MATTHEW 18:21-35
WHO NEEDS A good opening illustration when the Master storyteller has given his own? But before we get to Jesus’ parable, we will start with Peter’s question: “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’” (v. 21).
Ah, Peter is so Peter—always pious but often imprecise. In chapter 16 he said to Jesus, “You are the Christ” (16:16) but then added in essence, “But don’t go to the cross” (see 16:22). In chapter 17 he said to the transfigured Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here” (17:4) but then added in effect, "What this mountain sure could use is three new tents” (17:4). And here in chapter 18 Peter is once again (and not for the last time) quite himself. He asks a pious question but an imprecise one.
What is pious about Peter’s question is that (a) he calls Jesus “Lord,” which is the right title for the divine King; (b) he understands human nature well enough to know that even Brethren need forgiveness, and oftentimes repeated forgiveness for repeat offenses; (c) he is seemingly eager to personally apply what Jesus just taught in verses 15-20 about forgiveness; and (d) he is willing to double the then-normal Jewish forgiveness limit. The rabbis of Jesus’ day recommended—based on some verses in Amos 1, 2 about God revoking punishment for three offenses but not four (see Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6)—limiting forgiveness to three times (e.g., b. Yomci 86b- 87a). Peter was being generous. They say three; he says seven! “Lord, will seven times do?”
This is a very pious question. But it is sadly imprecise. What is imprecise is what Jesus points out in verse 22: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Here Jesus gives a loving redirection. Doubling plus one, he says, is not enough. Forgiveness is limitless. That is what Jesus means by “seventy times seven.” He doesn’t mean, have a forgiveness checklist on your refrigerator, then check a box each time your brother sins against you and you forgive him, until you get to box 491, and then forgiveness stops. Then burn the list and bind your brother. Then vengeance is yours! No, here our Lord is commanding Peter (and us) to stop counting and starting forgiving.
To be clear (verse 22 can be and has been stretched beyond its intention), here Jesus is not dismissing the government’s role and rule—that a good government should never catch and punish those who break the law. And here Jesus is not dismissing what he just said in verses 17-20 about the Ecclesia rendering the judgment of disfellowship on the unrepentant. The Ecclesia as the Ecclesia can and should sometimes bind (not forgive). And here Jesus is not dismissing what he teaches in verses 31-35 about God’s justice, that God as God has the right and duty to hold sinners accountable. God is not blind or indifferent to unrepentant sinners. Those who break the golden rule God shall break with an iron rod. And here Jesus is not saying that sin, while fully forgiven, doesn’t have consequences. In 19:9 he will teach that it is permissible to divorce one’s spouse due to “sexual immorality,” but he does not permit holding a grudge and not forgiving the sinner for his or her sin. One must forgive, but forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean the marriage lasts.
What Jesus says in 18:22 is that Brethren must forgive other Brothers who ask for forgiveness and must forgive them (if needed) over and over. Now, will another Brother actually sin against you 490 times? Perhaps. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s safe to say that I sin (intentionally or unintentionally) at least once a day. So let’s do the math. There are 365 days in the year. I'm forty. That’s over 14,000 sins. Well then, just imagine if my wife, my children, my Ecclesia kept count. Just imagine if God kept count of my sins (not to mention yours). Through Christ, God doesn’t keep count. So don’t you keep count! That’s the point. Got it? As God in Christ forgives us again and again and again, so we are to forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ again and again and again.
That principle brings us to the parable. It’s often called the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. I call it the Parable of the New Covenant. I base this on our Lord’s words of institution during the Last Supper:
And he took a cup. and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant [the new covenant; see Hebrews 8:8-13; 9:15; 12:24], which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (26:27, 28)
This parable is about forgiveness, and it’s about (this chapter title) “The Heart of Perfect Forgiveness.” Note that this parable is not so much about our action—what Peter is asking about, “How many times shall I forgive?”—but about our altitude. It is about getting our hearts in the right place to forgive.
Look with me now at verses 23-35, and let me explain this parable to you. For the sake of clarity, and to follow the three scenes here, I’ve divided the parable into three points.
1. Just as God in Christ forgave your zillion-dollar debt
2. so you ought to forgive, from the heart, your brother’s smaller but significant debt
3. or else face God’s eternal judgment!
