Reflections of The Parable of the Great Debt

“That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” Matthew 18:35 NASB

What is the difference between earning your salvation and demonstrating your worthiness? Yeshua’s parable of the servant who owed a great debt challenges our thinking about the concepts of forgiveness and worthiness. In the parable, the servant who owed a great debt is forgiven, but when he fails to demonstrate the same magnanimity toward another, the forgiveness of the king is withdrawn and he is cast into prison to be tortured until he pays. Yeshua concludes the parable with a reflection upon the servant’s demonstration of his unworthiness of the king’s forgiveness.

Clearly the servant does not earn forgiveness. Forgiveness comes as a result of the sympathetic heart of the king, the king’s recognition of the impossibility of the servant’s situation and the application of compassion toward the servant. But none of this removes the requirement of hesed, that is, the necessity of demonstrating the same attitude and action toward others. When the servant fails to do so, he is judged as unworthy of the initial forgiveness shown to him. So while he never earns the king’s forgiveness, he is expected to transform his own behavior based on that event. In other words, he is expected to demonstrate the forgiveness he has experienced and validate the king’s decision.

The distinction helps us differentiate between earning and exhibiting deliverance. First, the two imply different goals. If I believe that I earn my way into righteousness and my goal is to get to heaven, then my actions can be judged on the basis of whether or not they help me achieve that goal. Good acts give me credit toward achieving the goal. Bad acts subtract credit. Therefore, I am engaged in a calculus of earning. As long as I get to heaven, I have accomplished what I set out to achieve.

But what if the goal is not to get to heaven but rather to live a righteous life?

What if my acts are not attempts to get credit but simply expressions of the fact that I am already delivered? This is not the same as the belief that I am already credited with a ticket ot heaven. It is a claim that I have been rescued from the clutches of the yetzer ha’ra in this world, and I will now live out my life in accordance with this change.   What if my effort to act righteously is viewed as an effort to demonstrate that deliverance has already occurred? This is demonstrating worthiness after the fact.

How do I show that I am delivered? By making efforts to act in accordance with that deliverance. This demonstrates my subsequent worthiness of the gift bestowed on me. It is not an attempt to earn the gift. The gift has already been given. It is an effort to show the benefactor that his decision to honor me with the gift was a good one. I earn the validation of his decision. I do not earn his decision.

In the West, immortality is achieved by the nobility of our death. Greek legend saw this in terms of the legacy we leave behind. For the Greeks, immortality meant being remembered for noble deeds, especially for a noble death. The more noble the cause that precipitates death, the more glory accrues and the longer we will be remembered. The goal is to leave a legacy that will be remembered for thousands of years. The obstacle is the infinite expanse of eternity and the possibility of being forgotten.

Christianity adopted this Greek view of significance of death. It abandoned the idea that immortality is to be remembered in human history by replacing it with the Dionysian idea of the immortality of the soul. The problem was not legacy but rather eternal reward or punishment. But the determining factor was still the quality of my death. If I died as a believer, my life had achieved its divine purpose and I was rewarded in the next life with immortality. If I died as a non-believer, my life did not achieve its intended divine purpose and I was punished with eternal damnation. The key was not how I lived, but rather how (i.e., in what state) I died. I might live a completely wanton and wicked life as long as I died in a state of belief. Since this leaves a man in the tenuous position of insuring that he “believes” the moment before he dies, the Church simply moved the moment of “death” from physical extinction to spiritual decision. Once I decided to believe the dogma of the Church and accept the proffered free forgiveness, I was accounted as having “died to myself” and therefore worthy of eternal reward no matter what happened in the remaining days of my physical existence on earth. I was saved, which meant that I was going to be rewarded with heavenly continuance, because I “died” in the proper way. The addition of Platonic dualism reinforced the idea that what happened in the intervening physical existence of this world really didn’t matter as long as my spiritual existence was assured.

The Hebraic view of existence is entirely different. In Hebrew thought, what happens after I die is in some significant sense unknown and unknowable. Therefore, the concept of reward and punishment in the afterlife ultimately depends on the choice of YHVH, not on me. The quality of my death is not a determining factor in my participation in the ‘olam ha’ba. What matters in Hebrew thought are my actions and choices here and now. In other words, Hebraic thinking focuses on living rather than dying. Hebrew theology is about how I live because how I live demonstrates whether or not I have entered into a covenant relationship with YHVH, a covenant relationship initiated by Him but manifested by me. My life is a validation of His faithfulness, not an exercise in gaining His approval or my admission. If I truly honor the King, my life will reflect His magnanimity and compassion, and it will reflect it now, on this earth. I will be actively involved in bringing the Kingdom to earth. It will simply be impossible for me to shun the effects of my undeserved gift. To do so would prove that the original offer had no effect.

And I really deserved the torturer.