Forgive Us Our Debts | The Lord’s Prayer| Week 5
Series: The Lord’s Prayer | Week 5
Text: Matthew 6:12
We are invited to accept forgiveness and expected to offer it to others.
Seeing sin as “debt” reframes both confession and release—anchoring our honesty before the Father (1 John 1:8–10) and enlarging our generosity toward those who trespass against us (Matthew 6:12, 14–15). Jesus’ story of the unforgiving servant exposes how absurd it is to clutch small accounts when an unpayable balance has been erased; refusing to forgive shrivels the very fellowship we’ve been invited to enjoy.
Here’s a thought from Paul David Tripp: “Mercy means I am so deeply grateful
for the forgiveness I have received that I cannot help offering you the same.”
I like to meet new people, try new foods and visit new places. Life has its risks and rewards. If we don’t take chances, we miss out on a lot. I have been burned in relationships, decided that I don’t need to eat something again and determined not to return to a place I have visited. I have had to “write off” many debts owed to me – whether they are literal loans, bad investments or offenses that have been committed against me. I could dwell on the debt, hire a lawyer, vent my spleen to others, try to defend myself and/or get back at these people, but I would literally or figuratively end up “throwing good money after bad”. I won’t necessarily trust these people like I did before, but there comes a time to move on. I might win the battle but lose the war. I could win an argument or a lawsuit but still be an angry, bitter person.
No one knows hurt, disappointment and betrayal more than the Lord Jesus, so when He talks about prayer in Matthew chapter 6, He includes a prayer about forgiveness. He teaches us to pray in Matthew 6:12, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." KJV
Jesus teaches us that:
Forgiveness is Accepted
Forgiveness is a fruit of our Father’s love for us. We can accept or reject His forgiveness. This Greek word translated as “forgive” in Matthew 6:12 can also be translated as “pardon or cancel”. The Jewish people listening to Jesus would understand sins as debts before God. Moses taught the Israelites to cancel their debts about 1,500 years Before Christ in Deuteronomy 15:1-6:
1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. 3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. 4 However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. 6 For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. NIV
The seventh-year, shmitah or sabbath year laws required farmers to give their fields a rest by letting them lie fallow or unseeded. Everyone was required to cancel debts owed to them by their fellow Israelites. This is a brilliant plan given by the Lord to lighten the burden of poverty and to prevent the cycle from being perpetuated through the generations.
If you recite the Lord’s Prayer by memory with a group of people outside of your local church, I imagine things usually go pretty smoothly till you get to the fourth line. Some will say “forgive us our debts,” some will say “trespasses,” and others will say “sins.”
How we recite that phrase usually depends more on what English-speaking Christian tradition influenced us than what Bible translation we use. Those raised in Presbyterian or Reformed traditions are more likely to say “debts.” Those who come from Anglican/Episcopal, Methodist [The United Church of Canada], or Roman Catholic traditions are more likely to say “trespasses.” Those whose churches were influenced by ecumenical liturgical movements of the late twentieth century are probably more likely to say “sins.”
Some Christian traditions translate this as trespasses because this is a different word used in verses 14 and 15, which we will look at in a moment. I think the word “debt” is a better translation in verse 12 and the word “trespasses” is a better translation two verses later. The word “sins” is okay but does not seem to represent the specific meaning that Jesus intended here.
Looking at sin as debt owed to our Heavenly Father completely reshapes the way we tend to think. There are two basic types of sins: sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission would be doing what is wrong while sins of omission are not doing what is right. Sins of commission are active while sins of omission are passive. Both damage our relationship with our Heavenly Father, with other people and with ourselves. How often do we miss the mark of God’s perfection by violating His commands? How often do we fail to do the good we ought to do? Much more frequently than we realize!
A Sunday School teacher had just concluded her lesson and wanted to be sure
she had made her point. She said, “Can anyone tell me what you must do before you can obtain forgiveness of sin?”
There was a short pause and then, from the back of the room, a small boy spoke up. He answered, "Sin."
Asking for and receiving forgiveness is an important part of any relationship, including our relationship with our Heavenly Father. To confess our sin is to say the same as what our Father says about our sin. With this in mind, the Apostle John explains in 1 John 1:8-10:
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. NIV
Will you look again at the holiness of our God? Will you look again at how you and I fall far short of His perfect character in our thoughts, words and actions?
Father, forgive us our debts. Thank you, Father, for your incredible, undeserving forgiveness!
Jesus teaches us that:
Forgiveness is Accepted
Forgiveness is Expected
Forgiveness is a seed planted in us and our Father expects fruit to grow from it. Jesus continues in His model prayer in Matthew 6:12: "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." We could replace the little conjunction or connecting clause “as” with the phrase “in the way that” so it reads “And forgive us our debts, in the way that we forgive our debtors”.
