This statement, IMO, actually creates much of the confusion about forgiveness. To start with, forgiveness is actually about one’s own anger and resentment, and letting go of these, because as St. Augustine is quoted as saying, “Unforgiveness is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die.”

God has no need to forgive, because God is not going to be holding onto anger and resentment, all the while fabricating elaborate stories about us in his head, because of something, anything at all, we might do. OK, maybe the Old Testament God was like that , but that was not the God that Jesus spoke of.

This statement essentially puts forgiveness in the purview of authority figures, like a judge deciding the sentence on a convicted criminal. True forgiveness, as you suggest, is not about exoneration! It is not to be bestowed on us by someone else. It is ours to bestow upon ourselves. That’s what most people miss. Which is too bad, because it is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.