Sunday School | Forgiveness and Parables

Is this thing on now? Can we hear? Alright. So I think Tim's already announced this once before, but there's gonna be a ten week class that's gonna be starting February 12. And during those ten weeks, we're gonna be teaching it over in, I think, Room 306.

All that love. Yeah. That's alright. And so for the ten weeks, we're gonna be taking the book that's called To Be a Christian, An Anglican Catechism. And when you hear the word catechism, you might say, oh, that sounds exciting. But this book was actually put out a few years back, and it's the Anglican version. Now, the Catholic catechism's like this, and the Westminster Confession is like this. Our catechism's about this big. It's 368 questions.

All catechisms are a question and an answer. And it's divided into four real parts, and the beginning's gonna be an introduction, one week. And that's gonna be beginning with Christ. The focus is on Jesus. The whole time we're gonna be talking. And then the second part's gonna be four weeks, and it's gonna be looking at the Apostle's Creed. And then it's gonna go into the Lord's Prayer, and then it's gonna go into the 10 Commandments. But each of those segments will cover the book. We're not gonna cover every question in there, but we'll focus on those things that are important.

So at the end, you'll have a foundational. It's called Cornerstone, is the name of the course. And I think Tim has always said that this is kind of a foundations type class because you build on the foundation that's strong, and then the most important part of the foundation is that cornerstone, and that's Christ. And that's what we'll be looking at. At the end of that ten week, later on, those who wanna be confirmed will then be able to be confirmed, but we're looking forward to doing that. So great. I have a huge man crush on Bob Blacksmith, so I recommend you guys all take his class. It'd be fantastic. I can't take it. I'm stuck here. But you guys are free, so go hang out with Bob for ten weeks and then come back. It'll be a magnificent time.

Stuff Jesus Said

So, alright, well, here's what we're doing, you guys. We are weeks into a study we call Stuff Jesus Said, and you guys submitted a whole bunch of questions about things that Jesus said because though Jesus is widely understood to be the greatest teacher in the history of the world, He constantly said things that were like, I'm sorry, what? What are you talking about? He's the king of the non sequitur all the time. Have you noticed this? Someone will say something to Jesus reasonably normal, like, "How will we know that you're coming, Jesus?" And he'll reply, "Where the body is, there the vultures will gather." And you're like, "What? What are you talking about?" Right?

There's a lot of times that he's confusing, and so what you guys have done is submitted a bunch of questions about, "What did he mean when he said this? What's going on with that?" And so today, I've got three in the queue. So hopefully we'll get through all three of these questions, and some of them might be yours.

Forgiving Sins on Earth and in Heaven

Here's the first question. Somebody asked, "Help me understand what Jesus means by, 'Whatever you release on earth is released in heaven.' It seems that He's giving Christians broad authority to forgive sin."

Okay. So Jesus says this or something like this a couple of times. There's maybe three different passages that this might be drawing from. And the way that we understand this, by the way, Jesus was an itinerant preacher. He traveled around, and so He would very often give the same message in two different locations, but then slightly change it, customize it in one location or another, right? Ronald Reagan famously said, "It's easier to change your audience than to change your speech." And so you're talking here, then you go to another village and you say something quite the same. Sometimes people will see two different things he said and feel like, "Well, which is it? There's a contradiction in the text." Well, he's talking in multiple places and saying similar things all the time. And there is some telescoping in the recording of things, which is great.

But here's where I think I'll give you a couple of passages that this question or something very similar to it shows up. So if you guys want to flip, I'll give what will I do? We'll just do three, okay? And they all kind of come around to the same general place, although with different nuance. John 20, verse 21 to 23. John 16, verse 4 and 113. Yeah, let's go—getting it done.

Okay. So here's John 20:21 and following. I'll just read them all and then we'll talk about them.

Jesus said, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that, He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." — John 20:21-23

So I think the question is: It seems like He's giving Christians broad authority to forgive sin. I think it does seem like that.

Also, in Matthew 16:19, Jesus says:

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." — Matthew 16:19

And then later in Matthew, two chapters later, this is the same guy. He quotes Jesus again as saying:

"I tell you the truth. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." — Matthew 18:18

So there's at least a sample of Jesus saying those sorts of things.

So what do you guys think it means? Do you have a sense? Is it true? Do Christians have the authority not only to grant forgiveness to Gary, but also to withhold it? Is God bound by my granting and withholding of forgiveness? How do we understand this? What do you guys think?

