Matthew 18:21-35 (NKJV)
Forgiveness
April 14, 2024
Forgiveness is the act of excusing or pardoning another in spite of his slights, shortcomings, and errors. As a theological term, forgiveness refers to God's pardon of the sins of human beings.
Sin deserves divine punishment because it is a violation of God's holy character (Gen 2:17; Rom 1:18-32; 1 Peter 1:16), but His pardon is gracious (Ps 130:4; Rom 5:6-8). In order for God to forgive sin, two conditions are necessary. A life must be taken as a substitute for that of the sinner (Lev 17:11,14; Heb 9:22), and the sinner must come to God's sacrifice in a spirit of repentance and faith (Mark 1:4; Acts 10:43; James 5:15).
Forgiveness in the New Testament is directly linked to Christ (Acts 5:31; Col 1:14), His sacrificial death on the cross (Rom 4:24), and His resurrection (2 Cor 5:15). He was the morally perfect sacrifice (Rom 8:3), the final and ultimate fulfillment of all Old Testament sacrifices (Heb 9:11-10:18). Since He bore the law's death penalty against sinners (Gal 3:10-13), those who trust in His sacrifice are freed from that penalty. By faith sinners are forgiven-"justified" in Paul's terminology (Rom 3:28; Gal 3:8-9). Those who are forgiven sin's penalty also die to its controlling power in their lives (Rom 6).
Christ's resurrection was more than proof of His deity or innocence; it was related in a special way to His forgiveness. Christ's resurrection was an act by which God wiped out the false charges against Him; it was God's declaration of the perfect righteousness of His Son, the Second Adam, and of His acceptance of Christ's sacrifice (1 Tim 3:16). Because He has been acquitted and declared righteous, this is also true for those whom He represents. Thus, Christ's resurrection was a necessary condition for the forgiveness of man's sins (1 Cor 15:12-28). To be forgiven is to be identified with Christ in His crucifixion and resurrection.
Christ has the authority to forgive sins (Matt 1:21; Heb 9:11-10:18). This forgiveness is an essential part of the gospel message (Acts 2:38; 5:31). But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (attributing to Satan a deed done by Jesus through the power of God's Spirit) is an unpardonable sin (Mark 3:28-29) - not because God cannot or will not forgive such a sin but because such a hard-hearted person has put himself beyond the possibility of repentance and faith.
God's forgiveness of us demands that we forgive others, because grace brings responsibility and obligation (Matt 18:23-35; Luke 6:37). Jesus placed no limits on the extent to which Christians are to forgive their fellowmen (Matt 18:22,35; Luke 17:4). A forgiving spirit shows that one is a true follower of Christ (Matt 5:43-48; Mark 11:25). (NELSON)
And yet forgiveness is one of the most widely misunderstood doctrines of Scripture. It is not to be confused with human forgiveness that merely remits a penalty or charge. Divine forgiveness is one of the most complicated and costly undertakings, demanding complete satisfaction to meet the demands of God's outraged holiness.
In the Old Testament. "The priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven" (Lev 4:20). However, OT sacrifices had only a typical significance and served as a covering (Heb. ?kapar?, "to cover, to aid," Deut 21:8; Gen 50:17; etc.) from sin until the appointed time when God should deal finally with sin through the death of Christ. It is thus obvious that the transaction was to some extent incomplete on the divine side. Of necessity sin was let pass. However, the offender received full forgiveness (cf. Rom 3:25; Acts 17:30).
For the Believer Who Sins. The great foundational truth respecting the believer in relationship to his sins is the fact that his salvation comprehends the forgiveness of all his trespasses past, present, and future so far as condemnation is concerned (Rom 8:1; Col 2:13; John 3:18; 5:24). Since Christ has vicariously borne all sin and since the believer's standing in Christ is complete, he is perfected forever in Christ. When a believer sins, he is subject to chastisement from the Father but never to condemnation with the world (1 Cor 11:31-32). By confession the Christian is forgiven and restored to fellowship (1 John 1:9). It needs to be remembered that were it not for Christ's finished work on the cross and His present intercession in heaven, the least sin would result in the sinner's banishment from God's presence and eternal ruin.
As an Obligation Among Men. The believer who belongs to this age is exhorted to be kind to believers and unbelievers, tenderhearted and forgiving to one another "as God in Christ also has forgiven you" (Eph 4:32). The basis of the plea for such forgiveness is that one has been himself so graciously forgiven. (UNGER)
The Petition
Has the Church seriously faced and courageously preached the assertion of Jesus that Divine forgiveness and human willingness to forgive are joined together? What can a reverent mind say of a pardon so indiscriminate as to require only that a man walk down a sawdust trail and shake hands with a preacher? If forgiveness is so cheap, wrong-doing cannot be so costly! If pardon is by "wave of hand," sin cannot be heinous! Should we not study the conditions of forgiveness, among which the will to forgive is always and necessarily included?
