and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,
At the heart of the model prayer the Lord puts a request about debt. He ties God's answer to the way we treat those who owe us. Two questions follow: what forgiveness is in view, and how does our own forgiving set its measure?
The word "debts" pictures sin as an unpaid account with God. The parables use the same picture, and there the debtor cannot pay anything at all:
When Scripture speaks of our debts being forgiven (see Matthew 6:12; Matthew 18:23–35; Luke 7, etc.), it uses the word in its wider sense, as it always does. These are unpaid debts, trespasses or sins. God forgives them, as we have seen, because Christ has died and made atonement. In those parables we are not only debtors. We are bankrupt beyond hope, without a penny in the pound to offer... So we go free, not because God cancels what we owe, but because a competent Substitute bore the penalty for us — one His own love provided.
Notice who is praying. That changes what the request means:
One aspect of forgiveness here needs careful thought. These are not sinners speaking to God, but disciples — children to their Father. The gospel tells the sinner of forgiveness full and free through the Saviour's blood, and nothing the sinner does has any part in it. In Matthew 6:12 we have the Father's government of His family, an altogether different principle.
Reading this line as the gospel would make pardon depend on our behaviour:
The question here is not the full forgiveness we receive by believing the gospel. It is God's watchful, constant oversight of His children's ways. This has nothing at all to do with the poor sinner's need. It is plain that the gospel offers no forgiveness of sins on the condition that we forgive others. Grace gives remission of sins on faith in the Lord Jesus. But if you — a Christian — fail to walk in a forgiving spirit with others, God is displeased with you. You then lose your communion with Him, and He will not restore it until you truly judge yourself for the wrong.
"As we forgive" sets the measure, and our own forgiving is often held back:
Our own forgiveness of others sets the measure of the forgiveness we pray for — "as we forgive our debtors." But think what we are: our hearts are subtle, we hold things back without knowing it, and we often find it hard to give free, full and absolute forgiveness to those who have sinned against us. From this petition, then, we could never know whether we may rejoice in knowing the full pardon of our sins against God.
The clause is not a bargain offered to a hard heart. The ESV puts the forgiving in the past — "as we also have forgiven our debtors" — so it describes someone who has already let the offence go:
This is remarkable, because it assumes someone who already has a forgiving spirit. No one truly has this except the person God's grace has forgiven. And God does hold His children to this. How can a man who does not forgive another claim to enjoy the forgiveness of his own sins before God?
Under God's government, the way I treat others comes back to me:
Our attitude to others has a serious bearing on ourselves. This passage surely views forgiveness from the standpoint of God's government, and it is on the lines of government that the matter becomes very serious. Do I forgive? Then I can call on God to forgive me. Am I hard and unforgiving? I shall reap what I sow.
Commentators differ on how far this petition fits the believer. One answer turns on who is addressed:
The simple fact that it is addressed to the Father removes every difficulty. Those who plainly take the place of relationship are asking a Father for His forgiveness... These trespasses cost us communion, and bring chastening to restore us. We must forgive, if we are to be forgiven.
- Debt: Sin is a debt we cannot pay. God clears it because a Substitute bore the penalty, not because He waived the account.
- Family: The one praying already says "Father." A child is seeking his Father's face, not a sinner seeking pardon.
- Government: What is at stake is not eternity but communion. A Father watches His children, is grieved, chastens, and restores.
- Measure: "As we forgive" makes our treatment of others the gauge. An unforgiving child cannot walk happily with God.
- Fruit: The forgiving spirit is assumed, not bargained for. Only the forgiven can forgive, and God holds His children to it.
and lead us not into temptation, but save us from evil.
The last request of the Lord's prayer turns from bread and forgiveness to danger. Two questions press on any reader: why would God lead anyone into temptation, and is the familiar closing line about kingdom, power and glory part of the verse at all?
The word does not mean an invitation to sin. It means a full testing that brings out whatever is inside a person.
So it was right for the disciples, aware of their own powerlessness, to ask not to be led into circumstances that would try them so severely. No such prayer is or could be in the Bible as, Lead us not into sin; for this would be to impute moral evil to God. The temptation here was putting a person fully to the proof. If there were unjudged evil in the heart, it would come out, to his humiliation.
There is a difference between God leading us into a trial and our walking into one on our own initiative.
This is not temptation to sin. James says, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one." Satan tempts man to evil, and we have an evil nature that responds to it... God may lead us into trial, as He did Abraham. But the Lord said to Peter, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." If we push into trial on our own, we are bound to fall. But if the Lord leads us into it, He will sustain us.
Asking not to be tested might sound like doubting God's care. It is the opposite.
This cry will always suit us while we are in this world. We feel our utter weakness, and we know we could not stand for one moment in temptation if left to ourselves. There is no conflict between such a prayer and complete confidence in God. We will trust God in the same measure as we have learned that in our flesh there dwells no good thing. Afraid of ourselves, we shall always cry, Lead us not into temptation, and then long to be delivered from evil. This, indeed, was the request of the Lord Himself for His own — "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." (John 17:15.)
