What did Jesus teach about forgiveness?

Matthew 18:21-22, clearly teaches that we should. Peter, impetuous and always ready to ask questions, says, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” Seven times seems a big stretch, denoting a forgiving spirit. But our Lord replied, “I say not to thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven”—four hundred and ninety times—a prodigious number.

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.

"Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants" (ver. 23). And then we have two servants brought before us. The king forgives one of them who had been very guilty (who owed him ten thousand talents — practically, a debt that never could be paid by a servant). On his entreaty, the king forgives him. The servant then goes out and meets a fellow-servant who owes him a hundred pence — a small sum indeed in comparison with that which had just been forgiven to himself. Yet he seizes his fellow-servant by the throat, saying, "Pay me that thou owest." And the king hearing it summons the guilty man before him. What is taught by this? It is a comparison of the kingdom of heaven, and refers to a state of things established here below by God's will. While we may, and must, take the principle to ourselves, much more is taught than this.* Taken in the large way, the servant that owes the ten thousand talents represents the Jew, peculiarly favoured of God, who yet had contracted the enormous debt that he never could pay. When they had completed this debt by the death of their Messiah, a message of forgiveness was sent them — "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." They had only to do so, and their sins would be blotted out: God would send the Messiah again, and bring in the times of refreshing. The Holy Ghost, answering the prayer of our Lord upon the cross, uses Peter to tell them, "I wot, brethren, that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. … Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out," even as the Lord had said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Thus the servant had heard the sound of forgiveness to himself, yet with no real apprehension of it. He goes out and casts a fellow-servant into prison for a very small debt. This is the way in which the Jews acted toward the Gentiles. And thus all the debt that God had forgiven them became fastened upon them. The master says to the servant, "O thou wicked servant, 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" (vers. 32-34).

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.

"Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants." Then we have two servants brought before us. The king forgives one of them who had been very guilty (who owed him ten thousand talents; practically, a debt which could never be paid by a servant). The king forgives him. The servant goes out from the presence of the king after the debt was remitted, and he meets a fellow-servant who owes him a hundred pence — a small sum indeed in comparison with that which had just been forgiven to himself. Yet he seizes his fellow-servant by the throat, saying, "Pay me that thou owest." But the king hears of it through the sorrow of the fellow-servants, and summons the guilty man before him. What is taught by this? It is a comparison of the kingdom of heaven; and these comparisons refer to a state of things established here below by God's will. While we may take the principle to ourselves, much more is taught than this. Taken in the large way, the servant that owes the ten thousand talents represents the Jew who was peculiarly favoured of God, and yet had contracted the enormous debt that he never could pay. When the Jews had completed this debt by the death of the Messiah, a message of forgiveness was sent them: — "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." The Holy Ghost presses on them a message of repentance. They had only to do so, and their sins would be blotted out. God would send the Messiah again, and bring in the times of refreshing. The Holy Ghost answered the prayer of our Lord upon the cross, and Peter was entitled to tell them that they were forgiven. "I wot, brethren," he says to them, "that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers"; even as the Lord had said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That does not mean a personal forgiveness, but a national one, which required their faith and repentance.

Here the Lord lets the disciples425 know the certainty of stumbling-blocks in such a world as this, and the awful doom of those who cause them. "It would be more profitable426 for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea," (Cf. Matt. 18:6f.) says the Lord about any one so offending others. Hence we have to take heed to ourselves, as His disciples; and while guarding against being caused to stumble by others, we have to cherish the grace of God which is as essential to Christianity as the law was to the Jews as their rule. "Take heed to yourselves; if thy brother should sin, rebuke him; and if he should repent, forgive him." (Matt. 18:15.) It supposes that there is an evil course and current in the world, which may affect every one's brother; but grace is never intended to weaken the moral reprobation of what is evil. "If thy brother should sin, rebuke him; and if he should repent, forgive him." "Millstone": so Edd. after ℵBDL, 1, 69, Old Lat. Memph. Arm. In Matt. 18:6, and Mark 9:42, it is "millstone turned by an ass," as here in A, etc., Syrr..

Repentance is a great word, altogether contrary to the bent of human will. Man may make efforts, but will never repent. Only grace gives real repentance, which, when used in its proper sense, means simply and invariably the judgment of self. Now, this man will never bend to. Amends he may offer, he may endeavour to do good, and repair the evil: but to own self thoroughly wrong without qualification, reserve, or endeavouring to throw the blame on others, is never the nature of man, but the result of the working of Divine grace, and true, therefore, of every soul that is truly renewed. It is impossible for a sinner to be brought to God without repentance. Faith, no doubt, is the spring of all; it alone gives power by the revelation of grace in the person and work of Christ; but repentance is the invariable consequence or concomitant. And so it is in particular cases, as here in trespass, as, "If he should repent, forgive him." This was more especially needful to urge on a Jew, accustomed as he was to severity. And further, grace would hinder one from being wearied any more by ill-doing in others than in well-doing on our part. "If he should sin against thee seven times in the day, and seven times† should return to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him." (Matt. 18:21f.) It is seven times as showing the failure complete, and in a day, too, as adding to the trial. To men's minds this would indicate the hopelessness of any good in forgiveness. But it is so that 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 in our sins but even as believers.426a "Sin." DXΓΔ, etc., most cursives (33, 69), add "against thee," which Edd. omit, following ℵABL, 1, Syrr. Amiat. Memph. †"Seven times (second time). AGD, etc., most cursives, Syrr. Amiat. Aeth. add "in the day"; rejected by Edd. after ℵBDLX, most Old Lat. Memph. Arm.

