I. The request. (1) We are in debt to God. We have only to listen to the voice of conscience to admit this at once. For amongst the deepest of all our instincts is the sense of responsibility a feeling that some things are duefrom us. (2) The Saviour's word, assuming the guilt of sin, proclaims at the same time the possibility of its pardon. How sweet is the suggestion of this word that forgiveness is granted to those who seek it! For forgiveness is a great word. It means forth-giving that is, the absolute dismissal and sending away of that which we acknowledge. This precept assumes the cross which is to follow, on which, owning the sin of men, sharing its curse and praying for its pardon, Christ makes propitiation for the sins of the world. It teaches us that "without money and without price" this most needed and richest of all gifts is to be obtained.
II. The clause which is added to the petition, "As we forgive our debtors." The Saviour does not take away with one hand what He gives with the other, and the addition of this clause does not proceed from any desire to limit the outflow of pardoning grace. He wants, on the contrary, to get the hearts of all who offer this petition into the mood which shall be most receptive of God's infinite gift. Observe: (1) A certain fitness to use and profit by God's blessings is uniformly a condition of their bestowment. Common mercies may be bestowed irrespective of spiritual character. But all His higher gifts are bestowed where they are welcomed, enjoyed, improved where they will be productive of some Divine result. (2) Penitence is the condition of heart to which alone God can impart forgiveness. (3) Wherever there is repentance it is easy to forgive our debtors. When the spirit of all grace has touched us, and our soul has become tenderly sensitive to the greatness of its Saviour, regardful of the claims of man, and obedient to the promptings of its own higher life, then humility beholds no fault equal to its own; and the heart, purged of its selfishness by its contrition, pities those who have injured it, and so penitence easily pardons every fault by which it has been injured.
R. Glover, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 74.
Knowledge and Confession of Sin.
I. Self-examination may become morbid, and produce nothing but torture and despondency. Let us not, however, overlook the necessity of systematic, or rather active self-examination, as the condition of thoughtful confession. It is evident that the commencement of Christian life is absolutely impossible without some knowledge of self. To seek pardon, we must know our sin; to pray for renewal, we must know the evil of our heart. Why is self-knowledge so difficult? The great difficulty in the work is, that we do not like our vanity to be wounded, our pride to be brought low; the more skill we obtain in examining our heart and life, the deeper will our humiliation be. Self-love blinds us, and sin brings with it the darkening atmosphere to hide it from our eyes.
II. True, candid, and full confession depends chiefly on our realizing the Divine presence the presence of a forgiving and loving God. The very petition which we are now considering is the greatest help to self-examination. Our relation to our fellowmen and to those that trespass against us is the chief test of our actual condition before God. If our hearts are humble and loving towards God, our attitude to our neighbour will be kind and forgiving. He who feels his sin and unworthiness is able to bear the unjust opinion and the severe criticism of men; without bitterness he will endeavour to profit by every humiliating experience. He who rejoices in God and praises Him for His goodness and patience will be cheerful, long-suffering, and hopeful in his dealings with others. If we know God, and if the countenance of Christ is our study, we shall be able not merely to praise the dead and to build the graves of the prophets, as the Pharisees were wont to do, but to help and comfort the disciples as we have opportunity.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer;p. 314.
Sin and Salvation.
I. Even without the announcements of Scripture we notice the existence and we feel to some extent the evil of sin. (1) Sin is a great mystery. The origin and future of sin are alike hid in darkness impenetrable. It is a great enigma, it is irrational, and defies explanation; and yet most problems of human character and conduct are solved by it. (2) Sin prevails everywhere, yet few know it. They who are most familiar with it and most obedient to its sway are least acquainted with its true character and feel least its tyranny. (3) Sin has a wide dominion and many servants. (4) Sin is courageous and defies Heaven; it rebels against the will of Omnipotence; it attacks the immovable pillars of God's throne: yet sin is a coward; when the voice of the Lord is heard at even-time it flees in horror. (5) Sin obscures God, hides Him from our view, like a dark cloud intercepting the light, like a huge mountain separating us from God.
II. How precious is now the Gospel. Forgiveness of sin is connected with the deepest sorrow and the greatest joy. Here are both Mara and Elim. Consider the joy which arises out of the forgiveness of sin. (1) The Triune God rejoices over the sinner saved. And with God all angels rejoice, while they behold the mystery of godliness and adore the Lamb that was slain. (2) The incarnation of the Son of God, His life on earth, His spotless and perfect obedience, filled the Father with joy. Christ fulfilled the commandment which He received of the Father. This obedience is our salvation; it was and ever is a source of joy unto God. (3) The expiation of the cross by His blood is a source of joy. He is the Mediator of the better covenant, and His death is ever precious in the sight of God. It has gained not merely the acquittal of the Judge, but the unspeakable favour and abundant love of the Father. (4) For God, by redeeming us, has betrothed Himself to us. Christ is our Saviour, but by His death on the cross He has also become our Bridegroom. He gave Himself for us, that He might sanctify and cleanse us to be His bride, beloved and glorified throughout eternity.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 295.
Is there not a depth of sadness in that little word "and" which connects the prayer for pardon with the preceding petition for daily bread? It reminds us that as our daily wants return, so do likewise our sins; that we need daily forgiveness as much as the daily supply of our earthly wants. The fourth petition is one of humility and dependence, the fifth one of repentance and contrition. The one reminds us that we are creatures, the other that we are sinners.
I. The daily bread of our souls is daily forgiveness. This is our daily bread that we see Jesus, our crucified Redeemer, our Righteousness in heaven; that we behold the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Love cannot be silent. Love must acknowledge sin not to itself merely, but to the loved one against whom sin is committed. Not in doubt, in the spirit of bondage, but in the trustful and loving spirit of adoption, we ask our heavenly Father to forgive us our debts.
