Verse explainer

What does Matthew 6:15 really mean?

Unforgiveness doesn't just wound others — Jesus says it blocks the very forgiveness you need from God.

KJV

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

BSB

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.

The plain meaning

Matthew 6:15 is the shadow side of v. 14. Jesus has just given the Lord's Prayer, which includes the petition "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (v. 12). He then unpacks both halves: forgiving others is linked to receiving forgiveness; refusing to forgive others signals something is broken in your own relationship to God's mercy. The logic isn't that you earn forgiveness by forgiving — it's that a person who has genuinely received God's pardon is changed by it. Chronic, deliberate unforgiveness is evidence the grace hasn't landed. The target here is not the person still struggling to forgive a deep wound; it's the person who has closed the door entirely, who is, as Gill puts it, "cruel and revengeful" toward others while still expecting God's mercy for themselves.

The common misreading

"God will only forgive you if you first forgive others" — making forgiveness something you earn. People often read this verse as a works-based transaction: you pay in forgiveness, God pays out forgiveness in return. That flattens the whole passage. Jesus placed this verse directly after the Lord's Prayer, where the disciple asks God to forgive them 'as' they forgive others — meaning the two flow from the same source, not that one purchases the other. The wider New Testament is clear that forgiveness is a gift of grace, not wages (Ephesians 4:32 grounds human forgiveness in what God has already done in Christ). What Jesus is targeting in v. 15 is the person who wants God's mercy while permanently slamming the door on others — that posture reveals either that God's mercy hasn't truly been received, or that it is being treated as a private benefit while its demands on one's own heart are rejected. The verse is a diagnostic, not a transaction. It warns that an unforgiving heart is a sign something has gone wrong spiritually, not a payment schedule.

What the commentators say

John Gill18th c. · PD

Gill argues that a genuinely forgiving temper flows naturally from a true sense of God's pardoning grace — so where it is entirely absent, a person has no solid ground for assurance that God has forgiven them. He stresses the word 'men': if we won't forgive equals who have wronged us, we have no basis to expect forgiveness from a heavenly Father who owes us nothing.

Matthew Henryearly 18th c. · PD

Henry reads this as a solemn declaration that those who nurse revenge and refuse all forgiveness toward others have no right to claim the covenant mercy of God. It is not that the act of forgiving merits pardon, but that a hard, unforgiving heart is incompatible with the humble, grateful spirit that receives mercy — the two cannot coexist.

Albert BarnesBarnes' Notes · PD

Barnes notes the conditional structure is deliberate: Jesus does not say forgiveness is earned, but that a refusal to forgive is strong evidence a person has never truly felt the weight of their own guilt before God. One who knows what it is to be forgiven much cannot permanently withhold forgiveness from others.

The word behind it

ἀφίημι aphiēmi

"Forgive" — literally to send away, release, let go. The same verb appears in v. 12 and v. 14. It carries the sense of releasing a debt or a charge entirely rather than merely tolerating it. The word implies an active release of the claim against another, not just a suppressed feeling. Understanding it as a deliberate act of release sharpens the stakes: Jesus is asking whether you have genuinely let the offense go, not merely whether you feel warm toward the person.

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