Repentance or Forgiveness? (Matthew 18:21-35)

SCRIPTURE

Matthew 18:21-35

COMMENT

Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone. A perfect question in light of Jesus telling His disciples what they should do if a brother sins against them. Now Peter was a smart guy, and he knew that Jesus expected more than the norm. Rabbis thought three times was sufficient, Peter extends it to seven. Jesus takes it a little farther by saying seventy-seven (some versions say seventy times seven).

So what is Jesus getting at here? He seems to be making the point that there is no limit to how often we should forgive. Now sure, there will be some who will count, and at seventy-eight they are done. But I am confident that was not Jesus's intention. To make that clear, He tells a parable.

In the parable, a servant owed a debt he could not pay. The master was within the law when he ordered not only the man, but his entire family to be sold to recover the debt. The man pleaded for mercy, saying he would repay, even though the possibility of that was almost zero. Out of pity, the master not only releases him from being sold, but he forgives the debt. That is huge! The man owed 10 talents. In today's money, over 10 million dollars! Contrast that with his fellow servant who owed him what amounts to a few dollars. In anger over what he might have perceived as a part of the reason he could not pay his master, he ignores his fellow servants pleas and has him jailed.

But others witnessed this, others who surely must have known how this first servant was forgiven a debt of millions. So they did what probably many of us would have done, they went to the master and tattled on him. The master summoned the man, and because of his behavior he reinstated his debt and had him jailed until the debt was paid, a life sentence. Jesus goes on to say that this is how we will be treated if we do not forgive "from the heart."

Now would could bet legalistic here, and say that forgiveness itself is a requirement for salvation, but I don't think that is true. Jesus doesn't just call for forgiveness, He calls for forgiveness "from the heart." Forgiveness that is not given to appease God, but rather in praise of God and the salvation that He gives. This is repentance in my opinion. Repentance is not merely turning away from sin (legalism), it is a turning to God, a change of life that occurs because of the massive debt that Jesus has paid on our behalf. The kind of change that the master here expected of his servant who had been forgiven millions.

This passage, to me, is more about repentance than it is about forgiveness.