Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.6 The Character of Discipleship
teaching on the subject. 211 Here too we should recall Luke's saying on forgiveness
(Luke 6.37), which follows immediately on his version of the saying which
brings Jesus' teaching on love of enemy (§14.5) to an end: 'Be merciful just as
your Father is merciful' (6.36). What Matthew's version heard as the Father's
'perfection', 212 Luke's version heard as the Father's mercy, no doubt with the
paradigmatic theologoumenon of Exod. 34.6-7 very much in the background. 213
At this point it is futile to debate as to whether Jesus envisaged divine forgiveness
as conditional on human forgiveness or saw human forgiveness as the
consequence of divine forgiveness. 214 The teaching was no doubt heard with
both emphases. Unforgiving disciples need to be warned of what it is they actually
pray in the Lord's Prayer: to refuse forgiveness is to invite judgment. 215 But
it is equally, if not more important to realize that the motivation to forgive depends
on the awareness of having needed forgiveness oneself and of having been
so generously forgiven. The will to forgive springs from the experience of forgiveness,
the generosity of forgiveness offered from gratitude at forgiveness received.
216 The alternative is a sequence of relationships eroded from within by
211. Wright, Jesus 294-95, and McKnight, New Vision 224-27, refer specifically to the
jubilee tradition (cancellation of debts, Lev. 25.10; Isa. 61.1; cf. Luke 4.16-30), connected with
both the return from exile and forgiveness (Isa. 40.1-2; Jer. 33.7-8; Ezek. 36.24): 'Jesus expected
his followers to live by the Jubilee principle among themselves . . . that they should forgive
one another not only "sins" but also debts' (Wright 295). See more fully S. H. Ringe, Jesus,
Liberation, and the Biblical Jubilee (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 65-80; M. Barker, 'The
Time Is Fulfilled: Jesus and Jubilee', SJT 53 (2000) 22-32.
212. But Matthew has already stressed the importance of the disciple being merciful
(Matt. 5.7); oiktirmones (Luke 6.36) forms a hendiadys with eleemones (Matt. 5.7), as Exod.
34.6 shows (see further e.g., R. Bultmann, oiktirö, TDNT 5.160). And by God's 'perfection'
Matthew evidently understood God's generosity (5.45-47); NEB/REB translate, 'There must be
no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds'; see further
particularly Betz, Sermon on Mount 321-25. On 'imitating God' see also Schnackenburg,
Sittliche Botschaft 85-86.
213. Did. 1.4-5, with the same sequence of teaching, shows that the concept of being
'perfect' (teleios) was being understood by the tradents of the Jesus tradition in terms of generosity.
Contrast the 'perfection' of complete obedience required at Qumran (1QS 1.7-15).
214. The same unclarity is present in the conclusion to Luke 7.36-50: Jesus says of the
woman that 'her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven
little, loves little' (7.47). Cf. NEB/REB's translation: 'I tell you, her great love proves that her
many sins have been forgiven; where little has been forgiven, little love is shown'; Schräge,
Ethics 39; and see further C. F. D. Moule, '"... As we forgive ...": a note on the distinction between
desserts and capacity in the understanding of forgiveness', Essays in New Testament Interpretation
278-86.
215. Note already Sir. 28.2: 'Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done, and then
your sins will be pardoned when you pray'.
216. 'Forgiveness has been truly received only when it makes the heart forgiving'
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