The second half of the petition asks for something different from the first. Commentators differ on whether it means evil in general or the evil one himself.
But deliver us from evil in general, if not from the evil one in particular. This was not the sifting, or temptation, prayed against in the clause before. Grace may put us through that for our good, as we see in Peter. This is the power of the enemy drawing us into sin against God. The proper desire was to be kept from the evil, or, if one fell, to be restored from it. Grace in no case fails, if a disciple sadly did.
Jesus went into the wilderness to face the tempter. He then taught His followers to pray the opposite for themselves.
Misguided men have sought the wilderness to escape the power of evil. Jesus sought it with the express intention of meeting the evil one. He alone was perfect within. He Himself was led up to meet the tempter, yet He taught His disciples to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one]."
Everyone agrees the familiar ending does not belong in Luke's version of the prayer.
I will not go into the doxology that ends the prayer in the received text of Matthew. Everybody agrees in leaving it out of Luke, and it is well known that its authority, even in Matthew, is doubtful, to say the least. Probably it was an addition derived from church usage in the fourth century, or perhaps earlier.
Dennett adds that whether those words are Scripture or not, "they undoubtedly express truth that all Christians delight to acknowledge and to turn into praise."
Short as it is, the prayer covers the ground — and it was given at a particular point in God's dealings.
It takes into account both the divine interests and human necessities, physical and spiritual. It speaks of the realities of today, while looking onward to the final outcome of all the ways of God in the new heavens and the new earth... It was the Lord's gracious provision for believers who lived before redemption was accomplished, who were therefore not in the blessed condition of having their consciences once for all purged from sins.
- Proof, not sin. The prayer is not "keep me from sinning by Your hand" — God tempts no one. It asks not to be put through a sifting that would expose what is unjudged within.
- Weakness owned. We pray it because we could not stand a moment if left to ourselves. The more we distrust ourselves, the more we trust God.
- Entering versus being led. Walking into trial on our own ends in a fall. When God leads us into it, He sustains us.
- Deliverance sought. Behind the testing stands the enemy. The prayer asks to be kept from the evil, or, if we fall, to be restored.
- Christ's example reversed. He went into the wilderness to meet the tempter because He alone was perfect within; He taught us to ask not to go there.
For if ye forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father also will forgive you [yours],
The Lord had just taught His disciples to pray, "and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." Now He goes back to that one request and explains it. His words raise a hard question. Does a Christian's standing before God depend on how he treats the person who wronged him?
The Lord is speaking here to people who already know God as their Father. That changes what "forgive" means in these verses.
Here we find an aspect of forgiveness that needs careful thought. It is not sinners speaking to God, but disciples — children speaking to their Father. The gospel tells the sinner of forgiveness full and free, because of the Saviour's blood. Nothing the sinner can do has anything to do with it. In Matthew 6:12 we have the Father's government of His family. That is an entirely different principle. He expects all His children to show a merciful spirit toward everybody. His own attitude toward people is to shape ours. "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). Those who do not cultivate this generous spirit of grace cannot walk happily with the Father.
So what does an unforgiving believer lose? The answer turns on which kind of forgiveness is in view.
Verses 14 and 15 show us that He is not speaking of eternal forgiveness, but governmental. If a believer forgives others, he may count on the Father's forgiveness. When he honestly confesses his failure, the Father restores him to the joy of communion with Himself. If he does not forgive others, he cannot enjoy communion with the Father. His very attitude forbids it.
Mixing this daily forgiveness up with the once-for-all work of the cross damages both. One commentator sets them side by side, using the picture of washing defiled feet.
Sin that we indulge does interrupt communion with our God and Father. It needs the advocacy of Christ to cleanse defiled feet, by the washing of water with the word. His blood keeps its atoning power untouched. But the Spirit applies the word in answer to Christ on high, and the one who sinned repents in dust and ashes… We need and have both. We cannot do without the water from first to last, just as we have had the blood once for all. Whoever ignores, or worse still denies, this twofold provision of grace undermines redemption and muddles the truth of God.
The refusal to forgive is not one fault among many. It is a reversal of the whole ground the believer stands on.
Now the Lord singles out an unforgiving spirit as intolerable to our Father in His daily government of His sons. And no wonder. It is to go back from grace to law, from Christ to wretched self. So, as in the prayer, He urges grace toward those who may have hurt us, however painfully. He urges love too, and He commends it to us with a tender warning. Where love is missing in practice, that is hateful in His eyes.
These words sit inside the Lord's teaching on prayer. A nursed grievance and a praying life cannot run together.
If we do not forgive, we are not forgiven as children. Communion with God our Father is suspended, and we grieve His Spirit within us. To carry on as though all were well is presumption. It is insincere, and it displeases God. True prayer is communion with God. It is speaking to Him with the confidence of a heart that does not condemn us. "And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him" (1 John 3:22).
