15  Learning to Forgive  (18:21-35)

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him ten thousand talents. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ He was unwilling however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” (18:21-35)

Forgiveness is not natural to man. Because it is so foreign to fleshly human nature, people find it very difficult to forgive others. King Louis XII of France articulated the feeling of many people when he said, “Nothing smells so sweet as the dead body of your enemy.”

Yet nothing so characterizes the new nature of Christians as forgiveness, because nothing so characterizes the nature of their Lord. Jesus’ most striking and humanly incomprehensible words from the cross were, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). After being betrayed, falsely convicted, beaten, spat upon, and unjustly nailed to a cross to die an agonizing death, the Son of God harbored no hatred for His tormentors but instead offered them forgiveness. Following his Lord’s example, Stephen’s last words were, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” (Acts 7:60). He was at that moment being pummelled to death by stones for having committed no greater crime than preaching the gospel, yet his heart was not filled with bitterness but with compassion for his executioners. Forgiveness is the stuff of true godliness.

It is not difficult to forgive children, and most people, especially their parents, do it almost instinctively. We understand that children are uninformed, inexperienced, and immature. We expect them to do some things that are inconsiderate, but we tend to tolerate those things and forgive them, even when they hurt us deeply. It is hard to hold a grudge against a child. That analogy also should be true in a spiritual sense, because all believers are children, as Jesus repeatedly points out in Matthew 18.

Although Joseph had been terribly wronged by his jealous brothers when they sold him into slavery, he held no grudge. Years later, when they were in the midst of a great famine and he was the only person who could help them, he was quick to offer his forgiveness, to embrace them in love, to provide the food they needed, and even to give them the lush region of Goshen to live in. When they had begged his forgiveness and fallen down before him, he “said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (Gen. 50:19-21).

One of the reasons David was a man after God’s own heart was his own forgiving and merciful heart. Although King Saul repeatedly tried to kill David with a javelin and pursued him relentlessly in the hills of Judah with his army, David not only refused to harm Saul because he was the Lord’s anointed but even refused to harbor any hatred against him (see 1 Sam. 24:6, 12; 26:11). In another example, although David was at first enraged by Nabal’s ungrateful refusal to give food and provisions to David’s men who had helped protect Nabal, he was persuaded by Nabal’s wife, Abigail, to withhold revenge. David did not punish Nabal and was grateful to Abigail for bringing him to his senses. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me,” he said to her, “and blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodshed, and from avenging myself by my own hand” (1 Sam. 25:32-33). When Shimei asked David’s forgiveness for having cursed and thrown stones at him, David was quick to show him mercy, despite the insistence of his officers that the man deserved to be put to death (2 Sam. 19:22-23; cf. 16:5-6).

Forgiveness reflects the highest human virtue, because it so clearly reflects the character of God. A person who forgives is a person who emulates godly character. Nothing so much demonstrates God’s love as His forgiveness. A person who does not forgive is therefore a person lacking in godly character and without Christlike love, no matter how orthodox his theology or how outwardly impeccable his morals appear to be. A Christian who will not relinquish a hateful, resentful attitude toward someone who has wronged him is a person who knows neither the true glory of his redeemed humanity nor the true glory of God’s gracious divinity. An unforgiving Christian is a living contradiction of His new nature in Christ. It is central to the heart of God to forgive, and only the Christian who radiates forgiveness radiates true godliness.

Considering forgiveness from another direction, Christians need to forgive because they themselves need forgiveness. They are spiritual children and, like all children, are ignorant, weak, selfish, disobedient, and regularly in need of forgiveness, both from God and from each other. Forgiving is a give-and-take issue of life.

Forgiveness is therefore the key to spiritual unity in the church, because it is the key to love and the key to all meaningful relationships. Only forgiveness can break down the barriers that sin continually and inevitably erects between people, including God’s people. “A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression” (prov. 19:11). Christians are at their best when they are forgiving. Because they themselves have been forgiven so much by God, they, of all people, should be most forgiving of others, especially of fellow believers. Christians are most like their Lord when they forgive “each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven” them (Eph. 4:32). Paul declared the same truth to the Colossians, telling them to bear with one another and forgive one another, “just as the Lord forgave you” (Col. 3:13). Because they have been forgiven every sin by Christ, believers should be willing and eager to forgive each other in everything.

