That is not true. In reality what some people are saying is that in the New Covenant people don't need to forgive "in order to be forgiven" as in the Old Covenant way.
Your argument is with Jesus and His word, I'm simply repeating what He's taught us.
What you have wrong is that in reality, God will forgive. Just like if we do something wrong at home. We know our parents love us and will forgive us. But they don't forgive us before I wrecked the car or before I forgot to pick up Susie at the dentist.
Forgiveness is in real time. And the idea that if we forgive is because there are those who will not forgive. Those who will not forgive, will not be forgiven either. My opinion is that they are the tares and the false teachers teachers who won't forgive, therefore they won't receive forgiveness either.
But when we are expressing Christ - the new creation in Him - then we will by default as we walk by the spirit forgive because we are one with the ultimate "Forgiver". It will be His life manifesting in and through us to others.
The problem with that is that we aren't obeying the Lord 24/7. We still deal with ugliness of the old man, we still lash out or get angry. We still have jealousies and moments of greed. Fill in the blank. We are all growing and sinning less and less, but as long as we still have our old selves to deal with, we will never reach sinless perfection. We will always need to forgive and there are times we may not want to. That scripture in 1 John is to remind us that forgiveness is necessary for the new creation is Christ. It's one of the ways we can test our faith. If will still have hate in our hearts for our brothers, we are not Christians.
Trying to fit what Peter and Paul said in Acts 10 and 13 - in their word-for-word accounts of preaching the true gospel of the grace of Christ can "conflict" with some of our religious beliefs.
The truth is that they did not say. "you must forgive others before you can receive Christ's forgiveness - obtained by God's riches in grace which He purchased with His own blood for an eternal redemption and the complete forgiveness of sins"
There is no "conditional" forgiveness which is contingent on us forgiving first in the New Covenant which started after the Cross and Jesus fulfilled the law for us.
It's anti-the gospel. It is however 100% the law that we must forgive first in order to receive forgiveness in the law.
We forgive now because we are already forgiven in Christ. This is our new nature in Him in our inner man in Christ being expressed out to others.
Paul says in Eph. 4:22 to put on the new man in Christ - created in righteousness and holiness...then he shows us what this looks like in the next verses including this one below.
Ephesians 4:32 (NASB)
[SUP]32 [/SUP] Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.