What is the meaning of the Parable of the Unforgiving / Unmerciful Servant?

v.21-22In answer to Peter, who asks how far this walking in grace ought to be carried, the Lord shews that, as it was a principle essential to the nature which acted in grace, there was no limit; it would be a limit to the privilege of man and to the nature of God. In the kingdom of heaven, mercy triumphs over judgment.

v.21-22In verse 21, we find Peter raising the other side of the matter. What about the offended rather than the offending party? The reply of Jesus came to this — the spirit of forgiveness towards my brother is to be practically unlimited.

Peter then asks our Lord, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" (ver. 21.) We had instruction how we were to act in the case of a personal trespass. But Peter raises another question. Supposing my brother sins against me over and over, how often am I to forgive him? The answer is, "I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven." In the kingdom of heaven — not under the law, but under the rule of the rejected Christ — forgiveness is unlimited. How wonderful — the deeper holiness revealed in Christianity, is at the same time, that which feels with deepest love, and goes out with it to others! So we find here, "I say not unto thee, Until seven times," which was Peter's idea of the largest grace, "but, Until seventy times seven." Our Lord insists that there really was no end to forgiveness. It is always to be in the heart of the Christian.

The immensity of the truths thus unfolded evidently penetrated Peter's soul as he heard them, and the desire to clearly know the extent of the responsibility of acting in grace, where a brother was in question, led to his query, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" The largest idea of grace that Peter had was "till seven times." That certainly was beyond the day of law, — which demanded righteousness, and knew naught of forgiveness, — and may be beyond the practical state of many of our souls, but it will not do for Christ. Peter's question was this: Suppose my brother sins against me, over and over again, how often am I to forgive him? The Lord's answer was: "I say not to thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven." Under the reign of law forgiveness was unknown, it was "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"; but in the kingdom of heaven, and under the rule of a rejected, a heavenly Christ, forgiveness takes its character from Him, and is to be unlimited. The Lord insists that practically there is to be no limit to it. It is to flow out constantly. It is the reflection of God's own ways with man.

There is one other thing that I must close with. Peter says to our Lord, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?" We had the case of how we were to act in the case of a personal trespass. But Peter raises another question. Supposing my brother sins against me over and over, how often am I to forgive him? The answer is, "I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven." In the kingdom of heaven — not under the law, but under the rule of Christ — forgiveness is unlimited. How wonderful! To think that holiness, the deeper holiness that Christianity reveals, is at the same time that which feels with the deepest possible love, and which goes out with it to others. So we find here. "I say not unto thee, Until seven times," which was Peter's idea of the largest grace, "but, Until seventy times seven." Our Lord insists that there really was no end to forgiveness. It is always to be flowing out. But remember this: it is a sin against you: it is a person that does wrong to you. We are not to forgive a wrong done to the Lord, till the Lord has forgiven it; and the Lord only forgives upon confession of sin. I am now speaking, not of the grace that meets a man in his unconverted state, the case here is that of a brother. When a man is converted, he has to confess his sins day by day. It shows a wretched state of soul if a person breaks down in his daily path without confession to God. But what we learn here is, that if it is some sin done against you personally, and it is a question how often you are to forgive, the answer is, "Till seventy times seven." God will never be outdone in His perfect love: but even a man upon earth is called to forgive after this wonderful and divine pattern.

