Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible
that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It
would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were
thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take
heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he
repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and
seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him”
(Luke 17:1-4).
Because
we are fallen, sinful creatures living in a fallen and sinful creation, Jesus
tells us that sin is inevitable. There is no escaping it while we are in the
world. Scripture shows us that unregenerate, unbelieving man is, by his nature,
sinful and unclean; we are, by nature, objects of God’s wrath who do not, and
cannot accept the spiritual things of God, because we are spiritually blind and
dead in our sins. The believing Christian as well, who has been washed clean of
their sin by the waters of Holy Baptism, though joined to Christ in His death
and resurrection, must still contend with sin in their own flesh. St. Paul
describes this struggle in his letter to the Romans:
For what I am
doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but
what I hate, that I do…For I delight in the Law of God according to the inward
man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and brining me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.[1]
Jesus warns
unbeliever and believer alike to take heed.
But we are to
deal with sin differently than the unbelieving world, which looks for payback
for wrongs done to it. Jesus says we are to rebuke sin, and we are to forgive
it: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him (Law); if he repents, forgive
him (Gospel). This would be difficult enough to do when the sins against us
were relatively small, but Jesus makes no distinction between big and little
sins. He also doesn’t put a limit on the number of times we are to forgive the
penitent sinner. “Seven times a day” isn’t meant to be a forgiveness limit, but
rather an illustration that we are to constantly forgive those who repent. That
is, after all, how God deals with us. That is why Jesus teaches us to say, “And
forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” when
we pray. God the Father deals with us and our sins this way, in Jesus. We
constantly sin against God; yet, for the sake of Christ, the one who gave His
life as our ransom on the cross while we were still His enemies, forgives us.
He forgives us every time we repent. We don’t deserve such treatment, neither
could we earn it. Likewise, our brother who sins against us does not deserve
such treatment from us, nor can he earn it. Yet, we are compelled by the love
of Christ, to allow His forgiveness to overflow from us to our brother. Freely
have we received God’s gifts in Christ, freely shall we give.
The response
of the Apostles is one of astonishment: Increase our faith, they plead. Indeed.
It is impossible for us by the strength of our own will, to forgive offenses
against us the way God forgives our sins, in Christ. Our sinful nature cries
out for justice to be done to the transgressors, all the while ignoring the
uncomfortable fact that, by this standard of justice, our transgressions also
deserve to be punished. Our new nature, rather than crying out for God’s
justice, pleads for His mercy, because it knows that it cannot stand before God
without the covering of Christ. The Psalmist writes,
If you, LORD,
should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with
You, that You may be feared.[2]
We certainly
must, along with the Apostles, pray for the increase of our faith, for our
faith is tinier than a mustard seed. The prayer of the father with the
demon-possessed son should constantly be on our lips: Lord, I believe. Help my
unbelief.
Isaiah,
speaking about the Servant of the LORD, Jesus the Messiah, says this: A bruised
reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.[3]
Bruised reeds and smoking flax that we are, Christ calls us to repentance.
Christ died for the sins of the world according to the Scriptures. He was
buried and rose again for our justification on the third day. It is through the
preaching of this Gospel, this Good News, that He strengthens the bruised
reeds, and fans the smoking flax into flame: So then faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God.[4]
This is why we Christians are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, even though
the unbelieving world would ridicule and persecute us because of it. It is the
power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.[5]
Christ answers our prayer for increased faith every time we gather with our
brothers and sisters in Christ to hear His Word proclaimed, and to eat His body
and drink His blood, as He instructs us to do. Through this means Christ gives
us the gifts He won for us on the cross, forgiveness of sins and eternal life,
and He strengthens and preserves us in the one true faith.
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