And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

              Just the other day I finished reading to our children a biography of Corrie Ten Boom.  You likely are familiar with Corrie's story – with her arrest by the Gestapo during World War II and the horrors through which she lived at Vught and Ravensbruck concentration camps.  The book noted the Bible studies that Corrie and her sister Betsie led in those camps, meetings in which they encouraged their fellow prisoners to pray for the Germans.  It describes the last years of Corrie’s life, which she dedicated to sharing the gospel through writing and speaking.  Corrie’s travels took her even to Munich, where she was given the grace to forgive in person one of the former guards from Ravensbruck.

                Like Corrie, our readiness to forgive those who sin against us is evidence that we know the forgiveness of our Father in heaven.  Are you ready to forgive your spouse, your parents, your children, your friends, your church members, your neighbors, your coworkers the debts that they owe you?  “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14-15).

                Using the KJV, Matthew 6 renders this petition “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  In Luke 11 we read, “And forgives us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.”  Some pray the prayer using the metaphor for “sin” quoted above: “trespasses.”  All three words, “sin,” “debt,” and “trespass,” acknowledge the realities that daily we miss the mark of God’s holiness and that we do not pay Him or our neighbor the debt of love that is their due.

                When our pastor preached on this petition earlier this year, he noted that this petition is joined to the plea for daily bread by the little conjunction “and.”  In praying the two petitions together we confess that without the assurance of the forgiveness of God, our material needs are no blessing.  “Without pardon for his crime, the meal of the man about to be executed is mockery to him.”  How mindful we are of our earthly needs – we finish one meal only to wonder what we’ll eat at the next!  Underlying the prayer for the forgiveness of sins is the plea that our Father make us similarly conscious of our desperate need for forgiveness.

                But wait!  Haven’t our sins already been forgiven?  “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God…” (I Pet.3:18).  Our prayer for forgiveness is a prayer not that our debt be paid by Christ – that work is finished!  Rather, ours is the request that His atonement be applied to our consciousness, to our hearts.  It is the prayer that we might experience each day the favor of God in His Son Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we use this petition as a cap on our prayers, like children chanting at the dinner table: “Forgive our sins for Jesus’ sake Amen.”  True repentance requires that we come before God – and before one another – pleading that we be forgiven for specific sins.  Do you acknowledge your transgressions, and is your sin ever before you? (Psalm 51:3)  We must make the humble prayer of Job in Job 13:23 ours: “How many are mine iniquities and sins?  Make me to know my transgression and my sin.”