The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity is September 17, 2023.

Readings for Year A can be found here, used in 2020 for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):

Matthew 18:21-35

18:21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

18:22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

18:23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a King who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

18:24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him;

18:25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.

18:26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’

18:27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the Debt.

18:28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’

18:29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’

18:30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.

18:31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.

18:32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

18:33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’

18:34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.

18:35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Last week’s exegesis was on Matthew 18:15-20, in which Jesus laid out how church discipline was to be conducted: seek a private reconciliation then, if that does not work, confront the guilty party with two or three witnesses with an eye to resolution and, if that fails, expel that person from the assembly (congregation) until he/she repents. The point of church discipline is reconciliation, not a permanent ban, although that sometimes results if the person was never a true believer in the first place.

After hearing our Lord’s instructions, Peter approached Jesus and asked (verse 21), ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’

At this point, Jesus and the disciples were alone at a house in Capernaum.

Peter came up with the number seven from the Old Testament.

Matthew Henry’s commentary says:

He thinks it is a great matter to forgive till seven times; he means not seven times a day, as Christ said (Luke 17 4), but seven times in his life; supposing that if a man had any way abused him seven times, though he were ever so desirous to be reconciled, he might then abandon his society, and have no more to do with him. Perhaps Peter had an eye to Prov 24 16. A just man falleth seven times; or to the mention of three transgressions, and four, which God would no more pass by, Amos 2 1.

Jesus replied, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times’ (verse 22).

Does that mean we are to stop when we forgive 490 times in our lives? No.

Henry says Jesus used that figure to illustrate that we should be generous in forgiving those who do us wrong:

I say not unto thee, Until seven times (he never intended to set up any such bounds), but, Until seventy times seven; a certain number for an indefinite one, but a great one. Note, It does not look well for us to keep count of the offences done against us by our brethren. There is something of ill-nature in scoring up the injuries we forgive, as if we would allow ourselves to be revenged when the measure is full. God keeps an account (Deut 32 34), because he is the Judge, and vengeance is his; but we must not, lest we be found stepping into his throne. It is necessary to the preservation of peace, both within and without, to pass by injuries, without reckoning how often; to forgive, and forget. God multiplies his pardons, and so should we, Ps 77 38, 40. It intimates that we should make it our constant practice to forgive injuries, and should accustom ourselves to it till it becomes habitual.

John MacArthur reminds us of the first verses of Matthew 18, which tie in with the rest of the chapter:

Now, in this great chapter we have seen our Lord teaching on the childlikeness of the believer, and you will remember that back in verse 2 the text tells us that Jesus actually took an infant and held that infant in His arms to be used as a living illustration, an analogy, if you will, of the childlikeness of the believer.  And then he began to teach elements of our childlikeness. 

First, we are to enter the kingdom like children.  Verse 3 says, “Except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  And then we are to be protected like little children.  Verse 6 says, “Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck andthat he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”  And then we are to be cared for like little children.  Verse 10 says, “Take heed that you do not look down on one of these little ones; for the angels are always beholding the face of my Father who is in heaven.”  And the Son of Man that we talked about cares for them, and the Father in verses 12-14, as well. 

So we then are to enter the kingdom like children.  We are to be protected like children.  We are to be cared for like children.  And then, in our last couple of looks at this very significant chapter, we know that we are to be disciplined like children.  Verses 15 and following tell us that we are to be disciplined.  When one of us sins, he or she is to be approached by the others for correction, for restoration. 

Now as we come to verse 21, we will note that we are to be forgiven like children. We are to be forgiven like children. There’s a great sense of tolerance with children, because we understand their weakness. We understand their ignorance. We understand their inabilities. Being childlike is indicating that we’re going to fail. There are going to be times when we do the wrong things. We’re still in the process of maturing, of growing up, of ordering our behavior …

People can rather easily hold grudges against adults, but it’s somewhat abnormal to hold them against children.  We tend to forgive children rather readily.  Adults we have difficulty forgiving and we need, then, to remember the teaching of this passage, that believers are to be treated like children, for in the spiritual sense we are and we need the same kind of gracious continuing forgiveness that a child does. 

