Ephesians 4:32
What does Ephesians 4:32 mean?
And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.
The short answer
Ephesians 4:32 is one sentence with three commands and one reason. The commands: be kind to one another, be tender hearted, and forgive each other. The reason: God, in Christ, has already forgiven you. The order matters. Paul does not say, "Forgive others so that God will forgive you." He says the opposite—forgiveness has already happened, and your forgiveness of others flows out of it.
That single word "as" carries the weight of the verse. We forgive in the same manner God forgave us: freely, at cost to himself, without waiting for the other person to earn it. Earlier in this letter Paul described that gift as redemption, the forgiveness of sins, given through Christ (Ephesians 1:7). So the verse is not primarily a demand for moral effort. It is a description of what forgiven people naturally become. If you have received mercy on that scale, mercy toward others stops being an achievement and starts being a response.
Notice too that the verse is not only about forgiveness. Kindness and tenderheartedness come first—warmth of disposition, not just the legal act of canceling a debt. Paul is describing a whole posture toward other people: soft where we are tempted to be hard, generous where we are tempted to keep score.
Finally, the verse sets no limits. It does not name which offenses qualify for forgiveness and which are exempt. Martin Luther pressed this point: since Christ forgives "all sorts of faults," believers are to forgive "in every situation and in every way." No grievance gets carved out. That is a hard word for anyone nursing a real wound, but it is also a freeing one—the standard is not our sense of fairness but the mercy we ourselves have received.
What scholars say
Theologian Donald K. McKim answers the why behind this verse—forgiveness becomes a way of life because in Christ we have already received the forgiveness of sins—and then, drawing on Martin Luther, presses how far it extends: "in every situation and in every way."
“Later in the New Testament, forgiveness is seen as a way of life for Christians. It is in Jesus Christ that we have “redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14; Eph. 1:7). From this forgiveness comes our response as forgiven people—to forgive others: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13).”
“Luther said that as Christ “forgives us all sorts of faults, so we should bear and forgive one another in every situation and in every way.” We remember Paul’s words: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). Forgiveness is called for “in every situation and in every way,” said Luther.”
What it means for you
Start with the person you find hardest to forgive—the family member, the church member, the old friend. Ephesians 4:32 does not ask whether they deserve it; it asks whether you have been forgiven, and answers yes. Forgiving them is not pretending the wrong never happened. It is releasing your claim to repay it, the way God released his claim against you.
Practically, this often begins smaller than a dramatic reconciliation: a softer tone in an argument, a kindness offered before an apology arrives, a decision to stop rehearsing the offense. Tenderheartedness is a habit, built one ordinary interaction at a time.
Ephesians 4 in context
Ephesians splits roughly in half: chapters 1–3 describe what God has done in Christ, and chapters 4–6 describe how to live in response. Chapter 4 opens with a call to walk worthily of that calling, then turns to unity in the church and to putting off the old way of life. Just before verse 32, Paul lists what must go—bitterness, wrath, anger, shouting, slander (4:31). Verse 32 supplies the replacement: kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness, grounded in God's own forgiveness of us.