The Commands of Christ, Part Twenty-Nine

Let me start with the elephant in the text: most translations of the first verse we’ll look at in part twenty-nine say “seventy times seven” or “seven times seventy” times. The NASB 95 says “seventy times seven” but the NASB 2020 edition says “seventy-seven.” Which is it? Well, the Greek word here is “hebdomekontakis” (try saying THAT five times fast!). It is true that if you follow the root words far enough you get to “seventy times seven” as a pretty literal and faithful transliteration. However, when we study the idiomatic meaning, the word is used to describe a countless number of times. So, I don’t really want you to think of a number at all when you read Matthew 18:21-22:

Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I still forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy-seven times.”

Even if you’re getting caught up on the number, whether it’s 77 or 490, do you really know anyone who has wrong you that many times? Are you keeping close enough track? But, perhaps most importantly, why do we forgive? We discussed this briefly in part 12 of this study. Now, we’re going to dive deep.

Jesus follows up his wild notion of forgiving someone who offends you countless times with a story of a king. The king wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. There was a slave who owed the king ten thousand talents (which, today, would be in the billions). It was equal to about 200,000 years of work. There was no way the slave could ever repay this and the king was going to sell the slave, his family, and everything the slave owned to settle the debt. The slave begged the king to have patience and said he’d pay over time. The master had compassion, released the slave and forgave the debt. This guy went from slave who owes multiple lifetimes of money to the king to not being a slave and debt free. You’d think he’d jump for joy and pay it forward, right? He did not.

The newly freed slave went to a fellow slave who owed him a hundred denarii. This would be in the thousands when looking at dollars but back then would have been equal to roughly 100 days of labor. When the fellow slave made the same plea, instead of continuing the spirit of forgiveness that the former slave had received, the former slave had his debtor thrown in prison. The master found out. Let’s look at verses 32-35:

Then summoning him, his master said to him, “You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?” And his master, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he would repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.

Let’s look at just verse 35:

My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.

Yes, this is Jesus saying that God will hand you over to “the torturers” if you fail to forgive in the way that you have been forgiven. This doesn’t equate to losing your salvation. Jesus says in John 10:28-29

My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

(Keep John 10:30 in your pocket for anyone who tries to tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God).

To follow Christ is to be one of His sheep. If we are His sheep then we listen to His voice. His voice spells out the importance of forgiveness throughout the New Testament. If you struggle with forgiveness, God can and will help you get better at it. The story of the slave is not a story of someone who struggled to forgive but ultimately found a way. The story is about someone who refused to forgive. There’s a big difference here.

I also feel called to point out that in this story, it’s about forgiving debt, but the story is prompted when Peter asks about when “my brother sin[s] against me…” There are some things that are going to be easy to forgive and they cost you nothing other than pride. As you grow closer to Christ and attempt to be more like him, these are things that will become simple and easy to forgive. You may even get to the point that forgiving these things comes so naturally that they fail to even register to you as needing forgiveness. After nearly 9 years of marriage (at the time of this writing), my wife and I seldom find the other needing our forgiveness. We try to let trivial things be trivial.

There are also deep, personal hurts. Maybe you were betrayed by a friend or emotionally wounded by someone you trusted. These are things that you will likely always struggle to forgive. They might require prayer and time before you can let go of the negative feelings attached to a name and a face, but following God means praying and asking for His help until you can.

It is written in Psalms 103:12 that God has separated our sins as far as the east is from the west. It’s in Isaiah 43:25 that God says he blots out transgressions for his own sake and remembers sins no more. When you tell someone you forgive them, you relinquish the right to make them feel awful about the thing they did that required forgiveness. That doesn’t mean there’s no accountability, it means that we trust God to hold them accountable and we don’t seek recompense from them ourselves.

The trivial things, even the moderate things that are easy to forgive are often easy to let go. Take comfort in knowing that God will hold those who hurt His people accountable. We don’t need to do it ourselves. Our role is to forgive so that bitterness doesn’t taint our witness and render our testimonies ineffective.