Did God take His forgiveness back?

SpeckOdust

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I am teaching an adult class on the parable Matt. 18: 21-35 “The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” and would like your comments on this parable.

A lot of commentaries (especially Calvinistic Commentaries) tell us what this parable does not teach, but give little support for what it does teach, so what is it teaching us?

What can we hopefully agree with from the information given and please give other options if you have them and scripture to back it up:

  1. It starts off ““The kingdom of heaven is like…” so if it is consistent with all other Kingdom Parables every noun and verb in the parable would have to have a parallel spiritual kingdom meaning (stand for something in the kingdom)?

  2. Since this is a Kingdom parable could it be talking about a time prior to Christ going to the cross?

  3. The “king”/”master” would refer to God since Christ ends with “This is how my Father in heaven will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Options?

  4. The first debtor (man/servant) has to be a sinner, but could this be a saved Christian (servant) and/or just any unbeliever?

  5. The “debt” is huge 10,000 bags of Gold (5+ billion dollars) or 10,000 bags of silver (100 million dollars) no matter, either is way above what could be paid back by a servant. Gold or silver, this is virtually an impossible amount for one person to ever owe in the first century and everyone Jesus was addressing would have realized this. Spiritually this debt would represent each of our debts created by our sinning against God and Jesus said: “The man was not able to pay”?

  6. The servant did not just slip into this huge debt over night, but would have had to take years or a life time to get so deeply in debt, so he is not coming to the master unaware. To be trusted by the Master with such a huge amount of money; suggest the servant understood economics and the value of the money or would have learned about it over time.

  7. The servant asks ‘Give me time,’ he begged. ‘I’ll pay everything back.’ Is this a lie to the master or how could he not know he could not pay it back? Was the Master so stupid as to entrust a stupid servant with this much money?

  8. Would/could the Master have felt the servant could pay this back over time?

  9. Jesus said: “He forgave him what he owed”, but was that what the servant was asking for?

  10. Could the servant have felt: “he got away with something by asking for more time”, “the master is gullible”, “he still owes master but gave him more time”, “the master must like him”?

  11. Matt.18:28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. This sounds like: the first servant immediate went out and found a fellow servant of the Master with little time elapsing, so is he unloving to a servant of the master?

  12. Jesus teaches us in Luke 7:36-50 “… he that is forgiven much loves much…”, so since this first servant was forgiven of such a unbelievable huge debt he would automatically and have to have an unbelievable huge Love which would easily be seen in his actions toward another servant of the master since servants of good masters were almost treated as family members. How could this servant be unloving toward a servant of the Master if he Loved the master?

  13. Did the Master expect the servant to show great Love?

  14. How could the Master “handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” Since the master had forgiven the debt the servant owed, so the servant owed the Master nothing?

  15. If the servant has to payback this unbelievable huge debt before the torture can stop how long will that take and does that not sound like hell?

  16. Since the servant shows no great love after the Master forgave him and since the servant still owes the master the huge debt forgiveness must not have taken place even though the master did His part perfectly was there a part the servant had to play to complete the forgiveness transaction?

  17. If there is a part the sinner must play (humbly accepting the pure charity) in the forgiveness process would it take anything away from God’s sovereignty?
I am teaching an adult class on the parable Matt. 18: 21-35 “The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” and would like your comments on this parable.

A lot of commentaries (especially Calvinistic Commentaries) tell us what this parable does not teach, but give little support for what it does teach, so what is it teaching us?

What can we hopefully agree with from the information given and please give other options if you have them and scripture to back it up:

  1. It starts off ““The kingdom of heaven is like…” so if it is consistent with all other Kingdom Parables every noun and verb in the parable would have to have a parallel spiritual kingdom meaning (stand for something in the kingdom)?

  2. Since this is a Kingdom parable could it be talking about a time prior to Christ going to the cross?

  3. The “king”/”master” would refer to God since Christ ends with “This is how my Father in heaven will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Options?

