Free To ForgiveSample

Day 5

What is the point of this story—the missing motivation to forgive? Jesus spells it out clearly.

Remember that the point of the parable was to answer Peter’s question “How can anyone forgive someone seventy times seven?” Most people assume that Christ’s answer to that question is grounded in God’s gracious forgiveness toward us. This is true, and it is the backdrop of the whole story. We would love it if Jesus had stopped there, leaving us only with a positive motivation to forgive, and had moved on. But He didn’t.

His teaching here is shocking.

Jesus teaches that the Father will deliver us into suffering if we do not forgive others from our hearts.

What is our liberating truth? Our missing motivation to forgive? The reality that God releases us to suffer if we don’t. This work is not cruel, not unloving, but it is real and painful.

Why should we forgive everyone for everything? Jesus’ teaching is clear: “So My heavenly Father also will do to you . . .”

What does that refer to—from the preceding sentence of the story? The master “delivered him to the torturers.”

So our heavenly Father will also do to us. We are shocked to read this.

Why? Under what circumstances would our loving God deliver a person over to the torturers? Jesus gave a direct answer: “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

Hard to miss when you see it. But I didn’t see it for years.

The master didn’t torture the person but did delegate the torture (creating suffering and distress) to others. God will deliver a person to the torturers if each of us, from our heart, does not forgive our brother (another human being) his trespasses (hurts, wounds, injustices done to us).

The connection couldn’t be clearer. If we do not forgive, we will surely experience some kind of negative result in our life, a situation that could be described as “torture” or “suffering.”

And for how long? “Until he should pay all that was due to him.” (Based on the larger context and Christ’s point in the parable, this refers to forgiveness, not the original salvation resulting from the canceling of our debt for all our sins. The parable is focused not on salvation but on Peter’s question of forgiving others who sin against him.) The implication? That as soon as we forgive, the connected torment is legally canceled.

This is an excerpt from The Freedom Factor: Finding Peace by Forgiving Others… and Yourself, by Dr. Bruce Wilkinson with Mark E. Strong. Used by permission.