to forgive, to give graciously
Charizomai is the verb form of charis, grace. To charizomai someone is to give them grace, to act in their favor, to bestow something they did not earn. In the New Testament it is often translated 'forgive,' but that English word can hide what is happening. Charizomai does not mean to overlook a wrong. It means to release the offender from the debt by an act of pure gift. When Paul writes that God charizomais us our trespasses, he is saying God did not minimize what was done. He paid for it himself and then handed the receipt to us as a gift. The same word turns up when Paul writes to the Colossians: 'forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.' Charizomai on both sides. The horizontal forgiveness is supposed to look like the vertical one. We do not deny the wrong. We do not pretend it didn't happen. We release the debt, by gift, because that is how we have been treated. It also means to give something good, freely. God charizomais all things to those who are in Christ. Forgiveness is the headline, but the same posture flows through the whole relationship. He is a giver. He gives because he wants to.
I spent years trying to forgive people by feeling more okay about what they did. It almost never worked. Charizomai gave me a different definition. Forgiveness is not pretending the wrong did not matter. It is releasing the debt by gift. The wrong stays a wrong. I just stop asking the person to pay it back. That meant I could forgive things I still felt angry about. I could release someone from a debt without telling my emotions to lie. The Greek did not ask me to feel a way. It asked me to make a transfer. And the thing it asked me to remember underneath the transfer is the verse most of us know: as the Lord has charizomai you, so you also charizomai. You are not generating the grace from inside yourself. You are passing on what was given to you.
Charizomai is built directly on charis, the Greek word for grace, favor, gift. The middle voice ending (-omai) makes it personal: it is something the giver does on their own initiative, for someone else's benefit. Same root family as charisma (a grace-gift), eucharisteo (to give thanks, literally 'to grace-back').
Where charizomai appears in Scripture, and why each verse showcases it.
Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Two charizomais in one verse. The vertical sets the standard for the horizontal.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Same pattern. The grace flowing down becomes the grace flowing across.
So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Charizomai is named here as a rescue. Withholding it can crush someone the church should be restoring.
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Charizomai in the second half. The Father's posture is gift. He started with the costliest one and keeps going.
Words in the same semantic family.
Every video where Adam teaches on this word, in publication order.
