More than once and in many different words, Jesus explained to His disciples and to everyone willing to listen that the foundation of the Kingdom, forming its very structure, is the relationships that bind its inhabitants both to Him and to one another. Everything capable of destroying these relationships separates from the Kingdom the one who...
More than once and in many different words, Jesus explained to His disciples and to everyone willing to listen that the foundation of the Kingdom, forming its very structure, is the relationships that bind its inhabitants both to Him and to one another. Everything capable of destroying these relationships separates from the Kingdom the one who threatens their destruction. But what proves most destructive to the relationships of the Kingdom? Ingratitude? Yes, certainly that too. But ingratitude is only a consequence; the root cause is evidently something else.
A man whose enormous debt has been forgiven attacks his neighbor, who owes him far less, and refuses to forgive him anything. What is this: a short memory? An inadequate understanding of the situation? Or perhaps simply an inability to see? This man was treated according to the laws of the Kingdom: he was forgiven everything. Had it been otherwise, he would no longer have been able to demand anything from anyone. He was forgiven because he begged for forgiveness, and begged sincerely: for him it was a matter of life and death, his own life and death.
His neighbor's debt to him was a matter of life and death for that neighbor, even though it was incomparably smaller. But the issue is not the amount; it is the relationship, the relationship that decides everything. The creditor's life and death were in his master's hands, and the master made his choice. The debtor's life and death then came into the hands of the forgiven creditor. But to the creditor this was not his own life but someone else's, for which he felt no pity, and someone else's death, which he had no intention of regretting.
What is this: madness? From the Kingdom's point of view, yes. From the point of view of the untransformed world, where everyone is on their own, no. Whatever anyone may say, in the fallen world everyone is on their own. If it is otherwise, then a reflection of the Kingdom, its light and its breath, which sometimes reached our world even before Christ's coming, has passed over the untransformed world. But in the Kingdom such an attitude is impossible. This is so not only because it destroys and deforms the Kingdom itself, but also because it spiritually deforms the person, to such an extent that the Kingdom's light turns into fire for that person and its breath becomes deadly. Then truly nothing remains but the outer darkness.
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18:15 But how can we avoid giving offence to some? or being offended at others! Especially suppose they are quite in the wrong? Suppose they commit a known sin? Our Lord here teaches us how: he lays down a sure method of avoiding all offences.Whosoever closely observes this threefold rule, will seldom offend others, and never be offended himself. If any do any thing amiss, of which thou art an eye or ear witness, thus saith the Lord, If thy brother - Any who is a member of the same religious community: Sin against thee,
- Go and reprove him alone - If it may be in person; if that cannot so well be done, by thy messenger; or in writing. Observe, our Lord gives no liberty to omit this; or to exchange it for either of the following steps. If this do not succeed,
- Take with thee one or two more - Men whom he esteems or loves, who may then confirm and enforce what thou sayest; and afterward, if need require, bear witness of what was spoken. If even this does not succeed, then, and not before,
- Tell it to the elders of the Church - Lay the whole matter open before those who watch over yours and his soul. If all this avail not, have no farther intercourse with him, only such as thou hast with heathens.
Can any thing be plainer? Christ does here as expressly commandall Christians who see a brother do evil, to take this way, not another, and to take these steps, in this order, as he does to honour their father and mother. But if so, in what land do the Christians live? If we proceed from the private carriage of man to man, toproceedings of a more public nature, in what Christian nation are Church censures conformed to this rule? Is this the form in which ecclesiastical judgments appear, in the popish, or even the Protestant world? Are these the methods used even by those who boast the most loudly of the authority of Christ to confirm their sentences? Let us earnestly pray, that this dishonour to the Christian name may be wiped away, and that common humanity may not, with such solemn mockery, be destroyed in the name of the Lord! Let him be to thee as the heathen - To whom thou still owestearnest good will, and all the offices of humanity. Luk 17:3.18:18 Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth - By excommunication, pronounced in the spirit and power of Christ. Whatsoever ye shall loose - By absolution from that sentence. In the primitive Church, absolution meant no more than a discharge from Church censure. Again I say - And not only your intercession for the penitent, but all your united prayers, shall be heard. How great then is the power of joint prayer! If two of you - Suppose a man and his wife. Mat 16:19.
18:20 Where two or three are gathered together in my name - That is, to worship me. I am in the midst of them - By my Spirit, to quicken their prayers, guide their counsels, and answer their petitions.
18:22 Till seventy times seven - That is, as often as there is occasion. A certain number is put for an uncertain.
18:23 Therefore - In this respect.
18:24 One was brought who owed him ten thousand talents - According to the usual computation, if these were talents of gold, this would amount to seventy - two millions sterling. If they were talents of silver, it must have been four millions, four hundred thousand pounds. Hereby our Lord intimates the vast number and weight of our offences against God, and our utter incapacity of making him any satisfaction.
18:25 As he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold - Such was the power which creditors anciently had over their insolvent debtors in several countries.
18:30 Went with him before a magistrate, and cast him into prison, protesting he should lie there, till he should pay the whole debt.
18:34 His lord delivered him to the tormentors - Imprisonment is a much severer punishment in the eastern countries than in ours.State criminals, especially when condemned to it, are not only confined to a very mean and scanty allowance, but are frequently loaded with clogs or heavy yokes, so that they can neither lie nor sit at ease: and by frequent scourgings and sometimes rackings are brought to an untimely end. Till he should pay all that was due to him - That is, without all hope of release, for this he could never do. How observable is this whole account; as well as the greatinference our Lord draws from it:
- The debtor was freely and fully forgiven;
- He wilfully and grievously offended;
- His pardon was retracted, the whole debt required, and the offender delivered to the tormentors for ever.
And shall we still say, but when we are once freely and fullyforgiven, our pardon can never be retracted? Verily, verily, I say unto you, So likewise will my heavenlyFather do to you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.