Why should we ask God to forgive us our debts (Matthew 6:12)?

The heart's condemnation here is from the consciousness of failure in our ways, and the conviction of still more known to God in His moral government of our souls. This too is implied in "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgave our debtors." Here too it is a question, not of plenary forgiveness in faith of the gospel, but of God's watchful and constant oversight of His children's ways. This has nothing at all to do with the poor sinner's need; for it is plain that the gospel offers no forgiveness of sins on the condition of a forgiving spirit to others. Grace gives remission of sins on the faith of the Lord Jesus. Here is nothing to do with that; but if you — a Christian — fail to walk in a forgiving spirit with others, God is displeased with you. Thereby you no longer enjoy communion with Him, and He will not restore it till you truly judge yourself for the wrong. This lack is what produced the saint's self-condemnation, and the indication of censure on God's part.

"Give us this day our daily (or sufficient) bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Thus both body and soul are considered in their various necessities. An aspect of forgiveness is here found which needs to be carefully considered. It is not sinners speaking to God, but disciples — children to their Father. The Gospel to the sinner speaks of forgiveness full and free in virtue of the Saviour's blood, nothing that the sinner can do having anything whatever to do with the matter; in Matt. 6:12 it is the Father's government of His family, a different principle altogether. He expects to see in all His children a merciful spirit towards everybody. His own attitude towards men is to govern ours, and "He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. 5:45). Those who do not cultivate this generous spirit of grace cannot walk happily with the Father.

Now it is certainly true that with this the prayer before us is in no wise in contradiction. The Lord could not mean to teach His disciples here that sins were only remitted from time to time, in answer to prayer about them. Yet those ignorant of the settled acceptance which the gospel teaches have used it, and continually use it, in this very way. On the other hand some would press, on account of such implication, the impossibility of the intelligent use, by the Christian; of such a petition. Both views are wrong, the prayer itself being perfectly in keeping ― how could it be otherwise? ― with the fullest revelation of divine grace. The simple fact that it is to the Father removes every difficulty. It is thus a Father's forgiveness that is besought by those who distinctly take the place of relationship. As between God and His creatures, the precious blood of Christ perfects forever those who, in faith, have taken shelter under it; but that only brings such under a Father's government who," without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work" (1 Peter 1:17), and who cannot but take notice of the conduct of His children, just because they are that, and of His love to them as that. Loss of communion; with chastening for restoration, are consequences of these trespasses; and the conditions implied in the petition itself, and emphasized by the Lord just afterward, show the holy character of this government. We must forgive, if we are to be forgiven. With an unforgiving spirit toward others we cannot enjoy communion with Him whose nature is love, and who must have His image reproduced in us.

Next, comes what was suited to the disciples, as the objects of divine compassion, in circumstances of sorrow and trial here below. First, their bodily need is confessed, then that of the soul. "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive"* the first calling for no comment here (but see Appendix B, on the word "daily"); the last being put on the ground or pattern of the merciful spirit which had been so strongly inculcated on the disciples at the close of the chapter before. It was no longer to be "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," no longer evil for evil, but good only, good always. The model for their imitation was their heavenly Father, and not merely God as God. As the latter, as God, He has vindicated Himself from time to time, and He shall yet deal most righteously with all that demands judgment in man. As Father in heaven, He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust, not to speak of His intimate and everlasting relations with His children, who enjoy the overflow of all His love. So here the Lord teaches His disciples (not as a question of remission as sinners, but of divine government as children) to say, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." That is, we have this principle of forgiving mercy to others not only enjoined on the disciples as the will of the Lord, but solemnly interwoven with their own habitual need of it when they lifted up their hearts to their Father. The application and value of this to such as had been Jews must have been manifest; because as a nation they were responsible to walk according to the law, the character of which was not mercy in case of wrong, but the infliction of just punishment on the guilty. Thus it was that Israel of old was employed to purge the land of Canaan of its defiled and defiling inhabitants. And therefore it was that they themselves, when they and their kings thoroughly apostatized from God, fell under its terrible lash. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities." But now another principle was about to govern — not earthly retributive righteousness, but heavenly grace, which has power to transform as well as forgive the guilty. The Jews who believed were to be taken out of their previous standing and set in a new place as children, having to do with their Father in heaven, and responsible to reflect His character on earth.

There is very good authority, Greek and Latin, for "forgave." The aorist here, if well founded, certainly makes the sense more specific. Our forgiving is viewed as summed up in one and complete. Its spirit agrees well with Matthew 5:23-24, of which it is the converse.

