We Can Never Fulfill The Law of Forgiveness

Dear Old Friend,

When we got together last week, you mentioned listening to and being troubled by a recent sermon given by a guest speaker at a church we have come to look to as the place where we can always count on hearing the Gospel. The sermon was about the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant found in Matthew 18:21-35.  You asked me some questions about the sermon because it confused you and made you fearful; but since I had not yet heard the sermon, I felt that I could not respond until I had.  I just finished listening, and want to offer my thoughts.

 I will include the passage of scripture here for convenience:

²¹ Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

²³ “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. ³² Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. ³⁵ So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

For me, the key to understanding this passage is looking at the context in which Jesus told the story, which includes the question he was answering, the person to whom he was speaking and the point in history during which he spoke.

In the preceding verses, (Matthew 18:15-20) Jesus had given the steps which should be followed when a brother sins against you.  Jesus’ discourse prompted Peter to go up to him afterward and ask the question in verse 21, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” At the heart of it, Peter was asking Jesus to quantify, or actually codify, forgiveness.  In other words, he wanted Jesus to give him The Law of Forgiveness, so that he could follow it. 

Those of us who are living after Christ’s death and resurrection, and after the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and began to illuminate, apply and interpret for us who Jesus was, what he did and why he did it, want to read this parable as if it was being told to us, with all of our knowledge of those things; but, it was being told to Peter during a time before Jesus died, while he knew only the Law, and was still laboring under the belief that he must obey and was capable of obeying it in order to please God.

Because Peter was asking Jesus to give him The Law of Forgiveness, thinking he could then obey it, Jesus did exactly what he did in the Sermon on the Mount, he broadened and deepened the concept of forgiveness to show Peter the impossibility of what he was thinking.

He began by telling Peter that his estimate of how many times he should be expected to forgive, which I’m sure Peter thought was generous, was actually pitiful.  Jesus told him the number wasn’t seven times, it was seventy-seven times, which didn’t really mean that at seventy-eight Peter could cut his brother off, it represented the idea of infinite forgiveness; forgiveness without limit.

Then he illustrated what he said by telling the parable to Peter; prior to his death and resurrection, prior to the illumination of the Holy Spirit regarding that death and resurrection.  He told the parable to Peter, who was trying to learn the rules so that he could keep them.  He told the story to Peter so that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, after Peter’s denial of Jesus, after the Holy Spirit interpreted the parable to him, he would remember and understand.

Because our minds are, by nature, as saturated by Law as Peter’s, when we read this parable we will always initially see it from that perspective. The King forgave this man an unimaginably vast debt.  It was obvious to everyone listening that the servant’s response to that amazing gift of mercy and forgiveness should have been to go out and do likewise; but, instead, against everything the listener knew to be right, the man went out and hunted down someone who owed him a few bucks, strangled him and threw him in prison until he could pay the debt.  The ungrateful servant is clearly a villain, and everyone listening to the parable then, and reading it now, understands the justice of what the King did in the end, when he withdrew his mercy and handed the servant over to the jailers, or, in the original Greek, the torturers, until his debt could be paid.  Then, after the parable, when Jesus says that God will do the same to all of us if we don’t forgive our brother from the heart, we are terrified, but there is nothing any of us can say.

We who know the story of salvation have nothing to say because anyone with a shred of self-awareness recognizes themselves as the unworthy servant.  We see that the story simply describes us. We are all capable of being grateful for the tremendous miracle of forgiveness which we have been given and being simultaneously unforgiving toward others; and we are so dim-witted we often don’t even recognize the incongruity of it at the time.  Through this parable we recognize our guilt and know that we deserve the same fate as the servant.  We see that, standing before the God who sent his Son to pay our monumental debt, we are without excuse.

That is what the law does, it diagnoses us; it strips us bare and exposes our sin so that our mouths are silenced.

That is what Jesus is intentionally doing to Peter and his desire to know the parameters of what was expected from him as far as forgiveness, because he thought he could do it.  Did Peter recognize himself in the story at that point? Probably not; because he did not know the Gospel yet.  But, after his denial of Jesus; after Jesus’ death and resurrection; after He was forgiven his own monumental debt; after Jesus’ ascension into heaven and after the Holy Spirit explained all that Jesus said and did, I’m sure that Peter finally understood.

This parable of Law did not end with the relief of the Gospel because Jesus himself had not yet fulfilled the Law and become the Good News.  But we who know the Good News can now see that the point of this parable is that no matter how well we are treated by anyone up to and including God, we will never be able to parlay that into a motivation strong enough to enable us to perfectly forgive our brother from the heart.  Despite all of the grace given to us, we will still dim-wittedly hunt down our debtors and hound them, even while we are yet within the shadow of the palace in which we received our forgiveness, because that is who we are.  If we are counting on ourselves to finally get it right and fulfill the Law of Forgiveness, we will fail and receive the only fate our efforts have earned and deserve.

Our only hope is to recognize our utter helplessness and total dependency on the forgiveness which God has given us because Christ was handed over to the torturers until our debt was paid in full.  Should we offer others the same mercy and forgiveness we have been given? Of course! Will we? Sometimes; hopefully increasingly. But, regardless, we can rest securely in the knowledge that God will not revoke his mercy and forgiveness to us in the face of our unfaithfulness because it is forever based solely on the faithfulness of his Son on our behalf.

Don’t be afraid, my dear friend, take comfort in this:  Because we are in Christ, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13.

Love Always,

Bonnie