Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Throughout life, you will have an infinite number of occasions to apply forgiveness.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Verse 6 is a pretty good hint – somebody needs to be forgiven because they have already paid sufficient price in their punishment.
An unnamed man is carrying on an illicit relationship with and adult woman, a woman that his father had married, apparently the second wife of his father, and the Corinthians were proud of it.
This individual was living in a known situation of immorality, totally contrary to the word of God,
LEV 16:6-18; 20:11-12,17-21.
There is something strange about believers who think that carnality is liberated spirituality, when it is the adamic nature expressing itself according to its fleshly desires and lust.
What he needs now is not more punishment, what he needs now is forgiveness.
“If forgiveness is not adequately administered, you open the door for satanic activity in your life.”
If someone has offended you and you refuse to forgive them, you are open game – open prey for the devil.
The Christian attitude of forgiveness is found in a parable that our Lord taught the disciples.
As believers, we must have an unlimited attitude of forgiveness, not an “I’ll give you one more chance” attitude, but an unlimited attitude.
Some of life’s most significant lessons are learned in a schoolroom of pain and suffering.
For the believer in training, pain is a continued teacher.
True servants of God are givers, forgivers, and forgetters.
His question is a simple one, what are the limits to forgiveness?
Throughout life, you will have an infinite number of occasions to apply forgiveness.
Since it is an infinite number of times, you need to have an infinite capacity to forgive.
To forgive someone up to 7 times means that you must keep count.
Aphiemi = to completely cancel, to send something away without even discussing it, never bringing it up again!
What Peter did in suggesting a limit to our forgiveness was to imply the notion that a man in forgiving gave up a right which he might under certain circumstances exercise.
The purpose of this parable is to make clear that when God calls on a member of his kingdom to forgive, He is not calling on him to renounce or give up a right, but in reality he has no right in the matter at all.