PARDON FOR PARDON
By D. M. PANTON, BA.
One truth stands out
like a
[*The Saviour does not say that be must
not be forgiven by the injured brother, but that, to obey the law of the
Church, the latter must renounce all fellowship with one who refuses to
withdraw an iniury that he has done.]
Pardon
it is impossible to exaggerate the emphasis
which our Lord's answer places on forgiveness. He immediately replies:‑“I say not unto thee,
Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven” or, in other words,
absolutely indefinitely. Forgiveness
does not mean that we approve or condone or under-rate the wrong done: it means
that “we are to shut our souls against all suggestions
of requital or future revenge; we are to use all means of furthering the
interests of those who have done us harm” (C. S. Robinson,D.D.). Augustine puts it beautifully:- “Do you who are a Christian desire to be revenged and
vindicated, while the death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged, nor his
innocence vindicated?”
A Debt
The truth is so important that our Lord devotes
to it a full and graphic parable. A
steward is brought before an Eastern Monarch for debt, and is found to be owing
an enormous sum - ten thousand talents; a sum which, in modern money, would be
equivalent to anything between £2,000,000 and £6,000,000, according to the
exact value of a talent; and when the steward casts himself on his knees for
pardon, his enormous debt is at once cancelled. Later he incurs fresh debt and it is then
revealed how our later debts are to be paid. Every sin we commit - whether before
conversion or after - is a debt to God; either it is cancelled by God wiping it
out, or else it must be paid in full; and all our accounts, sooner or later,
must be laid before God.
A Believer
Now we must grasp at once that the pardoned
servant is a believer, a syrnbol of every one of us who is saved, since the
reasons are indisputable and final. For
(1) our Lord says,‑“Therefore is the
kingdom of heaven likened
unto” a king and his servants: that is, it is a photograph of the
redeemed. Again (2) the steward is
forgiven and his first enormous debt is never re-charged on him: no unbeliever,
while still an unbeliever, is forgiven his debt against the King of kings. Again (3) Peter’s question was how often he,
should forgive his brother: the two servants are children of God, who are to
forgive even as they have been forgiven. And finally (4) that God forgives the unsaved
only if and when they forgive others is a doctrine nowhere contained in the
whole Book of God: an unbeliever is never forgiven because he forgives, but
solely because - as exactly as the steward - he flings himself on his knees for
unconditional pardon. On the contrary,
our Lord now reveals that a believer’s offences, committed after conversion,
depend, for their pardon, on his forgiveness of others. So the parable deals with a forgiven soul. The Law demands that we discharge our whole
debt to God; but when, as unbelievers, we realize its.enormity, and our hopeless
bankruptcy, and cast ourselves at His feet, “the lord
of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the
debt”. Our pardon, in conversion, is a pardon for which no forgiveness
of others is asked: that is, it is that unconditional pardon which alone can
make a man a child of God.
Unforgiveness
The crisis arrives. This pardoned man suffers a real injury from a
fellow-servant; and though the wrong-doer implores pardon, he only attempts to
throttle him, and ultimately casts him into prison. With fearful sharpness our Lord then compares
God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of a brother’s injury: the one was
a pardon totalling anything between £2,000,000 and £6,000,000 sterling*; and
the other is a debt amounting to about -
£3. 10s. 0d. So the Apostle Peter, after
pressing on us “love of the brethren, and in your love
of the brethren love”, says:- “He that lacketh
these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing
from his old sins” (2 Pet. 1: 9). The steward imposes his own trifling debt, having totally forgotten his own
cancelled debt which was almost beyond computation.
[* The immense cost of each saved sinner can be
judged from the fact that 10,000 talents of silver is the sum at which Haman
reckons (Esther 3 : 9) the revenue derivable
from the destruction of the whole Jewish people. “Ten
thousand Babylonian talents were about £4,000,000” (Professor Paulus
Cassel).]
Judgment
Judgment now falls. “Then his lord called
him unto him” - it is the summons to the judgment Seat – “and saith to him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all
that debt, because thou besoughtest me: shouldest not thou have had mercy on
thy fellow-servant, even as I had mercy on thee?” How beautifully Stephen fulfilled it: he
prayed with his last breath,- “Lord, lay
not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:
60). And so Nurse Cavell said, a few hours before she was killed:- “I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone”. The steward was bitterly resentful against a
fellow-believer: so, while his former immense pardon is not revoked, yet he is
delivered over to punishment “till” - the lost
are delivered to torment for ever, not temporarily – “he
should pay that which was due”; that is, all liabilities he had incurred since the great pardon which
had made him a child of God. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5: 7);
but “Judgment is without mercy” - that is, justice
takes its ordinary course – “to him that hath showed no
mercy: mercy rejoiceth against judgment”. John
Wesley once travelled with a General
Oglethorpe. The General’s servant
had committed a peculiarly annoying theft, and his master exclaimed, “I have
ordered him to be tied hand and foot, and to be carried to the man of war,
which sails with us. The rascal should
have taken care how he used me so, for I
never forgive.” “Then,Sir,” said Mr.
Wesley, looking him calmly in the face, “I hope you never
sin.” The General was dumbfoundered, and
forgave his servant.
Divine Action
Now, therefore, in language that could not be
more studied or explicit, Christ draws the overwhelming conclusion. “SO ALSO SHALL MY HEAVENLY FATHER DO UNTO YOU” - only
disciples are present (18 : 1), and even
Peter is thus directly addressed in the threat – “if ye
forgive not every one his brother from your hearts”. So also it is the
only clause in the Lord’s Prayer which He selects for comment, and it would be
impossible to stress it more strongly. He says:‑“For if
ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, NEITHER WILL YOUR FATHER FORGIVE YOUR
TRESPASSES” (Matt. 6: 14). Our Lord appeals to the most powerful possible
motive of self-interest: it is pardon for pardon. “Judge not, and ye shall
not be judged: and condemn not, and
ye shall not be condemned : release,
and ye shall be released” (Luke 6: 37).
Universal Pardon
Finally, we do well to ponder carefully that in
other passages Christ bids an unconditional pardon which is not dependent on
our brother’s admission of the wrong, but corresponds with God’s now not
imputing to the world its trespasses. This
parable stresses why we should forgive;
but our forgiving heart is to cover universal wrong. “Whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye
have aught against anyone ; that your
Father also may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark
11: 25). Our Lord’s own “Father, forgive them” never waited for repentance. And it is to be more than a lip-forgiveness: “forgive every one his brother from your heart”. “We are, in our very heart of hearts, to cease for ever from
the sore sense of a hurt we are to
shut our souls against all suggestions of requital or future revenge; we are to
illustrate the greatness of God’s pardoning love by the quickness of our own”
(C. S. Robinson, D.D.).
Divine Pardon
To whom little is forgiven, the same
loveth little (Luke 7: 47)
Simon, her kisses will
not soil;
Her tears are pure as
rain;
Eye not her hair’s
untwisted coil,
Baptized in pardoning
pain.
For God hath pardoned
all her much,
Her iron bands have
burst;
Her love could never
have been such
Had not His love been
first.
But oh! rejoice ye
Sisters pure
Who hardly.know her
case;
There is no sin but has
its cure,
Its all-consuming grace.
He did not leave her
soul in hell,
’Mong shards the silver
dove,
But raised her pure that
she might tell
Her sisters how to love.
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