If grace is not operative in another, this does not excuse any lack of grace on my part. In the case of personal trespass, grace wilt rebuke the offender, not haughtily, but in genuine love, for it is not grace or love to allow sin to continue. If there is repentance, then grace fully forgives. Lest we should set a limit if the offense is repeated, the Lord insists on forgiving seven times in a day, so long as the offender turns again to the offended in repentance (v.4).FAITH AND SERVICE

Verse 3. But suppose a person does something to stumble you, what then? "Take heed to yourselves." Your part is to forgive. Take heed to yourselves, jealous and self-judging. "If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him." What! if he trespass often - "seven times in a day?" Yes, if he "seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him." Watch incessantly yourselves and see to it that the spirit of love (the power of unity and the bond of perfectness, as we know from elsewhere) be not broken, nor the spirit of holiness, that the peace be not false. Blessed path! what condescension to our weakness and danger in the introduction of grace, and the moral judgment of present things, which are the aliment of the flesh and the domain of the world! Watchfulness against self and grace to others bring us through, rising like a life-boat above all breakers.

As brought to God, I have learned what God is as to His ways of grace (verses 31 and 32): "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Did God come and clamour against you in justice? He sent His Son to give Himself for you, and has forgiven you. There is a man that wronged me; I am going to forgive him, as God forgave me, and (if I am near enough to God to do it) to show out what we have been learning is the joy of our souls.

Next, comes what was suited to the disciples, as the objects of divine compassion, in circumstances of sorrow and trial here below. First, their bodily need is confessed, then that of the soul. "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive"* the first calling for no comment here (but see Appendix B, on the word "daily"); the last being put on the ground or pattern of the merciful spirit which had been so strongly inculcated on the disciples at the close of the chapter before. It was no longer to be "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," no longer evil for evil, but good only, good always. The model for their imitation was their heavenly Father, and not merely God as God. As the latter, as God, He has vindicated Himself from time to time, and He shall yet deal most righteously with all that demands judgment in man. As Father in heaven, He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust, not to speak of His intimate and everlasting relations with His children, who enjoy the overflow of all His love. So here the Lord teaches His disciples (not as a question of remission as sinners, but of divine government as children) to say, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." That is, we have this principle of forgiving mercy to others not only enjoined on the disciples as the will of the Lord, but solemnly interwoven with their own habitual need of it when they lifted up their hearts to their Father. The application and value of this to such as had been Jews must have been manifest; because as a nation they were responsible to walk according to the law, the character of which was not mercy in case of wrong, but the infliction of just punishment on the guilty. Thus it was that Israel of old was employed to purge the land of Canaan of its defiled and defiling inhabitants. And therefore it was that they themselves, when they and their kings thoroughly apostatized from God, fell under its terrible lash. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities." But now another principle was about to govern — not earthly retributive righteousness, but heavenly grace, which has power to transform as well as forgive the guilty. The Jews who believed were to be taken out of their previous standing and set in a new place as children, having to do with their Father in heaven, and responsible to reflect His character on earth.

Verses 14 and 15 show us that He is not speaking of eternal forgiveness, but governmental. If a believer forgives others, he may count on the Father's forgiveness in regard to restoring him to the joy of communion with Himself when he honestly confesses his failure. If he does not forgive others, he cannot properly enjoy communion with the Father: his very attitude forbids it.

"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The first word I will read is in 23rd Luke, verse 34. This prayer did not break from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ when He began His ministry amongst men and when they first of all wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth and then, moved with anger when He applied the truth, led Him to the brow of the hill upon which the city was built to cast Him down headlong. It was not then that He prayed this prayer, but after He had ministered among them for three and a half years; after He had told out His most wonderful love to them in unsurpassable words; when He had blessed their children and fed them when they were hungry, and healed the sick and cleansed the leper, opened the eyes of the blind and raised the dead. When He had gone about amongst them doing good "for God was with Him"; and when, in answer to all that heavenly grace that had been poured out without reserve amongst them, they cried, "Away with Him! Crucify Him!" When they had spat on His scarred face and seamed His back with the scourge and crowned His head with thorns and nailed Him to a gibbet and, not satisfied with that, had sat down to watch His sufferings, to gloat over His anguish and to mock Him, it was then, when the tide of man's hatred rolled upon Him, wave upon wave, that His voice was heard above the storm praying, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." He might have prayed another prayer. When one of His disciples drew a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane to protect his Master, as he thought, the Lord said, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" He did not pray that prayer, if He had it would have meant damnation, it would have meant the blackness of darkness for ever for them and for us. He did not pray that prayer, He waited until they had done their worst and then He prayed, "Father forgive them; for they know not what they do." It was the answer of invincible love to implacable hate, it was the answer of absolute goodness to incorrigible badness, and it was a prayer that was not only made but heard and answered, and the gospel as it goes forth in this world today is the answer to that prayer. In this He expressed His will. I would speak of some of these words at least as the last will and testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in this prayer He expresses His will to God — His will for mankind at large. For not only was the Jew there at that Cross, but the Gentile was there as well. Mankind was represented there. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed there and the heart of man in its enmity, against God, in its determination to be rid of God was fully declared, and when it had declared itself so absolutely, so conclusively the voice of Jesus answered in divine, heart moving love, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." When the Lord prayed that prayer He not only looked upon that seething mass of godless men that surged about Him, He looked down through the ages upon mankind to the very uttermost bounds of the earth and He prayed for mercy, for the salvation of men, and the gospel is going forth today as the result of that prayer. And if we have believed it and if we know God as our Father and Jesus as our Saviour and the Spirit of God as our abiding Comforter we owe it to that prayer that Jesus prayed when men had done their worst to Him.