7. Forgiveness in the Kingdom (Matthew 18:21-35; 6:9-15)
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
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Christ's mercy on the cross demonstrated that the Kingdom of
God is all about forgiveness and grace. Titian, detail of
"Christ and the Good Thief (c. 1556), oil on canvas, 137 x
149 cm, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.
Full image. |
What is the Kingdom of God like? It is a
Kingdom where mercy reigns. In fact, the unmerciful will be excluded
as citizens of the Kingdom. Does this sound strange? Perhaps, but it
is the clear teaching of Jesus to his disciples.
In this lesson we'll examine two passages that
declare forgiveness to be the standard for the Kingdom of God.
Living together with a dozen men day in and day
out must have been frustrating sometimes. Each had his own
idiosyncrasies and annoying quirks. With hot weather and long days
tempers would flare. One day, Peter had had enough.
"21 Then Peter came to
Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother
when he sins against me? Up to seven times?' 22 Jesus
answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'"
(Matthew 18:21-22)
He had forgiven one of the other disciples
again and again and was finished with forgiveness. But he had enough
sense to ask Jesus. "Lord, isn't seven times enough forgiveness?"
Peter, I am sure, felt he was being generous with allowing seven
times for forgiveness. After all, Jesus had once taught his
disciples:
"If [your brother] sins against you
seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I
repent,' forgive him." (Luke 17:4)
Seven was a special sacred and symbolic number
in Hebrew culture. The number is used in nearly 600 passages in the
Bible. God rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath, of course, was
the seventh day. The Hebrew verb shāba`,
"to swear an oath" is etymologically related to the number seven (sheba`).
On the Day of Atonement there was a seven-fold sprinkling of blood.
Many other examples could be given.1
Jesus' answer to Peter in Matthew's account,
requires more forgiveness yet—either 77 times (NIV, NRSV) or 7 times
70 (KJV, NASB), depending on how you translate the Greek word
hebdomēkontakis.2 But no matter how you translate it, Jesus indicates that forgiveness
must go much farther than seven times.
Does Jesus mean that we must forgive 77 times
and then stop? Or 490 times and then stop? No. He means that there
is no end to forgiveness. Though Peter may have found this
frustrating, I find it encouraging. If Jesus demands unlimited
forgiveness of us humans, how much more can we expect unlimited
forgiveness for ourselves before our loving heavenly Father!
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Q1. (Matthew
18:21-22) Jesus says we must forgive 77 times or 490 times.
Should we take these numbers literally or figuratively? If
figurative, what are they figurative of? What does this
teach us about God's willingness to forgive us
repeatedly for the same sin?
http://www.joyfulheart.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1017
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Now to underscore his teaching, Jesus indicates
that repeated forgiveness is not just a guideline, but a
foundational principle of the Kingdom. To teach this he employs a
parable.
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is
like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants."
(Matthew 18:23)
The first character introduced in the parable
is a king. He must be a king who controls vast lands, for, as we'll
see in a moment, one of his servants owes him a huge sum. The king
is powerful. He decides to "settle accounts" (NIV, NRSV), "take
account" (KJV) with his servants, who are obviously provincial
governors or other officials in his government. The verb "settle" is
synairō, used here in a commercial sense as "settle accounts,
cast up accounts."3 The word "accounts" is the common noun logos. We often see
logos used in the sense of, "word, message." But here (and in
Matthew 18:23) it is used in a special sense as "computation,
reckoning."4 The idea conveyed by these two words is to conduct an audit of the
transactions of a business partner and then either receive what is
due or pay what is due, depending upon the results of the audit.
The results of an audit of one of the King's
government administrator's accounts, however, was damning.
"As he began the settlement, a man who
owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him." (Matthew 18:24)
The phrase "was brought" may indicate a
certain unwillingness of the man to appear for the results of the
audit. Not surprising, for this was a huge sum!
Josephus tells of an occasion when Ptolemy
Ephinanes, King of Egypt (reigned 203-181 BC), asked principal men
in his empire to bid for the position of tax farmer or tax collector
for the provinces of Celesyria, Phoenicia, Judea, and Samaria. They
bid 8,000 talents -- and were accused by Ptolemy of conspiring to bid
too low. Whoever bid successfully for such a contract would be
instantly liable to the king for a debt of 8,000 talents.5
A "talent" (talanton, the denomination
of money referred to in the Parable of the Talents) was first a
weight, then a unit of coinage. The value of a talent varied
somewhat, but in general one Tyrian talent would be worth about
6,000 denarii,6 a denarius being the average amount that a laborer might earn for
one day's work. If you calculate that a day laborer in our day might
earn $100 or so, here's how you might calculate this administrator's
debt:
10,000 talents = $60 billion
The debtor here was probably a provincial
governor or perhaps a tax farmer, who had agreed to remit to the
king a specific amount of taxes for a tax district. It was a
staggering debt.
