Handed Over to the Torturers
My heavenly Father will do that to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. – Matthew 18:35
Matthew 18:31-34
When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 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 handed him over to the torturers until he had paid his entire debt.
The History of Torture
Torture is one of the darkest scourges of human civilization. It did not begin in one place or era; rather, it emerged early and independently in many ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Assyria, China, Greece, Rome, the Maya, and the Incas. Rooted in abuses of power and the corruption of the human heart, torture has consistently been driven by fear, hatred, the urge to dominate, the desire to punish, and the need to coerce.
Throughout history, people have used torture to extract confessions, compel submission or conversion, intimidate populations, subdue enemies, and consolidate political authority. In every age, its purpose has been to strip people of dignity, freedom, and hope. Wherever organized systems of authority, warfare, and coercive justice took hold, torture emerged as a recurring instrument of power.
From a biblical standpoint, torture reflects humanity’s fallen condition and the way sin distorts the exercise of power. It uncovers how thoroughly evil can undermine justice, authority, and human relationships. Because every person bears the image of God, cruelty, oppression, and degradation are not merely social failures; they are moral wrongs committed against individuals endowed with God-given dignity.
The Torture of Unforgiveness
Torture is not limited to outward physical pain. The Lord Jesus Christ also points to a form of inward torment that arises from unforgiveness. When forgiveness is withheld, it can inflict serious harm by troubling the mind, hardening the heart, straining relationships, and weighing down the soul. What begins as unresolved resentment can gradually develop into inner anger, a state of bondage, and a raging unforgiveness that repeatedly lashes out.
When bitterness is harbored within rather than surrendered to God, it rarely remains contained. Instead, it often grows deeper, shaping thoughts, emotions, and responses to others. Unforgiveness becomes an invisible, toxic agent of self-inflicted torture that
holds the inner life captive.
The Continuum of Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness spans a wide continuum of inner torment. At one end are the quieter offenses people often minimize: slights, insults, disappointments, dismissive words, unreturned kindnesses, and subtle wounds caused by thoughtless behavior. At the other end are deeper, heartfelt injuries: betrayal, broken trust, fractured relationships, financial loss, abandonment, severe emotional harm, and physical abuse.
The seriousness of the offense may vary, but clinging to unforgiveness always carries real spiritual danger. Resentment feeds on memory: it relives the offense, rehearses the pain, and quietly builds a case against the offender. In doing so, it inflicts fresh wounds on the person who refuses to let go.
To explain forgiveness, the Lord Jesus Christ uses the language of financial debt. This image is especially powerful because it reflects how people often view injury. When someone wrongs us, we instinctively feel that something is owed. An offense creates a moral imbalance, and the heart begins to demand repayment. Forgiveness, then, does not mean pretending that no wrong occurred. It means deliberately relinquishing our claim to personal vengeance and refusing to keep demanding payment.
Peter’s Question and the Human Instinct to Count
The narrative begins with Peter’s question about forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-22:
“Then Peter came to him and asked, ‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’ ‘No, not seven times,’ Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!’”
Peter’s question exposes a deeper misunderstanding. It treats forgiveness as something that can be measured, as if we could count offenses, keep a mental record, and track each pardon. Underlying this view is the mistaken belief that genuine faithfulness can coexist with a carefully guarded ledger of wrongs.
The End of Calculated Forgiveness
1 Corinthians 13:5: “Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.”
The standard the apostle Paul sets forth is extraordinarily demanding. Love does not keep score of the wrongs it suffers. It does not feed on old grievances or revisit old wounds to build an identity around past wrongs. The Father calls His children not to keep detailed records of others’ sins, but to forgive.
For this reason, the response of the Lord Jesus Christ is deliberately striking. His answer does not replace one limit with a higher one. “Seventy times seven” is not a command to keep better records until reaching 490. Rather, it abolishes the entire system of counting. He is declaring that forgiveness must never be rationed by children of the King.
The point is not to calculate a number but to practice moral abundance. Forgiveness should become a settled posture of the heart, not a measured response offered in limited amounts. Put simply, the command is this: never stop forgiving.
REFLECT & PRAY
Harsh consequences await those who refuse to forgive and forget. A transformed heart must lead to a changed life. Where mercy has truly been received, mercy must also be given.
Father, I fall so far short of Your standards. Unforgiveness lingers in my heart and too often surfaces, causing pain to others and torment for me. Cleanse my heart of bitterness, pride, and hidden resentment. Teach me to extend to others the mercy You have shown me, and give me the grace to forgive sincerely, from the heart.
INSIGHT
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
Matthew 18:23-27:
“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold, along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned, to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.”
The first servant stands before his master, utterly powerless to rescue himself. His debt is overwhelming, and repayment is impossible. His plea for patience is unrealistic, since no amount of time could have allowed him to repay what he owed. Yet the master responds not with cold calculation but with compassion. He releases the man and forgives the entire debt.
This moment is crucial to the account. The servant is not simply offered a postponement; he is granted total forgiveness. He is totally released from the debt he owed.
You’d expect such an experience to transform a person. Having been forgiven so much, he should be ready to show mercy to others. Yet the story takes a darker turn.
Matthew 18:28-30:
“But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.”
The contrast is both stark and deeply disturbing. The one who received compassion now refuses to be compassionate. The one who was spared becomes merciless. His actions expose the true state of his heart. Though outwardly released, he never inwardly received the mercy he had been shown.
The Master’s Response and the Language of Torment
The story does not end there. The cruelty of the forgiven servant reaches the ears of the master, who now responds in righteous anger.
Matthew 18:31-35:
“When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened.
`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. That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
The force of the parable is unmistakable. The refusal to forgive is not treated as a minor flaw in temperament. It is a grave moral failure. The man is condemned precisely because he received mercy without becoming merciful. His unforgiving spirit revealed that he had not truly been shaped by grace.
The language of torture in this passage is deeply sobering. The Lord Jesus Christ is showing that unforgiveness leads to torment. The practical warning is unmistakable: an unforgiving heart creates misery. A person who clings to bitterness lives in a kind of emotional and spiritual prison. He continually revisits the offense, replays the injury, nurtures resentment, and suffers under the weight of unresolved anger. In that sense, unforgiveness becomes his tormentor.
The Gospel Logic of Forgiveness
Because we have been forgiven so great a debt, we are called to forgive others. This does not require us to deny the reality of the wrong, minimize the seriousness of evil, or pretend that human actions carry no consequences. Rather, it means relinquishing the right to hold another person’s sin over them as a personal debt to be endlessly collected.
The Inner Cost of Keeping Records
One of the clearest implications of the parable is that believers must renounce the practice of keeping mental records of wrongs. Unforgiveness is deeply destructive. It injures not only the wrongdoer but also corrupts the one who was wronged. It steals peace, clouds judgment, disrupts worship, and stunts spiritual growth, keeping the soul tethered to the offense long after the event has passed.
The torment of unforgiveness is real. Sometimes it is subtle; other times, severe. But it always wounds the person who harbors it. Through God’s mercy in Christ, each of us has been freed from a debt beyond measure. This truth must reshape how we view the debts of others. We are not called to keep score or to harbor resentment. We are called to forgive sincerely, generously, and from the heart.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
© Dr. H 2026
