Kingdom Forgiveness -Matthew 18:21-35
A Gallup poll recently reported that Americans are among the loneliest people on earth, due in part to our Western sense of individualism and tendency toward isolation, and historically to a continuing growth in industrialization and urbanization that the advance of technology and consumerism have brought about. Post-COVID, it is safe to say that feelings of loneliness and isolation are at an all-time high.
It is important for us to remember that while in the Western world our sense of community has increasingly become less of a priority, God has always placed a high value on it because He created us to live in community. Indeed, God Himself exists within a community—a triunity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While we do not fully understand the Trinity, we do know they are One in Three, as the Scripture says. We also know that between the three members of the Godhead there exists a kind of unity or community of fellowship, and that He intends such community to be reflected within the Church. We see this in Ephesians 4, where Paul tells the church in that city to endeavor to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…”
This unity of community is also apparent in the natural world. We see it in the interdependent ecosystems He created—so even nature itself demonstrates who He is and what He values. When an ecosystem is destabilized by, let’s say, the elimination of a key predator, or the introduction of an invasive non-native species of plant or animal, the damage that causes can be impossible for that ecosystem to recover from, especially on the heels of something even more catastrophic, like a tornado or a hurricane or a fire. A healthy ecosystem, on the other hand, when facing something similar bounces back. That capacity to recover well is a hallmark of a functioning community, whether of plants and animals or human beings.
The Destabilizing Effect of Sin within a Fellowship
Sin within a fellowship of believers has a destabilizing effect on it, too, just as the scenarios described above can destabilize a natural ecosystem. In fact, within a church it can destroy any sense of community. A certain Bible commentator remarked that one problem that sin causes within a fellowship of believers is to create competition. Of course, not all competition is bad, but in Matthew 18 the kind of prideful competition we see among the disciples concerning who is greater than the other is certainly of a kind that causes harm to community. This is one reason Jesus previously tells these disciples that they need humility, that they need to come to God in the way a child comes.
An independent spirit seems embedded in human nature, but it is especially something celebrated by American culture. We strongly value our independence and our freedom, yet as a community of believers God desires us to be interdependent, and in a way that involves holding each other accountable before Him. We see this reflected in the portion of Matthew 18 we have been studied these past several weeks.
One temptation we face in our dealings with each other is a desire for retribution, a desire to get back at the one who has wronged us. Jesus has just described to the disciples how to deal with a believer who has committed a trespass against another. The offended party goes to the one who has committed the offense and seeks to resolve the matter in a particular way, following specific steps. It is this instruction regarding forgiveness that has prompted Peter to ask, in this portion of Matthew’s narrative, “How many times do we have to forgive?” So, as we see how Jesus answers that question we are going to see several things. First,
God Calls Us to Unlimited Forgiveness…
Matthew 18:21-22
What Forgiveness is Not
It is not a therapeutic process to make us feel better. (It will, in fact, make us feel better, but that’s not the point.) Nor is it about cultivating a forgiving attitude toward everybody around us in a sort of nebulous “it’s all good” spirit. Back when Timothy McVey bombed the Murrow Building in Oklahoma City, a pastor in New England announced from the pulpit, “I forgive Timothy McVey, and I invite you to do the same.” Why did that pastor need to forgive Timothy McVey? Did McVey cause harm to him or to someone he loved? Did he wrong him personally? Was that the answer? Did we all just need to forgive Timothy McVey? On the contrary, as a nation what we needed was not to offer him a blanket “forgiveness,” but to see him be brought to justice. So forgiveness is not some amorphous, collective therapeutic feel-good thing. It is dealing properly on an individual level with someone who has wronged you personally.
It is not necessarily about forgetting the offense. Of course we can’t forget what the person did—we don’t have that sort of divine capacity. But there is a way of forgiving that we will be looking at that allows us to put it to the back of our mind and move forward in an amicable relationship with that person.
