By Davis Carlton

I’ve been involved with several online discussions regarding how Christians ought to forgive those who sin against them, and the catalyst for these discussions has been the Charlie Kirk assassination and his widow, Erika Kirk’s, stating that she forgives her late husband’s assassin at his memorial service. These discussions have often been passionate and interesting, and I’d like to offer my thoughts. I’m of the opinion that Christians are not called to forgive those who have wronged them in the absence of repentance. I’d like to explain and defend my reasoning for my conclusions.

To begin with I want to make it clear that this should absolutely not be construed as an attack upon Erika Kirk. She is a grieving widow that witnessed the brutal murder of her husband and who is now tasked with raising her two children without their father. While I disagree with some of what she has said and done, I have no desire to attack her personally. Erika Kirk, her children, and her family have been and will continue to be in my prayers and I wish nothing but the best for them. My comments are intended to shed light on the subject of forgiveness that has been made a topic of discussion because of Erika Kirk’s forgiveness of her husband’s assassin.

My position is that forgiveness is somewhat distinct from reconciliation, but is always oriented toward reconciliation. Forgiveness is defined in different ways by Noah Webster in his original 1828 dictionary. Forgiveness carries with it the notion of the granting of pardon and clearing the offending party of guilt. In order to achieve reconciliation, the offending party must demonstrate contrition for the offense in acknowledging what happened and that it was wrong. I have seen arguments that Christians must always forgive those who sin against them regardless of whether or not the offending party is sorrowful or repentant. The Biblical argument made in defense of this position is based upon the teaching and example of Jesus as well as the Proto-Martyr Stephen.

Some argue that Jesus taught unconditional forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-22, in which we are told; “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.” Another place is Mark 11:25-26 in which Jesus says, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Additionally, Jesus is said to teach unconditional forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer/Our Father with the petition, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Jesus is also said to have put the principle of unconditional forgiveness into practice on the Cross during his own Crucifixion when he cries out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). This posture of forgiveness is also echoed by St. Stephen during his own martyrdom when he prays; “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60).

These arguments are formidable indeed, and they must be addressed with the utmost care befitting of God’s word. The first counter-argument that I would make against unconditional forgiveness is that there are many places in which Jesus seems to teach forgiveness conditioned upon repentance. The most obvious of these is in Luke 17:3-4 in which Jesus states; “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.” This seems straightforward enough. Jesus does not command or expect His disciples to forgive those who offend them when the offending party does not show remorse or attempt reconciliation. In response to this some contend that Jesus’s teaching here only applies to brothers, “If thy brother trespass against thee…” rather than the more general prescription in Mark 11:25-26, which seems to require unconditional forgiveness. How are we to resolve this?

There are a couple of things to consider. First, we can acknowledge that Jesus’s statement in Luke 17 is given to provide for the reconciliation of brothers, while His statement in Mark seems more general. That being said, I don’t think that this establishes the principle of unconditional forgiveness for a few reasons. The first is that this interpretation destroys the ‘if/then’ logic of Jesus’s statement in Luke 17. Suppose a professed Christian commits a truly heinous act against a fellow believer by murdering his son. The offended Christian is righteously indignant and demands that justice be done and that the offending brother repent in order to work toward reconciliation. The offender refuses, obstinately insisting that what he did wasn’t wrong, that the victim deserved to die, or insisting upon his innocence in spite of compelling evidence to the contrary (eyewitnesses, etc.). It would certainly seem that the criterion given by Jesus pertaining to the reconciliation of brothers in Luke 17 has not been made. The offending brother has not repented, and therefore the offended Christian is not to forgive him.

But this is where the waters can be muddied. Suppose the clergy of the offending professed Christian rightly conclude from his impenitence and lack of remorse that he is not actually a Christian brother at all, and excommunicate him in accordance with Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 18, particularly verse 17 which teaches to treat the impenitent as a “heathen and a publican.” Would this then mean that Jesus’s teaching in Luke 17 no longer applies since he is not actually a brother and that the “unconditional forgiveness” supposedly taught in Mark 11 now apply, and the offended Christian, whose son was murdered, must now forgive the false brother in spite of his obstinate impenitence? I don’t think that this is a tenable option, seeing as it would entirely destroy the ‘if/then’ logic that Jesus uses in Luke 17. This means that those who propose that Jesus taught unconditional forgiveness in Mark 11 must not correctly understand what that passage means.

