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Well for the unbeliever even thought they will remain a sinner through out eternity, all their sins are forgiven past present and future.
This gets to be complicated, but just because God does His job perfectly in forgiving everyone's sins, to complete the transaction of forgiveness the person being forgiven has to humbly accept that forgiveness as pure undeserved charity.
I use the parable in Matt. 18 extensively as a proof text to show how forgiveness, Love, atonement, grace, and mercy are not one-sided actions but require action on both the giver and receiver to complete the transaction.
This parable is not explained well by many commentaries.
Before going into this parable, you need to get the context which may not be obvious;
Do not blame God for not forgiving, but the person God is trying to forgive will not humbly accept the forgiveness as pure undeserved charity.
Matt. 18: 21-35
Peter asked a question and Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times (or 7x70).
I would say: “Jesus answered Peter’s question, perfectly, a strait forward answer, but Jesus’ answer would produce follow-up questions immediately, but the apostles are slow to ask Jesus what is on their hearts which we find throughout scripture. The parable is the follow-up answer to this question Peter (and the other disciples) would have on his/their heart(s).
I would suggest: when Jesus says 7 times 70 or 77 they are thinking: “WOW!! How Can we keep from being taken advantage of by our brothers if we are just going to keep forgiving them every time?” (People always think about how it will impact themselves.)
Jesus then needs to address this bigger question with His parable.
Here are some questions I have asked in the past:
The Master (God as seen in verse 35) is the way the apostles and all Christians are to behave.
The (wicked) servant I think would be referring to all mature adults, but am open to other alternatives? (This example, is it referring to all other humans or just other Christian brothers?)
Here is what we might want to further discuss on Matt. 18:
The Master (God) would have to be doing all His part completely perfectly and all He can do in unconditionally forgive the servant, but does the servant accept being forgiven as pure charity (undeserving/unconditional)?
The servant is asked: “Give me time” and “I’ll pay everything back.” Now this unbelievably huge debt is way beyond any possibility of being paid back and the Master states this and the servant would know this, but what would the Master be tell the world about this servant if he gave him more time? Could the servant take pride in telling others: “The Master gave me more time to pay the whole debt back”?
In management 101 they tell us not to give the person a raise at the same time you give them a performance review, why? They come in wanting to hear what raise they got, and that is all they will hear and remember.
This parable might be a classic example of the person hearing what they wanted to hear. The servant came to the master wanting to hear, “I will give you more time to pay all the debt” while he did not expect to hear, “Your debt has been totally forgiven”, so what did he hear?
If the servant truly accept unconditional forgiveness of this unbelievable huge debt, would he not automatically have an unbelievable huge Love (really Godly type Love), (Luke 7: 40-50) and would that Love have been seen in Loving the Master’s other servants, which it is not being seen?
If a “unconditional forgiveness transaction” had taken place/been completed how could the Master (God) say and do: “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on the other servant just as I had mercy on you?” 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers. He would be punished until he paid back everything he owed.”?
God being Love would be the perfect forgiver, forgiving everyone of all their wrongs all the time, so how could anyone go to hell?
I do not “loan” my employee money any more, but I am happy to let them decide how much their need compares to the need of Christians in Ukraine, because the money will go to them or Ukraine as pure charity. Some did have big needs, which I was glad to help with, but I have reduced the total money, I loaned out and lost to people, who took loans before quitting or being fired.
Is there any other debt the servant owes, since Jesus tells us this is what he owed, that the Master “tried” to forgive?
Does the servant still owe the master, because the servant did not accept the unconditional forgiveness as pure charity and thus automatically Love much?
In the parable, which scenario would give the wicked servant more “glory” accepting or rejecting God’s charity or does it even matter, since all the glory in the story goes to the Master no matter what the wicked servant does?
Can the wicked servant take pride (a false pride) in the fact that, in his mind, he did not “accept” charity but talked the Master into giving him more time?
Christ’s parables address one area of how things work in the Kingdom, but may leave other areas unaddressed (it is only a short story), so we need to be cautious.
Lots of times you need to put yourself into the audience Jesus is addressing and try to be thinking: what they would be thinking about at the time, because Jesus addresses what is on the heart of the individual person(s) and not what has been verbalized (there are a dozen examples of this).
Jesus gives us one requirement, we often leave out, and that is going to the person we tried to forgive when he did not accept the forgiveness as charity, and explain what he did wrong and why he still owes us. We may stop with just not loaning them our car again.
These moments are teaching moments.
God turning something over to you to become your possession saying “here it is it is yours now” that is a promise He is making. You can do with it as you please (sell it, give it away) but since God made the commitment (promise) He cannot just take it back.
God forgives unconditionally, but we do have to accept it as unconditional, undeserved, unselfish pure charity to complete the transaction.
