What does the Lord say about forgiveness?
The Lord speaks about forgiveness in two directions at once: what God has done with our debt, and what we are to do with the debts others owe us. He ties the two together so closely that the second becomes the test of whether we have understood the first.
Forgiveness Begins at the Cross
The first recorded words of Jesus while He was being crucified were a prayer for the men driving in the nails. One writer notes that this prayer did not deny their guilt — it opened a door.
Michael HardtThe first words we hear Him say are, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (23:34). The men crucifying Him were committing the greatest crime ever. They had had plenty of testimony about who the Lord Jesus was, but they knowingly rejected Him. They were fully responsible for what they did. But the Lord Jesus, in infinite grace, says the words "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." In their hatred they were blind and did not see the full extent of their guilt or what their actions really meant. The Lord uses this to treat them as ignorant, and so as manslayers rather than murderers. In other words, through this prayer He was opening the city of refuge to them (Numbers 35). This was the only basis on which they could be brought into fellowship with God.
Offered to Anyone Who Believes
After the cross, forgiveness stopped being something to plead for and became something to announce. The condition is not feeling, but faith.
W. T. P. WolstonForgiveness of sins is now preached to every creature, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the work He has accomplished, sins are put away from before God, and whoever believes in Him receives forgiveness of them. But who does he mean by "whoever"? Doesn't he mean you? Yes, surely it means you as well as me. If you can truly say, I believe in Him, you receive remission of sins. But I do not feel it, you may argue. It does not say, "Whoever believes in him shall feel the remission of sins." No, it says, "Whoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins."
That forgiveness is not repeated in instalments. It rests on one sacrifice that will never need repeating.
William KellyThe perfect sacrifice has caused the imperfect to cease… Therefore, when He offered one sacrifice for sins, He sat down for ever at God's right hand… But to the Christian the Holy Spirit testifies that God remembers their sins and their lawless acts no more.
No Ceiling on How Often
When Peter proposed forgiving seven times, he thought he was being generous. The Lord's answer moved the whole question off arithmetic and onto grace.
J. T. Mawson"I say not to you, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven," was the Lord's quiet answer. And Peter might well have said, "Impossible." But I can understand the Lord replying: "Peter, I am not asking you to treat your brother in any way other 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.
Ready, but Not Blind to Sin
Forgiving without limit does not mean pretending nothing happened. Commentators keep both sides: the wrong may be named, and the forgiveness must still be immediate.
The Christian's FriendRebuke him we may, and should; but if he repents, he is to be forgiven at once; and if he sins against us seven times a day, and says each time, "I repent," forgiveness is never to be lacking. This is grace. God never grows tired of forgiving us when we confess our sins, and we, as those who show what His heart is like, are to show the same readiness to forgive our brother's sins.
The number itself was never meant to be counted out.
A. J. PollockThat does not exactly mean 490 times, but it means go on doing it as long as there is a need. It does not mean that we are to excuse sin against the Lord, but when it affects ourselves there is to be the spirit of forgiveness always in our hearts, and a readiness to express it.
The Danger of a Hard Heart
The parable that follows Peter's question sets the two debts side by side, and the contrast is the whole point.
Leslie M. GrantCertainly we should therefore have the same forgiving spirit toward others. Yet this servant, though begged by his fellow servant to have patience with him, refuses to budge, demanding payment of a debt of a hundred pence, and has him imprisoned until he should pay the debt. He himself had owed 700,000 times as much, yet forgets how he has been shown such great mercy.
Jesus made the same point directly in the prayer He taught. Kelly reads that warning as touching our daily dealings with the Father, not the settled question of redemption.
William KellyNow the Lord points out 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.
Summary
- Source. Forgiveness starts with Christ praying for His own executioners — grace reaching people while they are still doing the wrong.
- Ground. One sacrifice, offered once, settles the debt; God says of the believer's sins that He remembers them no more.
- Measure. The Lord's answer to Peter sets no ceiling: we are asked to treat others the way He is treating us.
- Manner. Wrong may be named and repentance looked for, yet the readiness to forgive is to be constant, never counted out.
- Test. Holding a grudge after being forgiven a debt 700,000 times larger shows a heart that has lost the sense of grace — and it costs us our daily nearness to the Father.