Now, forgiveness is a great, great virtue.  I really believe that it is the key to the unity of the church.  It’s the key to love.  It’s the key to meaningful relationships.  It’s what constantly tears down the barriers that try through sin to be built up to separate us from one another, to wall us off, to make us bitter, and angry, and vengeful …

Forgiveness is a glory of a man.  It is the highest human virtue.  You show me an honorable man, you show me a man with real character, and I’ll show you a man who can forgive.  You show me a man who carries a bitterness deep down in his soul and I’ll show you a man without character.  You show me a person who cannot release some vengeful, bitter, antagonistic, hateful attitude towards somebody, and I’ll show you a man who knows not either the glory of a man nor understands the forgiveness of God to him. 

It is the best of a man to forgive – listen to this –  because it is the heart of God to forgive, and when man forgives he radiates that which is true of the image of God.  Forgiveness is so basic to God’s heart that it certainly should be basic to the heart of God’s children.  Coming at it another way, you might as well learn to forgive because people are going to need it.  And may I add, so are you.  Children of all people need forgiveness and we are children.  We’re weak.  We’re ignorant.  We’re selfish.  We’re prone to disobey, and we need forgiveness frequently.  We are such children. 

Jesus then gave Peter and the other disciples a parable by means of illustration.

He said that the kingdom of heaven could be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves (verse 23).

The kingdom of heaven is God’s spiritual realm. Believers need to obey earthly rulers and pay their taxes but in terms of other behaviours, God and His Son rule over us.

MacArthur explains the context as it was in the ancient pagan world, including slavery, which could encompass some rather powerful people:

Now the main character is “a certain king.”  Somewhere in your margin write that that’s a reference to God, and it’s the first parable given in the New Testament in which God is likened to a king.  God is the king in this parable, obviously.  “And this certain king had set a time to take account of his servants.”  The word servants, doulois, bond slave, bond servant. 

Now that word has to do with a servant who is in bondage to his master.  It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in chains.  Some of them may have been chained.  Some of them may have had very, very limited freedoms.  But others of the bond servants, the doulois, would have had very extensive freedom and privilege.  They were nonetheless bound to the one over them, whether they were slaves, or household servants with more liberty than a slave, or whether they were, as in this case, what you could call satraps.  That is, they were provincial governors who served the king by ruling certain areas of his kingdom, certain provinces.

And their responsibility was to report to the king, to rule in his behalf.  Primarily that came down to collecting taxes, which were then to be turned over to the king for the support of the entire kingdom and for the royal treasury.  So the term here is not in the usual sense, the household doulos or the bond slave doulos, but this provincial governor who has been given an area of dominion and rules, as it were, under the king himself to collect out of that part of the kingdom and give back to the king what is rightfully his …

I see this as perhaps an annual accounting, some period of time when the king wants to take an inventory, maybe every year or every other year, or every half year, these provincial governors had to bring into him all the taxes that they had collected. They had to show where the taxes came from. They had to give the king and his kingdom in the royal treasury the proper percentage and keep for themselves in their own operation what was rightful for them …

Now, this kind of picture is very interesting and is somewhat unique to Israel. We don’t find this kind of thing commonly in Israel. There are few places in the Old Testament where there were special circumstances in which a person could be sold into the service of another one to repay a debt, but this was primarily the way the pagan world operated, and the people in and around Israel who were not a part of the nation Israel will be very familiar with this kind of thing. So would the Jews, because they had seen the Pagans do this.

MacArthur gives us the spiritual interpretation:

… when God created man and put him in the earth, He gave man dominion over the earth.  He made man a steward of all that he possesses.   And that’s man in general, whether man knows Christ or does not.  Men have been entrusted with the treasure given by God.  Their very life and breath is a gift from God.  He is the one who owns it. 