Scene One
First we will look at God’s infinite forgiveness—Just as God in Christ forgave your zillion-dollar debt... Read again verses 23-27, where our Lord says:
Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”
And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
First things first. This is a parable, which means when Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to,” he does not mean the kingdom is precisely like this. Embellishment and exaggeration are allowed in a parable just as they are in children’s fables to make a point. And so, while true that the “king” or “master” does represent the “heavenly Father,” as Jesus says in verse 35, not all of this lord’s actions follow the Lord’s actions. For example, it was against Jewish law to sell people into slavery, as is threatened in verse 25. Thus in this verse Jesus is not teaching us that the character of God is such that, like an Assyrian despot, he will sell children into slavery to pay for their father’s sin. No! Think parable. Think exaggeration is acceptable.
You have to think this way because every major detail here is an exaggeration: no servant or slave could ever amass such a debt; no king (a Gentile king no less) would ever unconditionally forgive such an immense debt; no freshly forgiven debtor would treat another less indebted debtor with such cruelty (choking him); and no king would sentence this cruel servant to debtor’s prison for a debt that he couldn't ever pay. Jesus is exaggerating to make his points. And his first point is that just as this Gentile king forgave his servant’s astronomical debt, so the God of Israel in Christ has forgiven us our sins.
This first servant’s debt was “ten thousand talents” (v. 24). A talent was the highest unit of currency, and ten thousand was then the highest Greek numeral. So how much was “ten thousand talents”? It was the highest or largest imaginable amount. Robert Gundry says “zillions.” Zillions of dollars would be the modern equivalent. The lesson then drawn from this largest number is this: like this servant we are in the deepest possible debt to God, and like this servant we can’t come close to paying our debt, and therefore like this servant the only choice we have is to plead for mercy from the king.
Before I get to what the servant does and how the king responds, let’s take note of Jesus’ anthropology (his view of people) and then, tightly and necessarily connected with his anthropology, his soteriology (his view of salvation). Here Jesus depicts human beings, due to their sin, not as being $10,000 in debt or $40,000,000 in debt or even $75,000,000,000,000 in debt, but rather as being zillions of dollars in debt to God. Which means what? It means Jesus thinks deep down (and not so deep down) people are really, really bad. Perhaps more visual than debt, think of a zillion-mile chasm between God’s goodness and our badness. Or think both.
With Jesus’ calculation, the implications are obvious. He puts to rest any notion of works righteousness. It’s a zillion-mile chasm! It’s a zillion-dollar debt! Good luck with the climb. Good luck with a bank loan. You won’t balance that budget or bridge that chasm by yourself. You’ll only balance it and bridge it by clinging to that old, rugged, and colossal cross! A cross deeper and wider and vaster than you can ever fathom. For if one person’s debt (one person!) is a zillion dollars, what is the debt for the sins of the whole world for which Christ pays?" Christ’s cry on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (27:46), was the cry of a zillion times a zillion sins laid on one man. Yes, the cross of Christ is deeper and wider and vaster than you can ever fathom. And that's no exaggeration.
Now back to the parable and to the end of the first scene. When this first servant senses (somewhat) the gap, he prays the “sinner’s prayer,” which is, as it is here, always an imperfect plea. He fell on his knees (that’s right), and he implored the king (that’s right), “Have patience with me [that’s right], and I will pay you everything [that’s wrong]” (v. 26). He can’t pay everything back, but he honestly wants to, and he recognizes that he needs to or else.
It isn’t surprising that this servant, put in the situation he was put in, would reply the way he did. But what is out-of-this-world unexpected is that the king, out of compassion, would cancel the debt completely: “And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt” (v. 27). This is amazing grace. The slave wanted a chance to repay, but what he got was a “complete remission of debt.” He got forgiveness that was motivated by “pity” or what can be translated “compassion.” It’s the same word used for Jesus’ emotions and actions (see 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34). What this servant wanted was a patient king. What he got was a patient and compassionate and forgiving king!
Scene Two
As the curtain closes for scene one (vv. 23-27), we all rise to our feet and give a standing ovation to grace: our anthropological dilemma—“deep debt and human inability to pay it”—has been met by God’s debt cancellation program (what we know as, and what Jesus is walking towards, the cross)—a complete “forgiveness of all indebtedness by a gracious king.” Now as the curtain opens again for scene two, we expect to see great things from this forgiven servant. We expect a heroic man to emerge, not heroic in the sense of American cinema (Rambo) or Greek legend (Achilles) or even the book of Genesis (Lamech)—men of violent vengeance. Rather we expect a hero of gentle grace—Captain Forgiveness! But instead who emerges? The Incredible Sulk, or Doctor Cruel, or Mr. Supersonic Scum, or whatever we might call this unforgiving servant. He is anything but heroic.
But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, “Pay what you owe.” So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. (vv. 28-30)
So scene two starts and finishes quickly, so quickly that we are still standing and clapping for the end of scene one. But one by one we stop clapping, a few of us drop to our seats, and all of us cover our mouths in awe and disbelief. What we see here is so unexpected and so irrational.