  4. The first debtor (man/servant) has to be a sinner, but could this be a saved Christian (servant) and/or just any unbeliever?

  5. The “debt” is huge 10,000 bags of Gold (5+ billion dollars) or 10,000 bags of silver (100 million dollars) no matter, either is way above what could be paid back by a servant. Gold or silver, this is virtually an impossible amount for one person to ever owe in the first century and everyone Jesus was addressing would have realized this. Spiritually this debt would represent each of our debts created by our sinning against God and Jesus said: “The man was not able to pay”?

  6. The servant did not just slip into this huge debt over night, but would have had to take years or a life time to get so deeply in debt, so he is not coming to the master unaware. To be trusted by the Master with such a huge amount of money; suggest the servant understood economics and the value of the money or would have learned about it over time.

  7. The servant asks ‘Give me time,’ he begged. ‘I’ll pay everything back.’ Is this a lie to the master or how could he not know he could not pay it back? Was the Master so stupid as to entrust a stupid servant with this much money?

  8. Would/could the Master have felt the servant could pay this back over time?

  9. Jesus said: “He forgave him what he owed”, but was that what the servant was asking for?

  10. Could the servant have felt: “he got away with something by asking for more time”, “the master is gullible”, “he still owes master but gave him more time”, “the master must like him”?

  11. Matt.18:28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. This sounds like: the first servant immediate went out and found a fellow servant of the Master with little time elapsing, so is he unloving to a servant of the master?

  12. Jesus teaches us in Luke 7:36-50 “… he that is forgiven much loves much…”, so since this first servant was forgiven of such a unbelievable huge debt he would automatically and have to have an unbelievable huge Love which would easily be seen in his actions toward another servant of the master since servants of good masters were almost treated as family members. How could this servant be unloving toward a servant of the Master if he Loved the master?

  13. Did the Master expect the servant to show great Love?

  14. How could the Master “handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” Since the master had forgiven the debt the servant owed, so the servant owed the Master nothing?

  15. If the servant has to payback this unbelievable huge debt before the torture can stop how long will that take and does that not sound like hell?

  16. Since the servant shows no great love after the Master forgave him and since the servant still owes the master the huge debt forgiveness must not have taken place even though the master did His part perfectly was there a part the servant had to play to complete the forgiveness transaction?

  17. If there is a part the sinner must play (humbly accepting the pure charity) in the forgiveness process would it take anything away from God’s sovereignty?

  1. There is a Book about this called "Rethinking Forgiveness" by Michael O' Shields
 
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OpenYourBibles

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Yesterday I wrote in another thread about the Bible being complete, and how the entire book is useful in understanding individual pieces. So in this case I would look at Galatians 5:13 - we have been called unto freedom, use not freedom as an occasion to sin. Once we have taken up the cross of Christ, we have been made free - but we cannot use that freedom... that grace and mercy that the Lord bestowed on us, to continue to sin!

In connection with the parable, this man was just forgiven a huge debt, he was called unto freedom, yet he almost immediately used that freedom to commit an offence against his fellow servant and therefore to offend his master a second time. If the master had thrown him in prison the first time he would not have had the freedom to walk about and strangle his brother, he took the freedom his master gave him and spat on it.
 
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faroukfarouk

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Yesterday I wrote in another thread about the Bible being complete, and how the entire book is useful in understanding individual pieces. So in this case I would look at Galatians 5:13 - we have been called unto freedom, use not freedom as an occasion to sin. Once we have taken up the cross of Christ, we have been made free - but we cannot use that freedom... that grace and mercy that the Lord bestowed on us, to continue to sin!

In connection with the parable, this man was just forgiven a huge debt, he was called unto freedom, yet he almost immediately used that freedom to commit an offence against his fellow servant and therefore to offend his master a second time. If the master had thrown him in prison the first time he would not have had the freedom to walk about and strangle his brother, he took the freedom his master gave him and spat on it.
Yes, it's ordered liberty, freedom under God's precepts that is truly liberating, as we follow the Lord Jesus. :)
 
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bling

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Yet he is directly talking about God when He says "SO will My Father do to You".
.
Yes! God is very much like the master in His forgiving of others.


