Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation… "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" Matthew 6:12). "And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us" (Luke 11:4). Ponder, first, the prayer for forgiveness — Forgive us our debts. This word" debts" first claims our attention. There are two senses in which man may be said to be a debtor to the Heavenly Father. First: Man is a debtor in the sense of dutifulness: a dutifulness unconditional, complete, unbroken, ceaseless, absolute; and this because God is Father, and he God's son. Of course, from a debt like this no son, so long as he remains loyal, can ever expect or even wish to be released. To owe the Father in heaven immortal obedience, thanks, trust, love, is man's blessedness and glory. But there is a second and terrible sense in which man may be said to be a debtor to his Heavenly Father: he owes Him arrears, or the debt of default in dutifulship. And this second debt is beyond the possibility of payment. And now, if Gabriel with all his spotless innocence and celestial strength is unable to outrun his duty or do work of supererogation, what shall be said of poor, fallen, miserable man? A child of dust, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, by nature, in the very fact of birth, a child of wrath, talking of making amends to God for past failure! "O Judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason!" As well might the thief claim the watch he has stolen as the reward due to his knavery, or the assassin the love and esteem of the dead man's friends as the reward due to his deed of blood. But will God answer the prayer? Can He, will He, forgive our debts? Most certainly He can and He will; and this precisely for the reason that He is what He is, our Heavenly Father. Were He something else, were He simply a Creator, or a Monarch, or a Judge, He might coldly say, "No! My Government must be maintained. Justice must be satisfied. The law must take its course. Or, if I forgive, it can only be in view of a consideration, the payment of an equivalent." But precisely because God is something more than this, precisely because He is Father as well as Creator and Monarch and Judge, He says nothing of the kind. Overcoming us by a love so infinite that it must vent itself in a cross, He recreates our characters by subduing us into penitence, amendment, loyalty, sonship; and so He transfigures us from bankruptcy into sonhood. This is the way in which our Heavenly Father forgives us for His Son's sake our debts. And now let us ponder, secondly, the standard of forgiveness: "As we forgive" (or, as it probably should read, as we have forgiven) "our debtors." And, first, what does it mean to forgive our debtors? Precisely what forgiveness means when our Heavenly Father forgives us our debts. And you know how He forgives us, at least those of us who have accepted His forgiveness; for His pardon, as we have seen, does not really go into operation till we have actually accepted it. Recall, then, how the Heavenly Father has forgiven us. He has forgiven us freely, without stipulation or compensation. He has forgiven us fully, every one of our debts, and they are as countless as earth's sands: He has forgiven us infinitely more than we can ever be called upon to forgive others. He has forgiven us sincerely, from the depths of His own infinite Heart. He has forgiven us everlastingly, world without end. Most wonderful of all, He Himself has taken the initiative, offering us His forgiveness in advance of our even asking for it. And as He has forgiven us, so we are to forgive one another. Take, then, the initiative in forgiving thy brother. But while it is true that our Father's forgiveness of us is the model for our forgiveness of our brothers, yet this is not the point which the Lord sets before us in the pattern prayer. Elsewhere in Holy Scripture forgiveness begins in heaven and descends to earth; here forgiveness begins on earth and ascends to heaven — "Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors." Not that there is any merit in our forgiving one another. No, our Father does not forgive us our debts because we have forgiven our debtors; but our having forgiven our debtors is a condition of our Father's forgiving us our debts (Matthew 6:14, 15; Luke 11:4; Mark 11:25; James 2:13; 1 John 4:20). For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy. Again: our forgiving our brother is not only a condition of our Father's forgiving us; our forgiving our brother is also, so to speak, the standard or measure of our Father's forgiving us: Forgive us our debts, as, in the same spirit that, we have forgiven our debtors. It would be difficult to find in history, or in philosophy, or in Holy Writ, a more pregnant or more affecting sign of man's greatness than this little phrase, "As we forgive our debtors." Elsewhere in the Word we are taught to regard God as the standard of man's action; but here we are taught to regard man as the standard of God's action. Here is a man who has been bitterly wronged by another; he says to him, "I forgive you this, but I cannot forget it." He enters his closet and prays: "Father, forgive me, as I have forgiven him! Say to me in words that Thou forgivest me, but do not forget my offences! Blot them not out of the book of Thy remembrance! Do to me as I do to him!" Oh, how often does this prayer, if offered sincerely, mean a curse! Once more: our forgiving our brother is not only the standard or measure of our Father's forgiveness of us; not only a condition of His forgiving us; it is also a sign of our having been ourselves forgiven by our Father. In other words, our feelings towards those who have wronged us furnish us with a decisive test of our standing before our Father in Heaven. As a forgiving state implies a forgiven, so an unforgiving state implies an unforgiven. Ah, this is the meaning of these human relations of ours: this is the final cause of the incorporation of us into human society. The feelings we secretly cherish, as in the discharge of our daily duties we mingle among our fellows — these are the best interpreters of Christ's doctrine of forgiveness. Let us not waste our time in judging ourselves by theoretical, distant, shadowy tests. Let us deal with our own hearts as directly and practically as Christ's tests require. (G. D. Boardman, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. |
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