Jesus elaborates on Matthew 6:12 in verses 14 and 15:
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. KJV
We are to forgive debts in verse 12 and trespasses in verses 14 and 15. To trespass is to cross the line on to property where someone should not be. We are to forgive others for their debts and for when they cross the line into parts of our lives they should not be. This expands the realm of forgiveness to include financial, relational, physical, psychological and spiritual sins against us.
A six-year-old was overheard reciting the Lord’s Prayer in a church meeting, “And forgive us our trash passes, as we forgive those who passed trash against us.”
How often should we forgive and what happens when we do not forgive? Jesus explains in a conversation with Peter in Matthew 18:21-35:
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents [millions of dollars] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii [a few dollars]. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30 But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” NIV
Gematria [from which we get the English word geometry), or the spiritual interpretation of numbers, is one technique for understanding and interpreting passages in the Bible. The number 7 represents perfection and completeness in Hebrew, so when this young Jew named Peter suggests that he might forgive someone up to seven times, he thinks he is being generous. Jesus pulls the pin then throws a hand grenade into Peter’s theological box and blows the walls out of his box. While we see the number 7 occur many times in the Bible, we also see the number 70. The number 10 represents completeness and God’s law, so it symbolizes perfect spiritual order carried out with all power. If we think, as Peter thought, that to forgive someone seven times is generous, perfect and complete, how much more so is 10 times 7 times 7? Does Jesus literally mean we should forgive someone 490 times then he or she is out of chances? Should we put a notch on the wall or pull out our golf stroke counter to keep track? Some later rabbis limited opportunities for forgiveness for a given sin to three times (The IVP Bible Background Commentary). Jesus uses a figure of speech here – hyperbole or exaggeration - to make a point: we are to forgive more times than can be counted because we have been forgiven more times than can be counted.
What if we refuse to forgive? Jesus makes it clear that if we refuse to forgive others, we will not be forgiven. Knowing that we have been forgiven makes a huge difference in how we view the debts that others owe us. When we forgive someone, we demonstrate that we value and appreciate that we have been forgiven. When we refuse to forgive someone, we reveal our own self-righteousness and our own lack of understanding of sin – particularly our sin.
Paul David Tripp summarizes: “Mercy means I am so deeply grateful for the forgiveness I have received that I cannot help offering you the same.”
Some commentators would argue this is not telling people how to be justified or saved, but how a justified person maintains his day-by-day walk with God. It is not positional, legal forgiveness but family fellowship to be maintained (from Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary). I could see how a person would look at the words of Jesus here and think that forgiving others marks the road to eternal life. Someone would say, “We just need to be kind to others and forgive them and we earn eternal life.” It is true that we are called to kindness and forgiveness, but it is not the whole truth about eternal life. The Bible makes it clear that salvation is a gift of God to be accepted by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21-26).
While I would agree that we cannot earn our way into eternal life by forgiving others, I believe there is something missing in our hearts if we will not cancel the debts that others owe us. John Piper simplifies it this way:
The way I would put it is like this: If the forgiveness that we received at the cost of the blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is so ineffective in our hearts that we are bent on holding unforgiving grudges and bitterness against someone, we are not a good tree. We are not saved. We don’t cherish this forgiveness. We don’t trust in this forgiveness. We don’t embrace and treasure this forgiveness.
What debts are owed to you? Are you willing to write them off? Will you forgive?
On April 28th, 1999, a 14-year-old student walked into Taber, Alberta’s W.R. Myers high school and opened fire with a sawn-off .22 calibre rifle, killing Dale Lang’s 17-year-old son Jason and injuring another boy. The incident took place eight days after the Columbine high school massacre in Colorado. Lang remembered the tension and confusion as he was told over the phone that Jason had been rushed to hospital. All he knew was that it was “serious”.
When he discovered it was a school shooting, Lang was shocked.
“When you live in Canada, you don’t expect to hear anybody ever say that to you,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine you’re actually sitting there, waiting to hear news about something so unbelievable.”
When Lang’s son died, the former Anglican minister and his wife turned to their faith. Despite their pain and anger, they tried to find forgiveness for their son’s killer, who was the victim of severe bullying from a young age. “It didn’t make me angry at him, it made me feel sad for him,” said Lang. “Our faith allowed us to forgive this young man, as early on as the memorial service for our son,” which was just five days after Jason’s death. Lang became a public speaker on the subject, telling audiences across Canada of the importance of healing and forgiveness. He also heard from other parents who had lost children, and their own experiences grappling with sadness, anger and forgiveness. “The problem will be if you can’t reach that place of forgiveness, then you’re going to get stuck in that place of anger and bitterness,” said Lang. “Forgiveness is not saying it’s okay or acceptable, it’s saying that I’m choosing to let go of this for my own health and to move on in life.”
Jesus teaches us that:
Forgiveness is Accepted
Forgiveness is Expected
We are invited to accept forgiveness and expected to offer it to others.