It is not necessarily restoration. We are commanded to forgive regardless of whether we are able to restore that relationship. The Bible says, “as much as lies within you, live peaceably with all men,” but restoration does not happen unilaterally; it requires participation from both parties. Even if the other party is unwilling to reconcile and restore, however, we are still commanded to forgive the one who has wronged us. Perhaps you know someone who has said, “I will forgive him or her, but I will never trust that person again!” This is not forgiveness. True forgiveness allows for the potential for damaged trust to be restored.
What Forgiveness Is
The word for forgiveness used in Scripture means “to leave behind,” or “to let go of.” The same word is used in a more literal sense in Mt 4:20, “They [the disciples] left their nets and followed Jesus.” They didn’t forget the nets they left behind; they simply made the choice to walk away from them. So, forgiveness is letting go of, or leaving behind an offense someone has caused you. That means that if you as a believer are holding onto an offense committed against you rather than forgiving it from the heart, you are not following Scripture. You are not pleasing the Lord.
Returning to our text, Peter asks “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” He must have thought that to be more than generous, and as a Jew he would have good reason to believe that. Old Testament passages such as those in Amos (“For three transgressions… and for four”) and in Job (“Behold, God works all these things, Twice, in fact, three times with a man…”) seem to justify a limit to forgiveness, as did certain Rabbinical writings. For instance, “if a man commits a transgression the first, second, or third time, he is forgiven, the fourth time he is not.” Even more restrictive is this from the Mishnah: “If a man said, ‘I will sin and repent, and sin again and repent, he will be given no chance to repent.” So, when Peter asks, “Seven times?” he knows he is going above and beyond expectations. It must have been utterly shocking, then, for him to hear Jesus say, “…seventy times seven.”
It is important to pause here and be reminded that we should be concerned more about the welfare of others than of our own. This is why Jesus warned earlier in Matthew 18, “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones…” and, “…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in…the sea.” A forgiving heart realizes that the need to forgive is as much about not injuring the well-being of the brother who has committed the offense as it is about having an obedient heart toward the Lord. The “seventy times seven,” then, is Jesus’ figurative way of saying that we are not to keep score but to freely forgive, and to do so as needed. This we should be glad to do, because it is how He deals with us as His children. We never have to wonder about whether or not God will forgive us when we go to Him. Scripture tells is that “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9). So, the example is Christ Himself. He forgives EVERY TIME. How wonderful is THAT!
…Because the Value of God’s Forgiveness Is Virtually Infinite
(Matthew 18:23-27)
In verses 23-27, Jesus shows us that the value of God’s forgiveness is virtually infinite. He does this by telling them a parable that compares the kingdom of heaven to an earthly king (symbolic of God) coming back to settle accounts with his servants. We can assume for the sake of the story that the servants are likely magistrates responsible for the collection of taxes and fees. The king expects these men to render up what they have been responsible for collecting from the population. One magistrate appears to have a monumental short-fall of ten thousand talents in revenues. While it is not clear what a talent amounts to exactly, other than it being the maximum amount for buying or selling a slave, we do know that a sum of ten thousand talents is impossibly beyond anything the magistrate is capable of repaying apart from an indentured servitude that would have likely lasted the rest of his life.
(Note: Jews practiced a type of slavery that really amounted to indentured servitude—a practice that was allowed by Jewish law, but limited by it in scope and regulated by it. It was the way people unable to pay their debts were made to work off what they owed. There was a provision in the law that allowed for early release, should it come in time. It was called the Year of Jubilee, which came about every fifty years.)