Alas, he couldn't pay, not even a portion.
"Since he was not able to pay, the
master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he
had be sold to repay the debt." (Matthew 18:25)
Perhaps he had collected the taxes, but then
invested them in some scheme that had failed miserably -- or perhaps
they had been stolen by bandits during transfer to the king, or even
lost when a ship went down. We don't know.
In ancient times, there were two main remedies:
either sale of the person's goods to pay the debt or debtor's
prison. Debtor's prison was not a punishment so much as a means to
induce the debtor's relatives and friends to pay his debt, so to
bring about his release.
In light of the immense size of this
administrator's debt, there is no way his family could be induced to
pay a portion to get him out of debtor's prison. A laborer would
have to work for 1,000 years to pay such a debt! Nor would the sale
of his estate cover such a massive debt. So his property and lands
were seized to be sold for what the king could get out of them and
the administrator and his family were ordered sold into slavery -- a
common fate for those who couldn't pay a debt.7
The administrator's case is hopeless, so he
does the only thing he can do. He begs.
"26 The servant fell on his
knees8 before him.
'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back
everything.' 27 The servant's master took pity on him,
canceled the debt and let him go." (Matthew 18:24-27)
The administrator doesn't ask for mercy. Rather
he asks for time. He requests the king's patience and rashly
promises to "pay back everything." The king knows that such a
promise of repayment is both impossible and silly. He also knows
that even if he gained a pittance9 from the sale of the administrator's estate and the value of his
family as slaves, it wouldn't even make a dent in the massive debt
owed.
And so "the servant's master took pity on him,
cancelled the debt,10 and let him go"11 (verse 27). "Took pity" (NIV), "out of pity for him" (NRSV), "was
moved with compassion" (KJV) is splanchnizomai, "have pity,
feel sympathy, with or for someone," from splanchnon, "the
viscera, inward parts, entrails," considered in ancient times as the
center of the emotions.12 The king's compassion wiped out the entire obligation. The
administrator was released free and clear.
The man could probably not believe his good
fortune. One minute he was a slave with nothing, and the next he was
at least a nobleman with his estate intact. Why? Because of the whim
of a pragmatic king who knew he couldn't "squeeze blood out of
turnip," as our saying goes.
In a happy daze, the administrator leaves the
palace. Now the plot thickens.
"28 But when that servant
went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred
denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you
owe me!' he demanded.
29 His fellow servant fell
to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you
back.' 30 But he refused. Instead, he went off and had
the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt." (Matthew
18:28-30)
The administrator sees one of his fellow
government servants, one whom he has loaned 100 denarii, worth about
100 days work, perhaps $10,000 in our currency. It is a considerable
sum, but not compared to the debt our administrator has just been
forgiven, that is, $600 million.
|
Harold Copping (British illustrator, 1863-1932), "The
Parable of the Unmerciful Servant." |
Yet the administrator grabs him violently and
begins to choke him in his anger. He demands payment. When the
fellow servant asks for patience and promises to pay it in full -- which was entirely possible with such a sum -- the administrator
refuses and has him thrown into debtor's prison until the debt is
paid in full.
His action might be understandable and even
legal, but in light of the mercy he has just received, it is grossly
inappropriate.
But others see this.
"31 When the other servants
saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed13 and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 Then the master called
the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that
debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you
have had mercy14 on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'" (Matthew 18:31-33)
The king calls the administrator back to his
throne room. He calls him a "wicked" servant. The word is ponēros,
"pertaining to being morally or socially worthless, wicked, evil,
bad, base, vicious, degenerate."15
The king is livid with anger. He had forgiven the man an
astronomical sum. He knew he would never see that money again. But
as an act of mercy he forgave the entire debt. Why couldn't the
administrator have the common decency to do the same for a
relatively small sum? To refuse to do so was an insult to the king's
own mercy.
"In anger his master turned him over16 to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he
owed." (Matthew 18:34)
This is more than debtor's prison. This is the
kind of active torture17 reserved for the king's enemies. In Jesus' day people would have
nodded sadly. Though torture was prohibited by Jewish law as
inhumane, scourging was commonly used by the Romans to interrogate
prisoners. Jeremias observes:
"Torture was regularly employed in the
East against a disloyal governor, or one who was tardy in the
delivery of the taxes, in order to discover where they had hidden
the money, or to extort the amount from their relations or friends.
The non-Jewish practice in legal proceedings … is drawn upon to
intensify the frightfulness of the punishment."18
Jesus intended this parable to stick in
his disciples' memories.
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Q2. (Matthew
18:23-35) In the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, what is
the purpose of contrasting the huge debt with the small one?
