondly, God only grants forgiveness to people that have truly repentant hearts (Mark 1:4). We can see these things clearly in scripture because it is the way to salvation, which is really a way to gain forgiveness (Luke 1:77; Luke 24:47) for all of our sin. God does not freely give forgiveness to everyone all the time for everything they have done, otherwise every human ever would be saved!

So our first conclusion must be: if God only gives forgiveness to those that ask this must also be true for believers. If you examine the major passages on forgiveness in the bible you will see this same theme emerge. The passage most often used to support the blanket forgiveness theory comes from Matthew 18:21-35. Notice that in Jesus’ parable both servants who wanted forgiveness asked for it. The offense of the first servant was that when another servant asked him for forgiveness he did not grant it even though when he asked for forgiveness it was granted to him. It is clear that biblical forgiveness is only granted when one asks for it, this is the way it works with God, and believers. So what do you tell those hurting from the past sins that others have committed against them? How are they supposed to put that in the past?

If whoever has sinned against them has asked for forgiveness then they should grant it. But there is another principle at work here that I believe is what teachers and preachers are referring to when the call on people to forgive all the time. It comes from Romans 12:18-21. The principle has three facets. First, believers should strive for peace with all men. That means we do everything in our power to reconcile with others, but we can only do our part, if they do not ask for forgiveness or grant it if we have sinned there is nothing we can do.

Second, we have to release our felt need for vengeance. Holding onto past sin comes from the sinful idea that we didn’t deserve to be treated a certain way, or that we now want to pay them back for what they did to us. God says, “vengeance is mine.” Therefore we must release that felt right for vengeance and leave it in the Lord’s hands. The final idea is that we should show kindness to our enemies and in that way overcome the evil they have done to us with good. This does not mean we have to forgive them (unless they ask for it), but rather we must show kindness and love to them.