In this closing part of His teaching about believers as children (Matt. 18), Jesus gives a powerful and sobering declaration of the need for believers to be forgiving. Just as a person enters and is considered great in the kingdom only by becoming like a little child (vv. 3-4) and, once in the kingdom, is to be protected like a little child (vv. 5-9), cared for like a little child (vv. 10-14), and disciplined like a little child (vv. 15-20), so also, Jesus now says, must he be forgiven like a little child. In verses 21-35 we first see Peter’s inquiry about forgiveness and then Jesus’ teaching about the extent of God’s forgiveness of believers and a negative example of their duty to forgive each other.

THE INQUIRY ABOUT FORGIVENESS

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” (18:21)

Peter knew human nature and how many times people need forgiveness, often for the same offense. He understood the human tendency to commit a sin, be forgiven, and then before long commit the same sin or some other equally as bad.

In light of Jesus’ teaching about discipline in the church, Peter wondered how many times Christians as a body and as individuals were obliged to forgive fellow believers who persisted in wrongdoing. How many times should they be allowed to repent and be restored to fellowship?

As pointed out in the previous chapter, Jesus’ teaching about discipline includes both direct and indirect offenses. Believers are to rebuke a sinning brother or sister for any sin. And they are to bring the offender before the church if that becomes necessary, because every sin not only is directly against God but is also either directly or indirectly against the church and every individual believer. “Be on your guard,” Jesus said on another occasion. “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him” (Luke 17:3). The commands to rebuke and to forgive cover any sin a fellow believer may commit, not just those committed directly against us.

Commendably Peter personalized Jesus’ teaching, and his primary concern at this time was about his own responsibility. He therefore asked, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?”

Throughout the discourse of chapter 18, Jesus was speaking about believers, whom He refers to as little ones, children, sheep, and brothers (vv. 3-6, 10, 12, 14, 15). From His reference to my brother, it is clear that Peter also was thinking about a believer, represented by himself, forgiving other believers.

We are greatly indebted to Peter for many things, one of which was his penchant for asking questions. He wanted to be sure he understood what Jesus’ words and actions meant, and his inquisitive mind elicited much wonderful teaching from the Lord. God blesses those who ask sincere questions of Him, because He blesses those who sincerely seek to know Him and His truth. “You will seek Me and find Me,” he said through Jeremiah, “when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13).

Peter’s question was: “Does forgiveness have a limit? Granted that a person who commits an offense and repents should be forgiven and restored a few times. But what if he continually falls into sin, over and over again? How often must I forgive him?”

Perhaps to demonstrate how magnanimous he thought he was, Peter suggested a limit of seven times, which was more than twice that allowed by Jewish tradition. Using references in the book of Amos (see 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; cf. Job 33:29), the rabbis had taken a repeated statement by God against neighboring enemies of Israel and made it into a universal rule for limiting God’s forgiveness and, by extension, also man’s. If God forgives men only three times, they spuriously reasoned, it is unnecessary and even presumptuous for men to forgive each other more times than that. Rabbi Jose ben Hanina, for instance, said, “He who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do so more than three times.” Rabbi Jose ben Jehuda said, “If a man commits an offense once, they forgive him; if he commits an offense a second time, they forgive him; if he commits an offense a third time, they forgive him; the fourth time they do not forgive him.”

Peter therefore probably thought Jesus would be impressed with the seemingly generous suggestion of up to seven times. Compared to Jewish tradition, it was generous and no doubt was based on Peter’s growing understanding of Jesus’ teaching and personal example of compassion and mercy. Realizing that the Lord’s graciousness was in marked contrast to the self-centered legalism of the scribes and Pharisees, Peter doubled their narrow limit for forgiveness and added one more time for good measure.

THE EXTENT OF FORGIVENESS

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (18:21b-22)

Peter was still thinking like the scribes and Pharisees and like fallen human nature is always inclined to think. He was thinking in the measurable and limited terms of law, not the immeasurable and unlimited terms of grace. Law keeps count; grace does not. Therefore Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

The Lord was not extending the legal limit of forgiveness. He was not speaking of law or limits at all. By seventy times seven He did not mean 490. He simply picked up on Peter’s number and multiplied it by itself and then by ten, indicating a number that, for all practical purposes, was beyond counting. Record keeping is not to be considered, and a Christian with a forgiving heart thinks nothing about it. He forgives the hundredth offense or the thousandth just as readily and graciously as the first—because that is the way he is forgiven by God.

Perhaps Jesus had in mind Lamech’s arrogant boast that “if Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gen. 4:24). The inclination of sinful man is to return evil for evil without limit. God’s standard is just the opposite; Jesus said to return good for evil without limit.

