Forgive Us Our Debts
Matthew 6:12
“And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)
You should have your Bible open to Matthew 6 where Jesus is teaching His disciples how to pray. We have camped out here for several weeks, going phrase-by-phrase through the Lord’s Prayer. We have seen that our prayer is based on our relationship with our Heavenly Father through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Because He is our Father, God is near to us and has compassion on us. Because God is in heaven, our Father has all authority and power to answer our prayers according to His will and for His glory.
Then Jesus teaches us six petitions to take to our Father in prayer. The first three relate to God and His glory, and three of them relate to us and our needs. We begin prayer not with ourselves and our needs but with God and His glory: Hallowed be Your name; Your Kingdom Come; Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Then, having committed ourselves to honoring God’s name, extending God’s kingdom, and doing God’s will, our Lord teaches us to ask the Father for what we need. These are not just personal requests for us individually, but we are asking both for ourselves and for others.
What do we need? Jesus teaches us to pray for three fundamental needs: to be sustained (our daily bread), to be forgiven (forgive us our debts), and to be delivered from the temptation and evil. What we are doing whenever we pray this prayer is to express our dependence upon God in every area of our human life.[1] If you think about the needs of your life and the lives of others, they all belong under one of these three petitions: sustained, forgiven, delivered.
Did you notice how these last three petitions are all linked together? The first word in both Matthew 6:12 and 13 is “And”:
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:11-13).
So, the requests are connected. The life we are asking God to sustain is a life in which we forgive as we are forgiven, a life in which we rise above the temptations within us and the evils around us. That’s the life we want to live because we are committed to honoring God’s name, extending His kingdom, and doing His will.[2]
With that review, we move to the fifth petition, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12). Just as necessary as daily bread—even more so—is daily forgiveness.[3] Forgiveness is the issue, our deep human need. But forgiveness for what?
What is meant by ‘debts’?
Sin – debt – trespass[4]
If you recite the Lord’s Prayer by memory with a group of Christians from various church backgrounds, things usually go pretty smoothly till you get to this fifth petition. Some will say “forgive us our debts,” some, “trespasses,” and others, “sins.” How we recite that phrase usually reflects the influence of the English-speaking Church tradition we grew up in. Those raised in Presbyterian or Reformed traditions are more likely to say “debts.” Those who come from Anglican/Episcopal, Methodist, or Roman Catholic traditions are more likely to say “trespasses.” Those from churches practicing ecumenical liturgical movements of the late twentieth century will often say “sins.”
Which is better or does it matter? Well, obviously, Matthew, in his account of the Lord’s prayer uses the word debts. Both places in Matthew 6:12 he uses the word Greek words, opheilēma/opheiletēs meaning “debts” and “debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Our modern understanding of “debt” might dull the edge this word had for Jesus’s original hearers. Debt, for them, was serious and debtors’ prisons were a real fact of life. You could be thrown into prison to work off a debt that you owed, as in Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:23–35). We live in a society that eats, sleeps, and breaths debt! We have a national debt that staggers our imaginations. Today we have bankruptcy laws and consumer protections that were inconceivable to past generations. So “debt” might not carry for us the sense of threat it did for them.
In Luke, when Jesus teaches this prayer, He uses the word “sins” and “indebted.” The Greek word for “sins” is hamartia, which literally means “to miss the mark.” To sin is to miss or turn aside from the path of righteousness (Rom. 3:10-12). It is to “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Luke’s account pairs this word for sin with opheilonti (“indebted to us”), meaning “to owe” or to be in debt for. So sin is a debt. 1
Our sins are described here as debts to God. Our Lord also speaks about debtors: people who have sinned against us. Here is the reality of our position in this world: we sin and we are sinned against. We have debts, and we have debtors. Each of us lives in a network of relationships in which we have responsibilities and obligations: what I owe to God, what I owe to others, and what others owe to me.
