Tsk, tsk! "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him (Luke 17:3)."
"Tsk, tsk?" Who are you, my grandma?
Anyway. Wow. Thanks for sharing. All these years and Luke 17 has been off my radar screen. Don't know how I missed that one.
The point of your post, which is a proof text, ripped out of its surrounding context, and which doesn't even prove the thing that I think (?) you're trying to prove with the proof text, is?
In Luke 17 Jesus is speaking of how important it is for us to seek and offer forgiveness to each other. Without my willingness to offer forgiveness when it is asked for, not only does unforgiveness become a cycle, it can lead to greater and greater acts which need but do not receive forgiveness, if only because my unwillingness to offer forgiveness to begin with may not only lead to more sin on the part of the other person, it discourages them from seeking my forgiveness. Why bother if it's not going to be offered. Thus, my unforgiveness toward another is an act that may actually cause them to continue to sin without repenting. If I won't forgive, why should they repent of their behaviour? Since I'm not forgiving when asked to, I'm holding on to bitterness and I am myself engaging in sinful behaviour, directly contradicting the clear teaching of Jesus to forgive the repentant sinner repeatedly. By refusing to forgive and leading them into more sinful behaviour, I'm tying a millstone around their neck (possibly my own as well) because they are discouraged from even repenting.
The power of Jesus' argument may in fact be that his story is not so much about forgiveness/unforgiveness as that it can be applied specifically to relations within the body of disciples (in today's language - the church.) The reference in v.3 to "your brother" implies that this is an "in-family" problem. Jesus has already seen arguments within his small band of disciples which may have led to hurt feelings and unforgiveness. The dispute over who was the greatest had taken place in Luke 9, for example. Arguments within a family are often the worst and most passionate and hurts inflicted within a family are often the hardest to forgive. Thus, Jesus has evidence that this will be an ongoing problem I've seen that played out within the church over and over again. His teaching on the importance of forgiveness within the family context rather than allowing unforgiveness to become a plague is very relevant, since an unforgiving church is not a very good witness.
Now, what does any of that has to do with me acting as someone's judge? In this context according to Jesus I'm making a decision on whether to forgive a repentant sinner or not to forgive them. Since their repentance comes before my forgiveness (it is their repentance and forgiveness by God that seems to motivate them to seek my forgiveness) I'm not judging them in any way - they're judging themselves, and since they've repented they're presumably forgiven by God. Frankly, I rarely have any need to forgive anyone, since I generally don't hold grudges against anyone. I am always willing to acknowledge my wrongdoing and ask forgiveness. Life's too short to hold on obsessively to either grudges or guilt and to be weighed down by the things others have done to me or by the things I may have done to others - whether advertently or inadvertently in either case.
Broadly speaking, the passage reminds us of the nature of God - God's ongoing willingness to forgive repentant sinners - and to forgive over and over again.
This passage might actually be of use in establishing whether Christians (disciples of Jesus) can still sin, of course, since clearly Jesus says to his disciples "if your brother sins ..." and "if he sins against you seven times in a day ..." Apparently my "brothers" (my fellow disciples) can sin.
