For example, Matthew 18 begins with some well-known characters – primarily Christ and Peter. Then almost right away there is a conflict – in this case – a debate about greatness in the future kingdom. The rest of the book – this chapter – deals with the resolution of that conflict. Good characters in a good plot solving some exciting problem, make for a good book, if well written. Of course there are usually hiccups along the way, but piece after piece come together until a conclusion is reached. And then sometimes there is an epilogue.
Over the last few weeks we have looked at the conflict and some of the ups and downs in solving the problem. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” “Whosoever … humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” “The Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” Then Christ Jesus gives us the illustration of the lost sheep. “It is not the will of our Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” After that there are instructions about what to do with those who offend God’s little ones. The purpose of that church discipline is the restoration of both the offended and the offender. Ultimately that means that someone must forgive someone else. Whereupon Peter says, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against, and I forgive him? Till seven times?” “Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Christ’s point was not to forgive forty-nine times, but as often as necessary. “Forgive in the same sort of way, and to the same degree, that God has forgiven you.” “Peter, if you are counting offenses, then it’s obvious that you aren’t forgiving them.”
That brings us up to the Lord’s parable about the forgiveness of the King. Then will follow an epilogue of the unforgiving servant. “If you are not willing to forgive, then you can forget about a great position in the kingdom of Heaven.” The high point in Matthew 18 is here with the forgiveness that we see in the King of kings.
Sinners are debtors.
Before I go on I need to point out – that statement – “sinners are debtors” – falls terribly short of the reality. There are hundreds of things related to Jehovah which cannot be illustrated or fully explained by any of us. We don’t have the finite human words to express the infinities which swirl around God. And even when we have a Biblically based illustration such as this, it must be realized that it can only scratch the surface of the reality. While sinners ARE debtors, our humanized concept of debt clouds the depth of our debt before God. There is nothing that I can say which can even approach the immense magnitude of every man’s transgressions against Jehovah.
When Peter said, “Lord, how oft should I forgive someone? Till seven times?” – Christ replied by multiplying that number seventy times. But the Lord Jesus wasn’t speaking as a math instructor quoting an equation and a specific number. And when, in His parable, He spoke of “ten thousand talents,” again this was not about a specific number. I have noticed that several Bible commentators tried to quote some currency exchange to help us understand the magnitude of the servant’s debt. One said that this was “two million and a quarter pounds sterling” – does that help us? That man died about a hundred years ago, so what was his pound sterling compared to today’s. And what is a pound sterling anyway? Robertson, the Greek expert – an American – wrote about this verse – “Ten thousand times – this is about ten or twelve million dollars, an enormous sum for that period.” He then referred to the Jewish historian Josephus who said that the “the imperial taxes of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria for one year were only 600 talents while Galilee and Perea paid 200.” Jesus’ number was ten time greater than the national tax debt of the entire country at the time. Christ was saying that the debt owed to this king by this one servant was astronomical – out of this world. A “talent,” whatever the value, was the largest form of money in Jesus’ day. People’s daily wages were usually measured in single pennies. The second servant who owed this servant a hundred pence, owed the equivalent of several thousand dollars in our money. And the first servant’s debt totaled several thousand times that sum.
David, while being led of the Spirit, spoke of his spiritual condition one day . In Psalm 40:12, he said, “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.” It wasn’t necessary that David get a mirror to start counting the hairs on his head. He didn’t have to order a servant to come and survey his scalp. David was saying that he owed God more than ten thousand talents.
I think that most of us are prone to misunderstand the relationship of this King to His subject. Most casual Bible readers are apt to think of this man as the butler who lays out the king’s clothing or the one who serves him his tea. No, as king, everyone in the kingdom was his servant. Everyone one in this kingdom was obligated to the king. This debtor was a “servant” of the King, but not in the way as he was going to be when sold into slavery. This debtor may have been a powerful merchant, a royal contractor, or some sort of early industrialist. He had borrowed a hundred million dollars from the government – the king – and the term of the loan had expired. He had invested the loan money – he bet it all on a single horse – and lost every cent. He was in an impossible situation.
Now follow me as I try to lift our thoughts about this King to the King of Kings – Jehovah God. The infinite holiness of the Lord makes the smallest of our transgressions – our tiny sins – huge. Every sin that we commit are acts of rebellion against the King – and every one of them is a capital crime. Every sin is a great sin. Every small evil act is a capital crime sin in the sight of God. This servant was beyond hope.
And here is yet another area where this illustration falls short of the spiritual reality. Let’s say that you owe the federal government ten million dollars –a hundred million dollars. Let’s say that on your current salary, your social security, your company retirement, you could only hope to pay a $100 a month on this debt. As small as the possibility is, there is still the hope of paying off your debt. Maybe you are thinking about a future inheritance, or you are foolish enough to buy lottery tickets. In the back of your mind, you say with this man, “Given enough time, I am sure that I’ll pay off this debt.”
That is the way the average man considers his debt toward God – assuming he has come to realize that there is a debt. No matter how big the bill, as long as he has life in this heart and air in his lungs, he clings to the unrealistic hope of paying off his debt to the infinitely holy God. But point one of this parable is that our debts before God are infinite, and there is no way to repay even the first penny.