All that they possess belongs to God.  All the money they have belongs to God.  It is God who gives them the power to get wealth.  All the talent they have, really, is God-given talent.  All the capacity, capability, and potential they have has been deposited in them and on them by God Himself.  So that every man lives in the world even before he knows God with a stewardship committed to Him by God who created him the way he is, where he is, with responsibility that he has, and with the treasure given into his care.  So, I see this as the king who has all of these people who have been given certain commodities which, in fact, belong to the king, and to whom they owe account for their use of those commodities …

So there was a periodic accounting, and what we see in the passage is that God calls men to a periodic accounting. It isn’t necessarily the accounting of the great white throne judgment, which is final judgment, but is the accounting of a time of great conviction, when men are called to face God for what they’re doing with their life. And that’s the heart of the interpreting of the first few verses of the parable …

It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit periodically at the discretion of the sovereignty of God to call men to an accounting of conviction.  You’ve been there at one of those junctures if you’re a Christian, you came to Jesus Christ.  You were called to an accounting.  Someone preached a sermon.  Someone confronted you with the sinfulness of sin.  Someone showed you the law of God and how miserably short of it you were.  Someone demonstrated to you that you had violated the law of God, and you looked in your heart, and by the convicting work of the Spirit and the Word of God, you saw that it was so.  And you saw yourself for what you are, a sinner, and you came for the grace of salvation.

And maybe for some of you that conviction was heightened by a physical illness, or it was heightened by the death of someone you love very much, or the loss of a job, or a painful experience.  But God calls men to such accountings, whereby alarming circumstances, or alarming truth, or alarming guilt, or penetrating, awakening of the conscience, men who appeared to be asleep before are all of a sudden alerted to the sinfulness of their sin.  And sometimes he brings along severe circumstances to heighten that intense awareness.

When the king began the reckoning, one servant who owed 10,000 talents was brought to him (verse 24).

MacArthur points out the words ‘brought to him’:

… one is brought, because these people don’t come voluntarily. They usually come kicking and screaming. They do not come voluntarily. He would never have come if he had not been called.

It’s difficult to appreciate the actual value of a talent, which alone was a significant sum.

Henry helps us out with the value of 10,000 as it would have been in the 17th century:

The debt was ten thousand talents, a vast sum, amounting by computation to one million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds sterling; a king’s ransom or a kingdom’s subsidy, more likely than a servant’s debt …

MacArthur tells us that this bond servant in a responsible position was, in fact, an embezzler and gives us the value of 10,000 in 1980s money:

Why would he want to be discovered as an embezzler?  He would never have showed up, but he was brought.  And the debt that he owed is “ten thousand talents.”  Now, it gets almost humorous when you read about this, and you read the backgrounds and so forth, as people try to figure out much this was.  Because from one nation to another, and from one time period to another, and one point in history to another, values change so much.  All we can say is this was a lot – a lot.  And comparative figures might help. 

This provincial governor in the parable owed ten thousand talents.  As a fascinating comparison, you might want to know that at the same period of time, the time around the life of Jesus, the total revenue collected by the Roman government from Idumea and Judea and Samaria, the total revenue was 600 talents.  The total revenue collected from Galilee was 300 talents.  So if this guy had collected, embezzled, and wasted 10,000 talents, that is an astronomical figure.  If it’s taken just as a fact that it was actually 10,000 … 

Ten thousand talents is astronomical.  People have estimated anywhere from 16 million to 2 billion and everything in between.  You might want other comparisons.  The Queen of Sheba, she came to visit Solomon one time, and she wanted to give him a gift that was commensurate with his incredible wealth, and so she gave him 120 talents, 1 Kings 10:10.  The king of Assyria laid upon Hezekiah 30 talents of gold as a magnanimous amount. 

Both commentators point to the talents as representing sin — as well as gifts that God gave us. This sounds paradoxical, but, when explained, makes sense. It depends on how we use these talents.