Again, we do well to remember who they were that the Lord instructs thus to plead with their Father. They were disciples, who were thereby shown the continual necessity of dependence upon Him and of confession. Nevertheless, it is the Father besought to forgive the debts of His children, not a poor sinner in an agony about his iniquity and without the knowledge of Christ. Scripture provides for such an one elsewhere but it is not the question here; and if the Lord's prayer were applied to, or appropriated by, an unrenewed soul as the prescribed means of blessing for his case, a real injury would be done. Does God make the forgiveness of an unconverted man depend, in any sort or degree, upon his forgiveness of others? By no means. That were to ask a very high practical requirement from a person in the lowest possible condition; it were to impose a new law more fatal to the sinner's hopes than that of Sinai: in a word, it would ruin and deny the gospel, which in that case would be of works, and no more grace.

This is, indeed, a very serious matter. In the prayer of Luke 11:4, we read, “And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.” That means our attitude to others has a serious relation to ourselves. Doubtless in this passage forgiveness is looked at from a governmental standpoint. And it is just on the lines of government that the matter assumes very serious proportions. Do I forgive? Then I can call upon God to forgive me. Am I hard and unforgiving? I shall reap what I sow. We see it in the parable of Matthew 18:23-35. The man who owed ten thousand talents, a sum approaching two million pounds, was forgiven his debt. Relieved of this terrible incubus, he discovered a fellow-servant who owed him one hundred pence, a paltry sum. He seized his fellow-servant by the throat, and demanded payment, throwing him into prison, there to stay until the debt should be paid.

Next comes the need of the soul. "Forgive us our sins." It is not merely "our debts" (as in Matthew 6): a Jew would understand this; but Luke, writing particularly for Gentiles, tells the disciples to say, "Forgive us our sins." This does not refer to a sinner's forgiveness, when he first comes to the knowledge of the Lord, but to the disciple under the daily government of his Father. How misleading, then, it is to make an unconverted person take the ground of asking forgiveness like a child of God! Under the Gospel the way for the unconverted to receive the remission of sins is by faith in the blood of Jesus, by receiving the Gospel itself.284 The common use of it is to confound all truth by mixing up all, the world and children of God, as if they were alike disciples drawing near and asking forgiveness for their daily sins. The forgiveness of a child is all that is spoken of here, the removal of what hinders communion; not that which the Gospel publishes to the most guilty that believe in the Saviour and Lord, but the daily pardon which the believer needs. It is, therefore, the habitual need of the soul, just as the daily bread was that of the body. "For we also forgive every one indebted to us." This is remarkable, because it evidently supposes one who has a forgiving spirit already, and no one really has this except he who is forgiven by the grace of God. And God does hold His children to this. How can a man who does not forgive another pretend to enjoy the forgiveness of his own sins before God? There is a righteous government on our Father's part, and the particular sin which grieves the Lord is not forgiven till we confess it to Him. "If ye do not forgive," says our Lord in Mark 11:26, "neither will your Father who is in the heavens forgive your offences." It is the cherishing a spirit entirely antagonistic to the Spirit of the Lord. If there were a child in a family going on in a course of self-will, there would be a bar for the time to mutual good feeling. So with God our Father; if there were a persistently bad spirit towards another, so long the Father does not forgive as a question of communion and of daily intercourse with Himself. It ruins the intelligence of Scripture to make it all a question of eternity. In the Epistles of the New Testament the remedy or duty in such circumstances takes the form, not so much of asking forgiveness as of confession, which goes far deeper. To ask for forgiveness is easy enough, and quickly done (as you may learn from your child); to confess one's fault in all its gravity is a very humiliating process, and if not with a view to forgiveness and the restoration of communion, it is a mockery of God. To confess, to judge oneself, is therefore far beyond asking forgiveness.

However, let us look at the prayer itself; for nothing can be more blessed, and all the truth of it abides for us. "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking" (ver. 7). Now it is plain that our Lord does not forbid repetition, but vain repetition. We find our Lord Himself, when He was in an agony in the garden, repeating three times the same words. But vain, formal repetition, whether words read out of a book, or framed sentences of the mind, He does positively forbid. Again, let me press the plain fact, that our Lord here is not providing for the public wants of the Church; nor do we hear that it was so understood. There is not the smallest thought of such a thing after the gift of the Holy Ghost, when the Church was formed and at work in this world. So that while the Lord's Prayer was given as the most perfect model of prayer, and may have been used as it stands by the disciples previously to the death of our Lord and the gift of the Holy Ghost, yet it seems plain that afterwards it was not so. The New Testament is, of course, the only test of this. When we come to tradition, we shall find all sorts of difficulty on this as on other subjects, but the word of God is not obscure. In no way does it leave us uncertain as to what God's mind is: else indeed the very purpose of a revelation would be defeated. What then is the permanent use of the prayer? Why is it given in Scripture? The principle always abides true. There is not a clause of that prayer, I believe, but what one might proffer now, even to "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." For it is a mistake to suppose that it puts the sinner upon the ground of prayer in order to acquire forgiveness of his sins. Our Lord speaks of the believer — the child of God. Our daily faults and short-comings we need to spread before our God and Father, as He encourages us to do day by day. It is a question of His government who, without respect of persons, judges according to the work of each; and hence He will not own the petition of one who cherishes an unforgiving disposition toward others, even if they have done us ever so grievous wrong.

