Unforgiveness costs salvation

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."  Matthew 6:14-15

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This raises the big question; are we required to forgive if they are unrepentant? The above verse does not contain that condition like the passage below that we're about to examine, which makes it necessary to default to the requirement in the verse above in Matthew 6:14-15. But we are going to carefully examine what the scriptures do say when put together and you'll see there is much more understanding available there than you might think at first glance. Hopefully, they will still provide resolution for you. 

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What does it mean to forgive?

 

According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, the Greek word (aphiēmi) translated as forgive in this verse, signifies "to send away, set free;" also "to let alone."

 

Strong's Concordance of the Bible includes these words in its definition: lay aside, suffer, yield up, remit. 

 

The Oxford Dictionary defines remit as "cancel or refrain from exacting or inflicting (a debt or punishment)"

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Take a look:
"Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” Luke 17:3-4

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Our first observation is that we are warned this is so important we need to be on our guard to do it. 

Next, do you see conditions? We can observe:

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1. Our responsibility: We are to rebuke him

2. His responsibility: Repent

3. Our responsibility: (If he repents) forgive him

4. Each time this reoccurs, even if seven times a day, the pattern of responsibility continues

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Take a look at the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. 

First, a prelude into the illustration in verse 21-22. Jesus expounds on the requirement to forgive

"Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I still forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy-seven times." Jesus now uses more generous math to illustrate his requirement of us.

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The parable begins

"“For this reason the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. And when he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 But since he did not have the means to repay, his master commanded that he be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment be made." Matthew 18:23-25 Observe that the king did not initially forgive the slave. Instead, he commanded that he and his family and belongings be sold. It continues,

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26 "So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ 27 And the master of that slave felt compassion, and he released him and forgave him the debt." Matthew 18:26-27

Observe, now that the slave has humbled himself, which appears to be a picture of repentance, he is forgiven.

Notice also, the servant was not required to work off his debt. Instead, when he humbled himself before the master,

he was then granted forgiveness. 

 

The slave then finds a fellow slave who owes him money.

28 "But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe!’ 29 So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ 30 But he was unwilling, and went and threw him in prison until he would pay back what was owed." Matthew 18:28-30 The fellow servant likewise pleaded with him, just as he himself had done, but instead of granting the same mercy, he threw him in prison and now the master finds out.

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Continuing on

31 "So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their master all that had happened. 32 Then summoning him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me." Matthew 18:31-32

 

Why was his debt forgiven? Was it unconditional? We can observe it was conditional because the slave was going to be sold

until he pleaded with the king. "I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me." (verse 31)

 

33 "Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ Matthew 18:33 

What was the same way? By way of pleading the king's mercy came. But because the slave did not extend forgiveness as he had received when his fellow slave likewise pleaded with him, the outcome changed. 34 "And his master, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he would repay all that was owed him. 35 My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

Matthew 18:34-35 We definitely don't want to be in the position of the unforgiving slave and need to forgive from the heart. This is the apparent main point of the parable, but it also gives us more information. The slave had been released and forgiven, but when he did wickedly, he lost both forgiveness and freedom from punishment. To see the full scope of the debt, take a look at this. 

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"One talent is equal to 6,000 denarii, which would take an ordinary laborer 6,000 days (16 years) to earn. Let’s convert that into US dollars; if an average day’s wages is assumed to be 100 dollars, it is around 600,000 dollars. Since one talent is such a large amount of money, how much is ten thousand talents, equivalent to about 60,000,000 denarii, worth?

It is a tremendous amount of money, which is worth about 160,000 years’ wages!"

(cited from https://watv.org/bible_word/monetary-standards/)

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The point is clear that first of all, it's a debt he cannot pay. Given that apart from Christ, we all have a sin debt we cannot pay off and the consequence is the second death, our sin debt is therefore massive. Having our own sin debt forgiven by God is of far greater value than holding the sins of others against them. He had been forgiven in abundance and was not willing to forgive a debt that was far less. Now he would spend his life with torturers. This thought alone helps grant forgiveness. It was wicked for the slave not to forgive when forgiveness was sought.

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Just as we observed the king doing once the servant repented, if someone repents, we are also likewise required to forgive when someone has sinned against us. We have a third example from the scripture, that addresses the relationship between believers. Take a look at Matthew 18:15-17 “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector."

 

If unconditional reconciliation was required, then why would believers be told to go to a brother that sins against you rather than just silently forgive him? There's no reconciliation pictured there. That one is now an outsider. In fact, they were to be treated as corrupt. If unrepentance were not a factor, why would church discipline ever be required? 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 says "It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”” 

We see no mention here of forgiveness but can observe that without repentance, there is no reconciliation and the one sinning is to be removed. 

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So we have the three examples you just read that put forth repentance as a condition. In addition, we have the fourth  overarching example throughout scripture that God requires repentance for forgiveness and salvation. In the parable, we can know that the king represents our heavenly Father because of the last line, "My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” Matthew 18:35. Our heavenly Father represented by the king offered forgiveness conditionally. Here's another reminder  Luke 13:5  “…I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too.”  

 

We also have two examples of forgiveness being offered even without repentance. When he was being crucified, 

"Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

In Acts 7:59-60 "As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died."  Forgiveness was offered by requesting their forgiveness from God. Given that they were dying, reconciliation was not a factor. Even if their murderers never repented, it would reason that their punishment would be lessened if these sins were not held to their account.