Henry says:

(3.) The debt of sin is a very great debt; and some are more in debt, by reason of sin, than others. When he began to reckon, one of the first defaulters appeared to owe ten thousand talents. There is no evading the enquiries of divine justice; your sin will be sure to find you out … see what our sins are, [1.] For the heinousness of their nature; they are talents, the greatest denomination that ever was used in the account of money or weight. Every sin is the load of a talent, a talent of lead, this is wickedness, Zec 5 7, 8. The trusts committed to us, as stewards of the grace of God, are each of them a talent (ch. 25 15), a talent of gold, and for every one of them buried, much more for every one of them wasted, we are a talent in debt, and this raises the account. [2.] For the vastness of their number; they are ten thousand, a myriad, more than the hairs on our head, Ps 40 12. Who can understand the number of his errors, or tell how oft he offends? Ps 19 12.

(4.) The debt of sin is so great, that we are not able to pay it; He had not to pay. Sinners are insolvent debtors; the scripture, which concludes all under sin, is a statute of bankruptcy against us all. Silver and gold would not pay our debt, Ps 49 6, 7. Sacrifice and offering would not do it; our good works are but God’s work in us, and cannot make satisfaction; we are without strength, and cannot help ourselves.

(5.) If God should deal with us in strict justice; we should be condemned as insolvent debtors, and God might exact the debt by glorifying himself in our utter ruin. Justice demands satisfaction, Currat, lex—Let the sentence of the law be executed. The servant had contracted this debt by his wastefulness and wilfulness, and therefore might justly be left to lie by it.

MacArthur has more:

Now, what is this talking about? You want to know what it’s talking about? Sin. Sin is the debt. Ten thousand is the amount. But let me take you on a little journey in your thinking …

Let me tell you something.  The largest term, the largest numerical term in the Greek language is that term, ten thousand.  It’s the term muriōn.  And so, when they used the term muriōn, it is not always a technical term so that when you’re looking at angels and it says “ten thousand times ten thousand,” you’re supposed to multiply ten thousand times ten thousand and you know exactly how many angels there are.  It simply means “myriads upon myriads.” 

It is the highest term that could be used.  It would be like us saying, “He owed the king zillions.”  It’s just a term that is almost taking us beyond numeration.  And I see it in that sense, rather than a technical sense of exactly ten thousand talents.  What it’s saying is, “he owed a myriad.  He owed an inestimable, incalculable, unpayable debt, beyond any ability to pay, beyond any ability even to calculate.”

Now think with me on this, because this is really a profound truth.  This is our sin, people.  That’s what He’s talking about.  We are brought before God in a moment of conviction and we are faced with the fact that our sin is inestimable.  It is incalculable.  It could not even be counted.  It cannot even be numbered in its volume.  The sum of our sin is beyond comprehension. 

Now that’s what happens.  And that’s what God intends to happen when you come to be convicted by the power of the Spirit through the Word of God.  When a person comes to the accounting time of conviction before God, it is so that they may see the utter sinfulness of sin.  And we’re right back to Romans 7 again.  Paul says, “When I saw what I really was, when I saw God’s law and I looked at my sin – ” he says in 7:13 “ – I saw the utter sinfulness of sin.”  Or the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

And that is a critical element in bringing someone to true salvation.  Every one of us must be brought to the point where we see this mountain of sin, incalculable.  It’s little wonder when Job was brought there that he said, “I abhor myself.”  It’s little wonder that when Ezra was brought there, he said, “Oh, my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift my face to thee, my God.”  And he had his face in the ground.  “For our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespasses gone up to heaven.”

As the servant could not even begin to repay that debt, his lord — the king — ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all their possessions so that some payment could be made (verse 25).

Henry tells us:

… he would have payment to be made, that is, something done towards it; though it is impossible that the sale of one so worthless should amount to the payment of so great a debt. By the damnation of sinners divine justice will be to eternity in the satisfying, but never satisfied.