Only when the Father's kingdom comes (in eternity) will His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, but our praying for this now will tend to form in us an obedient, subject spirit. Meanwhile, "give us day by day our daily bread" expresses our dependence continually upon His faithful administration. Then the plea for God's mercy in forgiveness of sins is added. This is not the forgiveness of one coming to God for the first time, but rather a Father's forgiveness when His children have sinned, so it has to do with His daily government in the lives of believers. We can only expect this forgiveness insofar as we ourselves are characterized by a forgiving spirit. The last request is negative, "do not lead us into temptation," for we must realize our great weakness and likelihood of failure when put in such circumstances. Peter did not pray this way (Lk.22:33) for he was confident he would not deny his Lord: therefore he had to learn by sad experience.

Nor is it that we have one kind of forgiveness for debts and another for sins; indeed, speaking with exactness, it would be more correct to say that while sins are forgiven, DEBTS NEVER ARE, for God does not cancel our obligations to Him. Since these obligations constitute our debts to God, it is clear they can never be liquidated because in their very nature they are as continuous as our relations to Him as His creatures; and grace, so far from invalidating this, has only established it upon the higher and eternal basis of what we more emphatically and fully owe to Him as being sons to the Father. For the same reason our debts being looked at simply as current obligations to God, they cannot be forgiven, inasmuch as there is no guilt involved therein: on the contrary, obedience to God and dependence upon Him, constitute the very perfection of a creature.

It must be evident, therefore that when scripture speaks of our debts being forgiven (see Matt. 6:12; Matt. 18:23–35; Luke 7, etc.), the term is used in the more general way, as indeed uniformly in the word, namely, as defaulted debts, trespasses or sins which God forgives, as we have seen, because Christ has died and made atonement. Thus in the parables referred to we are seen not only as debtors, but as so thoroughly insolvent, so hopelessly bankrupt, that we have not a penny in the pound to offer. This is carefully noted in the words, "forasmuch as he had not to pay," and again, "when they had nothing to pay." Deliverance comes to us, then, not because God cancels the obligation, but because the penalty has been borne for us by the competent Substitute His own love had provided.

It will be seen, from these observations, that the Christian has never to pray for the forgiveness of sins. The guilt of all his sins has been removed; and the condition of the forgiveness of his daily sins is confession. Now confession, inasmuch as it can only spring from self-judgment, is a much deeper thing than praying for forgiveness. Parents may soon verify this with their children. When these have committed faults, if they see that their parents are grieved, they will soon ask forgiveness; but if self-judgment, a true estimate of the character of their actions, and confession be required, it will not so readily be obtained. No; it is a much more serious thing to view our sins in the light of God's presence, to have God's mind about them, and to tell it all out in lowly confession; and it is this which God requires, and not prayer for forgiveness. The reason is simple. Propitiation has already been made, and forgiveness is ready to be bestowed, and He only waits until we have judged ourselves to assure us of His forgiving love, end to effect our restoration to the communion which we had lost.

Another remark: maybe made upon this petition — scarcely necessary after what has been said, save to obviate objections. The measure of the forgiveness to be prayed for is that of our forgiveness of others — "as we forgive our debtors." Knowing what we are, the subtlety of our hearts, our unconscious reserves, and our difficulty in many cases in granting a free, full, and absolute forgiveness to those who have sinned against us, we could never know from this petition whether we might rejoice in the knowledge of the full pardon of our sins against God; and this would be entirely inconsistent with the truth we have been considering in Heb. 9 and 10 As given to the disciples in their then position, and in respect of their mutual relationships, and their relationships to all the children of the kingdom, we can perceive its perfect and divine wisdom, and even its applicability to the children of God, in respect of the Father's government, but it could not, in any wise, have been intended to be the expression of our need, in relation to our sins, in the presence of God.