The point in Matthew 18 and Ezek 18 is that the original fully forgiven debt - is fully returned to the one forgiven.

Christ is pointing that just as the debtor owed an impossibly large debt in the illustration - just so each one of us owes a debt to God that we cannot afford to pay - we would not survive it.

So God forgives us that massive debt. But then insists that we forgive others 'in kind' just AS we have surely been forgiven - and Jesus points out that God - in real life - will revoke our forgiveness if we do not forgive others AS we have BEEN forgiven.

Ezekiel 18 does not say the person who did bad in the past and repented is under the threat of being held accountable for his earlier sins prior to repenting, but if the person doing good, turns and does bad he will gain nothing from the good he previously did and will be held accountable for the bad he did after the good. This does not support your comments?

Is Godly type Love= an unconditional type of Love?

Godly forgiveness would be part of God’s unconditional Love which means it is also unconditional.

Your saying with: “will revoke our forgiveness if we do not forgive others AS we have BEEN forgiven”, which makes God’s forgiveness conditional which is not the unconditional Loving God we all know?

This statement also redefines a gift, since gift given and received changes ownership and cannot just be take back by the giver? This does not mean the receiver of the gift cannot give the gift away or sell it to satan (like Esau’s birthright).

Is God’s forgiveness a purely charitable gift or is forgiveness something we are stewards of and can be taken back at any time?

If God’s forgiveness is a purely unbelievable huge charitable gift than my response is out of just gratitude/Love, but if I have it only as long as I do my part then my response is out of fear over the possibility of losing forgiveness, so which is it?
 
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bling

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From a Lutheran or Reformed perspective, the unmerciful servant rejected the grace that had been given to him. We never stop being debtors before God, the unmerciful servant, however, had assumed forgiveness was his by right, and not by social grace. This is not a case of God revoking anything or our forgiveness being dependent on our works, but simply not denying the grace of God.

We might be saying the same thing here, but I am not sure:

You say “unmerciful servant rejected the grace”, but I would express it as: “The first servant did not humbly accept forgiveness as pure charity, so the transaction of forgiveness was not completed even though God did His part in the forgiveness process perfectly.”

This would be similar to God Loving everyone, but not everyone accepts God’s Love as an undeserving receiver of pure charity.

Is this “rejection of grace” a free will act by the sinner?

I am a debtor to all men, but I am a child of God and cannot pay any portion of what God has forgiven me of, back to Him.

In the historical context, I believe the parable is aimed at the pharisees and elders, not the hoi polloi that Jesus interacted with. That is another thing to keep in context. It's not aimed at somebody that is abused and angry, it's aimed at people with power who abuse and hurt other people unmercifully.

Historically this is addressing the disciples and comes right after they have been shocked to find out they have to forgive their brother as mean times as they need to. It seems to be addressing a follow up question the disciples would have on their heart and yet not verbalized (the question I would have in a similar situation: “How can I keep from being taken advantage of by my brother?” This parable answers that question perfectly.
 
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bling

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2 Corinthians 11

Paul seemed to have felt his ministry was a hardship because he was the chief of sinners. A prisoner of the Lord.

Perhaps you have never experienced any hardships that you brought on yourself. I pray you never do, but I find it hard to believe anyone has ever gone without some chastisement from God. Maybe I was harder to nudge along so I have seen it more clearly. You reap what you sow, I've reaped some tares and know their sting.
Paul considered what he was doing to be both a privilege and honor.
We are "chastised" but that is to help us grow and not as some form of "punishment".
As far as Gal. 6: 7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Just as "giving up" on the good can cause us to loss the harvest (eternal life), giving up on the bad will cause us to loss out on the destruction. I have not and will not reap what I have sown after the flesh (that would be a slap on the hand but hell).
 