If we were to put ourselves in the parable, which debt would
we owe? Which debt might be owed us? Why was the king
insulted by the unmerciful servant's action?
http://www.joyfulheart.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1018
|
But then Jesus says something unexpected and
terrible.
"This is how my heavenly Father will
treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
(Matthew 18:35)
Forgiveness "from your heart" is in
contrast to forgiveness with one's lips only (Matthew 15:8, quoting
Isaiah 29:13). The forgiveness must be genuine.
Jesus refers to God as "my heavenly Father" in
an intimate and formal title. How could our heavenly Father punish
unforgiving people? Is Jesus serious?
Jesus is quite serious about forgiveness!
Consider the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, and Jesus'
subsequent commentary on it:
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have
forgiven our debtors." (Matthew 6:12)
"For if you forgive men when they sin
against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you
do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your
sins." (Matthew 6:14-15)
Three Greek words are used in relationship to
sin in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew and Luke. Christians from
different traditions use different words as they recite the Lord's
Prayer.
"Debt" (Matthew 6:12), Greek opheilēma,
1. "debt = what is owed, one's due." 2. in a religious sense debt =
sin (as Aramaic hobah in rabbinical literature).19
"Trespass" (Matthew 6:14-15, KJV), Greek
paraptōma, "in imagery of one making a false step so as to lose
footing: a violation of moral standards, offense, wrongdoing, sin."20 Paraptōma is a compound word from para- "beside or
near" + piptō "to fall." Thayer defines it as "a lapse or
deviation from truth and uprightness; a sin, misdeed."21
"Sin" (Luke 11:4), Greek hamartia "sin.
The action itself as well as its result, every departure from the
way of righteousness…."22 Literally, "a failing to hit the mark."23
But this prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors," is a sort of trick prayer. It is a prayer
Jesus uses to teach his disciples the elements of praying aright.
The Greek word hōs, is a conjunction marking a point of
comparison, meaning "as."24 Jesus teaches us to ask God to forgive us "as" we forgive others. In
other words, if we forgive others only a little and hold grudges, we
are asking God to forgive us only a little and bear a grudge against
us. Wow! How many people pray the Lord's Prayer thoughtlessly, and
each time they pray, they pray a curse of unforgiveness down upon
themselves!
Jesus is making a point in this prayer, a point
which he explains in more detail just after the prayer:
"For if you forgive men when they sin
against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you
do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your
sins." (Matthew 6:14-15)
How could it be plainer? Jesus had just
told his disciples not to seek retribution.
"Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven"
(Matthew 5:44-45).
Now he makes it clear that we must
forgive, if we are to be considered sons of the Father. Otherwise he
will not forgive us.
Perhaps the most powerful example of such
forgiveness is that of Jesus himself. "He came to his own [people],"
John records, "and his own [people] did not receive him" (John
1:12). His miracles and bread attracted the crowds, but when he had
to say some hard things, they would leave as quickly as they had
come (John 6:66). A number of times, when he said something they
didn't consider Kosher, they tried to kill him, but he slipped away
from their grasp (Luke 4:28-30; John 8:59; 10:31).
But the time finally came that God had planned
(Galatians 4: 4-5). Jesus knew it was coming, and though it filled
him with pain to think of it, he faced it openly. This time when his
enemies sought to arrest him, he stood forth, said "I am the man,"
and allowed them to take him. He allowed a mock trial filled with
patently false and unsupported charges. He could have called legions
of angels to deliver him -- the armies of heaven were at his beck and
call -- but he did not. Soldiers spat in his face and mocked him with
a cruel crown of thorns and a purple robe, which they said made him look
like a king. They scourged him nearly to death. Pilate washed his
hands and ordered his crucifixion. And as they crucified him, he
said,
"Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do." (Luke 23:34)
If we are to know and understand God, we must
love. We must know and understand forgiveness. If we reject this
part of God, we reject the kernel of who he is (1 John 4:16-21). So
when Jesus puts it so bluntly -- you must forgive in order to be
forgiven (Matthew 6:14-15) -- we dare not reject this truth.
Some ask: Isn't this a sort of "works
righteousness"? If you are required to do something before you can
be forgiven, then isn't this righteousness by works?
No. There's an old story of how to catch a
monkey. You chain a cage to a post, and put an orange in the cage.
Then when the monkey tries to grasp the orange, and can't pull it
through the bars he is trapped. Can't he just release the orange and
escape? Yes, but monkeys don't let go of the things that enslave
them. They hold on tightly -- just like people. And so he is
captured, just as surely as if he were in the cage itself.
To be free you must let go of unforgiveness. Is
that meritorious so as to earn heaven? No, not any more than
repentance from sin is meritorious. We don't earn heaven by
repentance or by forgiving. But we must let go of our bondage to sin
and hate if we want to receive something better.
