I have loved the disciple Peter for a long time and for so many reasons. His passion. His devotion. His authentic way of engaging with the people around him. His dedication to leadership. His willingness to step out in faith, to speak up when no one else would.
We get glimpses of Peter throughout the New Testament – from the day he was chosen to follow Jesus to the night he denied Him, from the day he rebuked Jesus to the day he was restored by Him, from the time he wanted to build tents during the Transfiguration to the day he preached a Spirit-filled sermon and three thousand people came to Christ.
But there’s a moment Peter slips into Jesus’ narrative with a pivotal question, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21).
While we don’t know Peter’s reasons behind this question, we are able to see that Peter is catching-on to Jesus’ upside-down ways. In the Kingdom Jesus is bringing to the world, Peter knows we’re meant to love our enemies. We’re supposed to forgive those who wrong us. And Peter’s question reflects this. (Yay, Peter!)
However, some scholars suggest that Peter might have felt some pride at offering such a generous number of ‘forgivings’. Others come at the question differently, putting it in the context of Peter’s frustration with one of the disciples, so his tone might have been exasperation. Whatever his motive, Peter falls short – because Jesus tells him that ‘seven’ just isn’t enough. (Sorry, Peter….)
And isn’t it just so easy for us to live from Peter’s perspective on forgiveness, as if the numbers function like some sort of math that we add up each time we forgive the person for wronging us. It’s tempting to move through our relationships as if once we get to that magical number, we’re done; we don’t have to forgive anymore.
And that would be incorrect.
In this dialogue with Peter, Jesus flips the script on common ideas of justice, vengeance, personal rights, and forgiveness. When we comprehend what Jesus was telling Peter, we’ll better understand Jesus’ brand of forgiveness.
What Lamech and Jesus Teach Us
Essentially, Jesus tells Peter to ‘just keep forgiving’ with His response:
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Matthew 18:22, my emphasis
Jesus’ words are more significant than indifferent numbers. He’s actually drawing from an idea that goes all the way back to Genesis – the only other time in all of Scripture where these three numbers fall in such quick succession1:
If Cain is avenged seven times,
Genesis 4:24, my emphasis
then Lamech seventy-seven times.
We gain context to this ‘Lamech’ and his way of talking in riddles by referring to an earlier segment in the same chapter. Cain, the firstborn of Adam and Eve, murdered his younger brother, Abel. As a result, God cursed Cain by severing him from the land he had worked and sending him into the world as a restless wanderer (vv.11-12). But even as He doled out consequences, God showed compassion toward Cain, marking him so that “anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over” (v.15, my emphasis).
Five generations later, one of Cain’s violent descendants, Lamech, brags about murdering someone who ‘injured’ him. Lamech sees himself as a big, bad dude who didn’t just exact seven times the punishment, but seventy-seven.2
As yucky as Lamech is, there is much we can learn from him. For instance, he embodies our human nature for retaliation and represents our deep desire for revenge when we’ve been wronged; in fact, he epitomizes it. Bible teacher Tim Mackie emphasizes, “Our flesh wants justice, as well as the satisfaction of hurting that person more than they hurt us.”1 Just like Lamech.
So. When Jesus strings together these three sevens, He intentionally points Peter and us back to Lamech. In the context of our personal reactions to injury, we’re meant to go as extreme in our forgiveness as Lamech went with his revenge! Lamech was unbridled in a fury that sought bloody pay-back. By contrast, but with as much gusto, we’re also meant to be unbridled – but with mercy!2
As we take-in a deep breath, let’s recall Jesus’ purpose for becoming human and bringing supernatural healing and wholeness to the people around Him. Let’s consider His reasons for poking the established ways of doing religion. Jesus was ushering the Kingdom of God into the world (Luke 17:20-21).
