The True Jesus: Uncovering the Divinity of Christ in the Gospels by David Limbaugh

Author:David Limbaugh [Limbaugh, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781621576488
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2017-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

FORGIVENESS AND MERCY (MATT. 18:21–35; LUKE 17:3–4)

Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus replies, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a king who wants his servants to settle their debts to him. He threatens to sell one servant who cannot pay his debt of ten thousand talents, along with his wife and children and all his property. The servant begs for mercy and more time to pay. Out of pity, the king forgives his debt. But the servant later refuses to show similar compassion for a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, even when he begs. Instead he puts him in prison, and other servants report the matter to the king, who severely chastises and imprisons him for failing to extend to the other servant the same sympathy the king had shown him. Jesus warns, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Jesus forgives terrible sins of those who trust in Him, and He expects us to reflect His behavior in our dealings with others. “This is not because God is unwilling to forgive,” Larry Richards observes. “It is because forgiveness is like a coin: it has two sides. We cannot have ‘heads’ (receive forgiveness) without having ‘tails’ (extend forgiveness) too.”15 Those who are unforgiving can’t expect God to forgive them. “Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus says, “for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7). He also includes forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). James expresses the same sentiment, writing, “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

In this parable, just as with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents a higher ethic than the world would ever see. Rabbinic teaching held that a person must forgive another three times—not seven times, much less seventy-seven times.16 But we should be heartened that in the parable, the servant holds the key to his jail cell. He will only be imprisoned until he pays his debt, which is a testament to Jesus’ forgiving spirit and gracious mercy.

A larger point in this parable is that God forgives us infinitely more than seventy-seven times—more than we could ever repay. Based on our thoughts and behavior none of us deserve salvation on our own and yet, by appropriating the blood of Christ, we are forgiven. Indeed, our sinful nature even resists our efforts to nurture a forgiving spirit, but Christlikeness demands that we adopt that attitude, and so does our spiritual and mental balance. Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, puts it well: “I am constrained to express my adoration of the Author of my existence for His forgiving mercy revealed to the world through Jesus Christ, through whom I hope for never ending happiness in a future state.

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