So likewise, [ Houtoos (G3779) kai (G2532), in this spirit, or on this principle], shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
Remarks:
(1) When we think how Jesus here speaks of God's "little ones" - how dear, He tells us, even one of them is to His Father, and what perdition to them lies in the bosom of those "offences" which are apt to spring up among them-how incredible would it appear, if we aid not see it with our eyes, that Christians should think so little of falling out on the merest trifles, and insist so rancorously on their own point in every argument! See the notes at Mark 9:33-50, and Remark 1 there; and compare Romans 14:13-17, where our Lord's teaching on this subject seems to have been in the apostle's eye. Ours rather he the Good Shepherd's jealous care to recover His sheep when lost, and keep them when found!
(2) How delightful is the truth-here and elsewhere taught in Scripture-that God's dear children are committed by Him, during their sojourn here, to the guardianship of angels! Whatever may be the meaning of the remarkable expression, "their angels" - whether it be designed to teach us that each child of God is under the special care of one particular angel, a doctrine in which, notwithstanding Romish abuses, we can see nothing unscriptural, or whether it mean no more, than simply 'the angelic guardians of believers'-the information communicated here only, that they do always behold the face of Christ's Father in heaven, is surely designed to teach us how dear to God and how high in His favour each of them is, when even their guardians have uninterrupted and familiar access to their Father on their account. Children of God, brighten up, when ye hear this. But O, have a care how ye think and speak and act, under such high guardianship!
(3) How much unlovely feeling among Christians would disappear under the treatment here enjoined! Many misunderstandings melt away under a quiet brotherly expostulation with the offending party: failing this, the affectionate and faithful dealings of two or three more-still in private-might be expected to have more weight: and if even an appeal, in the last resort, to the body of Christians to which both belonged, should fail to bring an offending party to reason, the matter would but require to end there, and Christian fellowship with the refractory member henceforth to cease.
(4) The opening and shutting of the doors of Christian fellowship-in other words, church discipline-is an ordinance of the church's Living Head, whose sanction is pledged to the faithful exercise of it, in accordance with His word.
(5) What sublime encouragement to concerted prayer among Christians, for definite objects, have we in this section. And should not Christians prove their Lord now herewith, if He will not open them the windows of heaven, and pour them out a blessing that there shall not be room, enough to receive it?
(6) When we read our Lord's injunctions here to stretch our forbearance with brethren to the utmost, can we but blush to think how little it is done, especially in the light of that other saying of His - "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you"? (John 15:14). Let us hear the apostle. "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful" (Colossians 3:12-15).
(7) Let the grand evangelical principle on which turns the beautiful parable of the Unmerciful Debtor be written as in letters of gold and hung up before every Christian eye-that God's forgiveness of our vast debts to Him precedes our forgiveness of the petty debts we owe to one another; that this is that which begets in us the forgiving disposition; and that it furnishes us with the grand model of forgiving mercy which we have to copy.
(8) When our Lord represents the king in the parable as cancelling the free pardon of the relentless debtor, and again shutting him up in prison until he should pay all that he owed; and when He then says, "So shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses" - we must not understand Him to teach that such literal reversals of pardon do actually take place in God's treatment of His pardoned children-for that, we take it, is but the dress of the parable-but simply, that on this principle God will deal, in the matter of forgiveness, with unforgiving men; and so, we have here just a repetition-in the form of a parable-of the truth expressed in Matthew 6:15, and elsewhere, that "if we forgive not men their trespasses, neither will our heavenly Father forgive our trespasses."