Forgiveness here is a habit to grow, not a feeling to wait for. Failing to practise it costs us something in ourselves.
We who profess to be Christians have a very important lesson to learn from this passage. It is the urgent need to cultivate a forgiving spirit. If we fail to act in grace, we are in danger of losing the sense of grace in our own souls. How dreadful when a man forgiven all his sins drags a fellow sinner before the judge over a little money!
- Grace received. The sinner's pardon rests on the blood of Christ alone, and on nothing the sinner does. That question is already settled for everyone the Lord is addressing here.
- Grace governed. These verses deal with the Father's daily government of His own children. Commentators call this governmental forgiveness, not eternal forgiveness.
- Grace refused. An unforgiving spirit is a move backwards, from grace to law, from Christ to self.
- Grace forfeited. The cost is not lost salvation. It is broken communion, a grieved Spirit, and prayer offered as though all were well.
- Grace practised. The remedy is to cultivate a forgiving spirit. Fail to act in grace, and we risk losing our own sense of the grace shown to us.
but if ye do not forgive men their offences, neither will your Father forgive your offences.
Jesus had just taught His disciples to pray, "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." Now He returns to that one line and presses it twice — first as a promise, then as a warning. The question is obvious: does entry into God's family depend on how we treat those who wrong us?
The people listening were already followers of Jesus. That fact shapes how we read the warning.
The forgiveness spoken of in verses 14 and 15 is connected with the debts of verse 12. The heavenly Father governs His children in holiness, and an unforgiving spirit comes under His discipline. If someone wrongs us and we refuse to forgive, we will miss God's governmental forgiveness. This is not a question of forgiveness for eternity. The Lord was speaking to disciples, and for them that great matter was already settled.
Here "governmental" means the Father's day-by-day rule over His own family. Scripture keeps two kinds of forgiveness apart, and they work on different timescales.
There is a difference between God's forgiveness in the sense of not counting sin against us, as in Romans 4, and governmental forgiveness — for us, the Father's. Matthew 6:14-15 speaks in a general way about a state of soul, so it might apply to both. But the difference is very real. Justifying forgiveness (unknown in the Old Testament) is complete once and for ever, as Hebrews 9 and 10 show — "no longer any consciousness of sins". Fatherly forgiveness, though, we may need daily. We are not really called to ask for it. We confess our sins, and we get it.
A refusal to forgive is not one fault among many. It reverses the very principle the disciple lives by.
Now the Lord names one thing our Father will not tolerate in His daily government of His sons: an unforgiving spirit. And no wonder. It means going back from grace to law, from Christ to wretched self. So, as in the prayer, He urges grace toward those who wrong us, however deeply they hurt us.
What is lost is not sonship but the enjoyment of it. The closed heart shuts its own door.
Verses 14 and 15 show us that He is not speaking of eternal forgiveness, but governmental. If a believer forgives others, he can count on the Father's forgiveness. When he honestly confesses his failure, the Father restores him to the joy of communion with Himself. If he does not forgive others, he cannot truly enjoy that communion. His own attitude forbids it.
There is a slower damage too. Refusing grace to others dulls our own sense of the grace God gave us.
Without doubt, we who profess to be Christians have an important lesson to learn from this scripture. We urgently need to cultivate a forgiving spirit. If we fail to act in grace, we are in danger of losing the sense of grace in our own souls.
The wrongs we brood over often look smaller in the cold light of day. And the grudge hurts the one who holds it.
You who keep up your resentment, and brood over the offences (often exaggerated if not imaginary) of others, beware. If that is you, then though you are a Christian, you completely fail in the duty that should mark you, as unlike Christ as you can be. Need one say that you are as unhappy as you are hard? Does it mean nothing to your proud spirit — and pride like this degrades a Christian — that "neither will your Father forgive your trespasses"? Do not trifle with such a bad and proud state. Stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God who sealed you. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
Forgiving is not squeezed out of us by threat. It is learned by looking at how God dealt with us.
As one brought to God, I have learned what God is in His ways of grace (Ephesians 4:31-32): "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Did God come and shout against you in justice? He sent His Son to give Himself for you, and has forgiven you. There is a man who wronged me. I am going to forgive him, as God forgave me. And if I am near enough to God to do it, I will show out what we have been learning. That is the joy of our souls.
- Family, not entry. Jesus spoke to disciples whose eternal standing was already settled. What is at stake is the Father's dealing with His children day by day.
- Two forgivenesses. Forgiveness that justifies is complete once and for ever. A Father's forgiveness is a daily need, and honest confession receives it.
- Grace reversed. An unforgiving spirit is a step back from grace to law, from Christ to self — which is why the Father will not let it pass.
- Communion blocked. The hard heart forbids the very restoration it needs, and it loses its own sense of grace.
- The cure. Look first at what God in Christ forgave you. Forgiving others then flows from that, and becomes a joy instead of a duty.