With that perspective, we can better understand Jesus’ forgiveness as a demonstration of this new way of living in the world, as “the sign of a new and different humanity.”1 My friends, as Jesus followers we are called to live as a sign of God’s kingdom, of this new humanity (1 Corinthians 4:20). This is how we move through the world looking like Jesus – not with embittered fury but with unrestrained mercy.
However. We need clarity on what this mercy looks like. And we’ll start by defining what it is not.
What Forgiveness Is NOT
Just as in Peter’s day, our culture embraces the idea of an eye-for-an-eye. When we peel back the layers of our societal values, we see the glamorization and normalization of revenge. One example is the way movies elevate the character who was wronged to the point that we, the audience, are cheering for them as they go on a killing streak – because our human nature is drawn to that sense of avenging wrongs even when it is excessive. (Hello, Lamech.)
At the same time, our world and flesh are great at skewing the idea of Jesus’ forgiveness and mercy. So it’s important to know what Jesus does not mean by forgiveness.
First, when Jesus calls us to forgive someone who has hurt or wronged us, He is not asking us to become a doormat. We are not meant to keep taking the figurative or literal punches! The idea of turning the other cheek, of offering mercy, is not “passively submitting to violence or oppression or abuse over and over again.”2 Period.
Second, Jesus is also not equating ‘forgiving’ with ‘forgetting’. He’s not asking us to condone or excuse what the other person did – because how we’ve been hurt matters.1 Especially to Him.
Third, forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Jesus does not expect us to step right back into the same relationship after we forgive them. Reconciling is a two-person process; whereas, forgiving only takes one.3
It’s no coincidence that the author of Matthew pairs this conversation about forgiveness with Jesus’ teaching about how to deal with conflict (18:15-17).1 These important interpersonal lessons go together, so the three-step process of confronting the person who has hurt us is meant to help us move toward forgiveness:
Step One: “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back” (v.15).
Step Two: “But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses” (v.16).
Step Three: “If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector” (v.17).
These steps protect everyone – because as Lamech demonstrates, when we’re wronged, we easily make decisions from our pride or pain. We are tempted to hurt the one who hurt us, and that can take on many forms. For instance, it’s a true temptation for the one who has been wronged to gossip about the person who hurt them. And that does its own kind of harm. That’s why Jesus coaches us to go directly to the person. We try to work it out, even as we carry the grace to accept we cannot control the outcomes.
It has been a revelation for me to see Jesus’ intended audience for these lessons: believers!! As His Church, we are expected to live by a higher standard, from a different perspective than those who do not know or follow Jesus. These steps apply to our church families.
Thus, that last little bit about treating “that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector,” starts to make more sense. How did Jesus treat the tax collectors and idol worshipers? It was not with hatred. But with grace and truth, with kindness and mercy. Jesus is telling us we cannot expect a nonbeliever to respond to forgiveness as one who is a believer. Therefore, the one in our church family who refuses to enter the process of repentance and forgiveness is more than likely not filled with the Spirit. And we’re meant to treat them that way. Decisive. Clear. But not like Lamech.
My friends, it’s powerfully important that we have a clear understanding of what Jesus is calling us to when He says we’re to be unrestrained in our forgiveness – because it’s not what the world or our flesh would have us believe. We’re not forgetting or condoning what was done to us; we’re not submitting ourselves to more abuses; we’re not called to reconcile with everyone who hurts us. We are forgiving, Jesus-style.
What Forgiveness IS – And How It Changes Everything
When Jesus tells us we must forgive and keep forgiving, He is calling us to a way of living in God’s kingdom now, of responding in ways that go against our natural tendencies. Tim Mackie explains, “Forgiveness is first and foremost a decision to give up what is by nature or right ours to retaliate.” And in our western culture where ‘rights’ are highly valued, this feels like a big ask. So let’s frame it.
To start with, we live in a broken world, full of fractured people. Every time one of us makes a poor choice, there are consequences – whether we intend them or not. While most of our choices are a far cry from a Lamech-murder, they do lead to various injuries with long-lasting ramifications. As a result, every single human functions from varying degrees of woundedness.