The message of Jesus in this regard is unequivocal. "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Matthew 6:14 . "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Matthew 6:12. (How can we pray that prayer so glibly?) "So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts." Mathew 18:35. The message is too frequent and spoken with too sharp an emphasis ever to be denied. It comes close to home. There may be peaceful souls who cherish no grudges and nurse no bitterness. Most men have opportunity for the exercise of forgiving grace, and, if the offence is slight, most men are ready to forgive; but stern rebuffs are remembered with resentment and sometimes with revenge. Thus, the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant strikes deep as it gives warning that our unwillingness to forgive one another bars the door against God's willingness to forgive us.
The parable arose from Peter's question: "How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times?" The Jewish law appears to have required forgiveness until three times. Presumably it allowed a man who had forgiven his enemy three times, to regard him thereafter with implacable hostility. Perhaps Peter with his "till seven times" was eager to appear magnanimous. Jesus swept the suggestion aside, and asserted that forgiveness is not cheese-paring arithmetic but an overflowing spirit: "I say not unto thee until seven times; but, until seventy times seven." The parable is spoken to illuminate the command.
The Parable
The leading character is a man who being left in charge of a king's realm proved so unfaithful to the trust that at the day of reckoning he owed his ruler ten thousand talents. Even one talent was a considerable sum. All the gold used in the ark of the covenant was worth less than thirty talents (Exodus 38:24). By any reckoning, ten thousand talents was an extreme debt-about two million dollars. The debtor might plead his resolve to pay "all," but he could not possibly fulfil the vow. His only hope was that his royal master "being moved by compassion" might forgive him. So, it befell in the story. The king's clemency saved him and his family from that slavery into which, as utterly insolvent debtors, they might lawfully have been sold.
Why did Jesus say "ten thousand talents"? A smaller sum would not only have served the purpose of the parable but increased its plausibility. But, is our human debt to God payable? Can we ever "make good" our sins? We think they have spent their force and then we stumble over some new havoc they have wrought. "Ten thousand talents" is true to psychological fact. "Ten thousand talents" justly describes not only our bankruptcy of soul, but also the measure of Divine compassion. Forgiveness is defined by the dictionary as "to give up resentment or claim for requital for an offence or wrong." But God's forgiveness is of another kind. He is above resentment. He makes no "claim for requital." His pardon is a sorrowing over those who by their wrong are self-deceived, and a sharing of the shame and consequence of wrong with intent to redeem. Such forgiveness is not easy. A cross was raised to silence the blasphemy that forgiveness is easy. "Ten thousand talents" hints the dire cost of forgiveness.
The second scene of the parable reveals the debtor of ten thousand talents in the role of creditor. There was a man who owed him a hundred shillings. The obligation was not two million dollars now, but twenty. It could have been met, granted a reasonable respite. But though the large debtor had just been blessed by a compassion which cancelled his overwhelming liability and though the small debtor pleaded his case in identical entreaties to those which he had used, he took him by the throat and flung him into prison. Mercy received ought to issue in mercy shown. Wrongs we suffer should weigh with us as negligible compared with wrongs we commit. Our concern for our sins, if it were sincere, would leave small zeal to demand justice for our injuries.
The Pardon
The closing scene in the drama of the Unmerciful Servant is darkness unrelieved. Every stroke in the picture is of angry doom—the king's uncontained wrath on finding that his former debtor had played the hard-hearted creditor, his unsparing condemnation, and the stern fate he finally pronounced: "And his lord was wrath and delivered him to the tormentors." This description of the fury of the king is not to be construed as true to the nature of God. The closing verse is indeed emphatic: "So also shall my heavenly Father do unto you"; but only a gross literalism could assign the vindictiveness of the parable's conclusion to the ways of heaven. The scenery of the story is not to be treated as though it were inerrant symbolism. We need not believe that God deliberately revokes a pardon once granted, still less that He consigns debtors to a vengeful torment. It is we ourselves who, by our unforgiving spirit, bar the door against Him who is always ready to forgive. Such is the parable's piercing truth. Forgiveness implies one to receive as well as one to give. Forgiveness flows in upon us when life is reopened to the dealings of God, but no life is open to God which bitterly nurses its resentments. Such a life revokes its own pardon.
"Revenge is sweet," but the sweetness is short-lived. Soon revenge becomes acrid and miserable. It drives deeper the chasms of cleavage; it makes of every foe an implacable foe; it turns the days to gall. While God stands at the door in mercy and knocks, revenge broods over injuries and magnifies them, and so becomes deaf to God's knocking. Revenge is not sweet; it is burning poison. Revenge delivers itself to the tormentors. But there was One who into earth's brackish waters of enmity and hate poured a crimson flood to make them sweet. Never was any man more unjustly smitten. The world He loved drove nails into His hands and feet. Yet He prayed, "Father, forgive them." (BUTTRICK) Luke 23:33 says, And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
