Matthew 6:12
A very important element of God's forgiveness is our forgiveness of others. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus, "How often will my brother sin against me, and how often will [should] I forgive him? Until seven times?"
Jesus answered, "Not until seven times, but until seventy times seven times."
I have heard many, many sermons and commentary on this passage, and they all agree that Jesus is saying that the passage is speaking about God's forgiveness, and that the "seventy times seven" is not literal, but that His forgiveness is infinite. They say that we can sin over and over again - an infinite number of times - and God will continue to forgive us.
But what does the passage say?
Peter's question to Jesus was not, "How often will God forgive me of my sins", but,
"How often will my brother sin against me, and how often will [should] I forgive him? Until seven times?"
The passage is not about how frequently God will forgive us of our sins , but about the fact that our brothers in Christ frequently sin against us, and therefore God requires us to forgive them every time they do.
If God requires His people to forgive "until seventy times seven times", obviously God's forgiveness is just as abundant, if not more so. He would not require His people to do something that He Himself does not do. So, God's abundant forgiveness is definitely an implied truth that can be drawn out of the passage.
But what I find curious is that most of the sermons that I have ever heard preached on this passage are not about what the passage says, but are about God's infinite, unconditional forgiveness. They are not about God's people frequently sinning against one another or about God's requirement of His followers to forgive one other, or about the consequences if they don't.
Why is that?
There are *many reasons, a few which I have listed at the end of article. But another important question to ask is, if the passage is not taught as it reads, is what we have been taught about God's forgiveness being unconditionally infinite true?
Based on the parable that Jesus shares after Peter asks his question, our forgiveness is conditional (Matthew 18:22-35).
Jesus started by saying, "Because of this the kingdom of heaven was likened to a man: a king who wished to settle accounts with his bondservants".
The parable is about the kingdom of heaven, therefore Jesus is addressing the parable to those who are of the kingdom of heaven. In the parable, He mentions a king and some bondservants. Jesus is the King of the kingdom of heaven and His followers are the bondservants.
In the parable, a man who owes a massive debt is brought before the king to repay it. The man did not have anything to repay him with, so he fell down before the king and began pleading with him to have patience with him and promised that he will repay the debt.The king had compassion on him, and forgave him the debt.
Afterwards, that same man went to one of his fellow bondservants who owed a debt to him, and began choking him and demanding that he repay him. The fellow bondservant fell down before the man and pleaded with the man to have patience with him and promised that he will repay the debt. But the man did not want to be patient or forgiving, so he had the man cast into prison.
Other fellow bondservants witnessed this and went and told their lord, the king, what had happened.
The lord called the man before him and said, "Evil bondservant, I forgave you all your debt because you pleaded with me, therefore shouldn't you have done the same thing to your fellow bondservant?"
The man made his lord angry, so he gave him to the torturers until he should repay everything that he owed him.
Jesus concluded the parable by saying, "So my heavenly Father will also be doing to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother their trespass from your hearts."
Jesus made it clear that our debt will not be forgiven if we do not forgive the debt of those who owe us - if we do not forgive those who have sinned against us.
In fact, if we don't do it, God will be angry with us and will require us to repay everything that we owe Him, which is impossible, so He will give us over to "the torturers" until we repay Him in that way.
To me, truths like this are very important for followers of Jesus to know and understand so that we don't make the mistake of thinking that God has no expectations of His people, or conditions for them to live by, or that they are free and clear to live however they like because they have "accepted Jesus into our heart", and therefore they are saved. Make no mistake, God is absolutely not okay with or accepting of sin.
Yet I have never heard truths like this taught. What is taught is actually the opposite of what Jesus is saying. What is taught is that God's forgiveness is infinite and unconditional. However, to reiterate, what Jesus said is that our forgiveness is conditioned on our forgiveness of others. If we do not forgive others, He will not forgive us, and He will make us repay our debt through the torturers, whatever that means.
Though unconditional love and salvation sounds good to us all, and is very pleasing and comforting, it is not what the Bible teaches. God has expectations for how His people are to live and behave, and if they don't, then they will not enter the kingdom of God. God is explicitly clear about that.
He likens His relationship with the church to a marriage covenant. Everyone will agree that a marriage covenant is not unconditional. In a marriage covenant, the condition is that the two parties remain faithful to each other and keep their vows to one another for their entire lifetime.
In a marriage covenant, a husband is not required by God to stay with His wife if she abandons him by committing adultery, and vice versa. He has the right to divorce her (separate from her) because she was unfaithful to him.
In God's sight, the marriage covenant is more than just two people deciding to live together and have a family together. It is a bond - a joining of two people - that can only be broken by adultery which is unfaithfulness.
If a marriage partner divorces the other for any other reason, they are still married in God's sight, therefore if the partner who divorces remarries, they are committing adultery.
The same conditions God has placed on the marriage covenant also applies to the covenant He made with His people.
If God has placed conditions on a marriage covenant between people, then why is it so widely believed that He has not placed any conditions on the marriage covenant He made with His people? Why is that difficult for people to accept?
In my opinion it is not safe for us to believe that God has no conditions or requirements to live by, as we see in the parable. The consequences are severe.
The condition that God has for His marriage covenant with His people is this:
We are to live according to the ways He has instructed, remaining faithful to Him until we die or until Christ returns.
If we choose to not live according to His ways that He instructs us to live by, then we are not being faithful to Him or following Jesus, and therefore we are not a Christian, and therefore we will not inherit the present or future kingdom of God. It is as plain and simple as that.
And the condition God has placed on our forgiveness is whether or not we forgive those who sin against us.
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*A few of my speculations for why Matthew 18:21-35 are taught as being God's unconditionally infinite forgiveness of our sins, rather than what the passage teaches are:
1. It is both pleasing to us and comforting to believe that God will continuously forgive us with no strings attached. The "free gift of salvation" is commonly taught, implying that God requires nothing from us.
2. It is used as a sales tactic in modern Christianity to get unbelievers to purchase Jesus, because who doesn't want to believe in a God who unconditionally forgives our every sin? It implies that we can continue to sin, and God is okay with it - there is no change or repentance required. You can have your cake and eat it too.
3. There is not careful consideration of what the passage actually says, but there is continuous parroting of what is passed down through the generations by tradition, seminaries, pastors and celebrity Christians, who form our beliefs more than the Holy Spirit does. If we hear a respected person in leadership say something, and hear many leaders echoing the same thing, then we are apt to believe that it is true.
4. For many it is difficult to believe that there would be an "evil bondservant" within God's kingdom or that Jesus would turn him over to "the torturers" because of his evil. However, it is evident that the evil bondservant in the story was described as "evil" because he was mistreating a fellow bondservant, and therefore he was not truly following the ways of the King. He must have been at one time because he was in the kingdom of God, but apparently he backslid and no longer conducted himself as a subject of the King.
5. Many do not believe that Jesus requires anything from them, or that He would give one of His own over to the torturers for their "evil", because that is not within the character of the meek, all loving, all forgiving, grace filled Jesus that we have been taught about.
6. The framework of Modern American Christianity is structured around the benefits that we receive from God, such as forgiveness, eternal life, blessings, crowns, etc, rather than just simply having Christ alone. Because of this, the message of most modern teachings and Christian songs are about the things that God will do for us, rather than about what we must do for God.
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