But that’s just it. Sin is irrational. It’s as irrational as this forgiven man’s inexplicably evil behavior. Replay the scene with me. This first servant comes out of the king’s chambers having just been forgiven his zillion-dollar debt.
And what is first on his mind? What is first on his mind is finding the guy who owes him some cash and getting that guy to pay it all back immediately or else. You see, his mind or “heart,” as the Old Testament would put it (and as Jesus would put it in v. 35), is filled with no mercy, no patience, no forgiveness, no gratitude, no grace. His king has just forgiven his debt. If that’s how a king treats a slave, then how ought a slave to treat another slave? Perhaps graciously? Forget perhaps. However, he finds his fellow servant (note the words “he found”—which means he went out looking for him), and he seizes him, chokes him, and says to him, “Pay [right now] what you owe [me].” Finding, seizing, choking! Really? Choking a fellow servant over what? This must be a huge debt. What are we talking—a million dollars, a hundred thousand dollars? No, what is owed is “a hundred denarii.”
A denarius was a day’s wages. So here we are talking about four months’ wages. If you take home $2,000 a month, that’s $8,000; if you take home $4,000, that’s $16,000. That’s not insubstantial. It’s a real debt. But it is insubstantial when compared to 60,000,000 denarii. One talent equals 6,000 denarii; 10,000 talents is literally 60,000,000 denarii. But as I said, since 10,000 was the highest number used then, and a talent was the highest monetary unit, it’s equivalent to zillions, the highest number you can think of or make up.
So, in comparison this substantial debt is insubstantial. It is a “trivial” or “trifling” or “paltry” or “piddling sum,” as four different commentators describe it. Think of it this way. Our debt to God is like the distance from the earth to the sun. But our debt to one another—you sin against me or I sin against you—is like the distance between Chicago and Indianapolis as viewed from the sun. There’s real distance, but it’s not comparable. And if God can bridge the first gap we should bridge the second.
This is what the second servant attempts to do. He replies to this true accusation (he does owe him the money) almost as precisely as the first servant did before the king. He “fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you’” (v. 29). Now, you would think that action and that verbiage would jog the first slave’s memory, soften his hard heart, and open his mouth to say the words, “Your debt is forgiven. Go. You’re as free as I am!” Instead he said nothing. His hard heart hardened. The memory of his own forgiveness was like dust in the wind. He refused this second slave’s petition and threw him into prison.
He threw him into prison perhaps hoping some sympathetic soul (a brother, a father, a rich uncle, the king) would pay the other servant’s debt. Or he threw him into debtor’s prison, where the debt would slowly but surely be repaid by this second servant’s manual labor. Or perhaps this final move is as irrational as every action that has come before it. The first slave sends the second slave to prison, where now there is no way he can generate income to pay back the debt.
Whatever the specifics, I hope you see the picture. This is what a brother not forgiving a guilty but repentant brother looks like to God. It’s despicable. It’s disgusting. It’s completely irrational. And that’s Jesus’ point: don’t act like this irrational idiot. Rather, as the prophet Micah put it, “walk humbly before God, do justly, and love mercy” (my reordering of Micah 6:8); or as Jesus put it, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). Putting points one and two together, just as God in Christ forgave your zillion-dollar debt, so you ought to forgive, from the heart, your brother’s significant but significantly smaller debt (cp. v. 33).
I’ve entitled this chapter “The Heart of Perfect Forgiveness.” I use the word "heart” because of Jesus’ own summary of the parable (v. 35). His final word, for emphasis, in our text is “from your heart?” (plural), literally “from the hearts of you all.” Jesus is teaching about heart-attitude here. He is teaching that “true forgiveness may not simply hang from the lips.” It's not the reluctant and mumbled “I forgive you” from the big sister after being ordered by mom to forgive her grouchy younger brother’s, “I said I’m sorry!!!” Rather, here is it repentance and forgiveness from the heart.
“The Heart of Perfect Forgiveness.” I use the word “perfect” because of Jesus’ numerology here (“seventy times seven”), but also because of what Jesus taught about God’s love in the Sermon on the Mount. In 5:20-48 our Lord said, don’t act like scribes and Pharisees (see 5:20); instead act like God—“be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect” (5:48). In context, the meaning of the word “perfect” is perfectly clear. In 5:43-47 Jesus teaches how God the Father shows indiscriminate love in that he makes the sun rise and the rain fall for the good of both the good and the bad. He doesn't hide the sun from immoral people. He doesn’t fail to water the fields of the wicked. In the same way, Jesus says, we are to love all people—our brothers (those who usually love us) and even our enemies (those who usually don’t love us). That’s perfect love.
