Unlimited Forgiveness
“Then came Peter to Him, and said Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21-22
The Apostle Peter, knowing that forgiveness was a God-given requirement among believers, wanted to know how many times one must forgive another who had sinned against him. Was seven times enough? Why did Peter pick the number seven? According to Jewish tradition, one offended by another was only required to forgive three times. So what happened when the fourth offense occurred? I suppose all ties with the offender were cut, but the one offended would then be saddled with carrying a grudge and not be able to find peace about it. He or she might think that the matter was settled, but for the believer, conviction would set in and there would be this nagging sense of guilt. Of course, some offenses are very difficult to forgive, and it takes the grace of God to be able to really forgive another who has hurt the one offended very deeply.
Peter likely thought that he was being generous in offering to forgive seven times rather than three. Peter was what we call “rationalizing”. For crying out loud, how many times would a person have to forgive the same offender for the same offense against him or her. Surely there must be a cut-off point, hence Peter’s question to Jesus. I suppose Jesus’ answer to Peter somewhat surprised him. Jesus said that seven times was not the limit, but rather seventy times seven. Does that mean that after 490 times forgiving another, we no longer have to forgive them? Of course not. Jesus’ answer was hyperbole, that is, exaggeration for effect. Jesus often used hyperbole to illustrate a point, for example, the mote vs. the beam in one’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5), and the requirement to hate one’s family in order to be His disciple (Luke 14:26). We exaggerate all the time in our conversations: “I haven’t seen you in a million years!” Jesus didn’t promote extending forgiveness 490 or a million times, but He was teaching that forgiveness is to be unlimited.
When a sinner repents of sin and places his or her faith in Christ, God forgives him or her for all sins, past, present, and future. Matter of fact, when Jesus died on the cross, all of our sins were future. Jesus then went on to tell a story of a servant who owed his master 10,000 talents. Let’s say that amount was one million dollars. There was no way that this servant could repay his master just like we could never pay our sin debt. After his master threatened to sell his family and all his possessions, the servant begged for more time. The master had compassion on him and forgave him the entire debt. I can’t imagine the relief that this servant felt. One would assume that he would be so grateful that he would be one of the most righteous people in the community. But that was not to be. How quickly he forgot about the grace of his master.
He remembered that a fellow servant owed him 100 pence, let’s call that $50. The fellow servant begged for more time just like he had done before his master. Now the logical and righteous thing for him to do would be to forgive his fellow servant just like he had been forgiven, but, instead, he had his friend cast into prison for a $50 debt. When the servant’s master heard what he had done, he swore out an arrest warrant for his ungrateful servant and had him incarcerated as well. Even after the mercy of his master in forgiving him the million dollar debt, his heart had really not been changed nor had he been truly humbled. He was not really repentant of his mismanagement of his master’s funds, but merely sorry that he got caught. He did not understand nor appreciate what it meant to be forgiven and thus was unable to extend forgiveness.
As stated before, forgiveness is not always easy, but it is what God requires of His people. If He can forgive us for our sins against Him, and there are many, then to not forgive is to set ourselves up as judge and jury over the deeds of others, and that’s not our job, that’s God’s job. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25b).