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FireDragon76

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You say “unmerciful servant rejected the grace”, but I would express it as: “The first servant did not humbly accept forgiveness as pure charity, so the transaction of forgiveness was not completed even though God did His part in the forgiveness process perfectly.”

Keep in mind the unmerciful servant becomes a criminal by being an extortionist and the master simply hands the servant over to the jailer. He's not longer in the "good graces" of his master and the master will not overlook his crime merely on the account of once having granted him grace. The subtle message here is that God expects us to be merciful.

Is this “rejection of grace” a free will act by the sinner?

Yes, though our ability to receive grace is paradoxically not an act of a free will. Human beings are born slaves to sin, inheriting the corruption due to the fall of Adam.

Historically this is addressing the disciples and comes right after they have been shocked to find out they have to forgive their brother as mean times as they need to. It seems to be addressing a follow up question the disciples would have on their heart and yet not verbalized (the question I would have in a similar situation: “How can I keep from being taken advantage of by my brother?” This parable answers that question perfectly.

He's contrasting his ethic with those of the elders that taught you only had to forgive people a certain number of times. Some said only 7 times, because for Jews thought 7 was a "perfect" number.
 
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bling

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hi you really asking a lot of speculative questions on this and making much more of the parable than should. A good rule of thumb is not to make the parables the basis for your theology or doctrine. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray part of that prayer begins with our Father who art in heaven...then it gets to forgive us our debts as we forgive others. In this story the 1st servant represents all of us who have a debt to God in sin that we could never pay. God in His mercy will forgive a man of all unrighteousness. Think of David a murderer and adulterer and in his day the law said he should be stoned to death. The Lord forgave him and called him a man after His own heart. Now the rich man is owed a debt and that is like us having someone who has done us harm and when he refused to forgive the other man his debt and extend the same mercy that was shown to him it revealed his heart. The mercy of God is based upon repentance and the one who is born of God is not going to have this mentality. When he was cast into prison the main verse of interpretation is given.
5 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
The meditation is not on the forgiveness of God will He take it back that is near blasphemy and sound like you are accusing God of being unjust. The meditation is on how we should forgive others with the same mercy we have been shown.

First off:

Jesus taught everyone, outside His inner circle, about the kingdom in parables, partly because tons of information can be conveyed about the kingdom in a short story. Do not belittle Christ’s teaching by suggesting it gives a poor analogy.

It would be very questionable to base any “doctrine” on just one paragraph of scripture since the main doctrinal ideas are all repeated.

Understanding how God’s forgiveness works (unconditional/unselfish/undeserving) would be consistent with God’s Love (unconditional/unselfish/undeserving). God Loves everyone, but not everyone seems have God’s Love so why not? Jesus asked God to: “Forgive them for they know not what they do” and God would certainly answer that pray, yet Peter later in Acts 2 tell us these same people are guilty of crucifying the Messiah, so what happened?

You do good to realize: “Suggesting God would take back His forgiveness would be blasphemy”, so that is not what happened, but what did happen is parallel to what happens in the Kingdom you and I dwell in.

You might also need to think about the follow up question on the heart of the disciples and how this parable might address that question?

What appears to be the case is: forgiveness and Love are transactions requiring both a correct giving and a receiving of the gift. The first servant did not humbly accept the master’s free undeserving/unconditional/unselfish charitable gift as pure charity and that was what the Master was giving. Since the servant did not “accept” the gift, the transaction was not completed and so the servant did not automatically Love with a huge Godly type Love (as Jesus teaches us “…he that is forgiven much Loves much…”) and the debt is still owed the Master.
 
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bling

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Did God take His forgiveness back?

Jesus on the cross prayed out forgiveness > Luke 23:34 < but did people receive the forgiveness?

