Forgiveness: Bible Verses to Help You Forgive

Forgiveness is a topic that sounds easy enough in principle but often feels impossible to put into practice. I remember the grief I felt years ago when the missionary organization I was serving painted me as sexually immoral, sent an email to every religious authority in the small country I was serving in to beware of me, and then let me go with zero proof of actual “sin,” and zero chance for me to defend myself.

This baseless spiritual abuse nearly drove me away from God. It took years before I could forgive my accusers.

We all know the pain of unforgiveness. The one that keeps us awake at night. The one that twists inside us like a knife. How can we extend forgiveness when the person we’re angry with has done the unthinkable? Doesn’t God know what they did to us? How then can He demand we forgive them?

Neuroscience of Resentment

Before we dive into Scripture, I’d like to point out that there are scientific reasons to back up God’s wisdom when it comes to forgiveness. We all know that refusing to forgive an offense can spiral into resentment and bitterness.

As shown in neuro scans studying the effects of unforgiveness, “[r]esentment creates a self-perpetuating cycle (Clark, 2005, as cited in Cherry, n.d.). When you replay what happened, you reactivate the same neural pathways, strengthening the emotional intensity of the memory through long-term potentiation (Kumar, 2011, as cited in Cherry, n.d.).”

This means that the more you ruminate on an event, the more it gets reinforced in your brain’s neural networks, leaving you stuck in the past and secreting cortisol, the stress hormone. Over time, the constant secretion of cortisol and the hyperarousal of the amygdala due to unresolved stress lead to depression, anxiety, and lower self-worth.

“Unforgiveness also correlates with sleep disturbances, cardiovascular problems, elevated blood pressure, weakened immune function, and increased inflammation markers (Abohashem et al., 2024 as cited in Cherry, n.d.; Segerstrom & Miller, 2004 as cited in Cherry, n.d.).”

Rumination leads to cortisol buildup over time. This is due to chronic stress. “Chronic stress causes the muscles in the body to be in a more or less constant state of guardedness. When muscles are taut and tense for long periods of time, this may trigger other reactions of the body and even promote stress-related disorders” (American Psychological Association, 2024).

These stress-related disorders include migraines or chronic headaches because of muscle tension in the neck, shoulders, and head. There are several more systems in the body that get triggered, including the endocrine system, HPA axis, gastrointestinal system, among others (Ibid). Needless to say, unforgiveness is a life stressor that can have far greater consequences than one might expect.

God, creator of the human body, knew this well before the advances of Western medicine. This is why He is so clear in Scripture that forgiveness is essential, not only physically, but spiritually as well. But what exactly does God mean by forgiveness?

What Biblical Forgiveness Is

The purpose of this article is not to use Scripture as a shaming device for those struggling to forgive. There’s a wide misconception about what biblical forgiveness means and what our Western culture makes it out to be. We often think God is asking us to forgive and forget, restore the full trust we had before the offense, or even excuse bad behavior. This is not what the Bible teaches.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But 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. If 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. – Matt. 18:15-17, ESV

Let’s take a closer look at what Jesus is saying in this passage. By using the word “brother,” He’s speaking of a person in the church, i.e., a Christian. Jesus advocates for private reconciliation between Christians wherever possible. He also makes it clear that He’s not speaking of trivial charges, but those of serious merit that can be corroborated by two or three witnesses.

The Greek word used in Matt. 18:15 is a variant of the word hamartánō, which is an archer’s term for missing the mark. A deeper dive into the word explains, “properly, having no share in; to sin, which always brings forfeiture – i.e., eternal loss due to missing God’s mark” (Strong’s Greek: 264).

If this Christian “brother” has refused to reconcile privately despite ample evidence of their wrongdoing, only then should it be brought before a spiritual body. If the offender does not listen to the church and witnesses, they are considered an unbeliever, and thus an outsider to the congregation.

The individual initially seeking reconciliation is also instructed to see them the same way. This denotes removing the closeness and the trust the offender held formerly.

Let’s be clear. Jesus isn’t saying, “Don’t forgive.” By making the offender an outsider of the church, Jesus is providing a way for shame to lead the offender to repentance. Once again, Jesus’ goal is for repentance and forgiveness between Christians, not for Christians to hold grudges or remove fellow believers from the church. Removal from the church is a means to bring the offender to repentance.

Forgiveness is further demonstrated in Matt. 18:21-22, where it says, “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?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven’ (ESV). Jesus asks that we forgive indefinitely. But once again, if the brother doesn’t repent, He’s not asking us to be pushovers.

If we focused solely on these passages, we might think God only asks us to forgive other Christians. But that’s not what’s implied in Matt. 5:44 when Jesus says, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (ESV). Paul gives a full description of what it means to love in 1 Corinthians 13.

In 1 Cor. 13:5, love is described as keeping no account of wrongs. The word used is the Greek logizetai. “The term appears in moral contexts where believers weigh motives and actions: 1 Corinthians 13:5: love keeps no account of wrongs;” it does not keep a mental ledger for retaliation (Strong’s Greek: 3049).

So, to love enemies is to keep no account, i.e., no ledger of the wrongs they’ve done against us. The antidote to our vindictiveness toward enemies is given in the same verse in Matt. 5:44, when Jesus tells us to pray for them. By praying for them, we are leaving God room to work on the hearts of our persecutors and replacing bitterness in ourselves with loving, restorative action.

Jesus doesn’t stop with asking us to forgive our brothers (Christians) or enemies (persecutors). He also asks us to love our “neighbor,” which again implies keeping no record of their wrongs. This is evident in Mark 12:31 when Jesus says, “The second [commandment] is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (ESV).

Neighbors, as we know from urban living, can be anyone – a Christian, an enemy, a non-Christian, even a complete stranger. Jesus’ command for forgiveness is thus universal. We are to forgive everyone regardless of their believing status.

Two further verses that back this up are Ephesians 4:32: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (Ibid), and Colossians 3:13: “[Bear] with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, [forgive] each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (ESV).

The Commandment to Forgive

Forgiveness is a command. Notice again in Colossians 3:13 where it states, “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (ESV, emphasis added)

We don’t get a free pass here. Even if we’re angry, even if the offense was great, even if we’re still hurting, we must forgive. Jesus doubles down on this in Matt. 6:14-15 when he says, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (ESV).”

Paul tells us in Romans 12:18-21: If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good (ESV).

Conclusion

God doesn’t want us to ruminate. He doesn’t want the chronic stress of unforgiveness to destroy us. He calls us to action. Love our enemies. Pray for them. Do good to them. Feed them. Quench their thirst. Leave God to choose how He wishes to respond to their wrongdoing. There’s so much wisdom in these commands. Psychologically, action is infinitely more healing than inaction.

Forgiveness is a process. We aren’t expected to instantly be okay with what happened to us. With God’s help and our obedience, forgiveness is possible. Even when it feels anything but.