MacArthur says the same thing:

Now, keep in mind that the debt could never really be paid, anyway.  And if you ask yourself what this means, let me tell you what I believe it’s referring to here.  I think this is a picture of hell.  That’s right.  I think verse 25 is talking about hell in the spiritual implications.  Where else are men sent to pay for their sin?  Where else do people go as punishment for the debt they owe to God?  This is talking about hell.  It’s talking about eternal hell. 

Now listen very carefully and you’ll learn something about hell.  People go to hell to pay for their sins, but one thing you need to know is all eternity in hell will still not pay for their sins.  They just go there to pay what could be paid by spending all eternity there, which could never pay the full debt.

What the parable is saying is the debt is unpayable.  It is so vast that it could never be paid.  You could never recover what was lost.  The glory stolen from God could never be returned to God.  There is no way that men forever in hell could pay the debt off, but they’re going to spend forever there paying as much as they can, anyway.  And the sad fact is that men who have spent eternities in hell will be no better for their payment than they were when they began, so they’ll be no more fit for heaven at the end of that time were there end than they would be at the beginning when they started it.

Terrified, the slave — bond servant — fell on his knees before his master pleading for mercy: ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything’ (verse 26).

MacArthur explains:

… the king is not a tyrant, he is a just king. In fact, he’s been merciful in not calling this individual to an accounting long before he did …

Look at verse 26, “The servant therefore – ” now as soon as he heard this he knew that it was the end “ – fell down and worshiped him, saying, lord, have patience with me, I’ll pay thee all.” That’s kind of an interesting prayer, really. First of all, he was in the right position, he fell down. And that’s a very devastating thing. He was broken. I think the man was devastated. I think he was totally shattered. I mean, I think he was at the end. He knew what he faced …

Overwhelmed with his sinfulness, shattered by the debt that he could never pay, facing an eternity of inability, and no relief in sight, and knowing full well that once he got into the service of the king, he’d never have the freedom to earn the money to pay the debt back.  And then it says he not only fell down, but he worshiped.  And that is literally “to kiss toward.”  It comes from kissing the hand, the knee, the foot of the monarch to whom you plead for mercy.

And so he’s pleading for mercy.  He’s admitting his sin, he’s broken, he’s humble.  He’s in the very spot that God wants to bring every man:  On his face, in the dust, like the publican beating his breast saying, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.  I see a debt I cannot pay.  I see a mountain of sin that can never be eliminated.  I face an eternity of hell and eternity of hell of inability.” 

And so he is a broken man.  And like so many broken men, he doesn’t really understand everything.  And so he says, “Have patience with me.”  Pleads for compassion, for the lord’s patient endurance, for the lord to just wait and give him a chance and he’ll do better.  See, “I’ll pay you all.  I’ll do better.” 

… And he’s like people who in the midst of their convictions seek to be religious.

That’s not uncommon.  They want to be better.  And before they know they can come to Christ and receive a gift from Him, they usually want to make themselves better.  Do you understand?  That’s all part of that same kind of process.  This is sort of a pre-salvation conviction.  But He’s got a beatitude attitude.  He’s humbled, he’s broken, he cries for mercy, he sees the enormity of his sin, and he knows the king is the king and has control.  And he says, “Just be patient with me.  Just show me a little patience and I’ll do everything I can to pay it back.  I want it to be right.”  He’s saying, “I want to be different.  I’m sorry about what I did.”  The heart attitude is right.  Everything is there.  It’s just that he doesn’t understand the grace of forgiveness yet.  So the Lord has him right where he wants him.

Out of pity for the embezzling bond servant, his master released him and forgave the debt (verse 27).

Henry says that this great act of forgiveness and mercy still obliges the servant to continue working for his master, but in obedience to him:

The forgiving of the debt is the loosing of the debtor; He loosed him. The obligation is cancelled, the judgment vacated; we never walk at liberty till our sins are forgiven. But observe, Though he discharged him from the penalty as a debtor, he did not discharge him from his duty as a servant. The pardon of sin doth not slacken, but strengthen, our obligations to obedience; and we must reckon it a favour that God is pleased to continue such wasteful servants as we have been in such a gainful service as his is, and should therefore deliver us, that we might serve him, Luke 1 74. I am thy servant, for thou hast loosed my bonds.