So when Jesus says, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought (or anything) against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses,” what exactly does He mean? The context seems to be about someone who is asking God for forgiveness in prayer while still bearing grudges against those who have wronged him. The same would apply to the petition in the Lord’s Prayer in which we are to ask God to “forgive us our trespasses.” The assumption made in the petition is that we have forgiven and will forgive those “who trespass against us.” It would be entirely hypocritical to expect God to forgive us while we refuse to forgive others. This is particularly illustrated in the Parable of the Unforgiving Steward at the end of Matthew 18, in which Jesus contrasts the enormity of debt that sinners have in relation to God in comparison to the relatively minor debt that sinners have in relation to each other.

Another consideration that we should make in our interpretation of Mark 11:25-26 is that there are likely implied qualifications that aren’t stated in this particular instance. Immediately preceding His statement on forgiveness Jesus says: “Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:22-24).

Jesus’s words seem to clearly indicate that believers will receive whatever they ask of God in faith. It is this passage that “faith healers” often allude to defend their false practice of “healing,” and suggesting that whenever their “healing” inevitably fails, the lack of faith of the subject is always blamed. Most orthodox Christians understand that there are implied qualifications in what Jesus is saying. Jesus is speaking of God’s infinite power to enable His disciples to do whatever they are called to do in God’s providence. Consequently a truly faithful believer doesn’t treat this passage in a “name it and claim it” fashion, but always submits his desires to the will of God as he prays, “Thy will be done.” John adds the additional clarification when he writes, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14). Just as Christians ought to recognize the implied qualifications in Jesus’s statement that we will obtain whatever we ask of God in faith, we also must realize the implied qualifications in Jesus’s statement about forgiveness immediately following.

But what of the examples of Jesus and Stephen, who seemed to have prayed to God for the pardon of their enemies when they were being martyred? There are a couple of reasons that I don’t think that this constitutes “unconditional forgiveness.” Defiant Baptist has pointed out on X that asking God to forgive someone isn’t the same as personally forgiving. This might seem like a meaningless distinction, but I think that Defiant Baptist has made an accurate observation. When Jesus and Stephen ask God to forgive, they are in essence asking God to grant those sinning against them the gift of repentance so that they can receive divine forgiveness. The reason that Jesus and Stephen likely prayed as they did before their deaths is to communicate that they would willingly forgive and be reconciled to anyone who came to regret their wickedness later on, after their deaths made it impossible to reconcile face to face. That repentance is an unmerited divine gift is established in Acts 5:31, 11:18, and 2 Timothy 2:25.

There are reasons that the prayers of Jesus and Stephen cannot amount to “unconditional forgiveness.” The first is particular to the case of Jesus, Who is the second Person of the Trinity and thus God the Son. During the raising of Lazarus, Jesus proved His divine status when He prayed by appealing to His unique relationship to the Father by saying, “I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 11:42). Jesus then raises Lazarus in order to demonstrate His position before the Father as an infallible intercessor. Jesus also demonstrates this principle in His prayer for Simon Peter that he would overcome the temptation of the Devil and strengthen his brethren when he recovered the fullness of his faith and repented for his denial during Jesus’s trial.

“And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:31-32). If Jesus was asking God to forgive those who remained impenitent, and God did not forgive them, then this would undermine Jesus’s claims to divinity and perfect fellowship with the Father, creating incoherence within the Trinity. This would be the case whether one believes that Christ’s request was limited to the Romans who acted in ignorance (“they know not what they do”) or if this also includes Jews who failed to grasp the severity of what they were doing, as Peter seems to argue on the day of Pentecost (“And now, brethren, I wot [I know] that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” Acts 3:17).

This leads to the second reason that Jesus and Stephen weren’t practicing “unconditional forgiveness.” If Jesus and Stephen were asking God to forgive impenitent sinners, they would be asking God to do something entirely contrary to His nature of holiness and justice. God “will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:7/Numbers 14:18). Wise King Solomon tells us, “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15). This is true even if one justifies the wickedness done to ourselves or our loved ones. This is contrasted with the manner in which God justifies the ungodly by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness through faith and repentance (Rom. 4:5). This is consistent with the Apostle John teaching, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

The problem with the “unconditional forgiveness” view is that it posits a higher standard of forgiveness than what God practices, and unintentionally downplays the severity of sin. Sometimes skeptics of Christianity ask why Jesus needed to die for the sins of mankind when God could have just chosen to forgive our sins. The orthodox response is that God’s justice demands punishment, and that this punishment was willingly taken upon Himself by Jesus on the cross and applied through faith and repentance. The view that repentance is necessary for forgiveness aligns with the Biblical teaching on the nature of forgiveness.

