<p>18:27&nbsp;<i>And the lord of that servant, being moved with compassion-&nbsp;</i>The Lord forgave the sinner exactly because he could not put it right. Bearing in mind the insincerity of the man&rsquo;s words and claims even after being called to account, it is clear that the King&rsquo;s pity was not because of the man&rsquo;s genuineness. It was rather pity at the sad state of the man, pity at his pride, at his pathetic wriggling on the hook. The King&rsquo;s pity and forgiveness is set up as the pattern for ours- and this, therefore, must be shown not only to those who appear sincere in their repentance, but to those like this servant, who appear patently insincere, repeating the same sin 490 times each day.&nbsp; The King had pity, realizing that power in this case was solely in His hands. And so it is with our interactions with those who sin against us. We have total power. They are unable to put anything right ultimately. Because they have done what they have done, just as we have done what we have done.</p>
<p><i>Released him</i>- This is hard to interpret because&nbsp;<i>apoluo</i>&nbsp;can have such a wide range of meaning. It can mean to simply send away. Or it could mean that the man had already been bound as a convicted criminal- in which case, the 10,000 talent debt was due to theft, which is likely what the initial hearers would&rsquo;ve assumed anyway.</p>
<p><i>And forgave him</i>- The same word translated &ldquo;forgive&rdquo; occurs in 19:14, where the Lord rebukes the disciples for forbidding the little ones to come to Him, and tells them to &ldquo;Suffer [s.w. &ldquo;forgive&rdquo; through the idea of leaving alone] the children&rdquo;. The suggestion is that despite all this emphasis on receiving little ones, the disciples failed to do so still. This shouldn&rsquo;t be hard for us to imagine, because the church is full of those who know these principles in theory but fail to apply them, turning away so many little ones week by week. The king forgave his servant; but in the parable of Lk. 16:7, it seems that the king&rsquo;s servants also have the power to forgive others what they owe to their lord. Our forgiveness of others is therefore recognized in Heaven, although that is not to say that if we will not forgive a person, therefore God will not. The connection between our forgiveness and God&rsquo;s forgiveness (in the context of this section&rsquo;s teaching about offence) may be that if we don&rsquo;t forgive people, they often stumble out of the way of relationship with God and thereby God doesn&rsquo;t forgive them. Whereas if we forgive them and accept them, they often remain in a relationship with God whereby their sins are forgiven by Him.</p>
<p>I mentioned under 18:26&nbsp;<i>I will pay you all</i>&nbsp;that the King was alluding to the seventh year release for slaves. But this King, despite the insincerity of this servant, simply proclaims the forgiveness and release there and then. This is how King Jesus operates- He makes the seventh year of release the ongoing status in which He lives with men and women. And this is to be our pattern, not waiting until the seventh year, not demanding a passage of time or partial restoration before we forgive, but doing so immediately without attention to issues of sincerity of repentance. The King&rsquo;s example in immediately offering the spirit of the seventh year release is surely saying that we should forgive and accept without demanding any passage of time. Observation of ecclesial life suggests that in the end, members are forgiven about anything, but it just takes time. But if forgiveness is going to be granted, why not grant it immediately&hellip; The release from slavery and debt in the seventh year was on the basis that Israel had been released from slavery in Egypt by grace (Jer. 34:13,14; Dt. 15;12-15), an exodus which speaks of our baptism into Christ (1 Cor. 10:1,2). If we have been released, we are to thus release others. They were to &ldquo;let go&rdquo; their indebted slave brother (Dt. 15:12 Heb.) just as Israel were &ldquo;let go&rdquo; from Egypt (Ex. 5:1). They were to send away the released slave &ldquo;not empty handed&rdquo; but with gifts (Dt. 15:13)- exactly as Israel left Egypt&nbsp;<i>not empty handed</i> but with the gold and gifts of Egypt (Ex. 3:21,22; 12:35,36).</p>
<p>I noted at 18:21&nbsp;<i>Seven times</i>&nbsp;that Peter&rsquo;s initial question about forgiving &ldquo;until seven times&rdquo; was a quotation from Dan. 4:23 about the seven times or years punishment upon Nebuchadnezzar. It could be the Lord is alluding to this in saying that the spirit of the seventh year or &lsquo;time&rsquo; should be lived out all the time; they were not to wait &ldquo;until seven times&rdquo; or years to forgive. And the release from debt must be given no matter how insincere the debtor, and no matter how huge the debt. And immediately. The Lord&rsquo;s language of loosing and forgiving debt and His allusion to the seventh year release is therefore radical and far reaching. If we are to show His forgiveness, then we have no option but to be absolutely open and inclusive of all. According to Jer. 34:17-22, Judah&rsquo;s captivity in Babylon was solely because they had rejected the need for granting release to their brethren; for that they were condemned.</p>
<p><i>The debt</i>- An unusual Greek word is used here to express debt.&nbsp;<i>Daneion&nbsp;</i>occurs only here in the New Testament. It seems to mean a gift as well as a debt; there were other standard words for &ldquo;debt&rdquo; which the record could have used, but did not. Perhaps the strange word choice is to teach us that whatever we think we have borrowed or even stolen from the Lord cannot really ever be repayed- it is effectively made a gift to us. In our forgiveness of others, we must remember that they can never repay, and so our forgiveness of them is not on the basis that they have repayed something, but on the basis that we consider their theft from us to be a gift from us to them.</p>