MacArthur points out the gift of free grace in this mercy:

Verse 27, “Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.” Oh, what a marvelous – oh, the grace of that verse … He was moved with what?  Compassion.  And where does compassion come from?  It comes from love.  This man happened to love that servant, as God loves all men.

And when he saw him in a situation where there was no remedy, it didn’t change his love.  And even though the debt was incurred against him, and even though he had been violated, and even though his kingdom had been robbed, and even though he had personally been sinned against in a way beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed you could be sinned against, he still forgave him.  Oh the magnanimity of God’s forgiveness. 

You know how you receive the forgiveness of God?  Well, you come to God with a broken heart over your utter sinfulness knowing you could never pay the debt, crying out to God for mercy and patience in a dire situation, and facing eternal judgment and saying, “Lord, please.”  And in the midst of that brokenness does God come in His tender forgiving grace and loving kindness and forgive your debt.

Now, all that possibly could be said about salvation isn’t said here, but there’s something wonderful said here that may not be said very many other places in the Bible about that.  And so it is a marvelous, marvelous parable.  I believe the moment the sinner recognizes his sin, the moment he comes to the only one who can possibly deal with that sin, the moment he confesses that sin, and repents that sin, and admits that sin, and worships the God who alone can forgive that sin, the moment he does that, and the moment he hungers in his heart for some way to pay that sin back, that’s when God rushes in with the forgiveness made available in Jesus Christ who already paid the debt Himself, anyway.

And in that sense, God absorbed the loss on His own account. 

No sooner had he been forgiven had that same slave, or bond servant, gone out to demand that a fellow bond servant — probably one who served him — demanded that he repay his debt of 100 denarii, and he seized the man by the throat (verse 28).

MacArthur explains:

The same one, the forgiven one, “Went out and found” – in other words, the idea is that he was looking for somebody.  This was not an incident that he didn’t expect.  He didn’t inadvertently run into the guy.  He was out there searching for this fellow.  And who was it?  Notice, “one of his fellowservants.”  And here we’re introduced to a word that I think has meaning in the parable, sundoulon, “fellow servant.”  And I think this identifies this one as another who has been forgiven, another in the family …

Now, this other servant was not necessarily the same rank. He perhaps worked under this first servant. It may have been that he was a provincial governor and this guy was one of his local tax collectors, but they both served the same king. And what happens is really absurd. It is just beyond belief. He goes, finds the guy, lays his hands on him, takes him by the throat, literally the Greek says “he went about choking him,” and saying, “Pay me what you owe me”…

Roman writers, secular writers, often speak about men going to their debtors and wrenching their neck until blood ran out of their nose and mouth. That’s the old collection agency approach. Just find some big strong-arm guy to strangle them to death if he doesn’t pay. And he says, “Pay me what you owe me.”

MacArthur says that the man who was magnanimously forgiven has to be a believer in this parable. And, yes, there are many Christians who find it hard to forgive:

Now, let me just give you a little interpretive thought here for a moment.  If the man is not a true Christian – as some would have us believe in this parable – if the man is not a true Christian, then the whole parable in its context breaks down because the impact of the entire parable is that here was a man who was fully forgiven, right?  And went out and wouldn’t forgive. 

Now, if you remove the initial forgiveness, and it wasn’t really legitimate, and he wasn’t really forgiven, then the whole parable makes no sense.  It loses entirely its significance.  We don’t expect him to forgive if he wasn’t forgiven.  We don’t expect him to act like God acts if he doesn’t have God in his heart.  We don’t expect him to do what God did if he doesn’t know God did that or if God didn’t do that.

