JL 1
June 1
Matthew 18:21 to end. The parable of the unforgiving servant.
How odious that servant appears, who after having received such exceeding benefits from his Lord, went out, and acted with such rigor towards his fellow-servant! Yet that unfeeling servant affords but a faint picture of the unforgiving sinner. For what was the obligation that he had received, compared to that under which we lie to God! His Lord had forgiven him a debt of ten thousand talents; but we are not informed, that in order to do this, his Lord had made any painful sacrifice. But before our Lord could forgive us, He was constrained by his own holiness to find an atonement for our sins, and that atonement was the blood of his Son. Now if after having received this gift, we should go forth, and willingly retain any unkind feeling against those who have done us wrong, how great would be our guilt!
We should also remember how infinitely greater the debt is that we owe to God, than any debt our fellow-creatures can owe to us. In the parable the disproportion is immense; two millions of pounds in the one case, and three pounds in the other; (according to the calculations of some;) but there is a still greater disparity between our debt to God, and man's to us.
Consider these two circumstances, which most aggravate offences. The repeating of them often, and after having received great benefits. Have not our offences against God these two aggravations in an eminent degree? Who can have provoked us so OFTEN as we have provoked God? from our birth until this moment, we have not ceased to sin against him in thought, word, and deed; and yet he is still willing to be reconciled to us. Who can have received such benefits from us, as we have received from God—not only temporal blessings, but the offer of everlasting life, and the gift of his Son!
If we had a more just idea of the nature and extent of our transgressions against him, we should be ashamed of thinking of the sins of men against us. Indeed, perhaps, in our quarrels, we may be most in fault, and may really owe more than is owed to us; or though we may have been ungratefully treated by one, we ourselves may have ungratefully treated some other person, so that on the whole nothing may be owing to us. How it would quiet the tumult of our passions, if, when disposed to think of the injuries we have received from our fellows, we were to turn our attention to the insults we have offered to God!
But perhaps we do not feel that God has forgiven these insults. Perhaps we are still troubled by the dread of his anger for our past transgressions. Nothing would soften our hearts so much, as a sense of his forgiving love. Let us pray for this blessed assurance. Then we shall feel the force of the apostle's command, "Forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any—even as Christ forgave you, so also do you."