II. Sin is debt. What do we owe God? We owe ourselves to Him; all that we are, body, soul, and spirit, is His, and we ought to be His and to give all to Him, and that always. And this debt is daily growing; for God is always giving, and we are always misappropriating His gifts. We cannot get rid of our debt except by becoming still more His debtors. He forgives us; and now we owe Him more than ever; for as the Apostle says, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." So Christ expects from the sinner to whom much is forgiven that he will love much.
III. God forgives in heaven; we forgive on earth. God forgives to manifest His glory in the salvation of sinners, thus establishing His kingdom in the renewed hearts of believers, who are conformed to the image of Christ. The object of God's showing mercy to us is that we may be not merely forgiven, but that the mind of Christ may be in us; we obtain mercy in order that we may be merciful. The Saviour Himself has clearly explained that he who has not received the spirit of forgiveness has not truly received the gift of pardon. He enforces this in the most impressive and solemn manner in the parable of the unmerciful servant. He shows us that the love of God cannot truly rest on us if it does not also dwell in us.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 276.
Christ teaches distinctly (1) that sin needs forgiveness; that is to say, that it is not merely a disease that needs a remedy, or an imperfection that is to be gradually got rid of, but that it is a guilt, an offence, or transgression that needs forgiveness. He teaches (2) that this sin may be forgiven, that the penalty attaching to it may be remitted. He teaches (3) that what He does for us His life and death in some way or other is necessary to this forgiveness. Now it is this part of His teaching that is excepted against. We are asked, Why should this be necessary? And why should it be necessary to add to the words, "Our Father, forgive us," for Jesus Christ's sake? Is not this making God less merciful than a good man?
I. The only one case in which we can imagine complete forgiveness as possible is a case as between two equal individuals, one of whom has wronged the other. Has it ever occurred to you to think that that is just the one position in which no man can stand respecting God? We cannot injure God; our goodness does not extend to Him, neither does our evil. Therefore the answer of the understanding, of the merely sceptical mind, of man to this question, "Can God, the Supreme, forgive?" the only answer it can make is, "God is the only one Being who cannot possibly forgive." If you think of God as the Author of the inexorable system of law, as the Creator of the whole system of necessary penalty and suffering, I ask again, Where is the hope of the easy forgiveness of which men speak? Is it such a very easy thing to imagine that God can forgive?
II. Let us picture to ourselves some worshipper under the old Jewish polity. David is standing beside the altar and offering up his sacrifice to God. Imagine revealed to that man for a moment all these intellectual difficulties about forgiveness imagine the glowing fire of love and hope in such a heart chilled as by a cataract with all these chilling thoughts on the impossibility of forgiveness. And then, when his heart was beaten down to the very earth, and in despair he was giving up the very thought of forgiveness, would it seem to him so very terrible a revelation to be told this? "It is indeed impossible for you to be forgiven under any law, under any condition of things that you can imagine, but there is for you a revelation of a time that is to come when a miracle shall be wrought upon earth. You whose heart yearns for the blessing of human forgiveness, know you this, that one day shall walk upon earth a Son of man, whose heart shall quiver and throb at the suffering of the very least of His creatures. Understand you this, that God and man shall become one for your deliverance. Learn, then, of a life given for a life, and yet becoming the life of all other lives."
III. Forgiveness is in very deed a mystery of mysteries. It is a mystery as between man and man; it is a mystery as between man and God. The mysteries of the faith are to us just what the shadow on the face of the sun is in the hour of eclipse to the astronomer a dark shadow, and yet a shadow round the margin of which science is ever making discoveries that teach us the immensity of the system in which we live, and tell us that the life that is here and the life that is there are the same.
Bishop Magee, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 503.
There are two things which this text cannot mean. (1) It cannot mean that sinful man is to set an example by which the Divine administration is to be conducted. (2) It cannot mean that God's forgiveness of man is a mere equivalent for something that man himself has done.
I. In suggesting an interpretation of this prayer, let it be observed that this is not the first petition in the prayer. This fact sheds a morning glory around this mystery of the night. Whoare the men who say, "Forgive as we forgive"? They are men who have said (1) Our Father; (2) Thy kingdom come; (3) Thy will be done on earth. God takes our prayers at the very highest point of their inspiration, and enlarges them into the fullest meaning they can bear, and He will answer the highest, and not merely the lowest of our aspirations.
II. Superficial men who listen to our prayers hesitate not to say that we are inconsistent, because we do not act up to the high level of our petitions. It is forgotten that we express in prayer, not what we are,but what we would be;prayer is not an attainment, but an aspiration; prayer is not history,but hope;prayer is not victory, it is fighting.
III. Confession and contrition are the necessary conditions of forgiveness. It is impossible to forgive a man in the full sense in which we wish God to forgive us apart from these conditions.
Parker, Hidden Springs,p. 266.
This petition presents our heavenly Father in the character of a great creditor, to whom we are deeply in debt, and at whose hands we humbly seek for release.
I. Do you ask, How are we indebted to God? (1) We owe Him a debt of obedience. (2) We owe Him a debt of gratitude.
II. The forgiveness of God, when granted to the returning penitent, is universal and complete. There is, however, a condition attached to this petition for pardon, in the text, which is the turning-point of the whole matter: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
J. N. Norton, Every Sunday,p. 90.
References: Matthew 6:12. S. Coley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 1; F. D. Maurice, The Lord's Prayer,p. 73; M. Dods, The Prayer that Teaches to Pray,p. 122; W. Milligan, Expositor,1st series, vol. vii., p. 130; J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week,p. 433; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons,p. 456. Matthew 6:12-15. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. x., p. 325.