Jesus tells His disciples as He elaborates on the story that the king is so moved by his magistrate’s plea for mercy that he frankly forgives the debt. This is the kind of compassionate forgiveness God shows to us. We can at times forget the value of this forgiveness because we fail to appreciate the full weight of our own sin. Our debt, like the magistrate’s, is beyond anything we could ever repay yet He has forgiven us freely. Such forgiveness was not arrived at easily or cheaply, so we must not lose sight of what it cost the Lord at Calvary to make it possible, particularly since we are deserving of nothing at all. Like the words of the old hymn remind us,
“Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget Thine agony,
Lest I forget Thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.”
we must return in our thoughts to that sacrifice on Calvary if we are to keep in view what the Lord did for us to pay the debt that we, on our own, could never get out from under. This matters because when we neglect, as Scripture says, so great a salvation as this, sin ends up bubbling up to the surface in our lives. It is why we must regularly confess our sin and forsake it. Do we really attach this kind of value to God’s forgiveness, realizing we deserve nothing? If we do, then any offense that another commits against us falls into proper perspective—it is but a drop in the bucket compared with the great debt we own Christ, who has freely and unreservedly forgiven us.
Failure to Forgive Is an Inequitable Response to God’s Forgiveness
Matthew 18:28-30
The same servant whose insurmountable debt the king so freely forgave appears not to have learned anything at all from his Lord’s magnanimity. Unwilling to forgive a fellow servant owing him a much smaller debt by comparison, the magistrate has his own debtor thrown into prison. His fellow servants see what he has done and go to the king with their report. This angers the king so much that he rescinds his forgiveness and, as the passage tells us, delivers this wicked servant to the torturers until he should pay all he owes, in a life sentence of servitude. Then Jesus tells His disciples, “So my heavenly Father will also do to you if each of you from the heart will not forgive his brother’s trespasses.” What exactly does this mean, assuming that the warning applies to us? And it surely does. How do we reconcile it with what we have already been taught in Scripture, in John 10 and Hebrews 13, for instance—that God is compassionate and abundantly pardons, that He will never leave us or forsake us? From these and other portions of Scripture we know certainly that it is not saying we will lose our salvation if we do not forgive a brother in Christ. But, what CAN we conclude from it? It is that…
Failure to Forgive Invokes Judgment
(Matthew 18:31-35)
So, what kind of forgiveness could God possibly be withholding from us? To answer that we must look at the portion of Matthew 6 that includes the Disciple’s Prayer (also called the Lord’s Prayer): “…And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one… For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” What are we to make of that? Perhaps Hebrews 12:6-15 provides the best clarification: “‘For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? … Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled…”
It is reasonable, then, to say that there is a sense in which we are positionally forgiven but our fellowship with the Lord remains unrestored so long as we continue to hold onto and justify sin in our hearts. We need, from time to time, to be reminded of this: to fail to agree with God about our sin (I Jn 1:8), to fail to confess our sins, is to not be restored to fellowship with God. If we hold a grudge against a fellow believer and fail to confess that sin before the Lord, then while we may be positionally forgiven, we do not experience the fruit of God’s forgiveness. God will chasten us about it if we do not forsake it.
Beyond it damaging our fellowship with the Lord, an unforgiving spirit eventually becomes apparent to all, defiling many others as well as the one who harbors it. It is imperative, then, that we forgive, whether someone has or has not asked forgiveness. Once again in this matter Christ Himself is the example. He has offered forgiveness to the entire world. Although people do not become rightly related to Him without personally laying hold on that forgiveness, the offer of pardon is nonetheless available to all.
For a community to remain a community forgiveness is absolutely key, and it is especially the case as the people in a community get to know each other better and learn more about each other’s faults. The only way we are going to be the body of Christ, the only way your family or your marriage is going to be able to reflect Christ is by being ready to forgive one another. You can forgive because God has forgiven you.
Six Truths for Applying Forgiveness:
1. Focus on your own faults rather than on the faults of others. (Matthew 7:1-6)
2. Be mindful of your own undeservedness, and God’s compassionate forgiveness. (Ephesians 4:32)
3. Remember you are required to forgive, but you are not required to trust. However, you cannot forgive without allowing for the potential to trust.
4. Realize that forgiveness is often a repeated process rather than merely a one-time decision.
5. Rest in God’s justice. (Romans 12:19)
6. Trust the Lord. (Proverbs 3:5)