Even if a brother “sins against you seven times a day,” the Lord said on another occasion, “and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him” (Luke 17:4). Jesus was not setting a daily limit, but rather the opposite. He was speaking of repeated, regular sinning that is committed many times a day, day after day, and of corresponding repeated forgiveness. He was saying that even if a fellow Christian sins against you every day for seven times each day, you should be ready and willing to forgive him that often. The faithful, godly Christian will never allow his own forgiveness to be surpassed by a brother’s sin. Reflecting his heavenly Father’s nature, where sin against him increases, so does his gracious forgiveness (cf. Rom. 5:20).

Of that paralleling extent of forgiveness, Paul declared that Christians are to be “forgiving [of] each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). Commenting on the rarity of such grace among believers, John Wesley wrote, “If this be Christianity, where do Christians live?”

THE EXAMPLE OF FORGIVENESS

For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him ten thousand talents. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ He was unwilling however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” (18:23-35)

This parable is so severe that many people conclude that the principle Jesus teaches through it could not possibly apply to believers. But just as it is sometimes necessary for a parent to deal harshly with a persistently disobedient child, it is also sometimes necessary for the Lord to deal harshly with His disobedient family. The writer of Hebrews reminded his readers of what the Lord had taught His people almost a thousand years earlier: “Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6; cf. Prov. 3:12). Some of the Corinthian believers had become so immoral and impenitent that God put them on sickbeds and even caused some to die (1 Cor. 11:30). He struck Ananias and Sapphira dead for lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-10). The Lord is sometimes stringent with His errant children because that is sometimes the only way He can correct their disobedience and protect the purity and holiness of His church.

Jesus introduces the parable by specifically stating that it is about the kingdom of heaven, whose true citizenship includes only believers. Not only that, but He tells the parable for this reason, that is, as a direct response to Peter’s question about forgiving a brother (v. 21), which in turn was a response to His teaching about discipline within the church (vv. 15-20). Peter himself obviously was a believer, and his reference to “brother” indicates a fellow believer, especially in light of the fact that chapter 18 focuses on believers, the Lord’s “little ones who believe in [Him]” (v. 6; cf. v. 10). Jesus is illustrating the need for believers to forgive each other.

As already seen in Matthew 13, much of the Lord’s teaching about the kingdom of heaven was given in the form of parables. In the present parable Jesus presents the attitude of God, the certain king, concerning forgiveness of and by His subjects, the slaves. The citizens of God’s kingdom are also children in His heavenly family, and the parable speaks of Him both as Lord, represented by the king, and as heavenly Father (v. 35).

Slaves is here used in the broadest sense of those in submission to a sovereign, as all subjects of ancient monarchies were, regardless of their rank or wealth. All citizens of an ancient kingdom were slaves in the sense that they owed total allegiance to the king, who typically had life and death power over them. In that sense, noblemen were as much the king’s slaves as were the most menial servants. Those extremes are suggested in the parable, indicating that its truth applies to every believer, every citizen of the kingdom of heaven. The first slave was obviously of high rank and probably possessed considerable personal wealth, whereas the fellow slave whom he refused to forgive the debt was perhaps relatively poor.

A king usually appointed governors, or satraps, over the various provinces of his kingdom, and their primary responsibility was to collect taxes on his behalf. It was probably in regard to such taxes that the king . . . wished to settle accounts, and the man who owed the king ten thousand talents was probably such a tax-collecting official. In any case, he was a person with great responsibility who owed a great amount of money to the king.

The occasion was perhaps the regular, periodic time that the king had established to settle accounts with His governors. The idea of an ultimate end-of-life accounting, representing God’s final judgment, does not correspond to the way a ruler normally collected taxes from his officials. Nor does it fit the fact that the forgiven man went on with normal relationships with other men. The accounting could not represent God’s final judgment, because, after he was judged, the man would have had no more opportunity either to forgive or to be forgiven.

Just as “seventy times seven” (v. 22) represents a limitless number of times, ten thousand talents represents a limitless amount of money. Because monetary values change so widely from one point in history to another, it is never possible to calculate accurately how much a given coin of an ancient society would be worth in modern currency. And that is not necessary to make the point. But historical records give considerable light on the immense value that ten thousand talents would have had in Jesus’ day.

From historical documents of the time it has been determined that the total annual revenue collected by the Roman government from Idumea, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee was about 900 talents. Based on those figures, ten thousand talents amounted to more than eleven years of taxes from those four provinces. From the Old Testament we learn that the total amount of gold given for use in the Temple was just over 8,000 talents (1 Chron. 29:4, 7) and that “the weight of gold which came in to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold” (1 Kings 10:14).