While I don’t believe that we can properly forgive without the offender repenting of his sin, I don’t think that we ought to be too hard on those who say that they forgive those who have sinned against them without repenting. Many times when people say that they forgive those who have harmed them or their loved ones, it means that they are offering forgiveness. Indeed, this is the third definition that Noah Webster gave in his dictionary: “Disposition to pardon; willingness to forgive.” That being said, it is important that a willingness to forgive, however stated, should not conflict with Christian justice. A murderer may be forgiven of his murder, but he is still liable for the civil consequence of his having committed murder and the Bible is clear that this is the death penalty. This particular error seems to afflict too many Christians, and an example of this is Erika Kirk’s recent comments that she would somehow be culpable if she advocated for the death penalty for her late husband’s killer.

While being interviewed, Erika Kirk stated, “I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’ I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this,” she explained. “I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger. Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”

This is unfortunate. I will reiterate that I have no intention of being cruel to a grieving widow. This is the kind of error that is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem of counterfeit forgiveness that seeks therapeutic closure without the demands of justice. Advocating for civil justice does not violate the principle of Christian forgiveness and does not violate what Jesus taught about the “eye for an eye” principle in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus begins His sermon by clearly stating that He is not overthrowing the standard of justice established in the Law of Moses: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19).

Jesus then proceeds to correct false impressions of the Law that had begun to circulate and would later be codified in the Talmud. For example, people had begun to teach that the principle of “eye for an eye” taught in the Mosaic Law as the standard of justice (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21) justified the taking of vengeance against a man’s personal enemies. This doesn’t represent a fundamental change in ethics because the Mosaic Law and wisdom literature already commanded a man to love his personal enemies (Exodus 23:4; Proverbs 24:17-18, 25:21-22).

Of course no one argues that these principles taught in the Old Testament somehow nullify or contradict the just demand for the death penalty where it is applicable. Forgiveness isn’t opposed on principle to appropriate vengeance: “thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions” (Psalm 99:8). For someone to demand the death penalty for the murderer of one of their loved ones is not the misapplication of the “eye for an eye” principle that Jesus is addressing. It is possible to exercise Christian forgiveness, which entails not seeking personal vengeance as vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19). This doesn’t negate the fact that God has instituted civil government for being the agents of His justice (Romans 13:1-4).

Christ’s teaching on forgiveness remains a “hard saying.” While forgiveness proper is not possible without repentance, as Christians we must always be willing to forgive those who sin against us, pursue reconciliation, and refuse to take vengeance into our own hands. We need to always be ready and willing to pursue reconciliation (Matthew 5:21-26). Jesus condemns those who refuse to forgive and are angry with brothers without a cause, but this obviously doesn’t apply to those who persist in evil and refuse to repent and thus demonstrate that they are not brothers at all.

What is the proper attitude towards those who purposely wrong us with no remorse or desire for reconciliation? If you believe that Christians must forgive everyone all the time without exception, then the answer is Christians must forgive even when reconciliation isn’t possible. But this doesn’t seem to be what the Apostle Paul does regarding Alexander the Coppersmith. In what might seem like an offhand comment in a personal letter, Paul writes, “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works” (2 Timothy 4:14). Paul acknowledges that Alexander has wronged Paul and doesn’t seem to be interested in repentance or reconciliation, because in the very next verse Paul instructs Timothy to be aware of Alexander, indicating that he remains a threat. It is clear that Paul isn’t overly bitter or hateful towards Alexander. Paul hasn’t taken it upon himself to exact personal vengeance against Alexander. Instead Paul commends Alexander to God’s justice. Is this forgiveness? I don’t believe so, as forgiveness is always extended and granted as a means of accomplishing reconciliation.

The idea that forgiveness is not unconditional was taught by the great Christian pastor and apologist Greg Bahnsen, as Mark Rushdoony has recently posted on Facebook. Ardel Caneday also makes a compelling case in his brief booklet, Must Christians Always Forgive? I think that Caneday makes a good argument, demonstrating that “unconditional forgiveness” inadvertently undermines God’s grace, mercy, and justice. I also agree with Caneday that Christians must always be willing and eager to forgive, but must also be insistent that actual forgiveness can only be extended with true repentance. It is important that Christians get this issue correct because several people who notice how unjust our godless world has become rightly see the unconditional forgiveness extended by Christian victims as weak and performative.

Many Christians act as though they are willing and even eager to allow grave injustices to stand in order to appease those who hate us. Unfortunately, many celebrity Christians and pastors don’t care about justice when bad things happen to fellow Christians and/or white people (I’m thinking of Austin Metcalf’s father immediately forgiving his son’s black murderer, but there are other examples of this as well).

These false teachings about forgiveness and just retribution have proven a stumbling block to young men who are led to believe that these aberrant miscarriages of justice are consistent with what Christianity actually teaches. Christian leaders must boldly proclaim the truth about Christian forgiveness. As Christians we must always be ready to forgive, but also equally zealous for justice, lest we continue to prove this observation by King Solomon so very relevant in our lawless days: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11).