aphesis

This is the standard word in the New Testament for forgiveness, and it is almost always paired with "of sins" or "of trespasses." It is built on a verb meaning "to send away, let go, release," so the picture underneath it is concrete: a debt is cancelled, a charge is dropped, a prisoner is let out. Forgiveness here is not merely a warm feeling that the offense no longer stings; it is a decisive release, an account closed for good.

That release is repeatedly tied to sacrifice. The blood of the covenant is poured out "for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28), Hebrews states flatly that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22), and once forgiveness is granted, no further offering for sin is needed (Hebrews 10:18). In the letters it stands right beside redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις): believers have "redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7). Redemption is the ransom that frees; forgiveness is the release from guilt that the ransom secures.

The word runs from the preaching of John, who called for "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4), through the message the risen Jesus sends out to all nations (Luke 24:47), to the heart of the apostles' preaching (Acts 2:38; Acts 10:43). It is the pardon God offers, freely given yet grounded in the cross.

In one place the word keeps its plainer, physical sense of release. When Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, he announces that he was sent "to proclaim liberty to the captives" and "to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18). Here the word is not about pardon for sin but about prisoners going free and the crushed being let go.

This usage reaches back to the Old Testament year of release, the Jubilee, when debts were forgiven, slaves freed, and land returned. The Greek Old Testament uses this same word for the liberty proclaimed in that year, and Isaiah borrowed that language to describe God's rescue. Reading it, Jesus claims that the long-promised release has arrived in him.