Is it possible for a sinner to be forgiven and then have that forgiveness taken away? It doesn’t sound right, does it. After all, God says he will remove our sins from us as far as the East is from the West and that your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more. Then surely once we are forgiven, we are always forgiven, right? No one can take that away from us, right?

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

In case your math isn’t good, that’s 490 times you’re supposed to forgive your brother. You should know this is not a literal number—they are symbolic numbers that mean you should keep on forgiving your brother as long as there is anything to forgive. There is no limit to your forgiveness. To underline this point, he gave Peter a kind of parable. We’ll find it in Matthew, chapter 18.