And the judgment that came to the guy at the end of the parable should have come in verse 27, because there was nothing more to say to him.  If his forgiveness wasn’t genuine, the rest of the parable means nothing.  It is not a parable about genuine salvation.  It is a parable about forgiveness, and the validity of forgiveness, and one believer forgiving another.  And what makes the parable so powerful, so dramatic, is that the guy was really forgiven.  He was really saved.  And he gets his hands on this guy and starts to choke him … 

You say, “Well, this can’t be a Christian.”  Oh?  You mean to tell me you don’t think Christians have problems forgiving each other?  I think they do.  I’m one.  I’ve experienced that. 

Christians struggle with this.  The flesh works its way into the picture, doesn’t it, in our redeemed lives?  Do you have anybody that owes you money?  Do you think of them?  Can you think of them?  And how many times have you choked them in your mind?  We have problems with that, even sometimes in the church of Jesus Christ.  You know, somebody says something you don’t like, and for the rest of the time in the church you avoid that person … 

There are people in this church right now who are unforgiving toward each other and causing all kinds of anxiety, pain, and friction here, and they’re Christians.  But they can’t forgive, because they won’t forgive.  The flesh rises to seek its vengeance.  And that’s what you have here.  It’s a perfect illustration of that.  It’s just like 1 Corinthians 6, where the Christians were suing each other.  Listen, Christians can really get it on when it comes to warfare with each other.  They can really hold grudges, retain bitternesses.  And that’s what you have, I believe, here.

And so he says, “Pay me what you owe me.”  We shouldn’t be startled that this is a Christian.  Somewhat common.

His fellow slave fell down, pleading with him, ‘‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you’ (verse 29).

Those were the same words the first — forgiven — man used with his master, who showed him great mercy.

However, the forgiven embezzler refused his own debtor’s cry for mercy and threw him into prison until he could repay the debt (verse 30).

It’s a terrible reaction.

Henry urges us to learn from this in our own lives:

The poor man’s request is, Have patience with me; he honestly confesses the debt, and puts not his creditor to the charge of proving it, only begs time. Note, Forbearance, though it be no acquittance, is sometimes a piece of needful and laudable charity. As we must not be hard, so we must not be hasty, in our demands, but think how long God bears with us.

MacArthur encourages similar mercy:

Even the familiar words echoing in his ears can’t find a response from his heart.  And the guy is begging.  He besought him.  He’s begging.  This isn’t worship.  He doesn’t say he fell down and worshiped him.  This is no sovereign.  This is a servant to a servant.  And he says, “Look, just be patient and I’ll pay you all,” and he could have paid.  There was possibility in that. 

But the application is obvious.  Compared with our sins against God, our sins against each other – our trifles – our debt is unpayable.  The other debts we incur with people are easily payable.  But the point is when we have received forgiveness so vast, so far-reaching, so comprehensive, how can we be so small as not to forgive another?

And frankly, folks, we ought to get used to forgiving.  We’re going to need it, right?  And we may want it from the very person we won’t give it to.  It’s unimaginable, but Christians do this.  It’s the reason churches split.  It’s the reason there’s friction.  You get people in a church, you know, maybe somebody does something they don’t like in their class, and instead of being able to give it to the Lord and forgive and embrace that person in love, they just get bitter and that bitterness just becomes divisive and projected on out.  That’s what splits churches.  That’s what devastates God’s family.

When the other slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and reported to their lord everything that had taken place (verse 31).

Henry looks at this distress literally and spiritually:

(5.) How much concerned the rest of the servants were; They were very sorry (v. 31), sorry for the creditor’s cruelty, and for the debtor’s calamity. Note, The sins and sufferings of our fellow-servants should be a matter of grief and trouble to us. It is sad that any of our brethren should either make themselves beast of prey, by cruelty and barbarity; or be made beasts of slavery, by the inhuman usage of those who have power over them. To see a fellow-servant, either raging like a bear or trampled on like a worm, cannot but occasion great regret to all that have any jealousy for the honour either of their nature or of their religion. See with what eye Solomon looked both upon the tears of the oppressed, and the power of the oppressors, Eccl 4 1.