It is not the assembly which is before the Lord, but the Kingdom of the heavens, therefore the parable describes conditions as prevailing in the Kingdom. The parable illustrates an important principle. Here we have a picture of the sinner in the servant who owes the king ten thousand talents, about twelve million dollars. He is unable to pay this immense debt, as the sinner is unable to pay his debt. The servant is threatened with complete loss of all he has and possesses; and then appeals to the king, asking his patience for his willingness to pay all. But what does the king do? He ignores the plea; he knows the impossibility that this penniless servant could ever pay the debt he owes, and then in marvelous compassion he sets the bound servant free and forgives him. All this illustrates the hopelessness of the sinner and the Mercy of God without bringing out the blessed facts of the Gospel. This would be beyond the scope of the parable. But what happens? The liberated and forgiven one finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, which is about seventeen dollars. Fresh from his terrible experience, his narrow escape and the great mercy shown to him, he flies at the poor fellow's throat, a thing the king had not done, demands his pay, and without taking his plea at all into consideration casts him into prison. The mercy shown to him had not touched his heart; and with all that rich mercy extended to him, he is a wicked man and addressed thus by the king, who gives him over to tormentors, to suffer till he should pay all that was due. Thus a mere professor of the Gospel may act; his profession outwardly is that he is a sinner, that he owes God much and he professes to believe in the compassion and forgiveness of God. His heart, however, knows nothing of the Mercy and Grace of God. He goes on acting wickedly, and his evil heart is manifested by the way he treats his fellow servant. Where Mercy is given, Mercy must be shown. If the heart has really apprehended the Grace of God and realizes what God has done for us in His wonderful Grace, it will ever be gracious and forgive; if we do not act according to this principle we must expect to be dealt with by a righteous and holy God.

The Lord's illustration as to the kingdom of heaven is most pointed. The king's servant who owed ten thousand talents is typical of everyone of us by nature and practice, for our debt of sin has been tremendously beyond our ability to pay. Righteousness demands satisfaction, and the man faces the tragedy of losing everything, including, his wife and children and his own freedom. He pleads for mercy and time to pay, so that his lord compassionately forgave him the debt. This illustrates the fact that anyone whom God forgives has been forgiven a debt that is for beyond the possibility of our ever paying it.

The Kingdom of heaven is likened here unto a human king; which prepares us for certain points in it which we must not attribute to the divine. The king here will have a reckoning with his servants; and no sooner has he begun to reckon than there is brought to him one with an overwhelming debt, which argues in itself surely something more than any misfortune can account for. He is ordered, therefore, to be sold, with his wife and children and all belonging to him, for the debt. We see in this the "human" king, of course; yet there is this truth in it, that the sinner against God, as far as he can do it, wrecks not himself alone, but all connected with him. No man can be his own enemy only, as men sometimes assert; and we need no argument to prove how the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children in this world, although in the final account every one answers simply for his own.

So helplessly are we all indebted to the supreme King. Good it is that there is mercy with Him for which all figures fail. The debtor falls at his lord's feet with an impossible plea for mercy in his own case, ― how impossible in our own! "I will pay thee all." The king can accept no such agreement, takes no notice of it; but his heart is moved with compassion, and taking counsel of that, "he loosed him, and forgave him the debt."

Look at this man. He owes his master an immense sum — ten thousand talents, representing perhaps £2,000,000, and he is bankrupt: he cannot even make composition, he has nothing to pay. So he comes and falls down at his master's feet, and beseeches him for time in which to pay him. But his master is moved with compassion, and he does more, — "he loosed him, and forgave him the debt."

The next parable is a similitude of the kingdom, but brings out one's responsibility to another in carrying out this instruction. It shows the Jews were dealt with in marvellous grace, though no doubt the Gentiles treated them very badly. If the talent was silver and Roman, it would be about £2,000,000; if Jewish £4,000,000; if gold, between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000. "And he had nothing wherewith to pay," no power to put himself right after having contracted that frightful debt. I was thinking of what Nehemiah (Neh. 9:17) says about God. It comes to my mind as God's wonderful grace. Daniel says, "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness though we have rebelled against him," but "to us confusion of face."

First of all you get righteousness. God is always righteous. He never does a needless thing nor an unrighteous thing. So in verse 25 we see righteousness. This man acknowledges the justice; he does not deny the debt, but casts himself upon mercy. "Have patience with me and I will pay thee all." The thought is that the justness of the claim is owned by the man. "Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him and forgave him the debt." In one aspect the Jews are loosed; in another they are in the city of refuge. It is a solemn lesson for us here. The world will often say, 'I will forgive, but I cannot forget'; that is not forgiveness at all. The Lord says here "from your hearts." The most severe charge against the Jews is in 1 Thess. 2:15. And yet this very people will fill the earth with fruit. The grace of God turns a man inside out. The grand lesson here individually is that no matter what unkindness, what injury is done us, it can bear no comparison to what we have done against God and been forgiven. "Even as God in Christ forgave you." Only think of a hundred pence £3 2s. 6d.) but mentioning that sum makes me think of the covetous eye of Judas, that ointment might have been sold for three hundred pence, three times what we have here, and the very amount he went and sold the Lord for was nearly the same.