Although murias literally means ten thousand, because it was the largest numerical term in the Greek language it was also used figuratively to represent a vast, uncountable number. In that sense it has the same connotation as the English myriad, which is derived from it. Murias is therefore sometimes translated “countless” (1 Cor. 4:15) or “myriads” (Rev 5:11). Jesus’ point in this parable, therefore, was that the man who owed the king ten thousand talents owed an incalculable and unpayable debt.

That incalculable, unpayable debt represents the debt for sin that every man owes God. When the Holy Spirit convicts a person of his sin (John 16:8), that person is faced with the fact that the extent of his sin is beyond comprehension and humanly unpayable. Like Paul when he saw his sin in the clear light of God’s law, every convicted sinner has a glimpse of the utter sinfulness of sin (Rom. 7:13). It is such a glimpse that Job had of himself and that caused him to “repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6), and it is such a glimpse that Ezra had of himself and his fellow Israelites that caused him to pray, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to Thee, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads, and our guilt has grown even to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6).

Life is a stewardship from God to be used for His glory. Unbelievers take life from God, and, rather than returning it to Him wisely invested for His glory and making the most of what used to be called “gospel privilege,” they squander it on themselves. They are like the prodigal son and the slave who buried his talent in the ground, both of whom Jesus used to illustrate wasted “gospel privilege.”

Regardless of how much harm a sin does to other people, it is first of all an offense against God. In his great penitential psalm David declared, “Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight” (Ps. 51:4). Every sin ever committed is committed against God. And every sin is committed in His sight, just as surely as if it were committed, were that possible, before His very throne in heaven.

The slave, then, represents the unbeliever who has been given the knowledge of God (Rom. l:18ff.), life from God (Acts 17:25), and the opportunity to give God what is due Him (cf. Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:16) but squanders God’s property in sin.

Because the man in Jesus’ parable did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. The man not only embezzled what belonged to the king but consumed it on himself until nothing was left. That is the state of the bankrupt sinner! The payment to be made from the proceeds of selling his family into servitude and redeeming all his personal possessions would not have paid a fraction of the debt, but it was exacted as a punishment and so the king could get at least a portion of what he was due.

Just as the unpayable amount of money in the parable is a picture of man’s unpayable debt for sin, the punishment mentioned here makes one think of hell, where condemned men will spend eternity paying for the unpayable. The glory stolen from God by man cannot be repaid by man, and therefore, even after spending an eon in hell, a person would be no nearer paying his debt and being fit for heaven than when he entered. The utter spiritual bankruptcy of every child of Adam makes it impossible for him to pay the limitless debt he has incurred because of his sin.

By the standards of that day the king in the parable had been gracious just by his not demanding an accounting earlier. In an infinitely greater way God is gracious to the most hardened sinner just in allowing him to go on living. Life itself is a great gift of divine mercy.

But there will be a day, and often many days, when every man faces the King to give account for what he is doing with his life. This is not a picture of a final judgment day but of a time of conviction when men are made to face their sin and the need for salvation. It depicts the times when the gospel is preached or the Scripture is read or a personal witness is given to them. They are faced with the reality that they have to give God an accounting for their sinful life.

Realizing his inexcusable guilt and sensing the king’s goodness, the slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him. His falling down and prostrating himself was more than the usual homage given a king. It was an act of total submission, of throwing himself completely on the monarch’s mercy. The man was guilty, condemned, devastated, and genuinely penitent. He had no defense and offered none.

In the same way, the sinner confronted by the Holy Spirit with the gospel and the conviction of his sin should acknowledge that he stands guilty and condemned before God. And in the same way his only hope is to humble himself, confess his sin, and cast himself upon God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. Every sinner should be overwhelmed by his sin as that man was overwhelmed by his debt. He should have the attitude of the tax collector who “was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’” (Luke 18:13). The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12) express the contrite attitude of this repentant sinner, who in spiritual bankruptcy mourns over his sin and cries out for the righteousness of salvation.

As the man lay broken at the feet of the king, he did not realize that he could never have repaid the debt no matter how long and hard he worked. But his terrible plight prompted the desperate plea, “Have patience with me,” and then the unrealistic promise, “I will repay you everything.” Impossible as the prospect was, he nevertheless begged for a chance to make good on his debt. His understanding was faulty, but his attitude was right.