How is sin a debt? It is a debt, as Thomas Boston put it, “because it is taking away from God something for which we owe him…” He adds, “By sin we rob God of his honour, and owe him reparation.”[5] John 3:4 says “sin is lawlessness,” it is rebelling against and dishonoring God’s law. In Romans 1 Paul describes the pervasive unrighteousness and ungodliness of a world under the wrath of God “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful.” (Rom. 1:21). The reason that sin is so serious and has such a heinous nature is that it is man’s attempt at robbing God of the honor that is due Him as creator.
Yet as children of God bought by the blood of Christ His Son, we owe our Father much more. We owe Him not only honor, but especially we owe Him love. Jesus summed up the law of God saying, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.” (Matt. 22:37; Deut. 6:5). Then He added, “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matt. 22:39; Lev. 19:18). We owe God a life of devoted love every hour of every day of our entire lives. What we owe, we have not paid, and because God calls us to love, we have an obligation to others. We owe a debt of love. You owe it to your husband, your wife, your parents, your children, your neighbors, your friends, your employer your employees, your business partners, and your colleagues. Every day, we owe a debt of love to God and to each other, and however much we love, that debt is never fully paid. Paul writes, “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” (Rom. 13:8). You have one debt that is always outstanding and that is your debt to love God and to love others.
Our sins are debts. They are a failure to love God as He has loved us. They are a failure to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our debt of love is a debt that we have not paid and cannot pay. We need to be forgiven because we have an unpaid debt. David had such an understanding of the nature of sin as a moral debt against the honor and love of God that he cried out, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight—That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.” (Psa 51:4). So, the debt we need forgiven is our sin against God.
But why do some churches say “trespass”? This word comes from Jesus’ explanation of this petition in Matthew 6:14-15. Immediately after teaching this prayer in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” In these verses, the word “trespass” is the Greek word paraptōma and it literally means “to fall beside or near something.” Figuratively it means “a lapse or deviation from truth and uprightness” or “an offense.” A trespasser violates another person. Jesus wanted His disciples to understand sin in both the sense of owing a debt to God and the sense of trespassing against or offending God.
Jon Bloom writes,
This is what happened in the garden of Eden and what we have all done since. We have not merely borrowed from God an unpayable debt … We have seized a realm and exercised a right that belongs to him. We have violated God. We have committed a treasonous trespass, and we owe the debt of treason: death (Romans 6:23).[I]
One thing that this petition confirms for us is the ongoing reality of sin in the life of a Christian and the recurring need for forgiveness. More than likely, sin is a daily occurrence in our lives. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that because you have been saved or filled with the Spirit you are somehow immune to sin. John reminds us (1 John 1:8, 10) “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. … If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
This petition is an explicit prayer for forgiveness, “forgive us our debts,” and for a forgiving spirit, “as we forgive our debtors.”
1. Prayer For Forgiveness
Matthew 6:12, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.”
At least superficially men and women don’t seem to worry much about their sins. But deep down it is the most serious human need. Modern psychology may seek to help man dismiss his feeling of guilt but only Christianity helps man to be delivered from his true guilt, his debt to God. If we are sincere when we pray “forgive us our debts,” then we are openly admitting ourselves as guilty of wrongdoing, of sin.
Remember, this is a “family prayer,” a prayer for disciples of Jesus, for children of God. It is based on the fact that we already have been saved from our sins by faith in Jesus Christ. But that brings up another question, “Aren’t we already forgiven as the children of God?” Listen to God’s word:
Ephesians 1:7 – “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
Colossians 1:14 – “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
Acts 2:38 – “Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”
Acts 10:43 — “To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”
Hebrews 9:14, 22 – “14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? … 22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”
1 John 2:2, 12 – “2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. … 12 I write to you, little children, Because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.”
When we were saved, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, all our sins were forgiven. We are justified with God. All our sins were accounted to Christ and His righteousness was accounted to us (2 Cor. 5:21). In the words of David, we have the blessedness of knowing that our “transgression is forgiven,” our “sin is covered,” and “the LORD does not impute iniquity” (Psa. 32:1-2) to us because of what Christ has done for us on the cross. So, in one sense we are already forgiven. Paul writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1). If all that is true, then why must we pray for our sins to be forgiven?
