How Do I Forgive Someone Who Has Not Asked for Forgiveness?

Question 11173.

Forgiving the unrepentant is genuinely one of the hardest instructions in the whole Christian life to apply well, precisely because so much popular teaching on forgiveness quietly assumes the other person has already said sorry first. What do you do when they never do, when the person who hurt you shows no remorse at all, denies it happened, or has died without ever acknowledging the harm? I want to work through what Scripture actually says about forgiving the unrepentant, because I think it is more nuanced, and more genuinely freeing, than either extreme people usually land on.

Some Christian teaching insists rather firmly that you must forgive immediately and completely regardless of the other person’s response, full stop, no exceptions allowed. Other Christian teaching insists just as firmly that forgiveness cannot happen at all without the other person’s genuine repentance first. I think both positions capture something true and miss something important, and Scripture’s actual teaching sits in a more careful place between them.

Two different things Scripture calls forgiveness

It helps enormously, right at the outset, to distinguish two quite different things Scripture describes using the same language of forgiveness. There is the inward release of bitterness, resentment, and the desire for personal revenge, something Scripture commands unconditionally, regardless of the other person’s response: ‘Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice’ (Ephesians 4:31). This form of release does not depend on the other person doing anything at all.

There is also relational forgiveness, meaning the full restoration of trust and relationship, which Scripture does generally and consistently connect to genuine repentance. Jesus tells His own disciples, ‘if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him’ (Luke 17:3), explicitly tying this second kind of forgiveness, relational restoration, to the other person’s repentance. Forgiving the unrepentant, properly and carefully understood, means pursuing the first kind fully and completely while recognising that the second kind may genuinely require something specific from the other person that you simply cannot control or supply on their behalf.

Why the inward release is not optional

Whatever you conclude about relational restoration, the inward work of releasing bitterness is commanded without qualification. Jesus’s own instruction is stark: ‘if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses’ (Matthew 6:15), spoken immediately after teaching the disciples to pray, ‘forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’ This form of forgiveness is primarily a transaction between you and God concerning your own heart, not a transaction that requires the other person’s cooperation or even their awareness.

Forgiving the unrepentant, in this sense, means choosing, repeatedly if necessary, to release the debt you feel is owed to you and to entrust the matter fully to God’s justice rather than carrying it yourself. Paul’s instruction fits here directly: ‘Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God’ (Romans 12:19). You hand the case over. You stop being the one demanding payment.

What forgiving the unrepentant does not require

Forgiving the unrepentant does not require pretending the wrong did not happen, minimising its seriousness, or restoring the relationship to what it was before, especially where ongoing harm or danger is genuinely present. Scripture nowhere commands victims to place themselves back in a position to be harmed again by someone who has shown no change in behaviour. Wisdom, appropriate boundaries, and, where necessary, involving others or civil authorities, are entirely compatible with genuine inward forgiveness.

It also does not require immediate, warm emotional feeling. Forgiveness is fundamentally a decision, an act of the will made before God, and the feelings tend to follow, sometimes slowly and unevenly, rather than needing to arrive first before the decision can be considered genuine.

Why God still calls us to this even when it feels unfair

I fully understand why forgiving the unrepentant can feel so deeply unjust, as though the wrongdoer is somehow being let off the hook while you carry the entire cost yourself. Scripture’s answer is not that the wrong does not matter. It is that final justice belongs to God rather than to you, and that trusting Him with it is actually the only way to be genuinely free of it yourself. Holding onto bitterness does not punish the other person nearly as much as it continues punishing you.

Jesus’s parable of the unforgiving servant makes this exact connection directly and vividly (Matthew 18:21-35). The servant who refused to forgive a comparatively small debt owed to him, despite having just been forgiven an absolutely enormous debt of his own, is handed over to be tormented, a striking picture of what unforgiveness does to the person carrying it, regardless of whether the original debtor ever repays anything at all or even acknowledges the debt exists.

Practical steps for forgiving the unrepentant

Name the specific wrong honestly and clearly before God rather than settling for a vague, generalised sense of hurt, since specificity tends to make genuine release genuinely possible in a way vague, unfocused feelings simply do not. Repeatedly hand the desire for revenge or vindication over to God in prayer, understanding that this is very often a process requiring repetition rather than a single decisive moment that instantly resolves everything.

Seek genuine support, whether from a pastor, a counsellor, or a trusted and mature friend, particularly where the original wrong has been severe, since forgiving the unrepentant after serious harm is genuinely difficult, ongoing work that most people simply cannot do well entirely alone and in complete isolation. And hold the two forms of forgiveness separately in your mind, releasing the bitterness fully while being honest that relational trust, if it is ever restored at all, will need to be rebuilt slowly and only where genuine, demonstrated change is actually present.

Joseph as a model for this exact situation

Joseph’s story, already mentioned elsewhere in relation to making amends, is equally instructive here from the opposite angle, as an extended, real-life picture of someone who released bitterness toward people who had shown no remorse for years. His brothers sold him into slavery and let their father believe him dead, and Joseph carried that wound through years of unjust imprisonment in Egypt with no indication his brothers were even aware of, let alone sorry for, what they had done. By the time they eventually stood before him, Joseph had already done the inward work of release, which is precisely why he could respond to them with such striking grace rather than simmering resentment the moment the opportunity for revenge finally arrived.

This matters because Joseph’s forgiveness clearly did not wait for his brothers’ repentance. It had already happened in his own heart, worked out slowly across years of genuine suffering, well before their confession in Genesis 50 ever took place. Their eventual repentance allowed full relational restoration to follow, but the inward release itself had already been accomplished long before that moment arrived.

When forgiving the unrepentant intersects with safety

I want to address one further complication directly, because pastoral experience has taught me it matters a great deal. In situations involving abuse or ongoing danger, forgiving the unrepentant inwardly should never be confused with an obligation to remain in unsafe proximity to the person who caused the harm, or to minimise what happened for the sake of a relationship that genuine wisdom says should not currently be restored.

Scripture’s call to release bitterness toward God is not a call to naivety about human character or to disregard for your own or others’ safety. Wisdom, appropriate boundaries, and, in serious cases, formal accountability structures or civil authorities are entirely compatible with a heart that has genuinely released bitterness and handed the matter fully over to God’s justice.

So, now what?

If you are carrying the weight of forgiving the unrepentant right now, someone who has never said sorry and likely never will, I want you to hear this clearly. You are not required to pretend it did not happen, and you are not required to reopen yourself to further harm. You are called to release the debt to God, who sees exactly what was done to you and who judges with perfect justice, and to let that release free you rather than the person who wronged you.

This is rarely a single decision made once and finished for good. Bring it back to God again whenever it resurfaces, as many times as it genuinely takes, and trust that the freedom Christ offers is entirely real, even when the other person never once acknowledges what they owe you. I have watched people carry old, unaddressed wounds for decades, and I have watched others find real, lasting freedom simply by choosing, repeatedly and deliberately, to keep releasing the debt to God rather than carrying it themselves for one more year.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:32 (ESV)