Dunlap?

Keys—from what I've read, the keys are commonly referred to as this concept of affiliation with a body of believers.

Okay. That's one theory and term. So Andrew's saying his understanding is that the keys have some association with an affiliation with the body of believers. How does that work?

So what we're saying is that you're allowed inside the gate? We recognize your ability to be part of the community?

Yes. The community can recognize that you are a member of this body, you're committed to this body, you are willing to serve and love and care for and tell people about you—just with this body and with them.

Okay, so if the keys have something to do with recognizing who's in the body, is it that if you're in the body, you get a key, or you're the key master—you're the gatekeeper who gets in and out? Which are you suggesting there?

Neither. It's probably more like the keys represent this concept of being a part of the body. Being a part of the body. Okay. The key is representing this concept of there is membership and there is not membership.

Okay. So from that understanding, the idea of the keys is not that there's one set of keys, so that if that's right, you're saying everyone in this room perhaps has keys. Is that kind of what you're saying? To have the key is to be part of the community, perhaps?

Maybe. Am I putting words in your mouth?

Okay. So let's get a couple of ideas of what might be going on here.

Zach?

I'll focus on that metaphor. Maybe it's not the key, but our ability to knock on the door. Meaning?

As in we can request to the Lord our God to forgive us.

Oh, I see. So it's not just that we can barge in, but ultimately, He's the one that makes the decision.

Okay. If that's true, how would we make sure we're making sense of the words we have here? When Jesus says, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and then his next phrase is, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven"—which I think might cause you to say, well, what does it mean to bind? What does it mean to loose? What agency are we being given in this?

Yeah, what do you think?

So you think the key is the Gospel message itself. So that Jesus was giving to the disciples this message to proclaim. And certainly, if you were here when we studied 2 Timothy, there's a very strong sense that we've been entrusted with this message that we are to proclaim. Right? And so the Gospel itself is the thing that looses and binds. It's not so much me, but this message has its outworking power.

Okay? This is good. These are great thoughts.

Judy?

It seems to me that when Jesus was crucified, we were able to go into the holy place and look right back to God. So this is kind of like saying that we have...

Okay, so Judy, what you're recognizing is that because of what Christ has done—when He pays for a sin, when the temple curtain, the veil, there's a veil in the temple. There's this curtain, and miraculously at the crucifixion of Christ, that thing was torn in half. And we are understanding that that's a picture of God saying, "Welcome. The door is open. The door is unlocked." We have direct access to the Father. And along with that, there is a delegation to us of certain rights, powers, responsibilities—of things we can do. And this is kind of where we want to get down to the brass text of what it is.

Okay, a couple more, because we have three questions and I'm going to give some thoughts and we'll go.

Michael?

Could that just be a specific context of what He is saying in reference to specific people for their context, place, and time?

Great.

Okay, so Michael is observing that Jesus is saying these things to someone, and we're overhearing this conversation. So what he's saying is these things to Peter and to the 12, to the disciples, and maybe to the—there's Jesus didn't only have 12 followers. 12 is like the inner circle. Then there's the inner circle of the three: Peter, James, and John. Then the 12, and then there's the 70. He's got a bunch of different followers. And then there's a legitimate question of how much of what Jesus says to them is he also saying to me?

So we generally understand Matthew 28:18-20, when he says, "Therefore go and make disciples," that he's not just saying that to that first generation, but that carries on to all generations, and that's pretty demonstrable because he also says, "I am with you always, even to the very end of the age," which seems like it therefore includes all of us that are part of that great chain to the end of the age. So some stuff gets passed on.

The things that you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. — 2 Timothy 2:2

So there's an implication that by and large what he says to the 12, he is saying to us because they were to pass it on and pass it on and pass it on. And in fact, we see even within this some of that passing on. I'll look at John in a minute and unpack that a little bit. So yes, he's talking to them, but I think that we'd do well to default to the assumption that he's also talking to us through them.

Did you want to jump on that, Laura?

I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut it, and he shall shut and none shall open.

I don't know the relation. Yes. It sounds so simple. Seems like he's—and we see this over and over and over again. The New Testament draws its language and its imagery and therefore the meaning out of these Old Testament texts. And so it shouldn't be shocking to us that God has delegated genuine responsibility to us. We are not just pretending, but we get to do things that actually matter.

