Thank you for replying Steve. You seem to have expressed a common notion of forgiveness. You are right about not carrying a grudge, not looking for revenge and letting it go and giving it over to God. Certainly we should not “stew in our own juices.” If we already feel a resentment, we definitely should let it go. But doing all of these things is not tantamount to forgiving the person in the sense that I am using the word “forgiveness” (and also in the sense that Jesus used the word when He said IF he repents, forgive him." You could do all of the things you suggest, but if he had been your friend, and had not had a change of heart and mind about his actions, you might still not want to communicate with him. But God is not like that in His forgiveness. Before He forgives, He doesn’t carry a grudge or look for revenge, or “stew in His own juices.” And after He forgives, His relationship with you is restored.
Yes, unlike many people who think they have forgiven someone because they have let go of their ill feelings toward that person, when we have sinned against God and repented, He restored the relationship with Him that we once had. It’s the same when we forgive a repentant person. Our relationship with him is restored.
We may have no ill feelings toward a person who had done wrong or offended us. We may bear no grudge (and we shouldn’t). We may have no desire for revenge. But if the person has not repented (had a change of heart and mind about his behaviour), our relationship with him will be different from what it was before his offense. When he has repented and we have forgiven him, our former relationship with him is restored. It will be just as if he had never done us wrong!
Yes, He did. But He didn’t say we must forgive an unrepentant person.