Luke 17:3–4

"Pay attention to yourselves." Your part is to forgive. Pay attention to yourselves, watchful and self-judging... Watch constantly over yourselves. See to it that the spirit of love is not broken. That spirit is the power of unity and the bond of perfectness, as we know from elsewhere. See that the spirit of holiness is not broken either, so that the peace is not false. Blessed path! How He stoops to our weakness and danger by bringing in grace... Watchfulness against self and grace to others bring us through, rising like a lifeboat above all breakers.

While we guard against others causing us to stumble, we have to cherish the grace of God. Grace is as essential to Christianity as the law was to the Jews as their rule. This command supposes that there is an evil course and current in the world, which may affect everyone's brother; but grace is never intended to weaken the moral condemnation of what is evil.

The natural course might be to avoid him and say nothing to him about his fault. Or we might decide to bear the injury patiently towards the offender, and, as it is sometimes put, "try to live it down." That might at first seem very reasonable, and look like grace on my part. But it leaves out one all-important thing: the spiritual condition of my offending brother. Whoever may recommend it, it is certainly not the Lord's way of treating the matter. Besides, staying away from my brother might leave a trace of bad feeling in my own heart. And even if it did not, am I to rest while I know that the conscience of my erring brother is defiled?

If he should go astray into sin, we are to rebuke him. As soon as he repents, we forgive him. This holds even if it should happen again and again. We might imagine that we run the risk of stumbling him by rebuking him, but we would really do so by not rebuking him. Of course we assume the rebuke comes not from human anger but from the power of divine love.

Repentance is a great word, completely contrary to the bent of human will. Man may make efforts, but will never repent. Only grace gives real repentance. In its proper sense, repentance always means the judgment of self. Now this is what man will never bend to. He may offer amends. He may try to do good and repair the evil. But to own himself completely wrong — with no excuses, nothing held back, no attempt to blame others — is never man's nature. It is the result of the working of divine grace.

There is a condition necessary to forgiveness, and that is repentance. That is indeed the principle of divine forgiveness... Someone who trespasses and is not repentant clearly has no desire for forgiveness. He is not in the right spirit to receive it. Repentance is the moral foundation. On it forgiveness can be rightly given and rightly received.

Some of the earliest manuscripts omit "against you," along with several of the earliest versions. Yet it seems plain that it should at least be understood. Only a personal offence is one we can forgive ourselves. And it is with these personal offences that we most show our inability to handle them rightly.

Grace would keep us from getting tired of wrongdoing in others any sooner than of well-doing on our own part. Seven times shows that the failure is complete, and in a day, too, which adds to the trial. To people's minds this would show that no good can come of forgiveness. But this is how God deals with us: He is unwearied in His grace. If it were not so, it would be all over with us — not only when we were in our sins, but even as believers.

There is a condition necessary to forgiveness, and that is repentance. That is indeed the principle of divine forgiveness. There is no forgiveness with God except through repentance. It is very evident that one who trespasses, and who is not repentant, has no desire for forgiveness, is not in the right spirit to receive it. Repentance is the moral foundation on which forgiveness can be rightly given and rightly received.

If grace is not at work in another person, that does not excuse any lack of grace in me. When someone wrongs me, grace will rebuke him — not proudly, but in real love, because it is not grace or love to let sin carry on. If there is repentance, grace forgives fully. So that we do not set a limit when the wrong happens again, the Lord insists on forgiving seven times in a day, as long as the offender turns back to the one he wronged in repentance.

Love is to act in the reproof, and the spirit of forgiveness commanded here takes care of that. The holiness of grace shows itself in the condition of repentance. But if he sinned seven times a day, and seven times a day he turned, saying, I repent, he must be forgiven. This could not happen in a case of discipline in the assembly — the gathered church. There a person's fitness for the Lord's table and the fellowship of the whole company are involved, and there the authority of the Lord in the assembly must be upheld. As individuals we have no such authority over one another, and the service of love is the best constraint we can use.

And Peter might well have said, "Impossible." But I can understand the Lord replying: "Peter, I am not asking you to treat your brother in any other way than the way I am treating you." Ah, that makes it easy. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the way He is treating me. He is forgiving me seventy times seven, and if I cannot forgive my brothers the same way, my heart has lost the sense of His grace.

We see how the disciples thought it would need great faith to carry out what the Lord had just said. A mustard seed is very small, and however tiny our faith is, all things are possible with God. So, however small your faith is, use it, and whatever hinders you from carrying out the Lord's words in these verses will be removed. Suppose you have forgiven a brother seven times a day. Do not think highly of yourself as a result. Say instead, "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty."