The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
There’s a ton of reasons to forgive somebody, some biblical & some non-biblical. When reading The Bible we find that Scripture is drenched with verses about forgiveness. However, in this brief message, we are going to examine one passage on the topic. That would be Matthew 18:21-35.
This passage is also known as The Unforgiving Servant. This type of story Jesus is telling here is called a parable. In Greek that would be the prefix “para” meaning alongside paired with the word “bállō” to throw. In the parable of Matthew 18:21-35, we are throwing a kingdom of heaven principal alongside an earthly story that Jesus’ audience would understand. In that way, Jesus can reveal a deep truth about heaven in a digestible way to his listeners.
This parable starts with Peter asking Jesus how many times he needs to forgive his brother (Matthew 18:21). To which Jesus famously replies, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:22).” Jesus’ introduction to this parable is powerful. Especially when we examine that statement in light of our Jewish audience.
Peter would have understood that 7 and 70 represent completion. So seventy * seven would be completion to completion. This means we are to forgive in a manner that is unending, unceasing, and absolute. This is kinda like the way Jesus forgives our sin, but we will talk more about that later. The next question is why would we do that? It seems that the parable of The Unforgiving Servant will teach us why.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had to be sold to repay the debt. At this, the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled 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 anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” – Matthew 18:21-35
The meaning of this parable
At the top of the parable we have the following statement, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants (Matthew 18:23).” We are introduced here to the king who would represent God as well as the servants who would be us. The king is looking to settle the accounts. The settling would be passing judgment while the accounts would be the sum of our sin.
Now Matthew 18:24-25 may raise some alarm, but I will explain the meaning. To start, the meaning is not that because of our debt of sin God will make us sell off our family into slavery. It also doesn’t mean that God is condoning slavery in the kingdom of heaven. Remember that he is putting deep truth alongside a story his audience would understand. What we can glean from this part of the parable is that the cost of sin is everything you love.
In the third movement of the parable, verses 18:26-31, we see that the king took pity on the servant and forgave his debt. Which was 10,000 bags of gold. This 10,000 bags of gold is meant to represent a vast amount of debt. By some calculations that would be millions. I have also seen a calculation taken in the billions of dollars today.
The man has accrued a a massive amount of debt. In truth this debt is beyond what anyone would ever be able to pay back. It would take the man many lifetimes. I believe that God is showing us that he sees our sins like this. We have no idea what all of our sinful actions do to affect others and ourselves. The debt we are racking up may be beyond our understanding.
Now the servant goes out having been forgiven! Of which we would hope he would pay this forgiveness forward. Instead he is willing to choke and throw a man in jail over relatively nothing. At best the 100 silver coins would be valued at a few hundred dollars. How cruel is it for a servant to be pardoned over his debt and go do such a horrible thing to another person? This is how God views us not forgiving others after receiving the free and undeserved gift of salvation.
In the last act, the king has the servant thrown in jail for his wickedness. The servant’s inability to do what had been done for him to others will now cost him his life. He will now be paying back the debt he was once forgiven of.
The jail here would be hell/eternal damnation. I want you to know I did some math. It may not be perfect but I think it paints a picture of the servant’s sentence. 10,000 bags of gold would be equal to 10,000 Talents. Each Talent is worth 6,000 Denari.
A Denari was worth a day’s wage in that time period. So, the servant owed the king 60,000,000 Denari or 60,000,000 days worth of labor. This doesn’t sound like much, but when you divide 60,000,000 by 365 you get 164,384 years in prison.
The average life expectancy around that time was 35 years, but this number is skewed due to the high infant mortality rate. Even if we adjust to 60 years, that person would serve 2,739 lifetimes in prison. In essence, you may serve an eternal sentence for your unforgiveness!
This is not to say that the numbers are an absolute comparison and I’m not commentating on annihilationism. I’m also not speculating on someone serving a limited sentence and then getting set free in the afterlife. This is just to provide an extreme of how long he would be in this prison.
You Must Forgive
In the end, we are left with the chilling words of Jesus. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart (Matthew 18:35).” How can you accept the gift of salvation through grace and not forgive another person? No matter the sin committed against you it could never amount to the sin you’ve accumulated against God.
Now you may say that’s not fair. I’ve never done blank and that’s what they’ve done to me. If you don’t have anyone to forgive I want you to fill that blank with the worst thing you can think of. You may think, “The worst thing I can think of does not compare to any of my sins,” however you don’t understand how bad your sins are. As we know if you even look at a woman in lust you’ve committed adultery (Matthew 5:28). How many times have you committed adultery?
How many of you have murdered in your anger against another (Matthew 5:21)? How many of you have worshiped a false God? Have many of you have lied, cheated, gossiped, slandered, and abused? You have no grounds to not forgive another person after receiving eternal forgiveness in Christ Jesus. God is all loving and he is all just. So in his love, he laid down his life so that we might be saved and we should extend this love to one another (1 John 3:16).
Even if a doctor has saved a million lives, if he kills one man in a car accident he will go to jail for vehicular manslaughter. That is why there is no amount of good deeds or “karma” you can store up for yourself to avoid judgment. Especially from a God far more just than that of human authority.
So, to answer the question, “Do I have to forgive, even if what they did is unforgivable?” The answer is yes. You must forgive from your heart. Forgive to completion because you’ve accepted forgiveness from him that is complete.
Then how do I forgive? I believe there are many ways and I would like to dedicate another article to that topic. For now I’m linking a helpful exercise that a Christian brother named Dr. Andy walked us through at church one Sunday. For the forgiveness exercise skip to 36:13 in the video. In the video Dr. Andy essentially does what i’m typing below. So for those who won’t go watch the exercise at least pray this below.
Start by holding that person in your mind. Let all the emotions of what happened flood back to you. Now I want you to hand them to the king/judge. Ask him to judge in his way and to help you remove your judgment. Ask Jesus to help you in your journey to forgive them. Say, “God, I forgive them. I release them. I set them free. I will no longer hold onto this. I rebuke my pain and whatever thoughts have been tormenting me. Heal my wounds of suffering. I rebuke the hate in my heart, the resentment, and the turmoil. I give you the emotions and all the hurt I felt. Help me to be whole in you, LORD.