Therefore, we cannot forget what God has done for us. He sent His only Son to earth for us. To die for us. To save us.
“In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.”
Ephesians 1:7-8a NIV
By grace, we are forgiven. We’ve been given mercy rather than what we deserve (Psalm 103:10; Titus 3:5). In this way, Jesus releases us from the ‘debts’ we incur with each poor choice – as an act of love!2 And the moment we forget this truth, we slip right back into feeling ‘due’.2 We start seeing ourselves as better and higher than other people, and that dehumanizes them, making it easier for us to avenge our wounds.
Jesus calls us to love those who hurt us – to offer the grace we’ve been given. It’s why He follows this Peter-conversation with a parable about a servant who fails to extend the mercy he was given. The king’s response reflects Jesus’ heart for us: “Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” (Matthew 18:33). This is us releasing them.
There’s another kind of release that happens each time we forgive a person who wrongs us – our own! Jesus calls for us to keep forgiving because He knows the way we will be freed from the chains of resentment and bitterness that unforgiveness breeds within us. He knows how easy it is for us to hold onto the way we’ve been wronged and the way it fuels our sense of entitlement – as if all that holding-on will inflict pain on the one who injured us.4
When, in reality, the only one who is hurt by our stewing resentment is ourselves.
The wonder of releasing the right to retaliation is that we are the ones set free! Rather than being filled with the toxicity of Lamech-like self-righteousness, we get to live unfettered and filled with the peace and joy of Christ. In this way, Jesus calls us to love ourselves well – by trusting that His grace is enough to carry us through all the steps we need to finally forgive those who have hurt us.4
The mercy Christ has extended to us is the same mercy we give to others – for God’s glory and our good. My friends, this is kingdom-living at its hardest and finest. When we walk by faith with the grace we’ve been given through the process of holy, healing forgiveness, we become a light in the world that shines right back to Jesus and His wildly upside-down way of living for His kingdom now. And that changes everything.
May we recognize our human tendencies to harbor grudges and desires for revenge.
May we take all of our pent up feelings to Jesus and allow His grace to do a work of transformation within
us.
May we never forget what God did for us by sending Jesus, by forgiving us.
May we respond like Jesus – with mercy.
May we embrace the grace to forgive those who have injured us and discover a freedom we never imagined possible!
Father God, how great are your mercies! How humbling is your desire to forgive all our debts. We step toward You in this moment acknowledging any pain, pride, or stewing bitterness – and lay it all at your feet. We ask that just as You have forgiven us that You would empower us to forgive those who have injured us. Lord Jesus, we look to You as our example for living in this world from mercy rather than from a posture of having a ‘right to retaliation’. We ask for more of your grace to help us overcome our natural responses each time we feel wronged, overlooked, or horrifically hurt. And we ask that You would lead us to safety – to safe places to live and heal, to confront and release all the pain and resentment. Holy Spirit, fill us with your presence. Encourage us in the dailyness of coming to Jesus with all our feelings, all our brokenness so that we learn to walk each and every day from humility and healed hearts, from grace and mercy – for ourselves and for others. We desire to be kingdom-living people, full of power and light and life. We long to be your agents of grace and mercy in the world. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
(inspired by Ephesians 1:7-8; 1 John 1:9; Matthew 5:14-16; 6:12; Titus 3:4-5; Luke 17:20-21; 1 Corinthians 4:20)
*I typically don’t write this prescriptively, but I was so moved by Tim Mackie’s teaching (see #1) that I felt as though we might need a refresher on Jesus’ way of moving through our lives, our churches, and the world with forgiveness. I know I did!
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – Tim Mackie of The Bible Project gave a one-hour teaching on forgiveness that blew me out of the water. And much of this post is inspired by that session on their podcast. I highly, highly recommend it.