Certainly we should therefore have the same forgiving spirit toward others. Yet this servant, though entreated by his fellow servant to have patience with him, is adamant in demanding payment of a debt of a hundred pence, and has him imprisoned till he should pay the debt. He himself had owed 700,000 times as much, yet forgets how he has been shown such great mercy.

(3) All this, thank God, the blessed Speaker has now made very plain to us; but the point of the parable has yet to come. "But that servant went out "out from an experience like this! ― "and found one of his fellow-servants, who owed him a hundred pence" ― denarii (about a 700,000th part of his own debt just forgiven); "and he laid hold of him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what thou owest."

It was his own that he was demanding. Apart from the violence used, he was, as men say, quite within his rights. That was not the question; and every one at once understands that that was not the question. We too, in the exaction of our own from others, may be within our rights; and why is it that in our own case we are not as simple in judging of the real state of things as we are in the case of the man before us? We have been forgiven (if we are Christians) as well as he; and with regard to a debt in proportion to which his was as nothing. How is it that we can look upon grace or mercy shown to others as if it were anything more than the merest righteousness on our part, from the standpoint of forgiven men?

There follows an appeal, so like his own recent one, save only in its greater reasonableness and simplicity, that it should have pierced the heart of the hardened man: "Then his fellow-servant fell down and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee. But he would not, but went off and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt." It is the grace shown him that fully exposes the obduracy of his unmerciful heart.

Now, mark this forgiven man. "But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence" a pitiful sum in comparison, about: 25 pence, calculated at the same rate, — "and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.'" Then, in words and action so like his own, you would think it must have smitten him to the heart, "his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me and I will pay thee all.'" Could you imagine a heart so hard? — "He would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt." What does the lord of both men do when he hears this? "O thou wicked servant," he says, "I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?" And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

The outline of the parable is as follows. A certain king, in taking account of his servants, found one who owed him ten thousand talents about three millions sterling in English money. The defaulter being penniless, the King ordered that he, and his wife, children and goods to be sold. In his distress the debtor fell at his master's feet, crying: "Lord, have patience with me and I will pay thee all." The King's heart being moved with compassion, the whole vast debt was immediately remitted. Presently the forgiven one met a fellow-servant who owed him a hundred pence-about three pounds in our currency; and instead of extending to him clemency after the pattern of that which had been so recently shown to himself, he seized him by the throat saying: "Pay me that thou owest." In his utter heartlessness, he gave no heed to the tears of his fellow, but cast him into prison until payment should be made.

Thereupon He spoke the parable as to the king and his servants, with which the chapter closes. The general bearing of this parable is very plain; the only point we notice is that it refers to God's governmental dealings with those who take the place of being His servants, as is made plain when we reach verse 35, which gives the Lord's own application of it. There is entirely another basis for eternal forgiveness, but governmental forgiveness does very often hinge upon the believer manifesting a forgiving spirit. If we treat our brethren ill, we shall find ourselves sooner or later in the hands of the "tormentors" and have a sorrowful time. And if any of us are witnesses of one brother ill-treating another we shall be wise if, instead of taking the law into our own hands and attacking the wrongdoer, we imitate the servants of the parable and tell our Lord all that was done, leaving Him to deal with the offender in His holy government.

(4) Plain as the matter seems, it is developed and enforced upon us. The grief of his fellow-servants who bring the account of it to their lord; who on his part summons the guilty man and puts before him the wickedness of his conduct with abhorrence. The close of the parable has the moral of it, that mercy fails for him with whom it fails: "his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due" ― an impossible thing, and typical therefore of an eternal recompense.

