Forgiveness is Condemning the Sin but Sparing the Sinner

To be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer. That's what the forgiving God does.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 141.

Forgiveness Does Not Restore Credibility

[F]orgiveness does not restore credibility, and character must be seen as something that can be lost far easier than gained, much less restored.

--Albert Mohler, The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2012), 80.

Unforgiven Nineveh

It should not escape our notice that no language of forgiveness or pardon appears in the story--God relents, but the Ninevites' prior sis remain unpunished....The city believed God's word through Jonah, and abandoned their violence and wickedness in the hope that God would spare them. This is a striking moral reform, but there is nothing in Jonah 3 that requires us to say it was more than that.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 103.

God's Forgiveness Cannot Be Presumed

To be sure, God is gracious and merciful, but his forgiveness cannot be presumed, as if God is duty bound to remove our sins anytime and anywhere we ask him.

--Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 554-555.