By being unloving, they cancelled their own selves out from forgiveness. Because God's forgiveness lives in His all-loving love, where we have this forgiveness while we are living in this all-loving love. This is part of why our Apostle Paul says >

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:31-32)

Our Heavenly Father forgives us kindly and tenderly, in family sharing and caring with Him and one another. So, if we are being unloving, we miss out. And, of course, I am not perfectly loving; but I keep finding how God keeps working with me and correcting me; often I am reminded of how Jesus so generously has had mercy on me, and how Jesus never gave up on any of His disciples > love
"hopes all things" (in 1 Corinthians 13:7).

So, we do well to keep having hope for people, praying forgiveness out, like Jesus has done.
I agree with a lot of what you say but: "By being unloving, they cancelled their own selves out from forgiveness" might be putting the cart before the horse. If you do not have a godly type Love you might not be able to forgive other like God does, but if you just accept God's forgiveness you will have a huge Love ("...he that is forgiven much Loves much..."), so it is not your being unloving the keeps you from getting anything, but it is your not humbly accepting God's love that keeps you from being showered with gifts and Loving others.
 
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david.d

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Paul considered what he was doing to be both a privilege and honor.
We are "chastised" but that is to help us grow and not as some form of "punishment".
As far as Gal. 6: 7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Just as "giving up" on the good can cause us to loss the harvest (eternal life), giving up on the bad will cause us to loss out on the destruction. I have not and will not reap what I have sown after the flesh (that would be a slap on the hand but hell).
I suppose "correction" is the proper word, not "punishment". We are corrected for our sins. I meant the same thing, just sounds friendlier. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Do you wait until hell to correct your child or do you do it as it happens?
 
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bling

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Yesterday I wrote in another thread about the Bible being complete, and how the entire book is useful in understanding individual pieces. So in this case I would look at Galatians 5:13 - we have been called unto freedom, use not freedom as an occasion to sin. Once we have taken up the cross of Christ, we have been made free - but we cannot use that freedom... that grace and mercy that the Lord bestowed on us, to continue to sin!

In connection with the parable, this man was just forgiven a huge debt, he was called unto freedom, yet he almost immediately used that freedom to commit an offence against his fellow servant and therefore to offend his master a second time. If the master had thrown him in prison the first time he would not have had the freedom to walk about and strangle his brother, he took the freedom his master gave him and spat on it.

The idea of using our “freedom” to sin has to do with the fact our sins are forgiven and we go out not caring if we sin further.

There is nothing in the parable that suggest: a second “debt” toward the Master was created by the first servant’s actions toward the second servant.

You need to ask yourself: How would those in the first century understood this story?
 
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bling

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I suppose "correction" is the proper word, not "punishment". We are corrected for our sins. I meant the same thing, just sounds friendlier. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Do you wait until hell to correct your child or do you do it as it happens?
There is a difference between loving discipline and punishment.
 
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Brian Mcnamee

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First off:

Jesus taught everyone, outside His inner circle, about the kingdom in parables, partly because tons of information can be conveyed about the kingdom in a short story. Do not belittle Christ’s teaching by suggesting it gives a poor analogy.

It would be very questionable to base any “doctrine” on just one paragraph of scripture since the main doctrinal ideas are all repeated.

Understanding how God’s forgiveness works (unconditional/unselfish/undeserving) would be consistent with God’s Love (unconditional/unselfish/undeserving). God Loves everyone, but not everyone seems have God’s Love so why not? Jesus asked God to: “Forgive them for they know not what they do” and God would certainly answer that pray, yet Peter later in Acts 2 tell us these same people are guilty of crucifying the Messiah, so what happened?

You do good to realize: “Suggesting God would take back His forgiveness would be blasphemy”, so that is not what happened, but what did happen is parallel to what happens in the Kingdom you and I dwell in.

You might also need to think about the follow up question on the heart of the disciples and how this parable might address that question?

