Forgiveness, at its core, is a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. It is not about condoning the offense or forgetting what happened. Rather, it is about freeing yourself from the emotional burden of anger and bitterness. Forgiveness is a process, not a single event. It involves acknowledging the pain, understanding the context of the hurt, and making a choice to let go of the negative emotions that bind you to the past. This act of letting go is not for the benefit of the offender, but for the peace and well-being of the one who forgives.

Why is Forgiveness So Hard?

The difficulty of forgiveness often lies in our innate sense of justice and fairness. When we are wronged, it feels natural to demand accountability or even retribution. The idea of letting go of that righteous anger can feel like a betrayal of our own pain, as if we are saying the offense didn't matter. Furthermore, forgiveness requires a great deal of emotional and spiritual strength. It demands that we confront our deepest hurts, vulnerabilities, and fears. It is an act of surrendering our right to hold a grudge, which can be a difficult thing to release, especially when the wound is deep or the offender has shown no remorse. It is a battle against our pride and our desire to see the scales of justice balanced on our own terms.

Understanding Forgiveness

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Understanding forgiveness is essential to grasping the full truth of salvation and repentance. Many people will find this difficult to accept because it runs contrary to what they have been taught:

God’s Authority and Our Free Will

We begin this article with the simple fact that God has the power to punish us. The fact is, God has the power to do absolutely anything to us that He wants. God made us and He owns us. We are powerless to change anything He has determined. We are not dealing with a Creator that can be manipulated by us. We cannot persuade Him from what He has already ordained as He follows His own council. He is God, and we are not! He will hold us all accountable for the choices we make in this life. God’s government is not a democracy, and we don’t get to vote on His policies.

So, what power do we have? Simply, we have the power of personal choice. God has given us our own will, our free-will. He does not force us to obey Him; that would make us robots. God has given us His commandments that we can know right from wrong, and told us to follow them. He has told us that disobedience will result in our eternal death. God does not lie and He does not change, Malachi 3:6, so we know He means what He says, and He will do it.

Repentance Leads to Forgiveness

We have all disobeyed God, but if we choose to turn from our disobedience and obey Him, He will forgive our past offences 1 John 1:9. The process of turning from living in disobedience to living a life dedicated to obedience is called “re-birth” and is only possible by the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit. Going in this new direction is called “repentance”, a word that means “a changing of the mind”. Because we repent, we alter our actions and pursue the same attributes as God Himself, which the Bible calls “holiness”. When we do this, God is faithful to forgive us our sins.

Why Forgiveness Requires Obedience

God has made it clear that forgiveness is not granted to those who do not repent, and repentance is followed by obedience. If we seek forgiveness of our offences, then we must stop perpetuating offences, stop sinning. If we continue to sin, we do not even know God, 1 John 3:6. If we have the hope of forgiveness, through Christ, we purify ourselves, just as He is pure, 1 John 3:3. Jesus came into the world to put an end to sin, 1 John 3:8, and those who have been reborn do not continue to sin, 1 John 3:9.

Without repentance there is no forgiveness, and without forgiveness, there is no salvation. We can get into long discussions about justification and sanctification, the work of the cross and sufficiency we have in Christ. We can debate grace, eternal security, personal righteousness and the mandate by Jesus to keep the law: Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 7:21-23, and Matthew 19:16-30.

We can argue senselessly, attempting to convince us that God’s laws have been annulled. But the bottom line is that grace does not force us into obedience. We might say that grace leads us into obedience but that only works if we choose to obey. Obedience is the fruit of repentance.

False Doctrines About Forgiveness

Much damage has been done to the gospel of Jesus Christ by churches that teach warped versions of what is required for salvation. The Bible is quite clear, but if we don’t know what the Bible teaches, we won’t know how to spot false doctrines, which happen to be very prevalent and extremely popular! False doctrine always offers an easier path to salvation, one that does not require us to depart from sin to be saved. We are just forgiven and forgiven, through our faith, by grace. But this is not what the Bible teaches; we must be reborn!

Living a Holy Life After Repentance

If our commitment to Christ has not redirected our priorities to include a hunger for God’s Word, that we might know the truth that will set us free from sin, then our faith is incomplete and our commitment is incomplete. If so, we are lukewarm and Jesus said for such people as this, He will spit them out of His mouth, Revelation 3:16, and He will say He never knew us, Matthew 7:23; or we can repent, obey, and be saved through grace in Christ.

Conclusion: Repentance and Forgiveness in Salvation

Are we understanding forgiveness and what must precede it? This article challenges us to move beyond surface-level faith toward truly understanding forgiveness in Christ.

“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Timothy 2:3-4. We ask ourselves the hard question, “Why doesn’t grace cover the lost Christians Jesus spoke of in Matthew 7:21-23?” The answer is that they did not stop sinning. How many churches teach this?