I'll button this up in a second. Okay, first Tommy, and then I'm gonna shut you down and tell you what I think is going on here. Tommy?

Okay, this is a great observation. So does Helen have the authority to forgive Ray when Ray, God bless him, does something stupid? Right? Not only does she have the power to, she has the obligation to. Having been forgiven, she is to be a forgiver. So we don't need to have any mystery that I have the authority to forgive people who offend me. Now whether I can say, "Hey, Jesus also forgives you," then that's where we're questioning. Well, do I have that power too? But we certainly have power within a relationship to do that. So it's a foundational base level that's always true. We have that power. And we perhaps have more power than we choose to exercise in that regard.

You need a follow-up? That's right. That's exactly right. Okay, excellent. So let me pick on that here. So I gave you three texts: John 20, Matthew 16, and Matthew 18. And different things are happening in each of those passages, right? So if you look at the context of John 20, and you look at the—well, pick just 20 and 18 for a distinction. John 20 is a really interesting text where Jesus is delegating to his disciples, "Hey, just as the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you." It's like a generational transfer.

Jesus has said over and over and over again throughout John's Gospel, "I did not come on my own to say what I wanted to say, but I'm saying just what the Father tells me to say. I didn't come on my own to do what I wanted to do, I'm doing just what the Father tells me to do." Over and over and over again, Jesus places himself as the one who has been granted delegated authority by the Father to do exactly what the Father wants him to do. Not simply to be a free agent and to go function willy-nilly, but to endlessly be looking over his shoulder: What does the Father want here? I'll do that. What is the Father saying to me? I will say that.

Then he says in John 20:21, "Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, I am sending you." Okay? And what carries with it is not just that "as the Father sent me, I am sending you," but "as I follow the Father, so you should follow me." I'm sending you out just like the Father sent me out, and in the same way that I am endlessly seeking his will, his knowledge to speak what he wants me to say, so you are to do the same.

We are just the next link in that chain. So in this context, in John 20, I really think that he is saying that we have the authority to forgive sin, in the sense that we are missionaries. We are ambassadors.

We go and we carry the Gospel, and as we do, it's not that I have power to forgive, but the message that I carry necessarily is that message. And then sandwiched in between these two things, "as the Father sent me, I am sending you, go forgive anyone who sins." What exists in that space in between? In verse 22, what's happening there? What did I skip in my little daisy chain here? He gives the Holy Spirit, which only strengthens the bond here. When he gives us his spirit, it is so his spirit might fill us, meaning empower us and direct us. So it shouldn't be surprising. Of course we become agents of mercy. Of course we are communicators of forgiveness because the very nature of being sent by him in this great line of authority from the Father to the Son to us, empowered by the Holy Spirit, what else are we gonna do? This is the whole nature of the thing.

Why Did God Make the World?

Why did God make the world? This is probably a foundational question. For relationship. This is true, except God had lots of relationship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they were very content, they needed nothing, all was well. Why would he make the world? Imagine God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, in infinite deference and delight, adoring, revolving around, orbiting each other, perfect relationship, nothing's a mess. Why screw it up? Really, why do the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not just persist in infinite joy forever and ever? To display His glory. Yes. But go one click more because the Father was displaying his glory to the Son, and the Son was displaying his glory to the Father. What changed? Did something very important change when he made the world?

Could it be for the same reason that any of us have kids to begin with? I mean, we love them, but they're a lot of work, right? And a lot of sacrifice. So could it be similar to that? There are some similarities, but sometimes we have children because we're lonely. Sometimes we have children because we want children to meet our needs, but God has no needs.

To display his glory to the forgiveness of sin. Yes. I think God made the world to display his glory to people who had no right to ever see it. He made the world so that he could show love to undeserving people. He was eminently showing love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit adored and loved each other. But he invented the world so that undeserving creatures, namely Susan McQuaid, would be invited to not only watch the show, which you have no right to watch, but to be invited on the stage and to join in the dance, to become part of this swinging of love. And not only does he make the world so that undeserving people could come to the party, but then when everything breaks and it just goes super sideways and everything's terrible, the question is, Why does he allow sin?

He has bound all men over to disobedience so that he might have mercy on them all. — Romans 11:32

He made the world so there would be an arena in which he could manifest his love and supremacy to undeserving creatures. He goes to the cross so that he could extend love and mercy and forgiveness to people who have no right to claim such a thing. And so, of course, when he sends us out as his ambassadors in this great chain, what are we going to do? We are agents of mercy. We are extenders of forgiveness. That's what the world is about. Love shown to people who don't deserve it. So that's what's going on in John 20. Something else is going on in Matthew 18, but that's the John 20 piece.

