Should you not also have been merciful to your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?”
With these words the lord, by a spiritual principle, condemns the servant’s cold-heartedness. The lord reminds him that he had not only forgiven him, but had done so moved by compassion. Now it was expected of the servant that, with the same spiritual disposition, he would treat his fellow servant. Here Jesus formulates the golden standard of Christian forgiveness: as God forgave you, so you also must forgive others, not by law, but by the principle of mercy. This is not only a moral demand, but a measure of the genuineness of faith: whoever has truly been forgiven cannot live with an unforgiving heart.