There are inescapable consequences attached to this debt.
“Forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.” You and I listen to verse 25 and we are aghast. This sounds too harsh, cruel, brutal – that a man and his whole family should be sold into slavery. After all it is only money. No, money is only a symbol in this case – it represents an astronomical transgression against God.
This enslavement has nothing to do with repayment of the debt – because repayment is impossible. The Lord Jesus uses this harsh language, not because it suggests cruelty, but because it suggests reality. An ancient legal right was exercised by the creditor when he said, “Take him – sell him for a slave, and bring me what little he fetches. Take his wife, as worthless as she is, and see if someone will pay a few shekels for her. And do the same with those three scrawny children of his.” What Christ was suggesting is that divine justice, by well-defined law, has a right to the body and soul of the sinner – the debtor.
Please don’t think I am implying that in today’s society a man’s son should go to jail because his father robbed a liquor store. What I am suggesting is that both the size of the debt and the size of the punishment are extreme. But at the same time there is another clearly defined Bible doctrine involved here. It’s not the specific act of sin which creates the debt before God. Those many sins are just the interest against the original debt. That man’s son and his daughters were born sinners and therefore debtors when they came into the world. Spiritually speaking, the wife and children were just as much sinners and debtors as was the husband. The illustration stands, even though it may be distasteful to a great many people.
I notice that the servant wasn’t apparently too concerned, until his King demanded payment. The debt existed before the man acknowledged it. That is just as it was with you and me. When I was born, I was the spiritual image of my Father – a debtor to God in a hundred different areas – but I had no understanding of that. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, “you owe the king ten thousand talents.” For many people that charge is not heard until they are well into adulthood – perhaps they never hear it. But whether understood or not, the debt exists and eventually the repayment will be demanded.
“The kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.”
When the servant heard the charge against him, and the lawful punishment, he started making promises. “He fell down and worshipped” – which coincidentally illustrates the average human heart. The Greek word means everything from an angel’s adoration of Jehovah, to simply kneeling. Despite his appearance, the context tells me that this man wasn’t bowing in adoration; he was taking a humble pose only to selfishly beg for time. “Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.” The promise was as silly and useless as if he had promised to give every diamond in the world to the king. There was no possible way for the man to pay off this debt.
One of your neighbors has wasted his life in drugs, booze, gambling, three marriages and a decade in prison. Up until now, he has had little remorse, blaming everyone but himself for all the problems in his life. But today he has heard the doctor pronounce his death sentence, and the hospital chaplain has come to visit, so the dying man starts uttering all sorts of restitutional promises to God. “Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.” Hold your breath you reprobate, your promises mean nothing.
But the grace of the almighty King means everything.
“Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.” It was not the man’s speech which provoked compassion in the king – the promise was useless. It was not the man’s posture – that came far too late. The king was compassionate because the king is compassionate. The grace of God toward the debtor – the sinner – has nothing to do with the sinner himself. It is all about the Lord.
Notice that the king ordered the servant to be “loosed.” When I read that I looked back to see when the man had been bound, but I didn’t see it. This too is a subtle theological fact – as sinners we are already in chains – those chains aren’t applied just before or during our final judgment before God. We are chained by the sin with which we are born, and there is another link added with every transgression we commit during our lives. It’s much like the interest that our debt incurs with each passing month, or day, or moment. We are enslaved by our sins, and we are bound under the eternal laws of God. “The wages of sin is death” – whether we feel the weight or we want to acknowledge our debt. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” – ignore it; forget it; deny it; whatever – it is true in every case.
But when the king says that the debt is gone – it is as gone as if it had never existed. “Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.” I skipped right over the word a dozen times before it finally registered. Rather than saying, “the king” forgave the debt, Jesus said, “the LORD of that servant” forgave him. I won’t say that Christ meant anything more than “the king” when He uttered it, but it means more to me. “The Lord – the Lord Jesus Christ – Jehovah, the Lord” declared the man forgiven and debt free. Later and in a different situation Jesus added, “if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” In Christ’s parable, it was the mercy of the king which spared the man a life of utter misery as a slave. And it was the grace of the king which removed the debt, blessing him with a new, free life.
What a glorious illustration of salvation from sin. In the best language that our fallible tongues can use and our corrupted minds can grasp, Christ describes the forgiveness of God. We are all debtors beyond our ability to repay. As a result we are all criminals condemned to eternal slavery in fire and brimstone – the judgment which our sins deserve. But the King whom we have offended is willing to show us grace and mercy – to forgive our debt and to restore us to fellowship with Himself. “The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him.”
Will you fall on your face along side this worthless debtor? Will you truly and properly worship the King of grace and mercy? Will you humbly acknowledge that you deserve eternal enslavement, because of your debts against God – your transgressions of His law? This chapter is about forgiveness and restoration – are you willing to be forgiven? Do you want restoration with the Lord? As God urges us over and over again throughout His word – “Repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Imagine the joy and relief which this debtor should have felt, when he heard his King’s declaration. Your heart can hear the same sort of declaration – I know, because I have heard it myself. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”