On Withholding Forgiveness

So in John 20, it says,

If you forgive anyone whose sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. — John 20:22-23

If we overstate this and we say that God died for, I don't know, Chris Conrad, right? But Robin Conrad is mad at him, alright? Just theoretically. Does Robin have the authority to blot out the mercy of God to Chris? No. It's pretty clear that she doesn't, right? Praise God, right? But it does appear that maybe we're saying that Robin has that, but it's not.

Because if you understand that Robin has been sent in the same way that Jesus was sent, Robin's job is to constantly be looking over her shoulder to see, What does the Father want here? What does He want me to do? And not only looking over your shoulder at the Father, but yielding to the Spirit that He's placed in you. And if you are filled with the Spirit, following the Father as Jesus follows the Father, then you're going to get it right. That's what we do.

And we have a role to play, but as we are playing our role, we necessarily get it right in this regard. And if we don't, then of course the Father's not going to be like, "Well, Chris, I'm so sorry, but she just—I don't know what to tell you." That's never going to happen. He is sovereign over all things, but He allows us to follow Him and to do what He wants us to do. And that's what's going on there.

Matthew 18 and Church Discipline

Now, Matthew is gonna be a little bit different. Matthew sounds a little stronger, and it's actually a little bit weaker. John, it's the Great Commission. Says, "The Father sent me, so I am sending you." In Matthew 18, as Tommy pointed out, it's church discipline. Matthew 18 is the central text on church discipline. And if you're familiar with Matthew 18, it's like, hey, if somebody does something stupid, you go to them. If they don't repent, you bring a friend along. If they don't repent, you bring the elders of the church along. There's this increasing intensity to it. And then finally, the ultimate thing is if they don't respond to you, to you and a witness, to you and the elders, then we treat them like a non-believer. Kind of freaks people out. The way we treat non-believers is we're nice to them. We're kind to them. We're gracious to our enemies. So it doesn't mean you're going to burn their house down. It just means that we no longer recognize that you're a believer.

And the fundamental act of excommunication is granted to human beings. What we're saying in excommunication is, "Hey, listen. As near as I can tell, based on all the evidence, things that are before me, I just don't think that you're a Christian. That's what it seems to be." And we have the ability, we have the obligation—or at least the leaders of the Church do—to make that judgment. Somebody has to draw the boundaries.

The Translation Question

I want to read you something. One of my favorite commentators on Matthew is a guy named R. T. France, and he quotes another commentator. Here's what France says, quoting Chamberlain:

"This phrase here is wrongly translated 'shall be bound and shall be loosed,' which seems to make Jesus teach that the Apostles' acts will determine the policies of heaven. They should be translated 'shall have been bound and shall have been loosed.' This makes the Apostles' Acts a matter of inspiration or heavenly guidance."

This incorrect translation has given expositors and theologians a great deal of trouble. So apparently, the Greek verb tense there is something we tend to translate this way in Matthew. It makes it sound like this: "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven," as if cause and effect runs from earth to heaven. And what he's saying is the Greek structure of it is quite the opposite: "what you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven," meaning you're matching what God has already decreed, what is already clear in heaven. We're just gonna imitate that, which is a pretty significant error, I would say, because it does kind of junk it all up.

The ESV has that footnote. Yeah, look, they follow the NIV, but then they're like, "Except, we might have had this backward." I'm like, "Well, that's helpful. Maybe just get it right in the first place." But here's what we do. Whenever we find things in Scripture that are weird, we always want to submit to it. We don't want to just turn the page because it's weird, but we always want to understand Scripture in light of Scripture. And there's countless passages that are going to affirm the supremacy of Christ in judgment, right? In John's Gospel, that's another one of his big themes, right?

Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that they may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. — John 5:22

He's gonna say down here, and this is all chapter five, starting in verse 22. We go to verse 26:

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and He has given Him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man. — John 5:26

So in the final analysis, Jesus is the judge. He is the one who gives and withholds forgiveness, but we are imitators of Him. We're following Him. Okay?

