Do I have to forgive someone who has never repented of what they did to me?
This question usually comes up when a person has encountered what Jesus says in Luke 17:3-4:
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4 ESV)
There it does kind of sound like forgiveness is conditional upon repentance: “if he repents, forgive him”. However, that text needs to be held in tension with what Jesus says in passages like Mark 11:25:
“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25 ESV).