How Many Times?

April 3, 2022

This is Peter’s question to Christ Jesus, your Lord and mine, that causes me to take

a second look and to be marvelously blessed. Look with me at Matthew 18:21 and

let us both go away with a greater awareness of God’s goodness than ever before.

When Peter asks our Lord, “How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive

him” (Matthew 18:21)? Peter thinking himself generous suggests the number seven

times. Jesus’s response, as you well know was, “I say not unto thee, until seven

times: but, until seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22). We have often come across

this scripture in our sermons over the years only to suggest how forgiving we

should be toward others. We have failed to consider from where the example and

idea came from. It came from our Lord and Savior whose mercy endures forever.

Holdreich Zwingli challenges our thinking and blesses our hearts at the same time

by asking, “Will Himself grant the full measure of pardon that he taught to Peter

and fail to practice the same”? We therefore are blessed that our Lord practices

what he preaches and what he was taught by his Father, our God. Grace is good,

and love delights to show mercy (Micah 7:18). How blessed are we to know one

who loves and forgives, One who not only loves, but one who habitually and

constantly forgives despite of our frequent and daily trespasses?

As we warn our Spirit against our flesh, armed with the full armor of God

(Ephesians 6) fighting against our two men we have this confidence: If God is for

us, who can be against us. Our warfare is not against anyone except our second self

that is forever striving to be first, ever wishing to overthrow our willing spirit, and

always appealing to our weaker flesh. We fight, often losing; but thank God that

through Jesus Christ we are forgiven every time we ask (seventy times seven). He

that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with

him give us all things (Romans 8:32). He who cannot lie promised to justify and not

to condemn. Jesus is the one who intercedes, who is the love of God manifest, the

only one who died for the ungodly, and the one who lives to give to the same.

Dr. Kenneth E. Morrison