<p>18:25&nbsp;<i>And since he could not pay</i>- Neither of the indebted servants in the parable could pay. It&rsquo;s an urban myth to think or assume that in cases of sin against us, the sinner can put it right. He cannot. The only way forward is unconditional forgiveness on our part, which must be granted knowing that the person cannot put anything right. This is a window onto the issue of whether or not we should forgive only if the person repents. The parable is at pains to demonstrate that personal debt cannot be repayed- all that can be done is to write it off. Even if letters of regret are written in total sincerity and with absolute meaning behind every word, they can never repay the debt. All we can do is to forgive, and therefore the person&rsquo;s repentance to us is in that sense irrelevant.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It could be argued that the man truly wanted to pay the debt, but was unable. This should be our feelings about our sins. The man was forgiven his debt due to his&nbsp;<i>desire</i>&nbsp;to repay it, even though in fact he couldn't repay it. Sin can, in a sense, never be put right, it can only be covered over. And the man was expected to reflect his experience of forgiveness in how he dealt with his brother.&nbsp; Our fellowship of failure should be bound close together by our common experience of God's forgiveness. What we owe to God can never be repaid. Realizing this affects how we define what is repentance. Just one sin brings eternal death; after sinning, we cannot go back and re-live those minutes, hours, days or years when it was committed. All we can do is trust in God's grace and believe that God will negate the just results of that sin. Because we are forgiven debts which we can never repay, we are asked to liberally forgive our brethren for their far smaller debts. It appeared that the man who owed a small amount was better able to repay it than he who owed much. But the&nbsp;<i>ability</i>&nbsp;of our brethren to repay the debt of their sin is not something we should consider. Surely this is what the parable teaches. The&nbsp;<i>ability</i>&nbsp;of people to repent is something we should not&nbsp;<i>consider</i>. God does not consider&nbsp;<i>our</i>&nbsp;ability to repay Him- for we are utterly unable to do so.</p>
<p>A case can be made that the man did in fact have some of the money, because he had stolen it [rather than borrowed it] from the King, and had at least some of it stashed away- see on 18:34&nbsp;<i>The tormentors.</i></p>
<p><i>His master ordered that he be sold</i>- This King is clearly angry and hurt at the extent of the debt; but he also has a heart of compassion (:27). According to the story line, he really intended the servant to be sold to another master. He didn&rsquo;t want anything to do with this man any more. But then he changed. Without this detail about the King&rsquo;s anger, we would be left with the impression that he is a soft hearted type who didn&rsquo;t take the personal loss, betrayal and pain with any real personal suffering. But the Heavenly King, God Himself, does indeed have these feelings, and it is this reality which gives backdrop and meaning to His frequent movement with compassion in subsequently forgiving us. His forgiveness of sin, just like ours, doesn&rsquo;t mean that He is indifferent to sin. This is therefore a recognition by the Lord that forgiveness isn&rsquo;t instant nor automatic, but that like God, we will legitimately feel hurt and anger before moving on to forgiveness.</p>
<p><i>With his wife and children-&nbsp;</i>The Lord spoke this in the first instance to Peter personally, in answer to his question. Peter had a wife (1 Cor. 9:5) and at least one child (1 Pet. 5:13). Likewise the way the servant &ldquo;fell down&rdquo; before the King (:26) is just as Peter had recently done before Jesus (Mt. 17:6 s.w.).</p>
<p><i>And all that he had</i>- But he &ldquo;had&rdquo; [s.w.] nothing to pay with, &ldquo;he had not to pay&rdquo; [AV]. What he did have was not even the right currency with which to repay what he owed. Even if he and his family were sold to be someone else&rsquo;s slaves, the amount received would be tiny compared to the huge debt. We are maybe intended to imagine that it was reflection on this fact which led the King to simply show compassion. We cannot repay our debt to God, even if we give our bodies and very being to Him. All we can do is hope for His grace, and so it is with our forgiveness of others.</p>
<p><i>And payment to be made&shy;-&nbsp;</i>The idea is of repayment, putting things right. The powerful point of this parable is that when someone sins against us, they&nbsp;<i>cannot</i>&nbsp;put it right, they cannot repay. We must forgive without that- which meshes well with the impression we get from this entire section that we are to accept, receive and forgive the little ones in an absolutely open manner without demanding repentance or them restoring a situation. So much forgiveness and reconciliation fails to happen in practice because of this assumption that the one who has done wrong must somehow put it right. Even if e.g. a stolen item is restored, the damage done in other ways by the theft cannot be put right. Except by our forgiveness.</p>