My wife and I were joking recently about whether we should forgive a minor infraction committed by a close friend. Suddenly, seriousness overtook her and she told me, “We must forgive her and forget this ever happened. Don’t even bring it up again.” Unwilling to abandon our banter I shot back, “She hasn’t asked us to forgive her; so I won’t. And I am going to bring it up when I see her.” To support my repartee I reminded my wife that that’s exactly what Jesus said—so I thought, in Matthew 18:22. Only, that isn’t what Jesus says.

To save you turning it up, Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). As John Nolland comments, “Peter proposes as a generous measure the possibility of forgiveness on as many as seven occasions.” Jesus’ response—”seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22)—Nolland continues, “is designed to break through any notion that there are limits to forgiveness. One is to keep on forgiving far beyond the point where one has lost count of the wrongs.”

To leave the exposition there would already be immensely challenging. Losing count of wrongs committed against us? I keep lists. But it gets worse. Because forgiveness here isn’t explicitly predicated on repentance or reconciliation.

What if People Take Advantage of My Forgiveness?

Matthew 18:20-21 isn’t concerned with the wrongdoer but the one wronged—with their response. According to Charles Quarles, Peter’s “question is ‘volitional’ and concerns what one ought to do,” when sinned against. Of course, there is a link to the preceding section (Matthew 18:15-20). For there Jesus spells out how to confront sin, providing us with a process for rebuke, repentance and restoration or reconciliation. But in Matthew 18:21-22 “the possibility of needing to cope with the recurrence of sin is introduced; and the need to forgive is explicitly addressed” (Nolland), which may or may not be part of the process outlined in Matthew 18:15-20. In other words, this brief section suggest that forgiveness ought to be extended, repeatedly, even if it isn’t sought out.

In writing that—and perhaps for you, reading it—a dark cloud looms, casting an ominous shadow. Forgiving others without limit, even if it isn’t looked for; even if there’s no remorse or repentance on their part? Doesn’t this open the door to abuse? Friedrich Nietzsche certainly thought so and he wasn’t wrong. We all know people who presumptuously go about in the confidence that others will forgive their peccadillos. You may also know little tyrants, who justify their wrongs by pointing to their successes—as Rorschach asks Ozymandias in The Watchmen, what’s a few more bodies buried in the foundations of a tremendous triumph? In short, consciences can become seared (1 Timothy 4:2). Perhaps this is what was behind Peter’s generous but finite view of forgiveness. Surely, people will take advantage of us? Won’t they abuse unlimited forgiveness?

But Peter’s question and Jesus’ answer to that question isn’t concerned with them. It’s for those who’ve been wronged. “Lord,” Peter asks, “how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” (Matthew 18:21). The words sit uneasily on our own lips, especially for those who know our Lord’s answer.

Forgiveness: An Antidote for Our Age

So forgetting the inevitable abuse of forgiveness, we must turn our attention back to ourselves; to those who’ve been wronged.

There are many obstacles that prevent us from taking Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18 to heart. On the one hand, many of us despise confrontation. So while people readily savage each other in comment sections, in-person confrontations are a very different and typically avoided matter. Added to that, cultural forces readily encourages us to rid ourselves of difficult relationships—even to cultivate our grievances, stoking our hurts into full-blown hatred and self-righteous resentment. That is, we justify ill-feelings toward others instead of taking the initiative that Jesus issues. And it’s in this relational atmosphere that Matthew 18:21-22 breathes some much needed life: forgiveness.

This is well illustrated in Marilynne Robinson’s Home. “There is a saying that to understand is to forgive,” Grace recalls. “But that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding…If you forgive, he would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.”

I’ve often mediated on that passage in Robinson’s novel, which in some ways epitomises her larger writing project. Later in the same novel, Grace’s brother Jack describes forgiveness as the least damaging choice available. This undoubtedly true. For throughout the Bible we spy a well established link between love and forgiveness (1 Peter 4:8; Proverbs 10:12). And love is costly, sin bearing even, if we’re defining it by God’s love for us. In the end, I don’t imagine God will scold his children for repeatedly forgiving the wrongs of others. After all, isn’t this how he treats us?