When Authentic Forgiveness is Achieved

True forgiveness is a painful journey, a prolonged wrestling with a wound, and a process aimed at achieving genuine repentance by the offender, graceful acceptance by the victim, and restoration of the broken relationship. This is true forgiveness in the biblical sense.
 
Forgiving is not an instant solution or a quick fix. It is a long, deep, difficult, and painful process of wrestling with the injury, and risking a return to conversation and a resumption of relationship. The Christ of the cross, who shows how costly it is for God to forgive, is our great example (1 Pet 2:21). Augsburger states, “God used the Cross to make forgiveness possible and to model forgiving to an unforgiving world.
 
Some ask when authentic forgiveness is achieved. Augsburger states, “Grace and truth, acceptance and confrontation, sacrifice and prophetic rebuke are needed in resolving alienation, injustice, or interpersonal injuries.” Authentic forgiveness requires one party to repent and the other party to have the grace to accept that repentance with trust and respect. Authentic forgiveness occurs when there is mutual recognition that both repentance and acceptance are genuine, and when the severed relationship is mended. The final stage in authentic forgiveness is when the victim reconnects with the offender and discovers that the strange chemistry of reconciliation can heal the wound until nothing remains but the remembered scar with a transformed meaning. Such forgiveness results in a deeper and stronger union than before.

- John C. W. Tran, Authentic Forgiveness: A Biblical Approach, 2020.