<p>18:23&nbsp;<i>Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened</i>- This &quot;therefore&quot; is crucial. Because we must forgive 490 times / day regardless, therefore, of the sincerity of repentance,&nbsp;<i>therefore</i>&nbsp;the Kingdom of God [i.e. the behaviour of those who claim to be under the domain of God&rsquo;s Kingship] is like the forgiveness of the King of that Kingdom. How was it that he had a servant who was so hopelessly in debt? 10,000 talents can be seen not as a literal number but as meaning &lsquo;a huge, infinite amount&rsquo;. How did the position arise? Because the King had repeatedly forgiven him debts without demanding repayment, and had given in to requests for yet more debt. This is the connection between the parable and the fact we have to forgive 490 times / day. It&rsquo;s because we too repeatedly sin each and every day. How many times do you catch yourself each day muttering or thinking a brief prayer for forgiveness of some failure? If it&rsquo;s not 490 times, then that&rsquo;s because you&rsquo;re not sensitive enough to human failure and Divine standards. And how really sincere is our repentance each time? Do we not find ourselves asking for the same basic sins to be forgiven, hour by hour, day by day? If we have been forgiven so much, then we simply&nbsp;<i>must</i>&nbsp;accept the little ones and forgive them, regardless of their repentance.</p>
<p><i>To a certain King</i>- Gk. &lsquo;an&nbsp;<i>anthropos</i>&nbsp;King&rsquo;, a human king. This strange phrase emphasizes how the King in view here, the Lord Jesus, was and is only exalted to Kingship because of His humanity. He is judge&nbsp;<i>because He is</i>&nbsp;the &ldquo;son of man&rdquo;. In the issues and feelings regarding forgiveness and acceptance, the Lord Jesus fully understands our humanity.</p>
<p><i>Who would make a reckoning with his servants</i>- The word is only used again in 25:19 about the last judgment. And yet the parable seems to speak as if the last judgment is only at the end of the story, after the forgiven servant has had time to grab his fellow servant, demand the debt, get him into prison, and the other servants have gone to inform their Lord, who then punishes him with &ldquo;torment&rdquo;. There is an intended confusion here- because the essence of judgment day is going on now, and we &lsquo;make the answer now&rsquo; every time we are confronted by a little one needing acceptance into our closed circle, every time we are sinned against, every time a sheep goes astray. This is seamlessly in the spirit of the earlier part of this block of teaching, where the Lord has spoken of those who offend the little one by not accepting and not forgiving as being sure of future damnation, and has urged us to cut off any parts of our lives which have stumbled others and cast them from us, as a symbol of self-condemnation now, so that we are not condemned in the final judgment.</p>
<p>The Lord spoke of how when we sin, He 'takes account' of us and forgives us- and we are to respond by being frankly forgiving to those in our debt (Mt. 18:23,24). But the Lord uses the very same words and imagery in speaking of how at His return, He will &quot;take account&quot; of His servants and utter an unchangeable verdict upon them (Mt. 25:19). The connection of thought is surely to indicate that in our repeated experience of sin, coming before the throne of grace, receiving the judgment of condemnation, seeing it changed and responding by showing grace, we are living out the essence of the meeting with God which is yet to come. This is how God uses our experience of sin, repentance and forgiveness. The whole process is in order to give us an insight into the future judgment. The reality is that in those experiences of today, we can change the verdict. But in the last day it will be too late.</p>
<p><i>&quot;</i>Reckoning<i>&quot; </i>is a&nbsp;<i>logos</i>. He asks us even in this life [see on&nbsp;<i>Take account</i>] to share our inner motives and core feelings / ideas with Him, the&nbsp;<i>logos</i>&nbsp;of our lives. Especially in this area of rejection of others and unforgiveness of them. The king (Jesus) makes a reckoning with His servants right now, and it is for us to be influenced by the gracious accounting He shows towards us, and then in this life reflect an appropriate grace to our brother (Mt. 18:23 RV). The reckoning is going on right now, indeed in a sense it occurred on the cross.</p>