For most Christians, the question seems absurd. Of course, it is Christian to forgive. Jesus himself taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Gospel.

F.F. Bruce put it this way in Hard Sayings of Jesus:

“The Gospel is a message of forgiveness: it could not be otherwise, because it is the Gospel of God, and God is a forgiving God… It is to be expected, then, that those who receive the forgiveness which God holds out in the Gospel, those who call Him their Father, will display something of His character and show a forgiving attitude toward others.”

Charles Spurgeon was even more forceful:

“You are nothing better than deceitful hypocrites if you harbor in your minds a single unforgiving thought… You cannot be saved unless you are forgiving. If we do not choose to forgive, we choose to be damned.”

Similarly, Thomas Watson, in his exposition of The Lord’s Prayer, stressed that while forgiving others does not cause God to forgive us, it is nonetheless a condition God requires:

“We need not climb up into heaven to see whether our sins are forgiven: let us look into our hearts, and see if we can forgive others. If we can, we need not doubt but God has forgiven us.”

Forgiving those who ask for forgiveness is not optional. It is central to Christian faith and practice because it reflects the very character of God. We have been forgiven debts infinitely greater than any wrong committed against us. If God has pardoned our sins through Christ, how can we withhold forgiveness from those who ask for it of us?

But another question has surfaced in recent days: What about those who don’t ask for forgiveness? Should Christians extend forgiveness even to those who have not sought it? This issue sparked widespread debate on social media after Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, publicly forgave her husband’s killer during his memorial service.

Erika Kirk said:

“My husband Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That young man—I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did and it is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love, love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”

Her words drew widespread admiration for their Christlike spirit. Yet they also sparked debate about who does and doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Some maintained that forgiveness should be extended to all without exception. Others pointed out that God’s forgiveness is conditional on repentance and faith, and therefore, that is the only kind of forgiveness we are required to extend.

“Charlie’s murderer has not sought forgiveness. He has not even apologised. Why is he being forgiven?” one prominent figure wrote on social media. “It is anti-Christian to forgive those who have not repented. It is a grave sin,” he added.

To answer this, we must first define forgiveness. Biblically, to forgive means to release a debt. If someone owes you five dollars, forgiving that debt completely removes their obligation to repay you personally. The same principle applies to sin. Wronging another person creates a moral, financial, or relational debt, which may also have societal or legal implications handled by civil authorities. At the same time, wrongdoing creates a debt against God, which only He can address.

The Bible tells us, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). That is the debt every sinner owes God. The good news of the Gospel is that Christ paid that debt in full for his people. His death secures the forgiveness of debts for those who believe.

A person may owe a debt to God, to a neighbour, and to society at large. While one individual can forgive a neighbour’s debt to himself, he cannot forgive the debt that neighbour owes to God—only God can do that. Likewise, he cannot forgive the debt owed to the community; that responsibility rests with the civil government, which upholds justice on behalf of both society and God. This is the difference between a just and an unjust magistrate: he is not a minister of grace—that is the responsibility of the church—but a minister of justice.

This distinction is crucial. If a murderer is forgiven by the victim’s family, that does not mean he is absolved of responsibility before the civil government or God. Scripture is clear: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen. 9:6). Civil authorities bear the sword to punish wrongdoing and protect the innocent, as Paul explained in Romans 13:1-5:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.”

In other words, there is a fundamental difference between a widow forgiving her husband’s killer—that is grace—and the civil government forgiving her husband’s killer—that is injustice. In this instance, Charlie’s wife is not pardoning her husband’s killer’s debt to society or to God—she cannot do that—but rather, his debt to her personally—he stole her husband. The killer must still face the law, and the just penalty for a murderer is life for life (Gen. 9:5-6). What she was doing, however, was surrendering all personal animosity, vendettas, and bitterness, entrusting justice to the civil authorities and to the courts of heaven.

So, did Erika Kirk do wrong in forgiving her husband’s killer? No. Her words reflected the grace and strength of her faith in the God who says, “Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19). At the same time, had she not publicly forgiven an unrepentant murderer, she would not have been sinning either (Lk. 17:3). We cannot put that burden on victims of such crimes. The Bible never does. Instead, we are directed to take comfort in the fact that God will repay each person according to what they do (1 Thess. 1:5-12). We can take comfort knowing God will settle all debts (2 Tim. 4:14).

As such, Christians are not required to forgive someone who has not asked for forgiveness, because Scripture often presents forgiveness as conditional upon repentance. In Luke 17:3-4, Jesus says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,” showing that the granting of forgiveness follows confession and repentance, just as God Himself forgives sinners only when they turn to Him (Acts 2:38; 1 John 1:9).

Instead, Christians must cultivate a spirit that is always ready to forgive—refusing bitterness, hatred, and revenge—while recognising that true reconciliation requires the offender to acknowledge their wrongdoing. In this way, Christians are called to love their enemies and pray for them (Matt. 5:44), but they are not necessarily obligated to forever clear the debts of the unrepentant. If they were, they couldn’t conduct basic business!

In the end, you must forgive those God has forgiven. You may forgive those God has not. But that does not mean excusing evil, nor does it mean abandoning justice. It means entrusting personal debts to the God who judges righteously and promises to be a perfect Avenger. In Christ, God has forgiven us debts we could never repay. For the Christian, that reality shapes how we view—even the hardest cases—of forgiving others. It may even lead us to actions that the unbelieving world finds difficult to comprehend.