One of the most significant reinterpretations by Jesus of all the traditional eschatological symbols of the sharp distinction between justice and injustice, virtue and vice, was his reinterpretation of the apocalyptic story of the "last judgment," with the separation of the "sheep and the goats." According to Jesus, the righteous, who stood "on the right hand" of the Messianic judge, protested that they were not really virtuous-- "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you?"-while the unrighteous were equally unconscious of their deeds of omission and commission. This version of the last judgment prompted Pascal to the observation, "The world is divided between saints who know themselves to be sinners, and sinners who imagine themselves to be saints..."
All of Jesus' teachings on forgiveness declare in effect that only God and sinful human beings, that is, people who are aware of their sins, can be forgiving to their fellowman. That is the point of the parable of the unmerciful servant.
The final mystery of good and evil in life and history is in fact that love, compassion toward our fellowmen, which is the ultimate good according to our Christian faith, cannot be achieved by strenuous striving; rather, it is achieved by an honest self-scrutiny and awareness which discovers affinities between the foe's obvious weaknesses and our hidden vices...
Reinhold Niebuhr
All of Jesus' teachings on forgiveness declare in effect that only God and sinful human beings, that is, people who are aware of their sins, can be forgiving to their fellowman. That is the point of the parable of the unmerciful servant.
The final mystery of good and evil in life and history is in fact that love, compassion toward our fellowmen, which is the ultimate good according to our Christian faith, cannot be achieved by strenuous striving; rather, it is achieved by an honest self-scrutiny and awareness which discovers affinities between the foe's obvious weaknesses and our hidden vices...
Reinhold Niebuhr
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