DISSECTING THE LORD’S PRAYER
Forgive Us Our Trespasses as We Forgive Those Who Trespass against Us
There is one verse that is unique in the entirety of the Lord’s Prayer for there is this verse that explicitly states a condition for the granting of the request:
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
(cf. Matthew 6:12 NABRE; cf. Luke 11:4 NABRE)
This condition is explicit, and it is even clear from the words that we are asking God to forgive us the same way that we forgive those who have sinned against us. It is different from the earlier petitions where what we ask God is for him to make us a better person, and the action on our part is implicit. Here it is explicit, and the way for us to be a better person is to remember that God will use our actions as his standard or reference in answering this specific petition of ours.
This is not the first time that the word “as” appeared in the Lord’s Prayer. It also appeared in the petition “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. In that petition, we pray for earth to be like heaven. In this petition on forgiveness, it is the other way around: we are asking God to forgive us to the level that we forgive others.
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Forgiveness is a central theme in the life and teachings of Jesus, and it is also central to the Lord’s Prayer. When we say, “Hallowed be Thy name”, we recall the time when Jesus said,
Father, glorify your name.
(John 12:28a NABRE)
This was the time when he was talking about his upcoming death which is for the forgiveness of our sins.
When we say, “Thy kingdom come”, we recall Jesus say,
This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:15, NABRE)
And this is again linked to repentance.
When we say, “Thy will be done”, we recall Jesus say,
And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it [on] the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him [on] the last day.
(John 6:39–40 NABRE)
And finally, when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread”, we recall Jesus, the bread of life, who calls us to be in communion with Him through his death for the forgiveness of our sins.
More than these verses above, we see Jesus emphasize his mission for the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of all. The importance he has put on this is shown in one of his seven last words:
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
(Luke 23:34 NABRE)
And he has left this power to his Church, saying at least twice,
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
(Matthew 16:19 NABRE; Matthew 18:18 NABRE)
Who does not know of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:12–14 or Luke 15:3–7), or the Parable of the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8–10) through which Jesus depicted the mercy of the Father? Who is not aware of the miracles of Jesus during which he forgave sins?
In one Gospel event (Matthew 9:1–8), he healed a paralytic saying,
Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.
(Matthew 9:2 NABRE)
Let us not forget how important a sinner’s disposition is, and what our disposition should be. Let us not be like the proud Pharisee in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9–14), but let us be like the humble and contrite tax collector who
stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
(Luke 18:13 NABRE)
That we may, like the tax collector, merit Jesus’ praise,
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
(Luke 18:14 NABRE)
Let us also not forget the sinful woman who, when Jesus visited the house of Simon the Pharisee, wept and bathed his feet with tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with ointment. Of this woman, Jesus said,
Her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love.
(Luke 7:47 NABRE)
God wants a contrite and humble heart so that when we humble ourselves and approach his throne of grace, we will receive forgiveness for our sins and the salvation for our souls.
As We Forgive Those Who Trespass against Us
The forgiveness of our sins, however, necessitates that we also forgive others their sins. In fact, this is even a pre-requisite for us, and this is emphasized by the very fact that in the Gospel of Matthew, right after teaching the Lord’s Prayer, we hear Jesus say,
If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
(Matthew 6:14 NABRE)
When we forgive others, we acknowledge that we are like them. That we also have sinned. Let us not be like the people who condemned the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11). Jesus admonished the men saying,
Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.
(John 8:7 NABRE)
We will only realize that we cannot cast the stone to another sinner but only to ourselves for we have all sinned.
The seriousness of this condition can be seen in the Parable of the King and the Debtor (Matthew 18:23–35 NABRE) where a servant was forgiven his debt by the king, but that servant refused to forgive one of his fellow servant a debt of a much smaller amount. That servant was then punished by the king for not showing mercy, and Jesus told his disciples,
So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.
(Matthew 18:35 NABRE)
And so we must forgive just as our Father has forgiven us, and by this, it is a forgiveness of not just a few times, but many times.
Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
(Matthew 18:21–22 NABRE)
Here it does not just mean 539 times. With seven as a symbolical “complete” number, this means that we must forgive all the time. After all, how many times have we sinned against our neighbors and against God? For sure, it is more than 539 times!
The next time we pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” let us remember that we are humbly approaching the throne of grace, recognizing that we ourselves have sinned against others and be really willing to forgive those who, like us, have sinned against God and against us. Let us not be quick to judge, but let us remember that we are all together in this journey to God’s heavenly kingdom as brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is the seventh in a series of articles dissecting the Lord’s Prayer beginning with Our Father which was followed by Who Are in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done on Earth as It is in Heaven and Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.