As I explained in chapter 12, this concept of perfect love is like a triangle. We are to love God. This is the tip of the triangle. But we are also to love our neighbors, the nice ones. They are the right point of the triangle. But if we stop there, it is imperfect love. We must also love those on the left, who we’d naturally like to kick to the curb.
Everybody, even the worst of people, loves their own. You won’t find an Italian mobster who doesn’t love the family or the most brutal inner-city gangbanger who won’t take a bullet for his grandmother. But what kind of love is that? It is lopsided love. It’s a one-pointed triangle. We are to love with perfect or complete or whole love, as the Father daily demonstrates, and as the Father most fully demonstrated in the cross of Christ (cp. Romans 5:8, 10). So “perfect” forgiveness is not much different than “perfect” love. If someone begs you for mercy for whatever sin and however many times a sin has been committed against you, you are to have compassion, and you are to offer forgiveness.
Scene Three
You are to offer forgiveness... or else. Our Lord’s parable is not done. We come now to the third and final scene. There are three scenes in this parable and three points:
1. Just as God in Christ forgave your zillion-dollar debt
2. so you ought to forgive, from the heart, your brother’s smaller but significant debt
3. or else face God’s eternal judgment.
Look at, listen to, and tremble before Jesus’ words in verses 31-35:
When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master [the king] all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
Jesus is so strong here. Jesus is so loving here (every warning is an act of love). Jesus is so relevant here. For these final five verses correct three popular views in the church today. First, that God will save all people (universalism). Second, that God never gets angry, and if he gets angry (an unlikely “if’) he certainly never gets angry enough to eternally judge someone. Third, warnings about the grave don’t apply to professing Christians. All of those ideas, according to Jesus, are wrong.
First, the idea that God will save all people is wrong. If there was ever a place in Jesus’ teaching ministry to walk into, through the front door no less, the doctrine of universalism, it would be here. Having heard Jesus teach on seventy-times-seven forgiveness and having heard his story of “the astounding magnanimity of the king” (God is so generous and gracious), we might next expect him to finish by saying, “And guess what? Everyone gets into the kingdom! End of story. Group hug.” Instead (almost as if he anticipated the popularity of universalism in our day), he teaches that judgment awaits the wicked.
That leads to our second wrong view. Today you won’t hear many sermons entitled, as Jonathan Edwards’s most famous sermon was entitled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” You won’t hear such a title because too many pastors today don’t believe God ever gets angry, or if he gets “angry” (but let’s not use that word, how about “disappointed”?), he certainly never would get “disappointed” enough to eternally judge someone. Today verse 34 of our Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching has been lifted off the page, tossed in the air, and punted 10,000 yards out of the church sanctuary.
But for Christ’s sake and our sake, I’ve brought it back, and I want to show it to you again now. My brothers and sisters, there is nothing antiquated or unethical about “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It’s just Bible language about heavenly and earthly and under-the-earth realities. God’s anger shows that he is holy. It also shows that he cares about justice. In this parable, the heavenly “Father” (note that Jesus calls him “Father,” not “Judge” or "King”) gets angry at the guy he just forgave who went on to choke his fellow man and demand reparation. If ingratitude and inhuman cruelty like that didn’t upset God, we’d have a major ethical dilemma on our hands.
When we get angry we almost always sin. I get that. Anger has a negative connotation to us. But when God gets angry he never sins. We need to get that into our heads. His anger always leads to just judgment. And as much as the world today needs God’s forgiveness, it also needs God’s justice, what we read about in verse 34: “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.”
Now that final phrase—“until he should pay all his debt”—needs some explanation. Is Jesus here teaching the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory? Certainly not. Such a notion is so far removed from the Biblical testimony. Well then, is Jesus simply talking about punitive punishment—that God disciplines those he loves, and the discipline here is to imprison this “servant” (i.e., Christian brother, v. 30) until he forgives as he has been forgiven? Perhaps. Perhaps the “debt” here is forgiveness. Once he forgives, he gets out of jail.
The best understanding, however, is that this phrase—“until he should pay all his debt”—symbolized eternal punishment, what Jesus has recently called “Hell” (18:9) and what he would later describe as “the eternal fire [and “eternal punishment,” 25:46] prepared for the devil and his angels” (25:41). I hold this view based mostly on the amount of the unpaid debt. Remember
this first slave’s debt is zillions. Now tell me, how quickly does a man in jail pay that off? Oh, let’s see—how about “Never!” That’s the idea. Instead of saying, “This bad guy goes to jail for life” Jesus instead paints a picture, as he so often does, of the reality he wants us to avoid. Picture yourself in debtor’s prison forever.
