The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
Even though I've pretty much always understood the point of this parable - that God has forgiven us a huge debt and therefore we should be more than willing to forgive each other - MacArthur laid it out so that I now understand it to a completely new depth, and have a new understanding of the ending as well.
Men are brought before a holy God. And they must give an account for the stewardship of life and breath and truth that they have been given. And they will be convicted at that point of a sin debt that could never be paid. Too much to be paid and they have no resource to pay it. And frankly, God has the power to deliver them over to judgment in hell. And although men cannot pay the full amount, they will spend forever in hell paying what they can pay. And I pointed out to you that men will not be able to pay off the debt hell. That's why hell is forever, but they'll stay there forever paying all they could pay.
And so it is a terrible, but righteous sentence for the debt is real and the man has defrauded the king. And then the man follows the only course left to him. Notice verse 26, "The servant, therefore, fell down." Now here is a prostrate man. Here is a humbled man. Here is a broken man. Here is a man who knows he's on the edge of judgment. And he worships and he says, "Lord," and he affirms the sovereignty of the king over him, "have patience with me and I will pay thee all." He recognizes the debt. He recognizes it's a legitimately incurred debt in the sense that he really does owe it. He recognizes the justice of his sentence. He does not argue for justice. He does not say its unfair. He simply says please be patience and I will pay thee all.
Now, I believe this is pre-salvation conviction. And just as a note, we pointed this out last time, the reason the man says I'll pay all is because he really doesn't understand the enormity of his sin. And I don't think any many really does. It is not uncommon for people who are brought to moments of great conviction about their sin, who are brought face to face with God and the fact that they have come short of His glory, to want to say, God, just be patient. Just let me get over this thing and I'll promise I'll be better. I'll do better. I'll go to church. I'll give you my life. I'll do whatever I can. That's a very common kind of reaction...
And at that moment it is not uncommon for people to say if you'll just get me through this, if you'll just help me, I'll do anything you want God. And they're really saying just be patient and I'll pay it all. And they really don't yet understand either the enormity of their sin or it's inability to paid by them. But there's true contrition and there's true sorrow and there's genuine brokenness. And I see that in this man. And the reason I see it is because of verse 27. And that is the key to the entire parable. "Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. Now that is the key to interpreting the parable. The man was loosed. What does that mean? He had no responsibility to pay that debt. None. He would never have to pay that debt. He was loosed from that debt. Now that means the man would never go to hell to work off whatever could be worked off in eternity. The man was loosed from the obligation.
I cannot see how you can interpret that any other way than to say the man was freed from the debt and forgiven. And that's the essence of salvation.
And then secondly, he was forgiven. He was freed from having to do anything and then the king did everything. He just forgave him. Now, I believe that has to describe the saving grace of God. The man is loosed from any obligation. And he is utterly forgiven....
The king himself absorbs the loss and that is exactly as it was on the cross of Christ. Because it was on the cross of Christ that Jesus in His own flesh absorbed the loss. He Himself paid the price for your sin and mine. And so God absorbs the loss. God suffers the consequence. God pays the price himself that could never be paid. And so I see in this man then the stuff of real repentance and genuine contrition and even though he doesn't understand the enormity of his sin and he really doesn't understand how it's all completely by grace God sees in his brokenness, legitimate repentance and gives him what he so desperately needs. He frees him from any responsibility to pay the debt on his own and forgives him of his sin.
I'm going to try to paraphrase the rest of it because it's so long.
The parable teaches us that then the believer (for the sake of this text, we'll call him John) goes out and finds a fellow believer who has sinned against him in some way (we'll call him Mark). And Mark apologizes to John and seeks his forgiveness, offering restitution to repay in any way he can, but John absolutely refuses. Despite the fact that he had just been forgiven an unrepayable debt, John refuses to forgive a payable debt.
And the church deals with the issue because John is sinning by refusing to forgive Mark and they go through the proper steps of church discipline, to no avail. And the people are incredibly grieved at this sin and, as they should, they take it the Lord. And the Lord chastens John until he admits his sin and steps back into obedience and forgives Mark as he should have all along.
So, the point of the parable is twofold.
First, we should forgive each other because God has forgiven us so much. The sins we commit against each other are pocket change compared to the sin we have committed against a holy God. And God forgives our debt that we could never repay. Who are we to forgive less? Forgiven, we should forgive. Loved, we should love. Having received mercy, we should give it.
But in this story the man does not, and instead allows unforgiveness to take root in his heart, despite the loving concern of other fellow Christians who attempt to lovingly confront him about his sin. And so God calls him out on his wicked deed, just as He does to all Christians who sin. He confronts us about our sin and chastens us, which is the second point of the parable.
We should forgive each other because if we do not, we will be chastened by God in order to restore relationship with Him and with each other.
This parable is not saying that we will lose our salvation if we refuse to forgive someone. It is also not saying that we aren't genuine Christians if we refuse to forgive someone. If the servant in the parable wasn't truly forgiven the whole parable breaks down. We don't expect non-Christians to forgive. We expect Christians to forgive.
And when we don't forgive, or when we commit any other type of sin, we will be chastened, not condemned, in order to restore right fellowship with God, to restore intimate communion with Him that is unhindered by sin.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 19:1-12
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