'Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until
seven times; but, Until seventy times seven.'
--MATT. xviii. 22.
The disciples had been squabbling about pre-eminence in the kingdom
which they thought was presently to appear. They had ventured to
refer their selfish and ambitious dispute to Christ's arbitrament.
He answered by telling them the qualifications of 'the greatest in
the kingdom'--that they are to be humble like little children; that
they are to be placable; that they are to use all means to reclaim
offenders; and that, even if the offence is against themselves, they
are to ignore the personal element, and to regard the offender, not
so much as having done them harm, as having harmed himself by his
evil-doing.
Peter evidently feels that that is a very hard commandment for a man
of his temperament, and so he goes to Jesus Christ for a little
further direction, and proposes a question as to the limits of this
disposition: 'How often shall my brother sin?' The very question
betrays that he does not understand what forgiveness means; for it
is not real, if the 'forgiven' sin is stowed away safely in the
memory. 'I can forgive, but I cannot forget,' generally means, 'I do
not _quite_ forgive.' We are not to take the pardoned offence,
and carry it to a kind of 'suspense account,' to be revived if
another is committed, but we are to blot it out altogether. Peter
thought that he had given a very wide allowance when he said 'seven
times.' Christ's answer lifts the whole subject out of the realm of
hard and fast lines and limits, for He takes the two perfect numbers
'ten' and 'seven,' and multiplies them together, and then He
multiplies that by 'seven' once more; and the product is _not_
four hundred and ninety, but is innumerableness. He does not mean
that the four hundred and ninety-first offence is outside the pale,
but He suggests indefiniteness, endlessness. So, as I say, He lifts
the question out of the region in which Peter was keeping it,
thereby betraying that he did not understand what he was talking
about, and tells us that there are no limits to the obligation.
The parable which follows, and follows with a 'therefore,' does not
deal so much with Peter's question as to the limits of the
disposition, but sets forth its grounds and the nature of its
manifestations. If we understand why we ought to forgive, and what
forgiveness is, we shall not say, 'How often?' The question will
have answered itself.
I turn to the parable rather than the words which I have read as our
starting-point, to seek to bring out the lessons which it contains
in regard to our relations to God, and to one another. There are
three sections in it: the king and his debtor; the forgiven debtor
and _his_ debtor; and the forgiven debtor unforgiven because
unforgiving. And if we look at these three points I think we shall
get the lessons intended.