“Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” (Matthew 18:22).
Jesus had just told a parable about forgiveness. A man, He said, owed a king 10,000 bags of gold. The king went to collect and when the man couldn’t pay the king ordered that he and his family be sold to raise the money to pay the debt. The man pleaded with the king, “ ‘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” (vv.26-27).
The man left the king, and found someone who owed him a hundred silver coins. He choked the man, refused to forgive the debt, and had him thrown into prison. When the king learned of this he brought the man in, put him in prison and had him tortured until he could pay the debt.
With this picture Jesus showed us what our unforgiveness looks like in God’s eyes. There is a great contrast between what we’ve been forgiven and the debt others owe us. We have been forgiven the national debt; it is only reasonable that we forgive others a few coins. What God has forgiven me is not comparable to what others may have done to me. If I am a follower of Jesus I can, like God, wipe out the debts of others. It doesn’t matter what they have done to me. I can say to them, “You don’t owe me anything,” because that is what God said to me. It not only takes a burden from them, it removes a great burden from me as well.
