Luke 17:3

Jesus speaks these words to his disciples straight after the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), which closes with a warning about refusing what God has already revealed. From here he turns to the life of his followers together: the danger of tripping others, the duty of forgiving, the power of faith, and then the humble duty of servants (Luke 17:7–10).

The word “offences” translates skándalon, which first meant the trap-stick of a snare, the bent sapling that springs the trap, and then anything that causes a person to fall. Luke uses the plural, skandala. In this verse it means whatever leads someone into sin or away from faith: an action, a teaching, an attitude or a way of life that trips them up and does them spiritual harm.

“It is impossible but that offences will come” is a strong way of saying they are certain. The word for impossible, anéndektos, means “unadmitted” or “not supposable”, and with the negative that follows it, Jesus is saying that a world without stumbling blocks is unthinkable. Sin has marked the world, and between human weakness, evil intent, the work of the adversary and even well-meant but misguided actions, people will meet things that trip them.

Then comes “but woe unto him, through whom they come!” The word ouaí is an exclamation of grief and judgment together, the cry the prophets used when they denounced sin and announced God’s judgment, often against people who exploited or harmed the weak, as in Isaiah’s woes against injustice (Isaiah 5:8). Jesus pronounces the same word over the scribes and Pharisees for shutting people out of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 23:13–36). The certainty that offences will come leaves the one who brings them fully answerable to God, whether he does it by tempting, by teaching falsely, by careless living or by neglect.

Jesus says this to the disciples themselves. Those who follow him and speak for him have influence over others, and he wants them to feel its weight.

Verse 2 shows how serious this is. A millstone was the heavy stone used for grinding grain. Some were small enough for a woman to turn by hand, and others were large enough to need an animal to turn them. Tied to a stone like that and thrown into the sea, a person sinks and is gone. Drowning was used as a punishment for grave crimes and was counted a shameful end, since it left the body without burial. The sea Jesus had in mind may have been the Sea of Galilee, deep and often dangerous.

“It were better for him” renders lysiteleî, an impersonal verb meaning “it answers the purpose” or “it is advantageous”. That dreadful death, Jesus says, would be the better bargain. He chooses the most extreme picture he can to show that leading one of his little ones into spiritual ruin is a worse thing in God’s sight than the most violent death.

“Offend” is skandalízō, the verb formed from skándalon, and the English word “scandal” comes from this word family. To offend in this sense is to put a stumbling block in someone’s path so that they trip and fall: leading them away from faith, causing them to doubt, or enticing them into sin. Matthew and Mark record the same warning (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42). Paul works it out in the life of the church when he asks believers to give up a liberty of their own sooner than let it trip a weaker brother or sister (Romans 14:13–23, 1 Corinthians 8:9–13).

“Take heed to yourselves” stands between the warning and the command. The verb proséchō means to hold the mind toward something, to pay attention, to be on guard. Jesus has just spoken of the harm one person can do to another, and before he tells the disciples how to deal with a brother’s sin, he tells them to watch their own hearts, so that they come to the matter humbly and ready to act with wisdom and grace.

“If thy brother trespass against thee” uses hamartánō, to miss the mark, and so to do wrong or sin. The brother is a fellow believer, and “against thee” makes the wrong personal. The disciple is the one who has been hurt.

“Rebuke him” is the first thing Jesus asks of the one wronged. It means going to the brother and naming the sin plainly and lovingly, with his restoration in view. In a society governed by honour and shame, a wrong often led to retaliation or to the offender being shut out. Jesus gives his people a different path, where silence that lets bitterness grow and gossip that spreads the wrong are both set aside, and the sin is brought to the one who committed it. Matthew records the fuller steps for dealing with a brother who sins (Matthew 18:15–17).

“And if he repent, forgive him.” The verb aphíēmi means to send away, let go, release or remit. To forgive is to release the brother from what he owes, to let go of the resentment and to open the way back into fellowship. It is a command, and it follows the pattern of God himself, who forgives those who confess their sins (1 John 1:9).

Verse 4 takes the command as far as it can go. A brother sins against you, comes back and says he is sorry, and then does it again, seven times between morning and night. Each time he returns, “thou shalt forgive him.”

“Turn again” translates epistréphō, to turn, turn around or return. Here the brother turns back to the one he wronged. “Saying, I repent” uses metanoéō, to think differently afterwards, to reconsider and feel remorse. He has changed his mind about what he did, and he says so aloud. Jesus asks the disciple to meet that turning with forgiveness as often as it comes.

