Matthew 18:21 ¶ Then came
Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I
forgive him? till seven times? 22 Jesus
saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy
times seven. 23 Therefore is the kingdom
of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his
servants. 24 And when he had begun to
reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord
commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and
payment to be made. 26 The servant
therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me,
and I will pay thee all. 27 Then the
lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him
the debt. 28 But the same servant went
out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and
he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that
thou owest. 29 And his fellowservant
fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I
will pay thee all. 30 And he would not:
but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellowservants saw what was done,
they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.
32 Then his lord, after that he had
called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt,
because thou desiredst me: 33 Shouldest
not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on
thee? 34 And his lord was wroth, and
delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father
do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother
their trespasses.
Continuing with the thoughts from the previous passage Peter seeks
clarification. How many times am I supposed to forgive? Jesus states an extreme
to make a point. You would be foolish to keep a record of how many times you’ve
forgiven someone so you don’t go over 77 times. The point is that we should be
liberal in our willingness to forgive, and to forgive again. This is in the
context of two equals in a church community. It is wicked to say that a child
who has been sexually abused or a person who has been experienced grievous
bodily harm at the hands of a malefactor, a criminal, must forgive especially
if that person is unrepentant or just upset that they got caught. The context
is within the church community, among equals before God.
There is a thought out there that if you can do nothing to get
justice or revenge or getbacks for a wrong you might as well forgive to keep
from having your bitterness burn inside of you. That’s fine but that is not the
intent of this passage which is about your duty before God to forgive a brother
or sister in Christ.
The king in this parable is God who has forgiven more than we can
imagine and we are the servant to whom much has been forgiven, something we
have not been willing to afford others who have wronged us much less than we
have wronged God.
Don’t make the mistake of taking this as a you will lose your
salvation if you don’t forgive a wrong. This is before the Resurrection and the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer. Jesus is making a point here and
to take this hyperliterally means that you will run around paranoid trying to
forgive every slight or act of disrespect and bringing every misunderstanding
before the church. These principles are Christian principles which require us
to bring our complaint to the brother or sister who we believe have wronged us
and then to the church if a couple of Godly friends can’t help. It reinforces
that we are not to go behind the offender’s back but to confront them directly
and we are not to get vengeance but to bring the matter to Godly friends and
then the church but be willing to forgive liberally unless there is no
repentance forthcoming.
Unfortunately, in today’s consumer church a repeat offender just
moves on to a church that doesn’t know their bad behavior.
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