(6.) How notice of it was brought to the master; They came, and told their lord. They durst not reprove their fellow-servant for it, he was so unreasonable and outrageous (let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than such a fool in his folly); but they went to their lord, and besought him to appear for the oppressed against the oppressor. Note, That which gives us occasion for sorrow, should give us occasion for prayer. Let our complaints both of the wickedness of the wicked and of the afflictions of the afflicted, be brought to God, and left with him.

MacArthur points us to the previous set of verses on church discipline:

So verse 31, look what happens.  “So when his fellowservants” – there’s that term again, and here’s a group of Christians, believers, who saw what was done.  They saw the whole thing.  Now, at the risk of sort of reading into the parable a little bit, let me suggest to you that if this parable were a true story, these fellowservants would have no doubt followed the sequence of Matthew chapter 18, verses 15-20.

They would have seen this unforgiving servant, they would have gone to him.  Then they would have taken two or three with them.  Then they would have told it to the whole assembly, and then they would have put him out if he didn’t respond.  Let’s assume that if we put the whole chapter in the context and this were a real story, that these fellowservants would have done all they could to get the guy to do what was right and forgive the debt, whether or not the fellow paid it back. 

But apparently they have exhausted that capacity, and this servant who is determined to get his due out of this guy is resistant to all their efforts.  “So when his fellowservants saw what was done” – apparently, they’ve seen it firsthand there.  They’re witnesses to it.  They’ve been involved in the process.  They did the only thing they had left.  “They were very sorry.”  I love that. 

There’s two things in here that stand out and I just want to mention them to you.  One, there was one servant who was unforgiving, and there were servants who were sorry about that.  May I suggest to you that these people are acting in accord with the new creation?  This is the majority kind of attitude of those who have been forgiven.  They are forgivers.  The other is sort of an isolated case from here to there, but the normality, the commonness of God’s forgiven people is that they are concerned to be forgivers.  And so here you have the rest of the believing people who are sorry about this because they know what they have been forgiven, and they know the standard God has established, and they know how God longs for forgiveness, and they understand the holiness of His law, and they understand the unity of His family, and they understand the richness of fellowship, and so they are sorry.

It’s a strong word for “sorry.”  Sphodra means “excessively grieved, violently grieved.”  They are very distressed, and this is a beautiful thing when Christians become concerned about another Christian’s sin.  They are violently, excessively grieved about this, because there’s a lack of response to the law of God, and the will of God, and the way of God that’s disrupting the fellowship.  And what do they do?  This group in their sorrow “came and told unto their lord all that was done.”

What do you do when you’ve done all the steps of discipline and the person hasn’t responded?  Then where do you go?  You go to the Lord, don’t you?  I see this as these people coming before God with a broken heart.  It’s a beautiful picture.  If believers would be this concerned about each other’s sinfulness, oh, what a healing thing there would be in the fellowship.  They go to the presence of the king.  It assumes in my mind they’ve already been to the servant and been unsuccessful in getting him to respond.  And it says that they “came and told their Lord.”  And the word there is a strong word for “told.”  They gave him a careful, detailed outline of everything.  They must have gone through the whole process.  It’s not just a simple word for “told,” but a complex one.

The king summoned the first servant, the embezzler he forgave, saying, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me’ (verse 32) and (verse 33) ‘Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’

Henry says:

Note, It is justly expected, that such as have received mercy, should show mercy. Dat ille veniam facile, cui venia est opus—He who needs forgiveness, easily bestows it. Seneca. Agamemn. He shows him, First, That he should have been more compassionate to the distress of his fellow servant, because he had himself experienced the same distress. What we have had the feeling of ourselves, we can the better have the fellow feeling of with our brethren. The Israelites knew the heart of a stranger, for they were strangers; and this servant should have better known the heart of an arrested debtor, than to have been thus hard upon such a one. Secondly, That he should have been more conformable to the example of his master’s tenderness, having himself experienced it, so much to his advantage. Note, The comfortable sense of pardoning mercy tends much to the disposing of our hearts to forgive our brethren. It was in the close of the day of atonement that the jubilee trumpet sounded a release of debts (