When first convicted of their sin, people are often inclined to make promises to God similar to the one the man gave to the king. A person under conviction will sometimes say, “I’ve got to shape up my life and be a better person. I must turn over a new leaf, make some resolutions, and reform myself.” He acknowledges his sin and sincerely wants to make amends, not yet realizing that he cannot.

Commenting on the servant in this parable, Martin Luther wrote,

Before the king drew him to account, he had no conscience, does not feel the debt, and would have gone right along, made more debt, and cared nothing about it. But now that the king reckons with him, he begins to feel the debt. So it is with us. The greater part does not concern itself about sin, goes on securely, fears not the wrath of God. Such people cannot come to the forgiveness of sin, for they do not come to realize that they have sins. They say, indeed, with the mouth that they have sin; but if they were serious about it they would speak far otherwise. This servant, too, says, before the king reckons with him, so much I owe to my lord, namely ten thousand talents; . . . But now that the reckoning is held, and his lord orders him, his wife, his children, and everything to be sold, now he feels it. So, too, we feel in earnest when our sins are revealed in the heart, when the record of our debts is held before us. . . . Then we exclaim: I am the most miserable man, there is none as unfortunate as I on the earth! Such knowledge makes a real humble man, works contrition, so that one can come to the forgiveness of sins.

The king well knew that, despite his good intentions, the servant could never do what he promised; but he did not chide the man for his foolish and worthless offer. Rather, the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt.

Here is an extraordinary picture of God’s compassionate love for the genuinely repentant sinner who throws himself on His mercy. The man only asked for patience so that he might try to repay the king, but instead the king released him and forgave him the debt. That is what God does with the sin debt of those who come to Him in humble and sincere penitence.

It must be noted that this parable is not intended to present every aspect of salvation. Obviously the Person and work of Christ and the essence of saving faith in that work are not portrayed. The purpose of our Lord here was to illustrate the matter of forgiveness between believers, and the story is limited to that idea. It simply depicts a man with an unpayable debt, who sought mercy and was given it abundantly.

Daneion (debt) literally means “loan,” implying that in his graciousness the king considered the embezzled fortune a loan and then forgave it. Even more graciously does God forgive the sinner who confesses his sin and trusts in Jesus Christ. The moment a person acknowledges the sinfulness of his sin and turns to the only Savior from sin, his mountain of debt to God is paid in full forever.

It was not until the prodigal son reached the absolute bottom of life that he faced up to his wicked foolishness. He had forsaken his father and his family and lived an utterly selfish and debauched life in a foreign and pagan land. And when his money was gone, so were his high living and his supposed friends. The only work he could find was the most demeaning conceivable for a Jew, slopping pigs. While in the pigpen he “came to his senses” and said to himself, “How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.’” But even before the son spoke those words to his father, “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him.” The father did not chide or rebuke him, nor did he accept the son’s offer to be only a hired hand. Rather he commanded “his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found’” (Luke 15:11-24).

One commentator suggests that when the father ran out to meet his son he must have had to gather up his long robe under his arms and thereby expose his undergarments, a great shame for an older, dignified man of that day. But the father had no concern but to be reunited with his beloved son whom he had given up for dead.

In an infinitely greater way, God allowed Himself to be humiliated as He came to earth, emptying “Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant” (Phil. 2:7). To redeem fallen men back to Himself, He willingly and lovingly “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

What happens next in the parable seems inconceivable—until we realize that each one of us is guilty, in various ways, of doing what that forgiven slave did. He went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, “Pay back what you owe.”

The implication is that the first thing the forgiven slave did after he left the king’s presence was to search out a fellow slave who owed him some money and violently demand repayment of a mere pittance compared to the vast amount he himself had just been forgiven.

The second man’s being described as one of his fellow slaves suggests that he represents a fellow believer and that the principle Jesus teaches here primarily relates to believers’ treatment of each other. Although Christians should be forgiving of everyone, they should be especially forgiving of one another, because they are fellow slaves who serve the same King.

A hundred denarii represented a hundred days’ wages for a common laborer in New Testament times, an infinitesimal sum compared to ten thousand talents, which, as already noted, amounted to some eleven years of Roman taxes from the provinces of Idumea, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee combined.

Although the second debt was extremely small by comparison to the first, it was nevertheless a real debt and represents a real offense committed by one believer against another. If the offense were not real, it would need no forgiveness. Jesus was not teaching that sins against fellow believers or against anyone else are insignificant but that they are minute compared to the offenses every one of us has committed against God and for which He has freely and completely forgiven us.