The third and final popular misconception our Lord here dispels is that warnings about the grave don’t apply to professing Christians. I am aware of only a few times in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus uses the term “Hell” in reference to unbelievers (13:42, 50; 23:15, 33). Most of the “Hell” texts and many of the judgment passages, like the one before us, are given to Brethren. Look again at verse 35 with that thought in mind: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother [fellow Christian] from your heart.” Who is the “you”? The disciples listening then (18:1) and the disciples reading now—yes, “you.”
Jesus was not a street evangelist. That’s the right message, but it’s the wrong crowd. Jesus loved unbelievers into the kingdom, but he warned those already in (or those who think they’re already in) about what’s out there or down there—the grave. So he sermonized like Jonathan Edwards sermonized. He preached sermons like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” at church to the Ecclesia, hoping by God’s power to bring about revival and renewal—revival (waking non-Christian professing Christians from their spiritual deadness) and renewal (waking authentic but sleeping Brethren from their spiritual slumber). Here Jesus warns Brethren about the grave to wake them up and move them on, to push them to persevere.
So, does Jesus think Brethren can lose their salvation? No. I think Jesus illustrates that they can’t in the Parable of the Lost Sheep and teaches that in John 18:9: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.” Jesus hasn’t lost and isn’t going to lose any of his sheep. Be confident of that. But does Jesus think a professing Brother, someone who smugly sins while he hums his false-confidence mantra—“once saved, always saved”—will be saved or ever was saved? I don’t think so. Those who say to him on the last day, “Lord, Lord,” after living lawlessly (see 7:21-23), will not be let in. Read the Sermon on the Mount. Read Matthew 25. Read 1 John. Read Jude. Read Revelation. Read all of Peter’s and Paul’s epistles!
You see, we all stand between the cross and the chair, the day of God’s first salvation (the cross) and God’s final salvation (the chair), God’s first judgment on sin (the cross) and God’s final judgment upon sinners (the chair). Brethren stand between this past event and that future reality, and thus our heads need to be constantly turning—looking back and looking ahead— appreciating the King’s forgiveness, yet fearing the King’s judgment. Forgiveness and fear are not antithetical realities to Jesus, and thus they shouldn’t be to us. In our pilgrimage, God uses both—forgiveness and fear—to push us along.
Now, to be clear, our forgiveness of others is not a condition of salvation, but it is a consequence of it. “There will be no forgiveness in that day [judgment day] for unforgiving people,” J. C. Ryle has rightly said. I say it this way: There is no such creature as an unforgiving Christian. That being doesn’t exist. Christians forgive. We forgive because we have been transformed by the power of the gospel. The last point of my church’s vision statement is, “lives transformed by the power of the gospel,” and Jesus readily endorses that. If the gospel of forgiveness gets in you, it comes out of you. It brings the fruit of relational transformation.
Letter from the Heart
When I came to Christ, my sinner’s prayer resembled this first slave’s. It wasn’t perfect—I promised too much and undervalued my inability. It wasn’t perfect, but it was from the heart. It was sincere, and it was reverent. God’s holiness so overwhelmed me that I had, for the first time in my life, a sense of the spiritual gap between me and him. It brought me to my knees. It brought me to tears of repentance. It brought me to faith in the one meditator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ.
And soon after my conversion, forgiveness became the air I breathed. I breathed in God’s forgiveness, I breathed out my own forgiveness of others, and I asked others to breathe in and breathe out forgiveness of me. I remember quite vividly reading afresh the Gospel of Matthew and coming to 5:21-24, near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. In that section on perfect love (where Jesus also warns believers about judgment [v. 21] and “the grave" [v. 22]), I read these needle-to-the-heart words:
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (5:23, 24)
I closed my Bible. I took out a pen and paper, and I wrote a letter to two people I had deeply offended with my sin. I sealed it and mailed it. I’m fairly certain they received it but am uncertain how they responded. I still don't know today. Did they trash it immediately, or it is tucked away somewhere in their “I can't believe this guy would ask for our forgiveness” pile? I hope and think it’s the latter. But it doesn’t honestly matter to me. What matters is that God gave me a new heart, and that new heart was given this “persistent power” to receive and to give forgiveness.
Our Lord’s question from this parable (related to Peter’s question) is this: do you have such a heart? Imperfect sinner as you are, do you have that God-given heart of perfect forgiveness—a heart that takes in and gives out forgiveness seventy-times-seven?
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)