Luke 17:3-4

Vers. 3 and 4. The Pardon of Trespasses. “ If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. 4. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. ”

Holiness and love meet together in this precept: holiness begins with rebuking; then, when the rebuke has once been taken, love pardons. The pardon to be granted to our brethren has no other limit than their repenting, and the confession by which it is expressed.

Matthew (Matthew 18:15-22) places this precept in the same discourse as the preceding; it probably referred also to the altercation which had taken place between the disciples on that occasion. But there what gives rise to it is a characteristic question of Peter, which Luke did not know; otherwise he would not have omitted it; comp. Luke 12:41, where he carefully mentions a similar question put by the same apostle. Mark omits this precept about pardon; but at the end of the same discourse we find this remarkable exhortation (Mark 9:50): “ Have salt in yourselves (use severity toward yourselves; comp. Luke 12:43-48), and have peace with one another,” a saying which has substantially the same meaning as our precept on the subject of pardon. What a proof both of the radical authenticity of the sayings of Jesus and of the fragmentary manner in which tradition had preserved them, as well as of the diversity of the sources from which our evangelists derived them!