Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21,22 ESV)
Repeatedly
It is hard to forgive. And we often come up with reasons for NOT forgiving… conditions where we do not HAVE to forgive… things that allow us to be comfortable in our unforgiving.
Peter thinks he is being kind and loving when he offers to forgive someone up to SEVEN times for an offense.
One of the usual reasons that we seem to think frees us from our responsibility to forgive, is that often someone repeatedly sins against us. We forgive… they repeat… we forgive… they repeat… we forgive… they repeat… and we want to say, “THAT IS ENOUGH OF THAT!”
But Christians forgive. It is what we have had done TO us, through Christ, and therefore what we DO. Or should do. But it is hard.
Jesus here bursts the balloon of not having to forgive repeat offenders.
Maybe Peter actually understands already. He might have used ‘seven’ as a symbol of an infinite number. Which is pretty good. Better than most of us modern Christians think we need to forgive. But Jesus ups the forgiveness game. He says INFINITELY INFINITE.
We are never to stop forgiving.
Just like Jesus never stops forgiving us.