Seven often stands for completeness in Scripture, and “seven times in a day” is a deliberate exaggeration that puts forgiveness beyond any count. Some rabbis taught that a person need forgive the same offence three or four times, and Jesus’ words would have startled his hearers. When Peter asks whether seven times is enough, Jesus answers “seventy times seven”, which some translations give as seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21–22). The point in both places is a heart that keeps on forgiving.

Forgiving like this is an act of the will, and it reflects who God is. He proclaims himself merciful and gracious, “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6–7). Jesus had already told his disciples to be merciful as their Father is merciful (Luke 6:36), and in the parable of the prodigal son the father welcomes his returning son at once and without reserve (Luke 15:11–32). Paul tells believers to forgive one another as Christ forgave them (Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32). Forgiveness that has no count is also forgiveness given to the one who turns back, so the same verse holds limitless mercy and real repentance together.

The apostles have heard Jesus forbid them to trip anyone and command them to forgive seven times a day, and they answer, “Increase our faith.” The word apóstolos means a delegate, one who is sent, and here it means the twelve whom Jesus was training for their mission. They address him as “the Lord”, kýrios, owning his authority, and they ask him for what they know they lack.

“Increase” is prostíthēmi, to place one thing beside another, to add. They already have faith, and they ask for more of it. The word for faith, pístis, means persuasion, conviction and reliance on Christ: trust that rests on him and holds to him. The apostles have understood that commands like these can only be kept by people who trust God deeply, and their short, honest prayer brings that need to the one who can meet it. A father once brought the same need to Jesus when he asked him to help his unbelief (Mark 9:24).

Faith is something that grows. Peter tells believers to add virtue, knowledge and much else to their faith (2 Peter 1:5–8), and Paul speaks of God’s righteousness revealed “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17). Faith is also what pleases God (Hebrews 11:6), so the apostles’ request is one he is glad to hear.

The Lord answers with a picture. The mustard seed was proverbially the smallest of seeds, and yet it grows into a large plant, even a small tree. Jesus uses the same seed in a parable of the kingdom of God (Luke 13:19). Here he says that faith as small as that seed would be enough to command a tree. The power lies in the God that faith trusts, so even a tiny faith, if it is living and real, reaches what only God can do. Jesus answers the apostles’ request by turning their eyes from the size of their faith to the greatness of the God they trust.

The tree is the sykáminos, the sycamine, usually taken as the black mulberry, though some identify it with the sycomore fig. It was a common tree in the land, known for deep and spreading roots that made it very hard to dig out. “Be thou plucked up by the root” is ekrizóō, from “out” and “root”: to uproot completely. “Be thou planted in the sea” adds what no gardener could do, since a tree will not take root in the sea. “And it should obey you” shows that the power at work is God’s, answering the faith of his people. Jesus speaks in the same way of faith that removes a mountain (Matthew 17:20, Mark 11:23).

Every part of this passage points to Jesus. The one who warns against laying stumbling blocks came to take them away, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He is the Rock (1 Corinthians 10:4) and the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). He came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), he welcomed the little children (Matthew 19:14, Luke 18:15–17), and as the Good Shepherd he laid down his life for his sheep (John 10:11–18). As our high priest he was tempted as we are and gives grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15–16).

He also rebuked sin when he saw it, even in Peter (Matthew 16:23), and always with a purpose of rescue. And he forgave on a scale beyond seven times in a day. We had sinned against God more times than we can count, and through his death Christ made the way for us to turn back and be forgiven. His blood atones for our sin (Romans 3:25), and in him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13–14). Those who have been forgiven like this are sent out as ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18–19), and our forgiving one another flows from his forgiving us.

The faith the apostles asked for comes from him as well. Jesus is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). By his death and resurrection the deepest-rooted things of all, sin and death, were pulled up by the roots. He lives in his people by his Spirit, which is why he could promise that they would do greater works (John 14:12), why we “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), and why Paul could say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). The power that moves the tree is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

These verses show God’s care for the weakest of his people. The one who has just come to faith, or whose faith is fragile, matters so much to him that Jesus would sooner see a man drowned than see that faith wrecked. Every believer who was once a little one has been under that care.

They also give the church a way to live with sin among its own members. The sin is named to the one who committed it, and when he turns back he is forgiven, as often as he turns. That is how God deals with us, who have sinned against him far more often than seven times in a day and are received each time we return.

And when the apostles found these commands beyond them, they took their need to the Lord. He answered by pointing them to the God whose power works through faith as small as a mustard seed. The strength to forgive, and to keep from tripping others, comes from the one who gives faith and makes it grow, and the prayer “Increase our faith” is one he hears.