NOTES for Mat 18:21-35
After reading the first two verses, one is tempted to make a quick calculation: seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety; this brother of mine has been sinning against me every day for two years, so his credit was exhausted long ago and everything is in order—I no longer have to forgive him.
It is clear that the Lord uses seventy times seven as a symbol—not merely of fullness (which the number seven signifies), but of a certain infinite fullness: here “up to seventy times seven” means continually, always. Jesus unfolds this thought in the parable that follows the episode: if we show no mercy to others, by doing so we also refuse God’s mercy toward us. The words, “So also My heavenly Father will do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother’s transgressions from his heart,” remind us that every attempt to recut the Bible to suit ourselves, making it convenient and undemanding, cannot end well. Do you want the number of forgivable sins to be limited? Then you want this limit not only for your neighbor, but for yourself as well.