ForgivenessSýnishorn

Forgiveness - Core to the Lord’s Prayer

“Pray then in this way … And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors … For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6.9,12,14-15.

Yesterday, we saw that forgiveness is front and centre in the gospel—that God in Christ on the cross has forgiven us of our sins. We commented that without this, we stand a ‘snowflake’s chance in hell’ of being able to forgive those who sin against us. Today, the focus shifts from what Christ has done (always our starting point) to what we are required to do by way of response or reciprocation.

Matthew, the master of the theme of discipleship and Christ-like behaviour, links God’s forgiveness of us with the forgiveness we are required to show others. He assumes that in asking for God’s forgiveness, we have also forgiven others who have sinned against us and owe us a debt. We may try to separate the two, even if for teaching purposes, but Matthew refuses; he knows that if you can separate what God has done for us and what we are to do for others, we are less likely to do to others what has been done for us.

In the verses immediately after the Lord’s Prayer, Matthew reiterates, making abundantly clear that a failure to forgive others will, in turn, result in a failure to receive forgiveness from God.

This works against the commonly accepted idea that forgiveness is free, undeserved, and unable to be added to by us. But the gospel doesn’t buy into a grace-with-no-conditions theology as the Lord’s Prayer clearly has a caveat attached to it, a condition. The necessity of forgiving others accompanies the privilege of being forgiven by God. There is a redemptive reason for this, which we will look at in this series of reflections on forgiveness. Still, for now, it is enough to say that this makes for sobering reading and, even more so, for the necessary extending of forgiveness shown to us to others.

I would like to think forgiveness comes with no conditions except asking for it, but Matthew won’t allow for that.

Forgiveness is our privilege to receive from God and our duty to show to others.