Other fellow servants have observed this painful action, however, and it is good to see that they were not merely angry or bitter, but "very sorry." They tell their Lord, who calls the offending servant to account. Calling him a wicked servant, he reminds him that had received mercy when helped for it, and asks if he ought not to have shown similar compassion toward his fellow servant. The man's forgiveness was rescinded, and he was delivered to the tormenters, evidently confined to the rigors of prison until he should pay all his debt. This was a righteous recompense for his having done this to his fellow servant.

Now mark well what follows; for it is full of solemn and wholesome instruction for us. The rest of the servants seeing such behaviour are "very sorry," we are told, and bring the tidings to their master, who summons the ungrateful servant into his presence and deals this most withering rebuke: "O thou wicked servant," he says, "I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?" (vv. 32, 33.) And then it is added, "His lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him."

The Lord next applies the parable by saying, "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." It need scarcely be said that this parable does not speak of the salvation of the soul, but of the principles of the government of the King in His kingdom, principles as applicable to the real possessor as to the mere professor. It is an unchanging fact that upon the cross Christ took the consequences for eternity of every believer's sins; but as to our conduct in this world, it is an unalterable principle in the government of God that "whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." (Gal. 6:7.) Another broad principle of His government is expressed in Psalm 18:25-26: "With the merciful Thou wilt show thyself merciful; with an upright man Thou wilt show thyself upright; with the pure Thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward Thou wilt show thyself froward." And again, in Matthew 5:7: "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Now which of us, as he reviews his past history, whether as saint or sinner, and thinks of the governmental consequences of all he has said and done, can say, "I stand in no need of governmental mercy"? Do we not rather each feel ourselves to be more like needing the mercy shown to the ten-thousand-talent debtor, and say with all our hearts

When the servants, shocked by all this, informed their lord, he was righteously angry, delivering the wretched man to the tormentors till all should be paid. Little did the unrighteous fellow know that he was throwing a boomerang, that would hit himself, and hit him hard. “So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also, to you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses” (Matt. 18:35).

v.23-35Meanwhile, for us the great principle of forgiveness is most blessed, and a thing that we have need to remember. We have specially to remind our souls in the case of anything that is against ourselves. May we at once look stedfastly at what our God and Father has done for us. If we can, in the presence of such grace, be hard for some trifling thing done against ourselves, let us bethink ourselves how the Lord judges here. Sometimes a soul goes on well for a time. But if there is not life from God, a slight circumstance happens, which brings out a man's true state, and then you have such a turning back from Christ, as proves that there is nothing of grace in the man's soul. For where there is life, the warning of God is heeded.

v.21-35A debt of ten thousand talents means limitless guilt, but forgiveness is also limitless as the seventy times seven indicates. What believing soul would not bow before God in the light of this sovereign goodness and infinite grace that has forgiven him and relieved him of a load of guilt that merited eternal condemnation! In this connection I have thought how blessed and fitting it is that numbers of departing saints and servants of the Lord, even those far advanced in ministering the unsearchable riches of Christ, should fall back in faith upon the precious blood of Christ and the joy that the knowledge of full forgiveness gives. We remember the prayer of the Lord to His Father for the forgiveness of His foes when suffering on the cross; nothing could equal the grace and pathos of that prayer, it melts the soul into adoration before Him and covers us with shame at our lack of grace and narrowness of soul and self-importance in sometimes demanding apologies for wrongs done, instead of overcoming the evil by a greater good.

v.23-35Dispensationally the Jew owed ten thousand talents but viewed nationally they did not repent, they would not have the grace so freely offered to them and they forbad the Apostles to preach it to others. 1 Thess. 2:15-16. But Christendom living long in the full light of the goodness of God is no better than the Jew and a day of solemn reckoning is at hand. Knowing the terror of the Lord and the just doom that awaits a grace-despising Christendom we may well use our time in seeking to arouse men and implore them to turn to the Lord who is rich in mercy and ready to forgive.

v.23-35I apprehend, in the form of the parable, that there is an allusion to the Lord's forgiveness of the nation, even after killing Him if they repented (Acts 3), and their refusal of grace, as shewn towards the Gentiles, involving them in all the consequences of their first guilt against Christ.

