There is one direction of travel in biblical teaching on forgiveness that’s incredibly radical, even today.

First, we learn in Exodus 21 that society must be restrained in justice. It talks of an “eye for eye, tooth for tooth”. Often people assume that’s quite a vicious rule, one that’s in conflict with what Jesus later teaches.

But what the Exodus passage is really about is being proportionate in justice and not in going over the top with retribution. The Biblical Theology Study Bible, edited by D.A. Carson, says: “The immediate and wider context suggests that Israel does not apply it literally in terms of physical mutilation; rather, people make appropriate compensation.”

Secondly, we come to Jesus who, in Matthew 5, says we shouldn’t rise to the bait when people take a swipe as us. He says: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” This is idiomatic language for “a common Jewish insult by a superior to a subordinate”, according to the Carson-edited notes.

Thirdly, a chapter later, Jesus tells the disciples that God’s forgiveness to us is linked to our willingness to forgive others. He says:

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Jesus later elaborates on the concept with the parable of the prodigal, lost son. The classic way of reading this is to concentrate on the son who leaves home to live a wayward life. But the way the parable is structured is that the final seven verses – the conclusion – are about the older son.

This older son, who has lots of money and a life of stability, is unable to forgive. He is jealous of his younger brother who had ended up feeding pigs. Given that Jews view pigs as an unclean animal, the younger brother had really hit rock bottom.

But in the parable, the prodigal son reconciles with his father but the “respectable” son, who today might have the big house and new car, is himself a lost son.

Indeed, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight says it’s really “the parable of two lost sons”. He says:

This is what I think we nearly all do. We point out fingers at the older son and say in ourselves I am not the older son. But Jesus told this story because, more than we care to admit it, we, too, are more like the older son than we care to admit. Instead of pointing our fingers at the Pharisees and teachers of the law, let us not be like their finger pointing but be like the angels in heaven who rejoice over known sinners returning home to enjoy family fellowship.