Do You Have to Forgive Someone Who Isn't Sorry?

The Question Nobody Wants to Ask Out Loud

You searched this because somebody used the word "forgive" on you recently, and it landed wrong. Maybe a pastor, maybe a friend who is trying to help, maybe your own conscience at three in the morning. The person who hurt you has not apologised. They may never apologise. And you are being told, gently or not so gently, that you have to forgive them anyway.

We are not going to answer that in one sentence. It deserves better than that.

What Gets Skipped Over

Most answers to this question move too fast. They quote a verse, say "so yes, you must," and stop, as if that settles the ache in your chest. It does not. It cannot, because it has skipped the actual weight of what you are carrying: the specific thing that was done to you, the specific way it is still shaping your days, the specific person who has shown no sign of reckoning with any of it.

When Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive someone, he was not asking an idle question either. He wanted a number he could hold onto, a point at which he could stop.

Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I don't tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven. Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he had begun to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. "But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!' "So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don't each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds."

Matthew 18:21–35

Notice what the parable does not say. It does not say the forgiven servant should have gone back to owing money he never had, or handed his family over again, or pretended the debt never existed. Jesus was talking to people living under real debt law, where unpaid debt could cost you your children. The story is about the size of what we have been forgiven, set against the size of what we are refusing to forgive. It is not a story about safety, or about staying, or about what happens next between two people. Forgiving someone who owed you a hundred denarii did not require moving back in with him.

Forgiveness Is Not Reconciliation, and It Is Not Staying

This is the distinction that gets lost. Forgiveness is something that happens in you, a decision to stop being the one who holds the debt over their head, to stop rehearsing the case against them in your mind. Reconciliation is something that happens between two people, and it requires both of them. Staying, or returning, or trusting again, is a separate decision still, one that depends on whether the danger is actually over.

You can forgive someone and still call the police. You can forgive someone and still never speak to them again. You can forgive someone and still tell your children not to be alone with them. None of that is unforgiveness. It is wisdom, and Scripture never asks you to trade wisdom for mercy.

That is worth saying plainly, because it is so often confused. Forgiving your father does not mean giving him access to your children. Forgiving an employer does not mean withdrawing the complaint. Forgiving a partner does not mean the locks go back to how they were. Forgiveness releases you from carrying the debt. It does not release the other person from consequence, and it does not require you to remove a boundary that is keeping you safe.

What God's Forgiveness Looks Like, and Why It Is Not the Model for Yours

Some of the language in the Psalms about forgiveness is extraordinary, and it is worth reading slowly, because it shows what complete mercy looks like when it comes from God.

The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness. He will not always accuse; neither will he stay angry forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his loving kindness towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:8–12

That psalm was written to people who knew what it was to fail badly and be met with mercy rather than the punishment they expected. It describes a distance, east from west, that cannot be measured, because it never meets. That is what complete forgiveness looks like, and it belongs to God.

You are not God, and you are not asked to erase the memory of what happened, or to feel nothing when you think of it, or to trust as if it never happened. If someone tells you that real forgiveness means acting as though the wound never existed, they are describing something Scripture never actually asks of you. What you are asked to do is release the demand that they pay for it in your presence, in your future, forever. That is a smaller thing than erasing it, and it is still hard enough.

If You Are Not There Yet

You might not be ready to forgive, and that is not a failure of your faith. It is often the beginning of it, the same honest place the psalmist stood in when he wrote, "out of the depths I have cried to you." You do not have to arrive at peace today. You do not have to feel warmly toward someone who is not sorry.

One small thing, if you want it: write down, in a sentence, what you are actually being asked to release, and what you are not willing to release yet, like your safety, your boundaries, your right to tell the truth about what happened. Naming the difference is not a failure to forgive. It is often the only honest way to start. If it would help to put words to this in prayer, you can begin one at /pray.