How Do I Forgive Someone? A Biblical Answer for the Person Who Was Hurt

You have been hurt, and people keep telling you to forgive. The question underneath their advice is the honest one: what does forgiving actually involve, and how do you do it when nothing in you feels like it?

What forgiveness is

In Scripture, forgiveness is spoken of in the language of debt and release. When Peter asks Jesus how often he must forgive, the answer recorded at Matthew 18:21-22 declines to set a limit at all. A countable number is exactly what Peter proposes, and Jesus will not give him one. That tells us something about the nature of the thing. Forgiveness is not a fund you exhaust, and it is not primarily an emotion you must work up. It is the release of a real claim you hold against a real person.

Colossians 3:13 puts it plainly.

Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone else. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
— Colossians 3:13 (BSB)

Notice that the text assumes a complaint. The word covers genuine grievance: money taken, a trust broken, a name damaged. Forgiveness does not begin by deciding the wrong was small. The pattern offered is the Lord’s own forgiveness of you, and its scale is described elsewhere.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
— Psalm 103:12 (BSB)

Removal at that distance speaks about the account, not about memory. Nothing in these verses asks you to forget what happened, and nothing asks you to call it something other than what it was.

What forgiveness is not

It is not taking payment yourself. That belongs elsewhere.

Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”
— Romans 12:19 (BSB)

Leaving room for God’s wrath is not a pretence that you were not angry. It is the decision to stop collecting the debt in your own hands. The text names vengeance as the Lord’s, not yours.

Neither is forgiveness the same as trust, or the same as calling evil good. The complaint in Colossians 3:13 is real, and releasing it does not require you to relabel it. A person can be forgiven and still be unsafe, unimpressed by what they did, and unwelcome at your table for now.

Forgiving is not the same as reconciling

Two people are needed for a restored relationship. Only one is needed to release a debt. That distinction runs through Luke 17:3-4.

Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
— Luke 17:3-4 (BSB)

Here the rebuke is actually spoken, and repentance is named as the path into a restored relationship. Christians read these sentences differently. Some understand them to make forgiveness itself conditional on the other person’s repentance. Others hold that the release of the debt in your own heart is owed whether or not repentance comes, while the embrace of restored fellowship waits for it. The text plainly binds rebuke and repentance to the relationship rather than to your private release; beyond that, the disagreement is real and should be stated as one.

What follows practically is this: you can forgive a person and still not hand them the keys again. Trust is rebuilt by changed conduct over time. Forgiveness is granted, and then granted again, which is why Jesus speaks of seven times in a single day.

Concrete steps you can take

Name the wrong before God, specifically. Vague forgiveness forgives nothing. Write down what was taken, said or betrayed, and then say Romans 12:19 back to him: you are leaving room for his wrath rather than carrying vengeance yourself. This can be done honestly even now, because it asks nothing of your feelings.

Give your anger a short leash rather than a long home. Ephesians permits anger and sets a limit on it.

“Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger, and do not give the devil a foothold.
— Ephesians 4:26-27 (BSB)

In practice this bears most on the rehearsal. The argument you replay at night, the speech you deliver to them in the shower, the case you build and rebuild — that is how anger outstays the day. Interrupting the rehearsal is not denying the anger; it is refusing it a place to live.

Say it in prayer, flatly if that is all you have. Mark 11:25 ties forgiveness to the act of praying.

And when you stand to pray, if you hold anything against another, forgive it, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your trespasses as well.”
— Mark 11:25 (BSB)

Note the wording: if you hold anything. The text assumes you are still holding something when you pray. You do not need to have finished with the hurt in order to begin. Bring the name and the debt, and release it there, out loud if you can.

Tell the person what they did, where it is safe and wise to do so. The rebuke in Luke 17:3 is addressed to the offender, not muttered to a friend. Naming the wrong is not revenge; it is the first step towards anything being put right between you. And it is entirely possible to forgive someone you will never speak to again. The texts above leave room for that too.

Then repeat. If the debt comes back to mind tomorrow, and it will, release it again. Luke’s seven times in a day assumes that it does. Repetition is not the failure of a first release; it is what seventy-seven actually looks like in a life.

When the feelings do not switch off

Be cautious with anyone who gives you a timetable. Grief, anger and shock keep their own calendar, and Scripture does not pretend otherwise. Ephesians allows the anger and forbids only sinning within it and giving it a lodging. That is a different demand from not feeling it.

So expect a gap. You may make the decision on a Tuesday and find the heat still there much later. The release is real even when the ache is not gone, because what was released was a claim, not a nerve. Some people find the sting softens across a long stretch of time. Others carry a scar and learn to live well with it. Nothing here promises which will be yours, and anyone who does promise it is speaking past the text.

Watch also for the later crop: contempt towards people who did nothing, suspicion of anyone who resembles the one who hurt you, a quiet bitterness towards your own weakness. These are worth naming in the same prayer as the original debt.

For reflection

Take half an hour with paper rather than a screen. Write one plain sentence stating what was done to you, without softening it. Read it back. If you are carrying a whole list, take the first item only.

Then write what you would like done to the person responsible, and read that back too. That second list is the thing Romans 12:19 tells you to hand over. Say it plainly in prayer: you are leaving this with him, and you will not collect it yourself. Say the person’s name, and say that you forgive them, even if your voice carries no conviction at all. Note the date, because you will very likely need to do it again.

Ask yourself the harder question too. Is there a step towards reconciliation that is yours to take, and is it safe? A rebuke spoken honestly is yours; their reply is not. If there is no safe way forward with them, forgiving them does not require one. Then notice what you do with the hours afterwards, and whether you are feeding the rehearsal. That is the ground Ephesians 4:26-27 points to, and it is where ordinary obedience tends to live.

References

The Didache (c. 100), chapter 2, on forgiving the brother who sins.
Matthew Henry, A Method for Prayer (1710), on forgiving as a condition of prayer.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), book 2, chapter 18, on the office of Christ as mediator.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647), question 86, on what it means to be justified.
Augustine of Hippo, The Rule of Saints (c. 400), on the rebuking and forgiving duty.