The Unmerciful Servant. The key-notes of this parable are to be found at the beginning and end. It was spoken in order to show that a man should set no limit to the forgiveness of injuries; and in order to show this, the parable goes into the deep things of God. It shows that the motive power which can produce in man an unlimited forgiveness of his brother is God's mercy forgiving himself. At the close it lays down the law that the act or habit of extending forgiveness to a brother is a necessary effect of receiving forgiveness from God.
I. The practice of forgiving injuries. The terms employed indicate clearly enough that the injuries which man suffers from his fellow are trifling in amount, especially in comparison of each man's guilt in the sight of God. There is a meaning in the vast and startling difference between ten thousand talents and a hundred pence.
II. The principle of forgiving injuries. Suppose that the methods for practice are accurately laid down, where shall we find a sufficient motive? From an upper spring in heaven the motive must flow; it can be supplied only by God's forgiving love, on us bestowed, and by us accepted. When, like little closed vessels, we are charged by union with the Fountain-head, forgiving love to erring brothers will burst spontaneously from our hearts at every opportunity that opens in the intercourse of life. But there is more in the connection between receiving and bestowing forgiveness than can be expressed by the conception of yielding to the pressure of a motive. It is not only obedience to a command enjoined; it is the exercise of an instinct that has been generated in the new nature. The method in which this and other graces operate is expressed by an Apostle thus: "It is no more that I live, but Christ that liveth in me." When Christ is in you He is in you not only the hope of glory, but also the forgiving of an erring brother.
W. Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord,p. 185.
References: Matthew 18:23. C. Kingsley, The Water of Life,p. 278; J. M. Neale, Sermons for Children,p. 31.Matthew 18:23-35. Homiletic Magazine,vol. vi., p. 175; A. B. Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ,p. 401.Matthew 18:28. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,vol. ii., p. 190. Matthew 18:32. Homiletic Magazine,vol. x., p. 138. Matthew 18:32; Matthew 18:33. F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and other Sermons,p. 278.