How do I forgive someone who hurt me?

Short answer

Forgiveness is choosing to release the person from the debt of the wrong done to you, as God in Christ released you. You can do it by an act of the will, trusting God to judge justly, even before the pain fades.

Few things in the Christian life are harder than forgiving someone who has hurt us deeply. The Bible does not treat it as a small matter or a mere feeling. It makes forgiveness part of what it means to follow Jesus, and it also gives the reason that makes it possible: we have been forgiven first.

Forgive as God forgave you

Paul bases the whole command on what God has already done.

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Eph 4:32 · King James Version (1769)

John MacArthur says that those whom God has forgiven so much should be especially ready to forgive others comparatively small offenses, and he points to Jesus’ parable in Matthew 18 as the clearest picture of this. The New Geneva Study Bible adds that believers are expected to pass on to others the forgiveness and love God showed them in Christ. In Colossians Paul says the same.

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
Col 3:13 · King James Version (1769)

Alexander Lopukhin’s commentary notes that Christ forgave us on the cross, where He prayed for His enemies (Luke 23:34). William MacDonald adds that bearing with one another requires patience with the faults and oddities of others. We often need God’s grace to put up with them, just as they need it to put up with ours.

So forgiveness does not begin with the other person’s apology. It begins with remembering how much we owe God.

How many times?

Peter thought he was being generous.

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Matt 18:21–22 · King James Version (1769)

MacArthur notes that rabbis taught that forgiving someone more than three times was unnecessary, so Peter’s seven was already generous. Jesus answered with a number that cannot be counted. MacDonald says that He did not mean that we should literally keep a tally of 490, but gave a figure for “an indefinite number” of times. Matthew Henry adds that there is something wrong in counting the offenses we have forgiven, since it hints that we plan to take revenge once the measure is full.

Jesus then told the story of a servant forgiven an enormous debt who refused to forgive a fellow servant a tiny one (Matthew 18:23–35). The New Geneva Study Bible says that the first debt symbolizes the unimaginable number of our sins against God, and that the second was about a sixty-thousandth of it. MacDonald applies the story plainly: God has paid in full a debt we could never pay, so how can we refuse to forgive a small one?

What happens when we refuse

Right after the Lord’s Prayer Jesus returns to this one point.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matt 6:14–15 · King James Version (1769)

This is a hard saying, and it does not mean that we earn salvation by forgiving. MacArthur explains that the verses do not suggest that God will leave unjustified those who have already been forgiven in Christ. Forgiveness in that sense, a full release from guilt, belongs to all who are in Christ. What is withheld from believers who refuse to forgive is the daily cleansing from sin that comes with confession, which MacArthur compares to washing the feet rather than taking a bath. MacDonald likewise says that the Father’s forgiveness mentioned in the prayer is conditional. A heart that holds on to a grudge puts itself out of step with the Father it is praying to.

What forgiveness is and is not

Forgiveness is a decision, and it comes before the feelings. MacDonald, commenting on Luke 17, writes that a Christian who has been wronged should first forgive the offender in his heart, which keeps his own heart free from bitterness, and then go to the person himself (Luke 17:3–4). Henry adds that even if the person does not repent, we must not nurse malice or think of revenge.

It does not mean that the wrong did not matter. And it does not oblige us to return to the same closeness: Henry notes that when the offender does not repent, we are no longer bound to the same free and intimate relations as before. Forgiving is not the same as trusting at once.

Nor does it mean letting evil win. Paul tells us to leave room for God’s wrath (Romans 12:19). The New Geneva Study Bible says that freedom from the instinct for revenge is possible because the believer knows that God will put right every wrong by His just judgment. We can hand the case over to a Judge who sees everything.

If the hurt is deep, forgiving may take time and many repeated decisions. Ask God for the strength to forgive, and talk with someone you trust, such as a pastor or a mature friend, and with a counselor if the wound is heavy. If someone is still harming you, forgiving does not mean staying in harm’s way: seek safety and help first. For more verses on this theme see Bible verses about forgiveness.