Well one, if we are honest with ourselves and with God, we know we all still sin. So, we need it. And two, our sins hamper our fellowship with our heavenly Father. The point of this prayer is not that condemnation should be removed but that fellowship with God should be restored.[6] As children of God, it is our great joy and desire to walk closely with our Lord. A believer’s sin does not break the relationship we have with our heavenly Father through Christ, but it does strain that relationship. It hampers it. Sin harms the fellowship we enjoy with God.
In Psalm 32, David describes what it was like before he confessed his sin and sought forgiveness from God:
3 When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. (Psa. 32:3-4)
Christ is our life, so any break in that fellowship because of sin feels like a deadly disease that drains the life from us. So, we need to daily seek forgiveness, as often as we sin. 1 John 1:9 tells us how: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” To “confess” literally means to “say the same” thing about your sin that God says about it. That means we don’t rationalize it away, or excuse our sin, or blame it on others. We own it, call it sin, repent, and ask forgiveness. God promises when we do that, He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Our fellowship with Him is restored.
What we find out from this prayer is that although we received full forgiveness of sins when we were saved, we will never be able to fully enjoy that forgiveness and cleansing in our Christian walk unless we first confess our sins daily and second extend forgiveness freely to those who offend us.
So the first part of this prayer is a prayer for forgiveness, the second is a:
2. Prayer For a Forgiving Spirit
Why does Jesus say that we should pray to be forgiven as we forgive others? It seems as if Jesus is saying, “The way you treat other people is the way God will treat you.” On one level that thought is puzzling; on another it is profoundly disturbing. On still another level it appears to present a major theological difficulty. Augustine called this text “a terrible petition” pointing out that if you pray these words while harboring an unforgiving spirit, you are actually asking God not to forgive you. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great English preacher, said that if you pray the Lord’s Prayer with an unforgiving spirit, you have virtually signed your own “death-warrant.”[7]
When Jesus teaches us to pray “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors,” It does not mean that forgiving others is a work by which we earn God’s forgiveness. As I have already shown, the gospel proclaims that Christ has already paid the debt with His blood for our forgiveness. We cannot earn it by any act or obtain it by any forgiveness that we offer others. Rather, our forgiveness flows from a heart satisfied with the mercy of God and rejoicing in the cancellation of our sin debt (Matthew 18:24).
So what does it mean to pray this way? It means we must,
A. Forgive Because We Are Forgiven
When we understand how much God has forgiven us, we are set free to forgive others. Sometimes we excuse our lack of forgiveness on the grounds that the one who has wronged us does not deserve our forgiveness. But the truth is: No one ever wronged you as much as you have wronged God. You did not deserve God’s forgiveness. He gave it freely to you by grace because of the sacrificial death of His Son.
In Matthew 18:23-35, Jesus told the parable of Unforgiving Servant to explain this point. He tells the parable in response to Peter who asked Jesus, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” (Matt. 18:21). Jesus said to Peter, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matt. 18:22). Then Jesus illustrates forgiveness with the parable:
23 Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, “Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. 28 But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, “Pay me what you owe!” 29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” 30 And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” 34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.
The point of the parable is that those who are forgiven must forgive. After being forgiven a massively unpayable debt, how could the servant be so mean and cruel to others? The servant had been forgiven a great debt, and so he should have forgiven the debt of the other servant.
This is how forgiveness is passed on. If we had to forgive before we could be forgiven, then forgiveness would become a work, something we had to do to be saved. Yet salvation comes by grace alone. We cannot work off our debts, we can only ask for them to be cancelled. But now, having been forgiven, by the grace of God we are also able to forgive. Indeed, our ability to forgive is one of the surest signs of our having been forgiven. “There is no forgiveness for the one who does not forgive,” writes Don Carson. “How could it be otherwise? His unforgiving spirit bears strong witness to the fact that he has never repented.”[8]
When God’s grace comes into our heart it makes us forgiving. We demonstrate whether we have been forgiven by whether or not we will forgive. The bottom line is, if someone finally refuses to forgive, there can be only one reason, that is, that he has never received the grace of Christ.