- 2 – Quoted from this post about “turning the other cheek” and “loving our enemies.”
- 3 – In the same teaching from Tim Mackie (#1), he elaborates quite a bit on what reconciliation means and how it works, as compared to forgiveness. Here are some of my notes from what he said: Sometimes reconciliation can happen, but it requires the offender to own their offense, to repent of what they did wrong and admit how wrong it was, and to apologize to the one they hurt. Lots of change and humility are required for reconciliation to happen. We can’t control reconciliation because it’s a two-way street and takes BOTH people. HOWEVER, we are still called to forgive them even when reconciliation is impossible. Forgiveness only requires ‘me’, the individual wronged.
- 4 – I fear that the brevity with which I’ve approached this topic will make me sound flippant about the depths of woundedness. And that is not my heart at all. I recognize and have lived through the reality of the time it takes to get to a place where we can release the hurts and forgive. That’s why I’ve referenced this article because it is a great example of someone’s story who released the resentment that comes from the deep pain of betrayal. I love how she describes her journey through naming the hurts, laying them at Jesus’s feet, and extending “the forgiveness to others that He’d already graciously lavished upon” her. I think her testimony is a great witness to the power of Christ-like forgiveness. At the same time, she demonstrates that forgiveness from a grave injury comes slowly through the process of wise counsel and humble, heartfelt healing.
- I don’t make it a practice to recommend books I have not read, but Tim Mackie emphatically recommended Lewis Smedes’ book, The Art of Forgiving,^ saying that it is by far the best book on Christian forgiveness he has ever read. So, if you would like to dive deeper in this Matthew 18 way of understanding and living out forgiveness, this might be a resource for you.
- There are so many songs about the way we have been forgiven by God, but very few about us forgiving others. And I’m struck how inextricably these two are interwoven. Until we receive God’s grace-filled forgiveness, we cannot forgive others. Until we pick up grace and lay down our ‘right to retaliation,’ we cannot forgive others. It is with the grace and mercy we’ve been given that we can move through the process of forgiving those who have caused us harm. So I have added a song to our playlist, Embracing Grace, and done a wee bit of moving around so that Brandon Lake’s song, “Graves Into Gardens,” moves into NEEDTOBREATHE’s song, “When Your Forgive Someone” — because the first flows into the second. And the more we remember the mercy God has showered on us, the more we’ll do the same for others. I’ll share some lyrics below so you can see for yourself how we need forgiveness before we can forgive.
- I’m not afraid
To show You my weakness
My failures and flaws
Lord, You’ve seen them all
And You still call me friend
‘Cause the God of the mountain
Is the God of the valley
There’s not a place Your mercy and grace
Won’t find me again………
I couldn’t see I was the only hostage
To the bitterness I can’t let go…
There’s a part of me that can’t get past it
I know, I know, I know
‘Cause when you forgive someone
You set yourself free
- I’m not afraid
- Each Wednesday I upload a “Teacup” teaching video that carries on the topic here. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram, and YouTube.
- Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack, as well. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
- My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike. There’s nowhere better to know Christ than in His Word, so throughout this series, we’ll grab hold of one passage each week and embrace the rhythm of starting our day with God and His Word every morning.
- This week our passage is Ephesians 1:7-8a. This verse holds in tandem both the ideas of forgiveness and grace — all by the power of Christ’s blood. And because we’ve been lavished with abundant grace, we are called and made able (by that same blood) to forgive others. It’s important to note that redemption means ‘the clearing of a debt’ — that of being released or set free from what is owed. The Message captures this emphatically — “We’re a free people… And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!” Doesn’t that just have so much more meaning, now?
“In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” –Ephesians 1:7-8a NIV - We’re all called to share the truths about the work of Jesus. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. Believe it or not, we worship God each time we share our stories of faith! We use our whole selves to tell about our holy God!!
Featured Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Arjun Kapoor on Unsplash.
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