By H. E. Singley, organist

Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. (Matthew 18:32-34, NLT)

The verses above are part of a section of the Gospel of Matthew that is entitled “Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor” in the New Living Translation. The main point of the passage is forgiveness, particularly forgiveness on the horizontal, human plane—one person to another. (I do not in any way want to detract from that emphasis in this passage, if for no other reason than its pertinence to my own reality!)

Nonetheless, I would like to think about the king who, at the outset of the story, had forgiven an incalculable debt held by the unforgiving debtor. This merciless individual’s obligation made the pittances he was owed seem infinitesimal when compared to his own unpaid account which, in the words of the NLT, was “millions of dollars.”

It is the debt which every redeemed child of God has to our heavenly Father that I wish to bring into the forefront. We can imagine that “millions of dollars” to a servant in biblical times could have seemed like trillions of dollars would appear to us in our day—a figure that no one could fathom, much less repay (probably not even the government of the United States!).

I once heard of an admittedly insufficient approximation between a single grain of sand on any seashore in relation to all the sand on all the seashores in all the world and all of time in relation to eternity. Similarly, any parallel between a trillion-dollar debt and what forgiven sinners owe to our loving, merciful Heavenly Father only begins to reckon the measure of our indebtedness due to our condition as sinners by nature and sinners by choice.

King David understood his sin.

Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my health is broken because of my sins.
My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief.

(Psalm 38:3-6)

The apostle Paul expresses his—and our—frustration:

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right,

I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart.

But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind.

This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

Oh, what a miserable person I am!

(Romans 7:21-24a)

There is desperation in this expression of John Donne, a 16th-century Anglican priest and poet:

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

And do run still, though still I do deplore?

When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won

Others to sin, and made my sin their door?

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year or two, but wallow’d in, a score?

When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

For I have more.

I have a fear of sin, that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son

Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;

And, having done that, thou hast done;

I fear no more.

The final stanza of Donne’s poem, “A Hymn to God the Father,” turns us toward the only hope we have for our interminable, seemingly irresolvable debt, the finished work of His resplendent Son.

I hear the Savior say, “Thy strength indeed is small,
Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.”

Refrain:
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim--
I’ll wash my garments white in the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb. (Refrain)

And when before the throne I stand in Him complete,
"Jesus died my soul to save," my lips shall still repeat. (Refrain)*

All to Him we owe!

“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.

(Isaiah 1:18, NLT)

IDEAS FOR LISTENING

Listen for the melody of the hymn-tune throughout.
The music reflects three of the original four stanzas, all in a different key, all with a different stylistic approach.
Think of the three stanzas above as you hear the music.
Sing the hymn–words AND music–even if you’re by yourself!

* “Jesus Paid It All” (All to Christ). Text by Elvina M. Hall, Music by John T. Grape. Both poet and composer were from Baltimore, Maryland and were members of a local Methodist church.