Ephesians 4:32

Kind... tenderhearted. — “Kindness” is gentleness in bearing with wrong (Luke 6:35; Romans 11:22; Ephesians 2:7; 1 Peter 2:3). “Tenderheartedness” (see 1 Peter 3:8) is more positive warmth of sympathy and love. Both issue in free “forgiveness,” after the model of the universal and unfailing forgiveness “of God in Christ” to us — the only model we dare to follow, suggested by our Saviour Himself in the Lord’s Prayer, and expressly enjoined in Luke 6:36. It is a forgiveness which in us, as in Him, does not imply condonation of evil, or even the withholding of needful chastisement, but which absolutely ignores self, conquers man’s selfish anger, and knows no limit, even up to “seventy times seven.”