Our Role in Judgment

But here's a little weird bonus. Do you know that you have a genuine role? You will have—this is so interesting—that you will have a genuine role in judgment. When Paul is speaking about Jesus for just a moment, in 1 Corinthians 6, when Paul says, "Here's how church discipline should be carried out. It should be carried out by you guys. Any of you, frankly, should be competent to judge in these normal disputes." Do you know this? He says this church, which includes excommunication, should be carried out by you. And he appeals to something interesting when he says, "Why is this hard for you? Like, this should not be hard for you."

You should just go get this right. Do you know what he appeals to? Michael? Judging. You will judge the angels, which I'm like, I did not know that, Paul. Appeals to it like it's common knowledge. Look at this, 1 Corinthians 6:1:

If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?

That means Christians shouldn't sue other Christians. We should just have a conversation with the church leader's president, and they'd be like, "Yeah, come on, pay them the money. This isn't hard." And then he says in verse two:

Do you not know that saints will judge the world? And if you're to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more are the things of this life? Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church. I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there's nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?

So this whole thing is assuming you guys, yeah, of course Jesus granted us authority. How hard is it? Just render a just judgment. Get the facts, understand the situation, be unbiased, and go. We're gonna have much bigger cases to try in the final state, so get practicing. That's what he's saying. Okay? But get it right.

Church Discipline

Andrew's got a question. So if you wanna look at the broader progression of church discipline in Matthew 18, I'll just read you the whole thing:

If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.

It begins one on one. We don't kill flies with hammers. We just start minimal pressure. So, dude, what was that about? And we have a conversation. And if he listens to you, awesome. You've won your brother over.

But if he will not listen, take along one or two others, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

We're going to start raising the heat.

And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

So that step of "tell it to the church," the way I've always seen that carried out is the first step of the church is the leadership of the church, which generally is the elders, the presbyters. In our context, that would be the priests, right? That the presbyters, the leaders of the church, then you tell them. But it does seem that Jesus' comment here breaks down into two subsets that he doesn't make explicit. First is the leadership of the church, and then the final thing is the totality of the body of the church, right?

And what I've always seen, the way it's played out when it's played out well, is it's individual, then one plus a witness or two, then the elders of the church. By the time we bring it to the broader body, it's more that we're informing the body, "This is what is so," rather than like, "Hey, we're gonna have 400 people come together to put this person on trial." I've never seen that done. So the church tends to be the leadership of the church and then a notification to the body.

But in fact, this whole system is very rarely played out. Church discipline is practically nonexistent, and what ends up happening is people just leave and go next door. Church discipline is very hard to exercise in a world of 25,000 denominations and all these things. So the teeth that it's supposed to have, church discipline is very hard to practice in our cultural context, and so often just dissipates. They just walk away, which is too bad.

The Ministry of Reconciliation

Lily has a question. Let me read this:

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors of Christ, God making his appeal through us.

That's like the John 20 version, right? Yes. It's very much like, well, of course, we're in the business of being a part of forgiving sins. Christ gave us his ministry. That's right. And that is the John 20 version. It's like we do this. We move towards people with the gospel for the purpose of their forgiveness, and then it's our privilege in that to say, to verbally echo what Christ has already said is true, is that you are forgiven. Sometimes you need to hear it, right?

Here's the next one. This is very similar—it's a different text, different approach that Jesus takes—Matthew 6:15. So go there. Same general topic, a little bit of a different angle on it.

In Matthew 6:15, Jesus says, "If you don't forgive others, my Father will not forgive you," essentially. What's the context of that? If you look up the page, what's the context here for Matthew 6:15?

It's how to pray, yes. What do we call this thing? The Lord's Prayer. Let's say it. Listen to what you're saying this time.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. — Matthew 6:9-12

And we can stop there because that's what I wanted you to hear. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

You've said that maybe many times, and maybe you didn't realize what you were saying. What are you saying? "Forgive me as I forgive others. What does that mean?" We've already forgiven them, yes.

So what if God's forgiveness of you is likened to or is proportionate with the way that you forgive others—would that be good news or bad news? It's not right. It could be tricky. What we're saying in that prayer is, "God, forgive me the way I forgive others," which might mean crush me beneath your heel because my orientation towards others is to crush them beneath my heel. It's a tricky thing.

So in that immediate context of the Lord's Prayer—"forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"—and then two verses later, Jesus says, "If you don't forgive others, my Father will not forgive you."

That's a strange thing because we're like, "Is my forgiveness based on the finished work of Christ, His atoning sacrifice for my sins, or is my forgiveness based on my attitude towards others? Are you redeemed by your attitude towards others, or are you redeemed by the finished work of Christ? And if you answer the second, well, what the heck is Jesus talking about? How do we do this?"

