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  1/22/25 Bible Thought: The Essence of Forgiveness (Matt. 18)
  by Josiah Ott

  The Lord Jesus consistently shares hard teachings on the subject of forgiveness. In today’s passage, He gives a protocol to follow for dealing with others when they sin against you and how it ought to be handled in the church, the local gathering (18:15-20). But this is then followed by a heart-rending parable on the subject of forgiveness. Surely at times believers have to deal with sin, but one sin within our own hearts we best be careful to deal with is the sin of unforgiveness.

  Peter came to the Lord, feeling generous, and said, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Matt. 18:21). Now, truly that’s a generous offer! Right? Seven times I’ll forgive someone for wronging me, that’s pretty upright and kind. What a guy! Jesus responds, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matt. 18:22). Translations do vary here as to whether Jesus says seventy-seven or, “seventy times seven” but what is clear is that Jesus has effectively said, “If you’re keeping track, you haven’t forgiven, and you’ve missed the whole point.” He is using hyperbole, so we shouldn’t get worried about if it’s seventy-seven or four hundred and ninety. It doesn’t really matter. We shouldn’t be keeping track.

  Jesus then illustrates this with a powerful parable of a master settling accounts with his servants (Matt. 18:23-35). One is brought before him who owes him ten thousand talents. Now, a talent was a unit of measurement denoting the weight of something, and it was the largest of those units of measurement. Likewise, the Greek word underlying the translation “ten thousand” is the largest number that they had a single word for, and it’s where we get our English word “myriad”.  Jesus effectively takes the largest number of the largest amount to describe the servant’s debt. You could almost translate it by saying, “This guy owed a gazillion dollars!” With a debt like that, it would be impossible for this servant to work it off, even over the span of multiple lifetimes. Yet, the servant begged to have that opportunity. “Don’t sell my family, I’ll pay it all, let me work it off!” To this, the gracious master forgave the debt (Matt. 18:27). He didn’t enter into an income-based repayment program or anything like it, the debt was cancelled.

  Then comes a second servant, one who happened to owe the first servant one hundred denarii. Now, this is still a substantial debt, being about one hundred days’ wages. Yet, even though the debt was substantial, it was payable. You could work this debt off in a lifetime. The servant forgiven of an unpayable debt then takes the one who owed him a payable debt and throws him to the jailers until he’d pay it all. The story then closes with the master hearing of the lack of mercy displayed by the forgiven servant and casts him into jail until he should pay it all.

  What a vivid and powerful story! Most people know that the first servant represents the believer who has been forgiven by God (the master) and the second servant represents another person who has done wrong to the believer. Jesus points out the utter folly of holding unforgiveness in your heart through this parable by showing how inconsequential debts owed to us are in comparison to our debt to God. If you’re a forgiven believer in Jesus Christ whose sins have been atoned for, then God has forgiven you for a debt that was utterly unpayable by works. You couldn’t have ever worked to be forgiven; the debt was too great. And when we were utterly hopeless? The debt was forgiven by a free gift of grace. Totally undeserved. Never merited. What an unfathomable act of mercy extended to otherwise utterly hopeless sinners.

  The challenge then comes to the forgiven sinner: will you hold the feet of others to the fire? If God has been so gracious to you, could you really withhold grace from others? Recently, someone asked me, “Pastor what’s the secret to being able to forgive others who have wronged you?” This is a really good question, and one many people struggle with. Taking a thought from this passage I replied in some fashion, “It’s not easy, but we have to remember that their debt to us pales in comparison to our debt to God, and God forgave us nevertheless.” If God could forgive me of an unpayable debt, then surely, in light of that forgiveness, I ought to be able to extend forgiveness to others for their payable debts, right?

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