B. Forgive Just as We Are Forgiven
Ephesians 4:32 says, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” How did God forgive us? Unconditionally because of what Christ did for us. He forgave us freely.
The Greek term for “forgiveness” (aphiemi) comes from a word that means “to let go.” Forgiveness is a release, a letting go of self-destructive feelings like anger, bitterness, and revenge.
C. Forgive That We Might Be Forgiven
Does the Bible really teach that God’s forgiveness of us is somehow linked to our forgiveness of others? Yes, indeed it does.
Look again at Matthew’s account of the Lord’s prayer and what Jesus teaches about it in Matthew 6:14-15: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Unless you forgive you will not be forgiven. This is a hard word, isn’t it? But it is a hard word of grace. When we were saved God forgave all our sins in Christ. We have been declared righteous on account of Jesus Christ taking our sin debt in full. That is one kind of forgiveness. But there is also relational forgiveness. If we want to experience the daily sense of forgiveness in our walk with the Lord, then we must forgive those who have wronged us. When I forgive, I set the prisoner free, and I discover that the prisoner I set free is me. Jesus stresses that only those who grant forgiveness will receive it.
Ray Pritchard points out that as strange as it may sound, there is such a thing as an “unforgiven” Christian. This is not a statement about ultimate destinies. To be “unforgiven” in this sense means that the channel of God’s grace is blocked from the human side. In particular, it means that you have chosen to hang on to your bitterness and to forfeit joy your daily walk with the Lord. You would rather be angry than blessed. You have chosen resentment over peace. Your grudges have become more important to you than the daily blessing of God. If you are a Christian—a genuine believer in Jesus Christ—unless you forgive you will not be forgiven. You cannot enjoy the daily blessing of living as one who is forgiven.
Someone has said it this way, “Resentment is like drinking deadly poison and praying for the other guy to die.” Unforgiveness produces bitterness, becoming an infectious cancer of the heart, it begins to chew up and eat up your whole life.
In this life, we will never be free of sin. Therefore, we must daily repent of wrong thoughts and actions that offend God and others. By doing this, we maintain and increase our spiritual health and life. But also, because we live in a world full of sin, we will often get hurt by others and, in response, need to practice forgiveness. When we do this, we bring the blessing of God’s forgiveness in our lives.
Remember how much you have been forgiven in Christ. Then forgive everyone who has wronged you. We are never more like the Son of God than when we choose to forgive.
J I Packer quotes this hymn by Rosamond Herklots:[9]
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 wrong, 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.[10]
May that be true of us today.
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[1] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 151.
[2] Colin Smith, God’s Forgiveness, https://openthebible.org/sermon/gods-forgiveness/
[3] Phil Newton, The Lord’s Prayer: Forgiveness, https://archive.southwoodsbc.org/sermons/matthew_06.12,14-15.php
[4] Jon Bloom, Forgive Us Our What? Three Ways We Say the Lord’s Prayer, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/forgive-us-our-what. I drew from Blooms article for some thoughts in this section.
[5] Thomas Boston, The Doctrine of the Christian Religion: An Illustration With Respect to Faith and Practice, Vol. 02, p. 614. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Doctrine_of_the_Christian_Religion_A/Ty-SDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
[6] Smith, ibid.
[i] Bloom, ibid.
[7] Charles Spurgeon, quoted by Ray Pritchard, Unless You Forgive, https://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/unless-you-forgive/
[8] Don Carson, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 69. Quoted by Phil Newton, The Lord’s Prayer: Forgiveness, https://archive.southwoodsbc.org/sermons/matthew_06.12,14-15.php
[9] J I Packer, I Want To Be A Christian, 164. Quoted by Smith, ibid.
[10] Rosamond Herklots, Forgive Our Sins As We Forgive, 1969 Oxford University Press. https://hymnary.org/text/forgive_our_sins_as_we_forgive