So there's something that carries through here. If it's all working as it ought to be and I've really experienced His grace, which is contingent upon the finished work of Christ—the basis of my forgiveness is His love shown to me in drinking the wrath of God in my place and for my good—but having experienced that, something starts to change. Because I've received mercy, I become merciful. Because I've received grace, I become gracious. Because I've received love, I become loving.

And if none of those transforming effects are happening, if I am just tight and stingy with love and forgiveness and grace, then it would be reasonable to ask, "Well, I'm sorry. Did you understand what happened? Did this happen? Are you just along for the ride, or have you ever had the penetrating, transformative experience of the grace of Christ? Because if so, it does stuff, and I'm not seeing the stuff played out."

Growing in Forgiveness

All through the Bible, there are tiers. The beatitudes—not everybody's gonna hit the highest rung. There are treasures in heaven. Not all of us are gonna receive the same treasures. In terms of forgiveness, all of us are not gonna reach that same point of forgiving the way that Christ forgives. His goals. So redemption does come through Him, but obviously there's some type of continuum. We are all progressing through that continuum. We're growing in sanctification.

The gifts of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience—we're deepening in our experience of and our expression of all of those things. We are becoming more and more like Him.

We are being transformed into His likeness, which means we are becoming more gracious. The reality is we all know—well, the older we are, the more that we know it. The longer that we live, the more you have a chance to get downwind of yourself and to realize, "Oh my goodness, I really am a very unforgiving, selfish person." It becomes more plain to us.

Well, if we have ears to hear, if we have eyes to see, then we can see: the closer we get to the light, it might be that you're actually becoming more and more like him, but it's almost certainly the case that you're going to realize more and more how unlike him you are as the story goes on. We're growing in this. It's not like InstaFix. Justification is instantaneous, but our sanctification—that we grow into him—takes time.

There's also in this a super clear, unmistakable expression of: "Hey guys, this is really important. And if we can't get forgiveness right, we're not going to get anything else right." There's not going to be a church, there's not going to be a body of Christ. It is foundational, fundamental to the existence of His body here on earth.

Paul pounds on that all the time. If we are the sort of people who just walk through the world looking down our noses at people, condemning them, and being unmindful of all that we could have been condemned of but had been forgiven of, it makes no sense to anybody. Jesus tells a whole parable about this.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Do you know the story that Jesus tells that is the illustration of this? It's Matthew 18, which is where we were, but a different chunk of it. He tries to illustrate this in such a way that you'd be like, "Okay, do you guys know this about parables? Parables are designed to be subversive. Parables are Trojan horses."

He tells a story, right? And you listen to the story and you're like, "That story is true. That story is right. That Trojan horse should come inside my gate." And then after it's inside the gate, you realize, "Oh, this story was about me." And you didn't know it, right? It's what Nathan does to David. We saw this like a year and a half ago, right? He tells a story about the guy and the sheep and the little ewe lamb and all that whole thing, and then he's like, "You are the man, right?" David believed the story before he knew it was about him. That's what Jesus is doing with parables. He does it with this.

So he tells a story that just looks so ludicrous:

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And as he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. That's like fifty million dollars. A talent's a day's wage, so ten million days' work. That's a lot of money. Since he wasn't 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.

The servant fell on his knees before him. "Be patient with me," he begged, "and I will pay back everything." And the servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii—that's like a few bucks—and he grabbed him and began to choke him. "Pay back what you owe," he demanded. And his fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, "Be patient with me, and I will pay you back." That echo is intentional. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

And when the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed. They went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. "You wicked servant," he said, "I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" In his anger, the master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed.

And then here's the punch line: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from the heart." — Matthew 18:23-35

It's the same point, and when we listen to that story, it's self-evident, right? It's obvious. What a wicked thing to refuse to forgive a few dollar debt when you've been forgiven a million dollar debt you couldn't repay. If you are like that, it calls into question if you really understood the grace that's been shown you.

Someone was talking about the process, and there's a scripture that talks about when we look into the mirror and we see our face and then we turn around and walk away and we forget what—James, yeah. And the word is like that mirror to us. That we see it and we're like, "Oh, yeah."

