God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.

-Acts 5:31, NIV

Did Jesus choose forgiveness as a gift he gave himself?

Or did it benefit us?

The obvious answer is Jesus’ forgiveness benefits us. That is the point. He canceled out sin debt through his death on the cross.

I bring this up as an idea from the world seems to be prevalent among Christians regarding forgiveness. The idea is phrased in some fashion like this:

If the prototypical act of forgiveness–Jesus forgiving us our sins via his death on the cross–is not about benefiting Jesus Himself, how can we say this is a biblical idea? Jesus did not give himself the gift of forgiveness. He gave US the gift of forgiveness.

This worldly framing of forgiveness fails this basic and most important test of modeling after Christ’s example in Scripture.

I do not deny the benefits of letting go of wrongs. In a sense forgiveness benefits both parties; however, I view it as a worldly distortion to present forgiveness as bringing primary benefit to the forgiver. That is not biblical. And it fails the common sense test.

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*A version of this post ran previously.