The power of the sinful flesh that remains in a transformed believer is seen in the first servant’s hardheartedness against his fellow servant, who perhaps was a low echelon official responsible for collecting taxes from a small village within the province governed by the first servant. Even so, the first man was much further removed from the king in status than he was from the other servant, and the amount of debt he had been forgiven by the king was immeasurably greater than the amount he refused to forgive his fellow servant. Those two facts should have made the man not only especially grateful but especially merciful. His inclination should have been to search out his fellow slave to forgive him rather than condemn him. There is no indication, however, that his own experience of mercy made him grateful, and it clearly did not make him merciful. Instead, he became proud, presumptuous, and hardhearted.

Unfortunately, as Christians we sometimes reflect a similar arrogance and insensitivity. Although we have been totally and forever forgiven of all offenses before God, on the basis of His grace, we often act as if we were forgiven on the basis of our own merit. We may even look down on our brothers and sisters in Christ with disdain and a sense of superiority.

Instead of reflecting the king’s compassion, the first servant became angry at the thought that he himself was still owed some money. When he found his debtor, he seized him and began to choke him, saying, “Pay me back what you owe.” According to ancient Roman writers, it was not uncommon for a creditor to actually wrench a debtor’s neck until blood ran from his nose.

This kind of behavior seems unthinkable, even bizarre, and it is hard to believe someone could act in such a way. And that is exactly the Lord’s point to Peter and the other disciples. For Christians to be unwilling to forgive one another is unthinkable and bizarre.

The self-deceptive nature of the flesh is such that sometimes anger and vengeance override even greed, and self-will overshadows even self-interest. A person who is severely strangled or beaten, not to mention imprisoned, is put in a poor position to earn money to repay a debt. Even from a purely practical standpoint, such debt-collecting practices are foolish and counterproductive, but they have persisted throughout history and even into modern times.

The subordinate official made his plea with exactly the same words his creditor had used before the king: “Have patience with me and I will repay you” (cf. v. 26). That should have shocked the forgiven slave’s memory into a right response, but those familiar words evoked no sympathetic reaction in him, even though the debt he had been forgiven would have been unrepayable in a lifetime, whereas the debt owed to him was payable by a few months’ work.

With unimaginable callousness, the forgiven slave was unwilling however, but went and threw his subordinate in prison until he should pay back what was owed. Even to ask for repayment after he himself had been forgiven so much was grossly insensitive; to abuse and imprison his debtor for failure to repay so little was, in the words of one commentator, a “moral monstrosity,” to say nothing of foolishness, because in prison the man could not earn money to pay his debt. Such unforgiveness not only is morally unthinkable and bizarre but irrational.

Yet as both Scripture and personal experience make clear, that is the way Christians sometimes treat each other. The parable is an unflattering picture of the sinful flesh that still resides in every believer and that has caused great conflict and damage within the church since its birth.

The church at Corinth was not typical of early congregations, but it shows clearly the extremes to which the flesh can lead those who belong to Christ and who possess His own nature and Spirit. The wealthier members there had no sensitivity for their poorer brethren, eating their own food at the Lord’s Supper and leaving nothing for and embarrassing those who had nothing (1 Cor. 11:22). And rather than resolving their differences among themselves, they brought each other before pagan courts (6:1).

Paul instructed Titus to remind the believers under his care “to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.” He then gives the reason God commands those virtues of His children:

For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:2-7)

Jesus’ point in the parable is the same as Paul’s here: Those who have been graciously, totally, and permanently forgiven by God for their immeasurable sins against Him are to act like the divine children and heirs they have become by reflecting the love and compassion of their heavenly Father. They are to “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven [them]” (Eph.4:32).

Believers still have the capacity to give way to the sinful, spiteful ways of their unredeemed humanness, but “even so,” Paul says, “consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts” (Rom. 6:11-12).

Knowing of the great debt the first slave had been forgiven by the king and his subsequent treatment of his indebted slave, the fellow slaves were understandably indignant that this man would, in effect, place himself above the king by acting as if he had a right to be less gracious and merciful than his sovereign. Therefore, when they saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened.

Christians should be deeply grieved when a fellow believer is unforgiving, because his hardness of heart not only tends to drive the offender deeper into sin but also causes dissention and division within the church, tarnishes its testimony before the world, and deeply grieves the Lord Himself.

The other slaves went to the king with the awful story, expecting that proper action would be taken against the unforgiving creditor. This feature of the parable forms an interesting insight into the believer’s responsibility not only to go through the steps of disciplining a sinning brother but to petition the Lord Himself to act in chastening and purging the ungracious sinning child of God.

