Ep. 75: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
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LUKE 18,1-14, MATTHEW 18:23-35
If one asked how the conduct of the unjust judge could serve as an illustration of what might be expected from God, we answer that the lesson in the parable is not from the similarity but from the contrast between the unrighteous human and the righteous Divine Judge. In truth, this mode of argument is perhaps the most common in Jewish parables and occurs on almost every page of ancient Rabbinic commentaries. It is called the Qal vaChomer, ‘light and heavy,’ and answers from the less to the greater. According to the Rabbis, ten instances of such reasoning occur in the Old Testament itself. Thus, it is argued that ‘if a King of flesh and blood’ did so and so, shall not the King of Kings? Or, if the sinner received such and such, shall not the righteous?
In the present parable, the reasoning would be, ‘if the Judge of Unrighteousness’ said that he would defend, shall not the Judge of all Righteousness do judgment on behalf of his Elect?‘ When describing how at the preaching of Jonah, Nineveh repented and cried to God, Jesus’ answer to the loud persistent cry of the people is thus explained, ‘The bold conquers even a wicked person, how much more the All Good of the world!’
The parable introduces to us a Judge in a city and a widow. In the interpretation of this parable the Church, whom she represents, is also widowed in the absence of her Lord. This widow approached the unjust Judge with the urgent demand to be vindicated of her adversary. For reasons of his own, he would not. But, eventually, he complied with her request apparently from fear of bodily harm! Here is the Qal vaChomer, if the ‘Judge of Unrighteousness’ speaks thus, shall not the Judge of all Righteousness - God - do judgment and vindicate his Elect?
Finally, the parable of the unmerciful servant. This concerns a self-righteous, unmerciful spirit, worried about how often we should forgive, forgetting our own need for absolute and unlimited pardon at the hands of God. This is not about the King’s command to sell into slavery the first debtor, together with his wife and children. We have three distinct scenes in this story.
In the first, our new feelings towards our brethren mirror our new relationship with God, as the proper basis of all our thinking, speaking and acting. Notably, as regards forgiveness, we are to remember the Kingdom of God so that we may learn the duty of absolute, not limited, forgiveness - not that of ‘seven,’ but of ‘seventy times seven.’ We are the debtors of our heavenly King, who has entrusted to us what is his and which we have misused, incurring an unspeakable debt, which we can never discharge and which deserves bondage, misery and utter ruin! But, if in humble repentance we cast ourselves at his feet. He is ready, in infinite compassion, not only to release us from punishment but also to forgive us the debt. It is this new relationship to God that must be the foundation and the rule for our new relationship with our fellow-servants.
And this brings us to the second part of this parable. Here the lately pardoned servant takes his fellow-servant by the throat - a not uncommon mode of harshness on the part of Roman creditors - and says, ‘pay up!’ It can scarcely be necessary to show the guilt of such conduct. But this is the object of the third part of the parable.
Here the unmerciful servant is summoned and addressed as ‘wicked servant’ and the words are followed by the manifestations of righteous anger. As he has done, so is it done to him. This is the final application of the parable and he is delivered to the ‘tormentors’. We pause to notice, how near Rabbinism has come to this parable, and yet how far it is from its sublime teaching. We recall that unlimited forgiveness was not the doctrine of Rabbinism. It did, indeed, teach how freely God would forgive Israel and it introduces a similar parable of a debtor appealing to his creditor and receiving the fullest and freest release of mercy and it also draws from it the moral that man should similarly show mercy.
But, however beautifully Rabbinism at times may seem to speak on the subject, the Gospel conception of forgiveness could only come by the blessed experience of the infinitely higher forgiveness, the incomparably greater mercy, which the pardoned sinner has received in Jesus from our Father in heaven.
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)