Temptations and Forgiveness

And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” (Luke 17:1-4)

These four little verses are packed full! So, let’s break it down, shall we?

Woe to the One

Jesus starts this off by making it perfectly clear that temptations to sin are inevitable. Even in the Garden of Eden before sin was ever committed, temptation preempted the sin. How much more will there be temptations in the fallen and sinful world we live in. BUT Jesus immediately follows it with woe to the one through whom they come!

That word “woe” is primarily an exclamation of grief and carries a proclamation of divine penalty. That little three letter word should stop everyone in their tracks and cause an ear to be tuned in to heed the warning.

This is not the only time we see this woe pronounced either. There was a string of woes directed at the scribes and Pharisees by Jesus in Matthew 23. And when speaking of Judas Iscariot during His last Passover meal before going to the cross, Jesus said, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” (Matthew 26:24)

The key to understanding who this woe applies to is in understanding what the temptations to sin are.

Temptations to Sin

In the Greek, this phrase “temptations to sin” is one word, skandalon, and it means a trap or a stumbling block. In the instance of a trap, it refers to a bent stick that is used to trigger a trap, in the instance of a stumbling block it refers to something that is put in the way in order to cause someone to stumble and fall, such as a rock.

The word skandalon is also translated as “causes of sin” when Jesus said, “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:41-42)

That brings us right back to what Jesus further said in His woe by whom the stumbling comes through - It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea. Being purposeful in leading others astray and into sin is a serious matter to God. A person who leads others into sin is following the footsteps of satan. And God is saying that a horrible death of a millstone hung around their neck and cast into the ocean to die from asphyxiation as water slowly fills their lungs is better than the judgement they will get from doing so.

Pay Attention to Yourself

Now as we read this, there are any number of people that may come to your mind who fit the profile of stumbler, yet the very next sentence Jesus says is Pay attention to yourselves!

This is a warning to us – both to the fact that temptations to sin will come as well as against being a person who stumbles others.

As children of God, we should never desire to nor actually purposefully stumble our siblings in Christ, nor lead other people astray from coming to Christ. And per usual, the way of keeping ourselves from becoming evil doers who seek to stumble people is by abiding in God:

“…but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.” (1 John 2:5-6,10)

Rebuking Your Brother/Sister

This last little section of verses here goes into rebuking other siblings in Christ who sins and forgiving them.

Now rebuke is a strong word and it can often take on a meaning of its own if we’re not careful. In this context, the word rebuke literally means to charge someone with wrong IN ORDER to restrain them. Restrain them from what? From the sin they’re engaged in, and ultimately the consequences of said sin. Rebuking is always supposed to be done with love as the motive and for the purpose of separating the brother/sister from the sin in order that they would repent and be restored.

But if we in any way are mixing our flesh into rebuking anyone, that’s going to produce the wrong kind of grief. Paul laid it out clearly to the Corinthian church when he said, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10)

We must be on guard and pay attention to ourselves, lest we rebuke our brother/sister in our flesh and then cause them to stumble.

Forgiving Your Brother/Sister

Now, on the other side of repentance is forgiveness. This is the natural, godly flow. We should see this in our own lives: we sin, God convicts and rebukes us, we repent, He forgives us – or at least that’s the intended flow.

We do need to be careful not to conflate these two things though – stumbling blocker and sin againster. The word for sin in “he should cause one of these little ones to sin” is different than the word for sin used in all the references to a brother sinning. The word for sin when referencing a little one being caused to sin is skandalizō and the root word is skandalon. But the word for sin when referencing a brother is hamartanō, which is to miss the mark – what we mostly think of when sin is referenced since we miss the mark of perfection, of which Jesus is the standard.

So yes, we are called to forgive all who sin against us, whether they do it on purpose or not, but in this context, Jesus is saying that when our brothers or sisters in Christ miss the mark and sin against us, we are to forgive them.

And the seven times phrasing isn’t saying you should keep count and only up to seven times should you forgive them. To do that wouldn’t be loving since 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus wasn’t trying to narrow our understanding of forgiveness by giving us a number, He was broadening it. Seven is a number of completion, and Jesus is indicating that again and again, we should be forgiving one another.

When we think of how many times we sin against Jesus, whether we know it or not, is He not faithful to forgive us again and again? Likewise, if we’re going to love one another as Christ loves us, just as Jesus commanded us to, then that includes forgiving one another.

As followers of Jesus, let’s pay attention to ourselves and not stumble anyone, and be quick to forgive our siblings in Christ again and again, just like Jesus does for us.