As would be expected, the king was incensed when he heard the news, and summoning him, his lord said to him, “You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?”

When a Christian allows remaining sin to control an attitude or action, he is being wicked, because sin is always sin, whether committed by a believer or unbeliever. The sin of unforgiveness is in some ways even more wicked in a believer, because he has infinitely greater motivation and power to be forgiving than does a person who has never experienced God’s redeeming grace. How can a person accept God’s mercy for all his sin, an unpayable debt, and then not forgive some small offense committed against himself?

It is not that the king expected the first slave to give his subordinate a chance to repay the debt but that he expected him to have had mercy on his fellow slave and to forgive his debt entirely, even as the king had had mercy on the forgiven slave and had forgiven his debt entirely. Again, the principle of Ephesians 4:32 is directly parallel.

And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. On the earlier occasion, the first slave’s plea for patience had moved the king to compassion and forgiveness. Now the man’s refusal to forgive his fellow servant moved the king to anger.

Because He is holy and just, God is always moved with anger at sin, including the sin of His children. Paul expressed something of this kind of righteous anger toward unrepentant church members at Corinth when he asked them if they were going to continue in sin and make him come to them with a rod (1 Cor. 4:21).

God has holy indignation whenever a Christian sins (cf. Ps. 6; Acts 5:1-10). As chastening for his sin, the unforgiving slave was handed over to the torturers (not executioners) until he should repay all that was owed him, that is, until he had a change of heart and forgave his offending brother, which is what the king wanted him to repay. Lord Herbert once said, “He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.”

Some commentators contend that the first slave was reencumbered with the debt he had been forgiven and became obligated to pay it all back. But that interpretation hopelessly convolutes the parable by making either the salvation temporary or the forgiveness conditional on one’s subsequent behavior. Both views are undesirable. Furthermore, the original debt was said to be unpayable and the man was still without resources, so it would make no sense to reassign him the debt with the provision that it must be paid in full. It is much better to see the repayment simply as the proper duty a believer owes the Lord. In this case, it would mean forgiving your brother any offense.

God does not chasten His children out of hatred but out of love. “Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). He does not chasten them to drive them away but to bring them back to Himself and to His righteousness. “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness” (v. 10). Every Christian feels the Lord’s scourging at some time or another, because every Christian deserves His discipline occasionally. It is natural that God’s “discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (v. 11).

When believers forget their own divine forgiveness by God and refuse to extend human forgiveness to fellow believers, the Lord puts them under such torturers (the word can refer to inquisitors) as stress, hardship, pressure, or other difficulties until the sin is confessed and forgiveness is granted. As James tells us, “Judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy” (James 2:13).

That is what Jesus unmistakably declared to be the parable’s point: So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. The unforgiving believer (you) will satisfy God only by offering his own forgiveness to those who sin against him, most especially his brother in Christ.

Jesus is not speaking here of the forgiveness that brings salvation, saying that God only saves those who are forgiving. That would be works righteousness. He is speaking of people forgiving each other after they have experienced His free grace. Those who are saved, transformed, given a new nature in Christ, and have the indwelling Holy Spirit generally will manifest that changed life by having a forgiving attitude (see Matt. 6:14-15). But there will be times when we fall into the sin of unforgiveness, and this instruction is for those times.

As mentioned earlier, if the first man does not represent a Christian, a person who has been forgiven by God for his immeasurable debt of sin, the instruction in the context of the parable completely breaks down. Jesus was speaking to the Twelve, who not only were believers but apostles. All believers, no matter what their position or accomplishments in the church might be, are held accountable to forgive every offense against them committed by fellow believers, for the very reason that they themselves have already been forgiven an incalculable debt by God. They are expected to reflect God’s forgiveness because they have experienced God’s forgiveness.

Believers experience two kinds of forgiveness by God. The first is once and for all and is permanent. When a person trusts in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, all of his sins—past, present, and future—are judicially forgiven, totally and eternally. But because believers are still subject to the temptations and weaknesses of the flesh, they fall into sin even after they are saved. For that sin they need God’s daily forgiveness and cleansing, not to preserve their salvation but to restore the broken relationship with the Lord that the sin causes. Jesus had these two aspects of forgiveness in mind when He said, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean” (John 13:10).

