The Lord’s Prayer: Fifth Petition

105. What do we pray for in the fifth petition? A. In the fifth petition, which is, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.

In the first half of the Lord’s prayer, we began God’s interests. In the second half, the attention turns to our own. Having pled to receive good things in the fourth petition, we are instructed to pray that God would remove all evil from us. Evil can be summed up in one word: sin. Correspondingly, in the fifth petition, we pray for deliverance from sin’s guilt, which would otherwise bind us under God’s wrath; and in the sixth petition, we pray for deliverance from sin’s power.¹ The former is the focus of today’s lesson.

Sin as Debt

All of us owe God our personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience. This is a natural obligation that arises out of our relationship with God. When we give him anything less, we become his debtors. Sin is the worst debt possible: we can never pay it off but only make it worse (Isa. 64:6);² all our sins are principally directed against an infinitely holy God (cf. Ps. 51:4; cf. Gen. 39:9);³ sin is never committed in isolation but always multiplied (cf. Ps. 40:12; Ezra 9:6); and there is no possibility of escaping the One we owe (cf. Ps. 50:21; 139:7, 9, 10).⁴ Shamefully, we are guilty of all kinds of sin,⁵ and these sins testify against us (Jer. 14:7):

“Sin is not dead when it is committed. Though it may be buried and out of mind for a time, yet it is buried quick, and lives to be a witness before the Lord, against the sinner. The act is transient, but the guilt is of a permanent nature.”⁶

“Our ‘sin is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the table of our heart’ [Jer. 17:1]. With indelible characters it is written in the book of the Divine omniscience—‘the book of remembrance’ [Mal. 3:16]… from which God will ‘set them in order before the eyes’ of sinners [Ps. 50:21], so that there will be no room for denial or evasion… Nothing which man does [can] deny, excuse, palliate, or wash away his sins. On the contrary, he increases the amount of his guilt, brings down upon himself a heavier sentence, and appears convicted and self-condemned.”⁷

No one is exempt from the debt of sin (Pss. 130:3-4; 51:5; 1 Jn. 1:8, 10). “There is none righteous, no, not one. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10, 12). We can be sure that there will come a day when God will call all his debtors to account (Rom. 14:12).⁸ The plight we face is that none of us can make even the least satisfaction for our debt. For this reason, we need to throw ourselves at the feet of our Creditor, God himself, and plead for his forgiveness before the final day of reckoning.⁹

God Forgives Us

We can be sure that when we confess our sins (1 Jn. 1:9) with sincere repentance (Lk. 13:3, 5; Mk. 1:4; cf. Acts 17:30-31), trusting in Christ (Jn. 1:12; Acts 15:11), God will forgive us. Forgiveness is God’s gracious pardoning of our debt. This forgiveness is free to us, but costly to Christ.¹⁰ On account of Jesus Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrifice, which satisfied God’s justice, God is able and willing to forgive us of all our sins (Rom. 3:24-26; Heb. 9:22). Being pardoned, we are received into sweet fellowship with God with joy and gladness (Ps. 51:8, 12).

“Such is the frequent experience of believers. When they have once received our Lord Jesus by a true and living faith, they are reconciled to God and justified, by which it becomes absolutely certain that the wrath of God shall never fall upon them to condemnation.”¹¹

Our love for God comes from experiencing his forgiveness (Lk. 7:40-50; cf. 1 Jn. 4:19).¹² After all, “a debtor does not love to see his creditor.”¹³ It is only after the debt is cleared and God’s wrath removed that we are willing to come to him. As one theologian-pastor, Dr. Michael Horton, put it: “We cannot find God for the same reason that a thief can’t find a police officer. If we find him, or if he catches up to us, he will expose us for who we really are.”¹⁴ Until we know God’s forgiveness, we will never want anything to do with him.

We Need to Forgive Others

Not only are we to seek God’s forgiveness, but we are required to forgive others too.¹⁵ What is in view here are those who have injured us unjustly by their thoughts, words, or deeds. This includes, but not only limited to, acts of violence, sexual misconduct, theft, and injury to reputation (i.e., violations of the 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th commandments, respectively). Here, the requirement to forgive does not mean that we should not seek appropriate reparations if losses are incurred by someone else’s sin against us (e.g., filing for damages after a motor vehicle collision; testifying against a murderer in the court of law; etc.). Rather, we are prohibited from seeking revenge, or pursuing the offender with bitterness, hatred, or malice. Instead, we need to wish others well, and when possible, to do them good, desiring that God would forgive them, just as God has forgiven us (Col. 3:12-13).

