How oft shall my brother sin . . . I forgive?

The passage under consideration has to do with the matter of problems between brethren, and how to remedy them. In the first section, vv. 15-17, we learn how to proceed when offence is given by one brother to another, and three steps are described.

Firstly, an attempt should be made by the two parties involved to put things right privately. We read, ‘Between thee and him alone’, v. 15. If this approach is not successful, then the offended brother has to take two or three more with him, for a second attempt at reconciliation, v. 16. If this is not successful then the church has to be involved, and if the offender will not hear the church, he is to be considered ‘as an heathen man and a publican’, v. 17. We learn therefore that every attempt should be made to reconcile within as small a circle as possible.

The second section, vv. 21, 22, has to do with how often should one go through the process described in the first section before one should refuse to forgive the offender. Peter asks the question, ‘Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?’ The Lord surprised Peter by saying, ‘Until seventy times seven’, v. 22. Now the Lord was not teaching that we must keep an account of every time a brother sins against us, and when it reaches ‘seventy times seven’ that we can refuse to forgive any further. No! The Lord is teaching that in the matter of forgiveness of an offender, where there is true repentance, there must be no limit to that forgiveness. Concerning forgiveness, J. N. DARBY (Synopsis) wrote, ‘We must pardon to the end, or rather, there must be no end; even as God has forgiven us all things’.

The third section of this passage, vv. 23-35, shows why our forgiveness must be without limit. The Lord tells of a man who owed 10, 000 talents, and when he could not pay his lord forgave him. This man then took a fellow-servant by the throat, who owed him a mere 100 pence, and demanded payment. His lord was ‘wroth’, and he took severe action against him.

May we heed the words of the apostle, ‘Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you’, Eph. 4. 32.