What did Jesus teach about forgiveness?
Forgiveness runs through almost everything Jesus said — He announced it to sinners, prayed for it over His executioners, and made it the test of whether His disciples had understood grace at all. His words raise two hard questions: how often must I forgive, and what happens to me if I refuse?
No Limit on the Number
When Peter suggested seven times as a generous ceiling, the Lord's reply removed the ceiling altogether. One commentator ties that answer to the change of ground on which disciples now stand:
William KellyIn 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 what feels with the deepest love, and goes out with it to others! ... Our Lord insists that there really was no end to forgiveness. It is always to be in the heart of the Christian.
The command sounds impossible until you see where the Lord got the measure from:
J. T. MawsonPeter 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.
The Debt You Were Let Off
Jesus attached a story to that answer: a servant forgiven a vast debt who then throttled a fellow servant over a trivial one. The point of the contrast is the size of the two sums.
Robert F. WallIn the parable of the kingdom of the heavens in the latter part of the chapter the Lord shows that we are always to remember how much God has forgiven us, and not to pursue trivial matters. ... The severity of their lord's dealing with the "wicked servant" shows how greatly this unforgiving spirit offended him. Having presented the parable, the Lord Jesus added His own solemn words, "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."
Forgiving and Being Forgiven
The Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount — that the Father forgives those who forgive — have been badly misread. Commentators here take them as belonging to God's daily dealings with His children, not to the question of eternal salvation:
William KellyNow the Lord names an unforgiving spirit as intolerable to our Father in His daily government of His sons. And no wonder. It is to go back from grace to law, from Christ to wretched self.
Nothing in it puts a believer's relationship with God at risk:
C. E. StuartBut not only are we dependent creatures, we are also sinful creatures, and need, how often, forgiveness at His hand. Yet our Father will extend this to us if we act as His children, showing a forgiving spirit towards others (Matt. 6:12, 14, 15); and a later revelation reminds us that failure on our part does not break the link of relationship between the saint and God (1 John 2:1).
Rebuke, Repentance, Restoration
In Luke 17 the Lord pairs unlimited forgiveness with honest speech — the wrong is named, not buried. One writer sets the two sides side by side:
William KellyWhile there is a strong warning against causing others to stumble, there is an equally urgent call to forgive others. We are to be firm against ourselves; we are to be firm for our brothers, even where they touch ourselves.
Where I am the offender, the traffic runs the other way:
The Christian's Friend"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him" (Luke 17:3). So, on the other hand, if I sin against my brother, I am bound to obtain his forgiveness; it is a point of godliness to do so (Matt. 5:24). ... First, if I have sinned against God only, I have to confess to Him and be forgiven, and He also practically cleanses in grace. Second, if my sin has been also against my brother, I must confess to him and get his forgiveness, as well as confessing to God.
Words No One Else Could Say
Jesus did not only teach forgiveness; He handed it out personally, to a paralysed man and to a woman at a Pharisee's table — and that shocked His hearers.
C. E. StuartAt length the Lord appeared, and did what John could not. He announced forgiveness of sins (Mark 2:5; Luke 7:48) ... And that woman He assured of it, apart from any offering she might take to God's altar to obtain it. No sacrifice she could have taken to Jerusalem could possibly have met her need. ... The joy was His, and rightly so, of first telling a wretched, guilty creature of the forgiveness of sins, really based on God's acceptance of the true Sacrifice, the Lamb of His own providing — His well-beloved Son.
From the Cross Outward
His last recorded word on the subject was a prayer for the men killing Him — and the mission He gave afterwards started in their own city.
A. J. Pollock"Beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47) was the divine commission — the city of His murderers. Such is the grace of God!
Summary
- Received — Jesus forgave sins directly, with no offering required from the sinner, resting on the sacrifice God Himself provided.
- Measured — the parable sets a huge debt cancelled against a small one demanded; what we were let off sets the scale for what we let go.
- Unlimited — "seventy times seven" removes the ceiling; the Lord is asking us to treat others as He treats us.
- Honest — forgiveness is not silence: the wrong is named, and where I am the offender I go and seek forgiveness myself.
- Governed — an unforgiving spirit is grace abandoned for law, and it costs a child of God his Father's daily favour, though not the relationship itself.