Believers’ forgiveness of each other has no power to absolve or cleanse sin as God’s forgiveness has absolved and continues to cleanse theirs. Nevertheless their forgiveness of each other should reflect the two kinds of forgiveness they receive from God. They are to have in their hearts an internal, general spirit of forgiveness that is ready to forgive even before they know of a sin committed against them and whether or not the person has asked or ever asks for forgiveness. That forgiveness should be constant and unchanging, reflecting a divinely empowered love that Peter says “covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). If and when the offending person repents, then relational forgiveness is readily given and the broken relationship is fully restored.

Christians are to be marked as forgiving people, because they have been forgiven as no others on earth. When they are not forgiving, they are living in opposition to their new nature in Christ. When they refuse to forgive fellow Christians they cut themselves off from God’s relational forgiveness that cleanses them of the sins they continue to commit. They also forfeit the inner peace, power, and depth of spiritual life that only close communion with the Lord can produce. When a believer falls into a time of spiritual shallowness and indifference, the cause is often a heart that is unforgiving because it has allowed the flesh to vault itself into prominence.

An anonymous saint of long ago wrote,

Revenge, indeed, seems often sweet to men; but, oh, it is only sugared poison, only sweetened gall, and its aftertaste is bitter as hell. Forgiving, enduring love alone is sweet and blissful; it enjoys peace and the consciousness of God’s favour. By forgiving, it gives away and annihilates the injury. It treats the injurer as if he had not injured, and therefore feels no more the smart and sting that he had inflicted. Forgiveness is a shield from which all the fiery darts of the wicked one harmless rebound. Forgiveness brings heaven to earth, and heaven’s peace into the sinful heart. Forgiveness is the image of God, the forgiving Father, and an advancement of Christ’s kingdom in the world.

“Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus said, “for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7). If we want mercy and cleansing from the Lord for our repeated sins against Him, we must be willing, from our heart, to offer mercy to fellow Christians even for repeated offenses against us. Then we can pray with confidence, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).

Genuine forgiveness that is from your heart is trusting forgiveness, forgiveness that sees the offending brother just as he was before he sinned. If we truly forgive a person, we trust him just as we trusted him before. We do not hold the offense over his head or even in our minds, thinking that he will likely sin again.

Although sin against God, the church, and a fellow brother in Christ can bring long-lasting pain and suffering, and sometimes even permanent loss of a once-cherished intimacy, the road to full restoration can be paved with generosity and trust. For example, to entrust a forgiven person with something that is dear and important to you is perhaps the surest evidence that the forgiveness is genuinely from the heart. If the offense was stealing, the offender can again be entrusted with something precious. If the offense was shirking responsibility, he can be given other important work to do. Even if the offense was slander, he again can be trusted with your reputation and become a friend who is fully loved and fully trusted.

To forgive is not necessarily to forget. Although the truly forgiving person will refuse to dwell on an offense, there are sometimes continual reminders of it that we cannot control. Nor does forgiveness involve excusing a sinful offense. Sin is always sin, and true love and mercy never try to make sin anything but what it is. But forgiveness does involve ending the bitterness, anger, and resentment that not only do not remove a sin but rather add to it.

Heart forgiveness is not possible for the believer in his own power. Genuine forgiveness is not natural but supernatural and is possible only as the indwelling Holy Spirit empowers. Only as we “walk by the Spirit” are we able not to “carry out the desire of the flesh,” which, among other things, is to hold a grudge rather than forgive. “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal. 5:16-17).

The great commentator William Arnot told the following account to illustrate how believers are enabled to obey the command to forgive each other. After fording a river, a traveler in Burma discovered that his body was covered with small leeches, busily sucking his blood. His first impulse was to pull them off, but his servant warned him against it, explaining that to do that would leave part of the leeches buried in the skin and cause serious infection. The native prepared a warm bath for the man and added certain herbs to the water that irritated but did not kill the leeches. One by one they voluntarily dropped off. “Each unforgiven injury rankling in the heart is like a leech sucking the life-blood,” Arnot goes on to explain. “Mere human determination to have done with it will not cast the evil thing away. You must bathe your whole being in God’s pardoning mercy; and those venomous creatures will instantly let go their hold.”

When someone says or does something against us that seems unforgivable, it is helpful to offer a prayer such as this: “O God, put in me the heart of forgiveness, so that I may commune with You in the fullness of fellowship and joy and not experience the chastening that comes when You don’t forgive me because I won’t forgive a brother or sister in Christ. May I remember that for everyone who sins against me I have multiplied times sinned against You, and You have always forgiven me. At no time has any of my sin caused me to forfeit my eternal life; therefore, no one else’s sin should cause them to forfeit my love and my mercy toward them.”