This is what I need to do. Walk out into the world and we get mucked up, and we forget. That's right. Remind them again. And it's like the same when we're raising our children. How many times the repetition of reminding us that we need to be forgiving. Yes. Amen. Absolutely right. And we need things over and over again because as obvious as that story in Matthew 18 is, is there not somebody in your world that you're withholding forgiveness from? Some grudge? And if not, maybe not at this exact moment, but it might be because you've already forgotten it and written them off and they're gone, right?

But extending forgiveness is hard, and it's hard to recognize yourself as the one who was owed $5 and has been forgiven $50,000,000. We often see the offenses against us as quite significant.

Harry, I'd like to compare and contrast Matthew 6:9, the Lord's Prayer there against the one in Luke 11:2. Because it says:

Father, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. — Luke 11:2

This gets back into a translational issue because I learned that here it's trespass—trespassing. Very explicit. It's sin that we are to forgive. Given the power to forget it. Yes. So you're right. So Luke's version, he makes it very clear that it's sin. The way we understand this, okay, that in Luke it's sin, and in Matthew it's debt, and then we have used trespasses, probably because the s's just sound so nice in a crowd. You ever notice that? Trespasses.

Now, is that Jesus wasn't—these are all written in Greek, and Jesus didn't speak Greek. Do you know this? Jesus was conducting all this in Aramaic. And by the way, here's a little quick side trail on your Bible. The fundamental Gospel that you have is a translated Gospel, which is such exceptionally good news because what this means is that the very first time the Gospel was recorded, it was somebody doing the difficult work to put it into the language where it would make sense to somebody that wouldn't have understood it otherwise.

Built into the very fact that our foundational document is itself a translation carries with it the implication that we are then to make this message make sense for somebody else, and for somebody else, and for somebody else. There is only one authorized Quran, and if you want to understand what the Quran says, you better learn Arabic. But with us, our foundational level is we will come to you. We will study the language. We will learn your culture. We will put this in language that is meaningful to you. Our message is meant to be transferred.

But in the process of that, we're not exactly sure what Jesus said in Aramaic because he wasn't speaking either the words of Matthew or of Luke. It was a translated thing. And so it's possible or probable that he really did say something that means debt, and that word debt could be a financial debt—somebody owes you money—it could be debt, but it also has the broader, more metaphorical sense of our indebtedness for our unkind acts or our unrighteous acts.

But whenever we try to harmonize the Gospels, we have to ask, okay, why did Luke write this, or Matthew write this, or Mark write that? And so there is a bit of a conversation of what was the original original—the Aramaic—that gets manifested in these two different ways. And Luke and Matthew may have had different purposes in the way that they express that.

So, I just have a quick question. In my charismatic circles, I've always heard this binding and loosing in heaven, like they're talking about sicknesses or demonic spirits or generational curses. Like, that's how I've always heard it. And then you're talking about it applying to forgiveness. Can you speak to that teaching? If that fits in or if it does or if that's incorrect?

Yeah, I can't speak to that intelligently. I feel like I have some vague awareness that what you're saying is true, but I've never really read much in those rivers, so I don't know how they use it or how they justify that or if there's a good basis for those kind of claims. There may be, there may not be, but I've never really read much or thought much about how a more charismatic community tends to use that language. I don't know. It's a good question, but I don't know the answer to it.

The Nature of Forgiveness

Here's the last thing I want to read to, and then we gotta go. Here's, again, from a commentary that I think does a good job of capturing this. The way that this language works out, what the commentary invites us to do is to distinguish between, on the one hand, earning or meriting forgiveness by forgiving people, or on the other hand, adopting an attitude which makes forgiveness possible. The distinction, that is, between what we deserve and what our capacity is.

Real repentance, as contrasted with merely self-regarding remorse, is certainly a synonym of receiving forgiveness. It's the indispensable condition. Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling.

If, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offense of others, it proves that we have minimized our own. So if I have an attitude that's unforgiving to others, it necessarily means there's something deficient in my understanding of the forgiveness that we have in Christ, and that deficiency might be that I've never really experienced His forgiveness. That I'm just going through the motions in some manner.

When we come to Christ, we must not only repent of our unrighteousness, which is perhaps well known, but also of our self-righteousness, which is perhaps less known. And if I'm repenting of my self-righteousness and my unrighteousness, then that should put me in a posture where forgiving others is far less difficult than it would otherwise be.

And I think all those things are wrapped up in what Jesus is saying. Okay? All for now. We'll do it again next week. Thanks for coming.