Giving a definition of what is forgiveness is a huge undertaking because of its many complex aspects. How do you define what is forgiveness? The Minister John MacArthur writes, “Forgiveness is a verbally-declared, personally-given promise, a statement of undeserved, unearned love that affirms that though I have been offended, there is no anger, no hatred, no desire for vengeance, no bitterness, no retaliation.” The person who has forgiven another has done all those things.
Some say to forgive someone means we are able to say to the person who offended us, “I forgive you.” But in my mind, I am thinking it cannot be just saying that. Forgiving someone is not giving lip service. I am thinking that something has to happen inside our hearts when we forgive another person.
Sometimes, I see this happen in our world where others apologize to us for what they have done, and we respond sheepishly with a quick, “It’s okay.” Then there are times when others aren’t even aware they had offended us, and we also respond the same way, only internally. Forgiving another person is not saying we are finally able to go on as though the offense was no big deal. I am not saying here when the offense committed against us is small. But if indeed there has been a great wrong done to us, we should not think or say or act as though what had happened was not a big deal. I think all of us have done this at one time or another because we would rather already move on with our lives, and this is partly why we say, “It’s okay”, rather than “I forgive you.” That is not forgiving someone. What had happened was a big deal; and now there is work for us to do. You and I have sinned greatly against our God. Our sin was a big deal to him. We know this because it demanded the sacrifice of his Son, and God forgave us. He did not act as though it was no big deal.
On the other hand, some say to forgive someone means we have to forget what that person has done to us. You might have heard the phrase, to “forgive and forget.” In other words, if we remember what someone has done to offend us, we have not truly forgiven that someone. Those who think this way are not saying this without good reason. There are verses in the Bible that says our God forgets our sins when he forgives.
Hebrews 10:17 Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
Jeremiah 31.34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
But is that what forgiveness means? If you and I are to forgive, must we go so far as to forget what others have done to us?
If it is true we must forget someone’s offense when we forgive, then I will confess I rarely forgive another person, because I don’t forget that easily when another person offends me, especially if the offense is significant. There are things that others have done to me many years ago that I have not forgotten, and I feel I may not forget for as long as I live, and perhaps this is where you are too. When a motorist who is angry with us and shouts profanity at us, we feel unsettled, but we begin to forget the incident ever happened after a few days (and thanks to our God we don’t remember everything forever). However, a person who has been physically abused is likely to never forget that the offense happened. We can all understand when parents who lost a child to murder think about the crime every day for the rest of their lives. We know that God commands us to forgive, but in traumatic incidents like these, does he really expect us to also forget? In my heart, I am thinking No. Forgiving someone does not mean we must teach ourselves to have amnesia. This doesn’t seem right to me.
But what about the verses in the Bible where they say God remembers our sins no more? Don’t they mean that God forgets our sins? In my opinion, when the Bible says God forgets our sins, I am not thinking it means that God forgets our sins in the sense that he has memory loss. Rather, I believe it means that he chooses not to recall our sins. He promises never to bring them up again. Of course, he remembers what happened, but he promises to not remind us, again and again, how we have sinned against him, and I believe this is part of what it means for you and me to forgive someone. If we see ourselves bringing up again and again another person’s sin, this may well show we are still holding against them what they have done to us, and it is a sign we have not done any forgiveness at all.