v.15-35This leads on to ways of grace suited to the Assembly in the case of personal trespass. To gain my brother should be the first thought, hence the importance of a private interview first to "convict" him. If he will not hear then I am to take with me other witnesses, and in the last resort to tell it to the Assembly, and he becomes to me as a heathen and a publican. This leads to the bestowal of authority on the Assembly to act on earth with heaven's sanction in binding and loosing — that same character of authority that had in chapter 16 been conferred on Peter for the Kingdom of Heaven. And it is at this point, just where the need would be felt in exercising the authority, of the Lord's guidance, that the promise is to two agreed as to anything they shall ask, that it should be done for them of "My Father who is in heaven." Both the conferred authority and enjoined and encouraged dependence, and that not only individual, resting upon the immense principle of the next verse — the presence of the Lord in the midst secured to the faith of the two or three counting upon it and gathered to His Name — i.e. according to the full revelation of His glory as made to Peter in Matthew 16. For it surely does not go back of this, and leaves open any further opening out to us in the mystery of that Name. Thus we learn where the Assembly is to be found for any practical purpose: it may be at the lowest point as to numbers, but He is there. So that it is not only a provision for a day of ruin, but we see that the Assembly had nothing richer when in full normal order; and no ruin touches this deepest principle of its blessedness. The Lord then returns to the spirit suited to the Kingdom, on Peter's question as to the repeated forgiveness of one that sinned against me. (Cp. Luke 17:3-4, and 1, 2, where somewhat in the same connection of thought omitting what applies to the Assembly, the Lord had indicated that if a brother sinned seven times in a day against me I was to forgive him seven times: it may have been Peter's question that led to the moral exhortation in Luke and his desire to make what was general in it the limit of the forgiveness, that leads the Lord here to make it practically illimitable — without limit — and to append the dispensational parable which has only its place here.) When in the Kingdom of Heaven that grace had been in exercise as to the Jew and he in spite of it would exact all, — of one that owed but 100 pence as compared with the 10,000 talents he had been forgiven, — and have no patience, his lord was wroth and gave him over to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due. And so 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 shows wrath come upon the Jew to the uttermost, though grace was first proffered to that nation, and Isaiah 40:2 shows it will not come out thence till it has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. How different it might have been with them in their responsibility we know from Acts 3:19, etc.

v.21-35The remainder of the chapter (v. 21) presents to us the spirit in which a Christian must act with regard to the one who may have offended him. It is no longer a question here of the way traced higher up, if he refuse to acknowledge his wrong, but of the disposition of the Christian to forgive it him, even if he should often repeat it. The Christian should always forgive - should never get weary of shewing grace towards the one that may have offended him; for a man might acknowledge his wrong, and yet repeat it. Ought this always to continue, and the Christian always to be ready to pardon? Yes, we must always act in grace. God has pardoned us much more. In Luke 17 the repentance of the one who has offended his brother is supposed. Here the principle is that forgiveness - such a case occurring - must always be granted. It is the Christian spirit which is established. I do not doubt, although the principle may be universally established as a Christian principle, that allusion is made here to what happened to the Jews. God in His ways with the nation having pardoned them the crucifixion of His Son, they would not have grace shewn towards the Gentiles, and were placed in consequence under discipline, under punishment, until they shall have paid the last farthing. It is not a question of expiation, nor of an individual, but of the nation and of the government of God.

FORGIVENESS, verses 21-35. Peter's question as to how often he should forgive his brother went far beyond what we should be prepared to go naturally, but the Lord's answer shows that there must be no limit to forgiveness, "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God also for Christ's sake has forgiven you," Ephesians 4:32. The parable of the unmerciful servant that follows calls for careful consideration. It may be that it has a dispensational bearing and depicts the state of unbelieving Israel among whom the Lord had ministered with such grace, not imputing their transgressions unto them, but it also exposes what human nature is, and by Him who knows the heart, and the soul that is taught of God will feel the need of continually cleaving to the Lord to be preserved from a vindictive spirit and to be like his Master carrying forgiveness to all.