10 Forgive Us
Forgive Us
The Christian lives through forgiveness. This is what justification by faith is all about. We could have no life or hope with God at all, had God’s Son not borne the penalty of our sins so that we might go free. But Christians fall short still, and forgiveness is needed each day; so Jesus in part two of his model prayer included a request for it between the pleas for material provision and spiritual protection. This reflects nothing in his own praying, for he knew he was sinless (cf. John 8:46); it is here for us.
Debts
How should Christians see their sins? Scripture presents sins as lawbreaking, deviation, shortcoming, rebellion, pollution (dirt), and missing one’s target, and it is always all these things in relation to God; but the special angle from which the Lord’s Prayer views it is that of unpaid debts. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” is the RSV rendering of Matthew 6:12 (see also Luke 11:4 and the parable of the two debtors, Matthew 18:23ff.). Those denominations that say “trespasses” instead of “debts,” echoing Luke 11:4, unfortunately miss this point. Jesus’ thought is that we owe God total tireless loyalty—zealous love for God and men, all day and every day, on the pattern of Jesus’ own—and our sin is basically failure to pay. The Anglican Prayer Book rightly confesses sins of omission (“we have left undone those things which we ought to have done”) before sins of commission: the omission perspective is basic. When Christians examine themselves, it is for omissions that they should first look, and they will always find that their saddest sins take the form of good left undone. When the dying Archbishop Usher prayed, “Lord, forgive most of all my sins of omission,” he showed a true sense of spiritual reality.
Sinning Sons
A problem arises here. If Christ’s death atoned for all sins, past, present, and future (as it did), and if God’s verdict justifying the believer (“I accept you as righteous for Jesus’ sake”) is eternally valid (as it is), why need the Christian mention his daily sins to God at all? The answer lies in distinguishing between God as Judge and as Father, and between being a justified sinner and an adopted son. The Lord’s Prayer is the family prayer, in which God’s adopted children address their Father, and though their daily failures do not overthrow their justification, things will not be right between them and their Father till they have said “sorry” and asked him to overlook the ways they have let him down. Unless Christians come to God each time as returning prodigals, their prayer will be as unreal as was that of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable.
Intolerable
Here emerges a lesson: Christians must be willing to examine themselves and let others examine them for the detecting of day-to-day shortcomings. The Puritans valued preachers who would “rip up” the conscience; more such preaching is needed today. The discipline of self-examination, though distasteful to our pride, is necessary because our holy Father in heaven will not turn a blind eye to his children’s failings, as human parents so often ( and so unwisely) do. So what he knows about our sins we need to know too, so that we may repent and ask pardon for whatever has given offense.
From one standpoint, Christians’ shortcomings offended most of all, just because they have most reason (the love of God in Christ) and most resources (the indwelling Holy Spirit) for avoiding sinful ways. Those who think that because in Christ their sins are covered they need not bother to keep God’s law are desperately confused (see Romans 6). As it upsets a man more to learn that his wife is sleeping around than that the girl next door is doing it, so God is most deeply outraged when his own people are unfaithful (see Hosea’s prophecy, especially chapters 1-3). “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3)—and nothing less will do.
The Communion Service in the 1662 Prayer Book teaches Christians to call the “burden” (guilt) of their sins “intolerable.” The justification for this strong language is knowledge of the intolerable grief brought to God by the sins of his own family. How sensitive are we to this? And how concerned that, as sons of God, our lives should be so far as possible sin-free? The true Christian will not only seek to find and face his sins through self-examination, but he will labor “by the Spirit” to “put to death the deeds of the body” (i.e., the habits of the old sinful self) all his days (Romans 8:13).
Only the Forgiving are Forgiven
Those who hope for God’s forgiveness, said Jesus, must be able to tell him that they too have forgiven their debtors. This is not a matter of earning forgiveness by works, but of qualifying for it by repentance. Repentance—change of mind—makes mercy and forbearance central to one’s new life-style. Those who live by God’s forgiveness must imitate it; one whose only hope is that God will not hold his faults against him forfeits his right to hold others’ faults against them. Do as you would be done by is the rule here, and the unforgiving Christian brands himself a hypocrite. It is true that forgiveness is by faith in Christ alone, apart from works, but repentance is faith’s fruit, and there is no more reality in a profession of faith than there is reality of repentance accompanying it. Jesus himself stresses that only those who grant forgiveness will receive it in Matthew 6:14ff.; 18:35.
So again the question is: can I say the Lord’s Prayer? Can you? We shall all do well to make the following lines a plea of our own:
“Forgive our sins as we forgive,”
—you taught us, Lord, to pray;
but you alone can grant us grace
to live the words we say.
How can your pardon reach and bless
the unforgiving heart
that broods on wrongs, and will not let
old bitterness depart?
In blazing light your Cross reveals
the truth we dimly knew,
how small the debts men owe to us,
how great our debt to you.
Lord, cleanse the depths within our souls,
and bid resentment cease;
then, reconciled to God and man,
our lives will spread your peace.
Further Bible Study
Asking forgiveness:
Psalm 51
Qualifying for forgiveness:
Matthew 18:23-35
Questions for Thought and Discussion
How does the Lord’s Prayer define sin? How is this seen in our daily living?
Why does a person need to confess daily sins after he becomes a Christian?
Why can unforgiving Christians rightly be called hypocrites?