After the master rebuked the unforgiving servant for treating his fellow servant in such a bad way, we are told by the Lord that the master

…was angry and delivered him to the tormentors until he should repay all that was owed.
— Matthew 18:34

However, as we said in the previous Note, what the servant owed at this point was not the original debt, since that had been forgiven once-for-all. Instead, as this parable makes clear, what he owed his master was to forgive his fellow servant, just as he had been forgiven (vv. 22-23; cf. 6:14-15). Thus, he was not to be punished “forever,” but “until he should repay all that was owed,” namely, by genuinely forgiving his fellow servant.

And the lesson the Lord draws from this parable for His disciples makes it clear He is indeed speaking to the genuine believers in Christ:

So will My heavenly Father do to you also if you do not forgive your brother, each of you, from your hearts.
— Matthew 18:34

So, while the Lord in this parable is not teaching us we may lose our eternal salvation, He is nonetheless showing us something very, very serious and sober: that is, even though our sins are forgiven in Christ, we may still face a serious, though temporary, discipline from the Lord when we see Him, based upon how we lived our Christian life. (See “The Unforgiving Servant (2): What Did He Still Owe?”)

This is indeed a great principle we need to be clear about if we desire to follow the Lord as we should.

Yet, in contrast to what we see in this parable, today it is widely taught and believed among Christians that there can be no serious problem between us and the Lord after we are forgiven; He may discipline us for a time in this age, but in the next, everything will be wonderful.

In fact, not only this parable, but many other portions of the New Testament as well, warn us, if we are willing to receive it, regarding how some believers may be disciplined by the Lord in the coming age.

The parables of the wise and foolish virgins (Matt. 25:1-13) and of the talents (Matt. 23:14-30) both speak of this. And in clear words the apostle Paul warns us that

…we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body, according to what he has practiced, whether good or worthless.
— 2 Corinthians 5:10.

Thus, we may be saved only “so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:12-15); we may even be disqualified from the reward (1 Cor. 9:24-27), and so fail to inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10, Gal. 5:19-21, Eph. 5:5).

And the writer of Hebrews asks, not unbelievers, but the believers themselves,

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
— Hebrews 2:3; cf. 3:15-19, 4:12-13, 6:4-8, 10:23-31

Many of today’s Bible teachers turn themselves into pretzels, theologically speaking, when they try to argue that these passages do not actually refer to believers, when they obviously do refer to the genuinely saved believers in Christ. Still others wrongly claim these passages are speaking of the loss of salvation resulting in eternal damnation.

In reality, the meaning of these passages becomes clear when we realize they are indeed speaking of genuine believers; but, rather than saying we can lose our salvation, they are dealing with the same principle spoken of in the parable of the unforgiving servant mentioned above, namely, of “repaying all that was owed.” This will be a very serious, yet temporary, discipline from the Lord which will take place, not in eternity, but in the next age, which is called “the Millennium,” the 1,000 year reign of Christ upon the earth (Rev. 20:1-6). After that, all of the believers in Christ will enter into a state of eternal blessing in Christ in the new heaven and new earth.

And that is what we will consider in the next Note in this series.

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—  8 July 2025 —