Mat 18:22 I say not to you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

This is Christ's response when Peter asks him if we are supposed to "forgive" someone who "sins" against us. The point is that our relationship with other people must be based on letting their errors go. We must accept that people always make mistakes. What happened to "sin" and "forgiveness?" Well, Matthew (and other NT authors) never use those words.

These terms are not in Christ's words here, but are earlier. Here they come from Peter's quote, but the terms are:

"Sin" is from hamartanô or harmartia which mean "to miss the mark," "to fail in one's purpose," "to err," "to be mistaken," and "to neglect."

In Greek, the word not used in the Bible and the word that actually means "sins" is alitros, which means "sins," "sinner," and "sinful." It is impossible that the authors of the NT didn't know this word. All other Greek words based on the idea of sin are relate to it--alitria (sinfulness), alitêrios (sinning), aleitês (sinner) and even, this is funny, alêtheia (sincerity).

There is a similar problem with "forgiven," though the idea of "forgiving sins" didn't really exist before the NT. The NT authors use the term, aphiêmi, which means "to send forth," "to launch," "to send away," "to put away," "to get rid of," "to set free," and "to be released from." It means literally "to go from." It is interesting that this word gets translated as "forgiven." It is Christ's first word in the Gospel Mat 3:15) when he tells John to "suffer" baptizing him. It is often translated as "to leave" or "to let" in the Gospels. It is first translated as "forgive" in the Lord's Prayer (Mat 6:12) where it is applied to fogiving debts. It has the sense of leaving something alone and leaving someplace. It is used commonly to mean "send forth" or "go forth" in many other contexts. Christ "sends forth" the apostles. The shepard looking for the lost lamb "goes forth" into the mountains. It is based on another word for "letting go," aphesis.

"Forgiveness," in the Christian sense didn't exist in Greek anyway, before Christ. But there are others words in Greek that are used for various ideas of "forgive." Many are based on the root, aidôs, which means "respect for others," "reverance," "compassion," and "forgiveness." It is the most saintly form of forgiveness. Sunchôreô is another root which means "assent" or "concede" and is used to mean the economic forgiveness of debt.