What appears to be the case is: forgiveness and Love are transactions requiring both a correct giving and a receiving of the gift. The first servant did not humbly accept the master’s free undeserving/unconditional/unselfish charitable gift as pure charity and that was what the Master was giving. Since the servant did not “accept” the gift, the transaction was not completed and so the servant did not automatically Love with a huge Godly type Love (as Jesus teaches us “…he that is forgiven much Loves much…”) and the debt is still owed the Master.
 
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Brian Mcnamee

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And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that

‘Seeing they may not see,
And hearing they may not understand.'

So now we have all much more than the parables to gather our information on. The fact that Jesus did not open up and tell us plainly what was the intent of every verse of the parables can make the interpretations from obvious to quite speculative. Only the last bit of it is explained to us therefor making it the main point of the story. The verses you bring up are very good and stand in their own merit and thanks for sharing them and clarifying your view on the forgiveness of God.
 
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bling

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And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that

‘Seeing they may not see,
And hearing they may not understand.'

So now we have all much more than the parables to gather our information on. The fact that Jesus did not open up and tell us plainly what was the intent of every verse of the parables can make the interpretations from obvious to quite speculative. Only the last bit of it is explained to us therefor making it the main point of the story. The verses you bring up are very good and stand in their own merit and thanks for sharing them and clarifying your view on the forgiveness of God.
There are lots of good reasons why Jesus used parables and we need to understand what Isaiah was telling us with that passage.
 
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com7fy8

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I agree with a lot of what you say but: "By being unloving, they cancelled their own selves out from forgiveness" might be putting the cart before the horse. If you do not have a godly type Love you might not be able to forgive other like God does, but if you just accept God's forgiveness you will have a huge Love ("...he that is forgiven much Loves much..."), so it is not your being unloving the keeps you from getting anything, but it is your not humbly accepting God's love that keeps you from being showered with gifts and Loving others.
Hmm!! very good ! ! !

Yes . . . I now see . . . after God has forgiven us, we are fed with encouragement to forgive others, so appreciating how God forgives us. Does this fit with what you mean? Just making sure :) Thank you :)
 
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bling

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Hmm!! very good ! ! !

Yes . . . I now see . . . after God has forgiven us, we are fed with encouragement to forgive others, so appreciating how God forgives us. Does this fit with what you mean? Just making sure :) Thank you :)
Yes out of a gratitude.
 
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com7fy8

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Yes out of a gratitude.
amen . . . thank you :)

And God wants us to forgive "even as" He has forgiven us >

"And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:32)

WOW ! ! !

So, we can be sure that God wants forgiveness; He even wants us to be forgiving like He is ! ! !
 
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BobRyan

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Ezekiel 18 does not say the person who did bad in the past and repented is under the threat of being held accountable for his earlier sins prior to repenting,

I think you missed the point. A wicked person that repents and is saved is not the problem of Ezek 18 or Matt 18 that we are presented with.

Rather the problem we see is a righteous person (which means a wicked person that got saved since "all have sinned") - does evil and then "ALL his debt" That was forgiven at salvation - is returned to him. The payment for the debt is such that "he will not survive it" in Both Matt 18 and Ezek 18.
 
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BobRyan

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Hmm!! very good ! ! !

Yes . . . I now see . . . after God has forgiven us, we are fed with encouragement to forgive others, so appreciating how God forgives us. Does this fit with what you mean? Just making sure :) Thank you :)

Indeed that is how it 'should work' according to Christ in Matthew 18.

But the entire warning Christ gives is to guard against the "alternative" where the fully forgiven person becomes arrogant and refuses to forgive others - and falls... and has all his debt returned.

Suppose for example that the Maryland girl's family who is now in the news - who may indeed have been a born again Christian.. .yet some family member or friend becomes so bitter/enraged/angry about the atrocity that happened to the girl they say to themselves "I can never ... ever... ever ... forgive that man for what he did to her".

I tell you - that is a very real possibility. Christ's warning is not over 'fluff" or alice-in-wonderland-could-never-happen kind of substance. it is a stark, bold, in-your-face kind of warning message. Very unkind if it were not something that is real 'in real life'
 
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