Matthew 18:21,22

THE SPIRIT OF FORGIVENESS

‘Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive Him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.’

Matthew 18:21

The true spirit of forgiveness is essentially a Christian spirit.

I. Where it is to be won.—It is to be won only before the Cross of Christ. The natural heart resents all injury and wrong and cries for vengeance on the offender; there are some injuries that no man could forgive unless taught by the Spirit that inspired our Master. The doctrine of unlimited forgiveness was introduced into the world by Christ Himself. Philosophers of old may have looked upon it with partial admiration, but they never taught it as a necessary virtue. A new and indispensable virtue dates from the Advent of Jesus; the Spirit of Christ moved upon the face of the waters and men have learned to forgive.

II. Christ’s example.—And as the man Christ Jesus is the first to preach unlimited forgiveness, so He is the first to practise it—to practise it, too, under a heavy weight of anguish which might well have absorbed all the thoughts of His troubled soul. His forgiveness was absolutely without a limit. His enemies had tortured Him, spat upon Him, smitten Him, and jeered at Him in a chorus of infamous blasphemy: they nailed His holy limbs to the bitter cross: and yet, before he could commend His sinless spirit into His Father’s hands, He must intercede for His pitiless murderers—‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

III. ‘As we forgive.’—May we so contemplate the life and death of Jesus and of His holy martyrs that, by God’s grace, there may spring up within our souls the Spirit of Divine Charity; in order that our Father may fulfil His gracious promise, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.

The Rev. W. E. Coghlan.

Illustrations

(1) ‘ “I never forgive,” once said a well-known soldier to an earnest friend who was standing beside him. “Then I hope, sir, that you never sin,” was the true and ready answer. “He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.” ’

(2) ‘Cæsar was a man noted for kindly feelings; he had pardoned multitudes of those who had injured him, of those who hated him mortally: “Yet even he could not look upon happiness as perfect unless it were flavoured with vengeance, nor victory as complete while his enemy breathed.” ’