Question 105

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors—“We have now done with the supplications of this prayer, and are come to the deprecations. The supplications are those petitions which we make to God for obtaining of that which is good. The deprecations are those petitions we make to God for removing of that which is evil” (Manton).

Debt is one of a “mournfully numerous group” of names that are applied to human sin and guilt in the word of God. This is one of the least odious and loathsome of those evil names, but it has a sufficiently solemn sense of its own. Debt is that which we owe; it is that which is due; it is that which lays one man under obligation and liability to another. A debt may be expressed and described in terms of money, or service, or suffering, but its ruling idea is always that of obligation and liability. Only, in the present case, we must exclude from our definition of debt all associations connected with monetary or commercial transactions. The liability here is of a far other and more awful kind than that which is connected with any earthly merchandise or exchange. The debts we have to do with here are those we all owe to the divine law and justice. “The faults or sins we are guilty of oblige us and bind us to punishment; and therefore sins are called debts. The original debt we owe is obedience; and, in case of default, the next debt we owe is punishment” (Manton). “Q. Wherefore are sins called debts?—A. Because they are a non-payment of God’s dues, a non-performance of our duty, which makes us liable to the arrest of death, and to the prison of hell” (Flavel’s Catechism).

we pray that God, for Christ’s sake—It will be seen that the Catechism borrows from later and fuller Scriptures, and imports into its text a clause that is not found in either of the original versions of the Lord’s Prayer. “For Christ’s sake” is a scriptural and necessary addition to all our prayers, but it had not as yet taken its place in any prayer offered during our Lord’s earthly lifetime. “The Lord’s Prayer does not end, as our prayers now commonly do, with the formula, ‘for Christ’s sake;’ nor could it. No prayer given by Him for the present use of His disciples before His death could have such an ending, because the plea it contains was not intelligible to them previous to that event. The disciples did not yet know what Christ’s sake meant, nor would they till after their Lord had ascended, and the Spirit had descended and revealed to them the true meaning of the facts of Christ’s earthly history” (Bruce, Training of Twelve). (See John xvi. 24, xiv. 6; Rom. v. 2; Eph. iv. 32.) On 2 Cor. xiii. 14, Bengel says, “Christ is mentioned in the first place, because it is by the grace of Christ we come to the Father.”

freely pardon all our sins—See Answer 33 and notes. In considering God’s promises to forgive sins, Donne asks, “Does He mean all my sins? He knows what original sin is, and I do not; and will He forgive me sin in that root, and sin in the branches too? He knows my secret sins, and I do not; will He forgive my manifest sins and those too? He knows my relapses into sins repented of; and will He forgive my faint relapses, and my rebellious relapses after them? Will His mercy dive into my heart, and forgive my sinful thoughts there, and shed itself upon my lips, and forgive my blasphemous words there, and bathe the members of my body, and forgive my unclean actions there? Will He forgive that dim sight which I have of sins now, when sins scarce appear to be sins unto me; and will He forgive that overquick sight when I shall see my sins through Satan’s multiplying glass of desperation, when I shall see them greater than His mercy on my death-bed?” “The forgiveness that there is with God is not like that narrow, difficult, halving, and manacled forgiveness that is found among men; but it is full, free, bottomless, boundless, absolute, such as becomes His nature and His excellencies” (Owen).

which we are the rather encouraged to ask—If pardon is impossible to the implacable man (Matt. vi. 15, xviii. 35; Jas. ii. 13), on the other hand this “terrible petition” becomes a positive ground of assurance to the meek and loving and forgiving heart. The forgiveness of our enemies is nowhere set forth as the ground of any sinner’s acceptance before God, but it is often set forth, and may be relied on as a most valid ground of assurance of acceptance. The cross of Jesus Christ is the only door open to us out of our estate of guilt and alienation; but if something of that mind that was found in Christ on the cross when He prayed for His murderers is found in us, then that mind is a little wicket-gate that opens under the great gate of the cross through which a too diffident mind may find some little liberty of access. Calvin says that the consciousness of possessing a forgiving spirit is a sort of seal that God sets to our own hope of forgiveness. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.”

“Wouldst thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them, then, in being merciful,
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.”

from the heart to forgive others. Augustine somewhere calls this a “terrible petition,” and when we sufficiently think of it we feel that he is right. For do I not ask a terrible thing when I ask God to do to me as I do to my most evil neighbour and most hurtful enemy? Augustus Hare, in his Sermons to a Country Congregation, has expanded this idea of Augustine’s into what he calls “The Revengeful Man’s Prayer.” Those who possess the book will do well to read that prayer and try to offer it, and those who cannot read it may not less profitably imagine it for themselves. “This condition is added, that no one may presume to approach God and ask forgiveness, who is not pure and free from all resentment. . . . And certainly, if the Spirit of God reigns in our hearts, every description of revenge and ill-will ought to be banished. The Spirit is the witness of our adoption, and therefore this is simply put down as a mark to distinguish the children of God from strangers” (Calvin). “Shall I send you to the old saying which contains as much mercy and as much wisdom as was ever put by man into three words?—the saying, Forgive and forget. Forgiving and forgetting is the pardon which we desire from God; therefore, forgiving and forgetting is the pardon which we are to grant to man” (Hare).

Uses

1. “This injunction has ever been a stumbling-block in the way of the advocates of perfection, from Pelagius to the present day. For not only do the holy men of God throughout the Scriptures, in coming into His presence, come always with the confession of sin and imperfections, praying for mercy, but our Lord has taught all His disciples, whenever they address their Father in heaven, to say, Forgive us our trespasses” (Hodge).
2. “Here is a ground of trial whether we are pardoned or no: Is our revengeful disposition, that is so natural and so pleasing to us, mortified? That is one trial or evidence whether we are forgiven of God; can we freely, from the heart, forgive others?” (Manton).
3. We must be very watchful and scrupulous to cleanse our hearts of all anger and hatred and malice and desire for revenge. We must cast all men’s insults and injuries into the depths of the sea. We must be not less anxious to wash out of our hearts every stain that our enemies have left there, than we are that our sins may be blotted out of God’s remembrance book. Nor must we be content with freely and fully forgiving our enemies,—we must wish them well, and befriend them when we have opportunity. And when we have no opportunity, we must make it, if we would do to our enemies as God did to His. For God made opportunities to forgive and favour and befriend us. He saw there was no man, and He wondered there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation, and His righteousness it sustained Him.

Questions

1. Point out the significance of the remarkable reduplication and amplification in Matt. vi. 14, 15.
2. What does Augustine mean by calling this a terrible petition?
3. How does this petition bear on the Pelagian and Perfectionist position?
4. Read, in connection with this exposition, 1 Sam. xxiv.; Ps. xviii. 20–26; Matt. xviii. 21–35.
5. What is meant by the saying, that this passage does not set forth ground of acceptance, but that it does exhibit a ground of assurance?