How Many Times Did Jesus Say “Your Sins Are Forgiven”? 2 Times

Twice. In the Gospels Jesus says “thy sins be forgiven thee” to two people: a paralysed man let down through a roof (Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5; Luke 5:20) and a woman who washed his feet with her tears (Luke 7:48). Three Gospels tell the first story, so Jesus speaks the words in seven verses of the King James Bible.

Both times, those watching question it in their hearts. When Jesus forgives the paralysed man, the scribes ask themselves, “who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mark 2:7). When he forgives the woman, the guests at the table say among themselves, “Who is this that forgiveth sins also?” (Luke 7:49). They had heard rightly. Only God can say these words and make them true, and that is the whole wonder of hearing Jesus say them to a man on a stretcher and to a woman known in her city as a sinner.

Where in the Bible does Jesus say “your sins are forgiven”?

In the King James Version the words come in two scenes and seven verses. Three of the verses are Jesus speaking to the paralysed man, three are Jesus repeating the words in his question to the scribes, and one is Jesus speaking to the woman:

A verse earlier, Jesus has already said it of the woman to his host: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much” (Luke 7:47). The New International Version has “Your sins are forgiven” at Mark 2:5 and Luke 7:48. Other words of forgiveness come elsewhere in the Gospels, and we come to them below, but the sentence itself Jesus spoke to two people. Later the apostle John wrote the same words to the church: “your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12).

What did Jesus mean by asking which is easier to say?

Mark tells the first story most fully. The house in Capernaum was so crowded “that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door”. Four men carrying a paralysed friend “uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay” (Mark 2:2–4). Jesus looked at the man on the bed and did not first heal him. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” (Mark 2:5).

The scribes said nothing aloud, but they were “reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mark 2:6–7). Jesus answered the question they had not asked out loud. “Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house” (Mark 2:9–11).

Anyone can tell a man his sins are forgiven, and no one watching can check it. Telling a paralysed man to get up and walk can be checked at once. So Jesus does the visible thing to show the invisible thing is true. The man “arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all”, and the crowd said, “We never saw it on this fashion” (Mark 2:12). Matthew adds that they “glorified God, which had given such power unto men” (Matthew 9:8). The forgiveness came first. The walking was the sign of it.

And it was not only the sick man’s faith that Jesus saw. “When Jesus saw their faith,” Mark says. Four friends and a hole in a roof: sometimes we are carried to Christ by the love of others before we can walk to him ourselves.

Why did Jesus forgive the woman who washed his feet?

Luke sets the second scene at a dinner in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. “A woman in the city, which was a sinner” came in with “an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet” (Luke 7:37–38). Simon thought to himself that a real prophet “would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him” (Luke 7:39).

Jesus answered with a story about two debtors, one who owed five hundred pence and one who owed fifty. “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?” (Luke 7:41–42). Then he turned to the woman and spoke to Simon: “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears” (Luke 7:44). Her love was the sign that she knew how much she had been forgiven: “to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little” (Luke 7:47).

Then, for the second time in the Gospels, he said it to the person herself. “Thy sins are forgiven.” And while the guests were still wondering who he was, he turned back to her and sent her home: “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:48–50).

Did Jesus forgive anyone else?

Yes, though not in those words. To a woman brought to him for stoning he said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). Many Bibles set that story in brackets, because, as the New International Version notes, “The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11”. To Zacchaeus, “the chief among the publicans”, who promised to give half his goods to the poor and repay fourfold anyone he had cheated, Jesus said, “This day is salvation come to this house … For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:2, 8–10).

On the cross he prayed for the men who crucified him: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). (The NIV notes that “Some early manuscripts do not have this sentence.”) And to the criminal beside him who asked, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,” he gave a promise that holds every kind of forgiveness in it: “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42–43).

The angel had said it before Jesus was born: “thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The two people who heard “thy sins be forgiven” were the first of very many.

Does Jesus forgive all sins?

He forgives every sin that is brought to him in repentance. “All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme,” he said, with one exception: “he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness” (Mark 3:28–29). Mark explains why he said it: “Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit” (Mark 3:30). His enemies were calling the Spirit’s work in him the devil’s. We take up that verse fully in what is the unforgivable sin. The Catholic Catechism reads it as a refusal of mercy: “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins” (paragraph 1864).

What of a sin committed on purpose, knowing it was wrong? David knew what he was doing. The prophet Nathan told him to his face, “thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife” (2 Samuel 12:9). Yet when he heard it, “David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin” (2 Samuel 12:13). The promise to us is just as plain: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Christians who differ on much else agree here. The Westminster Confession, the historic statement of Presbyterian faith, says, “there is no sin so great, that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive” (paragraph 982).

How does Jesus forgive sins today?

Through his death and resurrection, and through the word he sent his church to carry. At the Last Supper he gave the cup and said, “this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). After he rose he told the disciples “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations” (Luke 24:47), and Peter preached exactly that: “through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).

Churches differ on how that forgiveness is declared. After his resurrection Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them” (John 20:22–23). The Catholic Church teaches that “Only God forgives sins”, and that Christ “gives this power to men to exercise in his name” (Catechism 1441). Bishops and priests forgive sins in the sacrament of confession “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Catechism 1461). Luther’s Small Catechism teaches Lutherans that confession has two parts: we confess our sins, and we “receive absolution, or forgiveness, from the confessor, as from God Himself”. The Westminster Confession teaches that “every man is bound to make private confession of his sins to God, praying for the pardon thereof”, and asks those who have wronged a brother or the church to confess to them too. James wrote to all of us: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16).

How many times did Jesus say we should forgive?

Peter asked, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21–22). The New International Version reads “seventy-seven times” and gives “seventy times seven” in its note. He was not setting a limit of 490. In Luke he says that even “if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him” (Luke 17:4). The prayer he taught ties the two together: “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).

We forgive because we have been forgiven, like the woman who loved much. Jesus said two sentences to her at the end of that dinner, and he says them still to everyone who comes to him: “Thy sins are forgiven,” and “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:48–50).

Related reading

• 18 Bible verses about being forgiven
• What is God’s forgiveness?
• Does God forgive murder?
• 21 Bible verses about confession and repentance
• 15 Bible verses about forgiving your brother
• Prayers after sinning: confession and forgiveness