Forgiveness is sometimes terribly difficult.
It's usually not so hard to forgive people we don't know. The people
with whom we have a relationship of trust who turn on us, who betray
our trust -- those people are the hardest to forgive. Husbands,
wives, fathers, mothers, children, and boyfriends and girlfriends
and our best friends. They can turn on us and wound us deeply.
Sometimes we even doubt that, "It is better to have loved and lost,
than never to have loved at all." Maybe we should withdraw and
protect ourselves and never venture out again.
No. The path of health is forgiveness. The path
of healing is forgiving.
Sometimes we resist forgiveness because we
mistake it for substitutes. In my article "Don't Pay the Price of
Counterfeit Forgiveness,"25 I try to distinguish true forgiveness from its chameleons. True
forgiveness does not minimize the sin or the hurt, nor excuse the
sinner. True forgiveness chooses not to hold the sin against the
sinner any longer. True forgiveness is pardon.
You may be freshly wounded and find your anger
too massive to forgive. The injustice may be ongoing, the outrage
constant. Perhaps you do not feel you are able to forgive right now.
Then I ask you to pray this prayer: "Lord, I find it beyond my
ability to forgive this person. I ask you to make me able to
forgive in the future." Even that prayer may stretch your faith (or
obedience) to pray, but pray it anyway. The God of Forgiveness
answers prayers like that. He makes a way where there is no way. He
takes us beyond ourselves.
In my experience as a pastor over the decades,
I've found that forgiving is perhaps the most difficult thing
Christians struggle with. And it is most rewarding as they are able
to forgive and find the blessings of forgiving washing them and
refreshing them.
I am reminded that Jesus had hard "family"
experience with forgiveness. I am thinking of Jesus' Father-Son-Holy
Spirit family. In the Old Testament we find the horrendous insults
to God delivered by his people, by their thoughtlessness and
carelessness, but also by their prostitution and unfaithfulness,
their deliberate substitution of worship of Him with worship of
idols, their murder of the prophets and apostles he sent to speak
truth to them. The list goes on and on. One of the most poignant
verses of the Bible appears in Isaiah:
"I revealed myself to those who did
not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a
nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'
All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, Who
walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations -- A people
who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in
gardens...." (Isaiah 65:1-3)
In spite of a history of insult and
betrayal,
"For God so loved the world, that he
sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16, KJV)
Jesus' demand for forgiveness must be viewed
against the backdrop of God's persistent, steadfast love. Jesus
demands forgiveness as a condition of entry into his kingdom, but he
also modeled it and models it still today. If we can't forgive, we
can't understand or know God, for that is what makes him tick.
I am convinced by Jesus' words that
unforgiveness is not an option for us. We must forgive. We
make all sorts of excuses for ourselves. We find doctrinal reasons
to set aside the clear teachings of our Lord and not take them
seriously. But his words remain. Unforgiveness is not an option for
a follower of Jesus. We may struggle, we may not have the strength
on our own and call out to Him for the will and the power to
forgive, but we cannot hold onto our bitterness -- and continue to
hold onto him.
This is a tough one. Do we have to forgive
someone who does not repent? We read:
"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and
if he repents, forgive him." (Luke 17:4)
I think that forgiveness is something like a
pardon. We have to accept it for it to be granted. In a technical
sense, we can't really forgive someone who does not repent. But that
doesn't let us off the hook. I think that God requires us to love
our enemies, and this from our side of the relationship differs little from
what forgiveness would require of us. In the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus is very clear:
"I tell you: Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your
Father in heaven.... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father
is perfect." (Matthew 5:43, 48)
So technical forgiveness is not the issue,
really. It is love from the heart, that is what God requires of us
toward even our enemies. Forgiveness is what flows from that kind of
heart when there is repentance. Love must always flow.
Not that any of this is easy. Often it is
tremendously difficult. But discipleship is following and learning
from Jesus. If we fail to learn this lesson of forgiveness and
loving our enemies, we miss the essence of God himself.
Prayer
Father, this is a very sobering passage that
brings us to the core of Kingdom values -- mercy and love. Teach me
this in my heart of hearts, I pray. Free me from bitterness so I can
forgive those who have hurt me, so I might be eligible for your
Kingdom of mercy and forgiveness. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
Key Verses
"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked,
'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins
against me? Up to seven times?' Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not
seven times, but seventy-seven times.'" (Matthew 18:21-22, NIV)
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have
forgiven our debtors." (Matthew 6:12)
"For if you forgive men when they sin
against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you
do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your
sins." (Matthew 6:14-15, NIV)
Discipleship Lessons
on Jesus and the Kingdom Bible Study
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