Needless to say, there is a vast difference between the forgiveness that God offers and the forgiveness we provide:¹⁶

God forgives us as supreme Lord to his subjects; we forgive others as our equals.
God forgives us because his divine justice was satisfied by Christ as our substitute; we are obligated to forgive without any such satisfaction.
When God forgives, he frees us from everlasting punishment, blesses us with his sweet fellowship, and give us eternal life; when we forgive, the best we can do is to withdraw our feeble wrath and to bestow on others our good wishes (which is at best poor).

The comparison is totally disproportionate. God’s forgiveness is infinitely better and more costly than anything we can render.

This is illustrated by the parable given in Matthew 18 verses 21-35. Here, Jesus instructs his disciples to forgive others up to seventy times seven (i.e., a figure of speech, meaning to forgive without limit).¹⁷ In the parable, a king forgave one of his slaves a debt of ten thousand talents (i.e., like saying a “zillion dollars” in today’s world),¹⁸ but the same slave mercilessly refused to discharge a debt that another slave owed him of a hundred denarii (i.e., around $15,000).¹⁹ While the latter sum is admittedly not trivial when considered on its own, it certainly pales in comparison to the vast debt of a “zillion dollars” originally owed—a difference that we are to consider to be infinitely less. In other words, we are commended to forgive others when wronged, based on God’s unlimited graciousness to us because any offense committed against us is comparatively small (Ja. 2:13). A reticent unwillingness to forgive others denotes that we do not appreciate the Master’s grace, and are therefore unworthy of his mercy.

“Forgive, as I forgive. This is the will of God by which we are constantly bound [Mt. 6:14-15].”²⁰ To clarify, this is not to say that God forgives because we forgive others, as if that makes of deserving of God’s mercy. There is no room for self-entitlement. God’s grace is always unmerited. Instead, the purpose of the fifth petition is to bring out the fact that a readiness to forgive is characteristic of God, and therefore expected of his people too (cf. Mt. 5:7). A failure to forgive indicates that we are not in fact his children (cf. 1 Jn. 4:7-8; cf. 3:18).

“Our readiness to forgive others is an evidence of the gracious working of God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts; it is, therefore, an evidence that we have been reconciled to God and that we have a true, saving faith in Jesus Christ. When we are privileged to have this boldness and assurance, we can come to God as children to a Father, confessing our daily sins with full confidence that they will be forgiven—that he will treat us as his children and not as his enemies.”²¹

Practical Applications

There are multiple applications that can be drawn from the fifth petition. The first point is that God’s willingness to forgive sinners is not a license to sin (Rom. 6:1). Far from it, true believers will recoil from sin (Rom. 6:2). As J.C. Ryle said, “Sin forsaken—is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.”²² The “joy inexpressible” that accompanies salvation (1 Pet. 1:8) is one of the strongest incentives against sinning. This joy is beautifully expressed by David in Psalm 32, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (cf. Psalter 83). The one who possesses true assurance of salvation will avoid toying around with sin, knowing that it will jeopardize assurance, and there is nothing more distressful than that (cf. Ps. 32:3-4).²³

Second, as Christians, we need to always be aware of our need to be forgiven and to confess our sins regularly (1 Jn. 1:8-10). We need to pray to God to pardon our daily failings. Even though true believers are justified once and for all at the time of conversion (Rom. 8:1), yet we still commit daily sin in thought, word, and deed.²⁴ In fact, we become more attune to sin because we come to learn more about God’s holiness (cf. Is. 6:1-7). It is not uncommon for Christians to subjectively feel more sinful over time because they become more aware of their personal sin as it is exposed by God’s Word and Spirit, despite the fact that they are objectively more sanctified as God’s children. As Jonathan Edwards expressed of himself:

“I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness, and the badness of my heart than ever I had before my conversion. It has often appeared to me, that if God should mark iniquity against me, I should appear the very worst of all mankind.”²⁵

Similarly, Benjamin B. Warfield, the “Lion of Princeton,” described a certain characteristic misery that Christians experience as they becomes increasingly aware of their sins:

“We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only ‘when we believe,’ it is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live… Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just ‘miserable sinners.’ ‘Miserable sinners’ saved by grace, to be sure. But ‘miserable sinners’ still deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath… There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally, in other words, as a penitent sinner… We are sinners, and we know ourselves to be sinners lost and helpless in ourselves; but we are saved sinners, and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life—a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert. For it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much and, who loving, rejoices much… But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said… The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitent indeed, but overmastering exultation… The attitude of the ‘miserable sinner’ is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it… It is an attitude of exultant joy… Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior.²⁶

Third, for those we remain dull to sin and unbothered by their state, God calls out, “Awake, sleeper!” (Eph. 5:14). There is no safe asylum where we can hide from God on the day of final judgment. Beware!

“Do you hope to discharge your own debts? You never can. The strictest of all creditors keeps accounts which even your own conscience must own to be rigidly exact. Do you presume to attempt flight, to escape from the hands of your creditor? But where, or how? ‘If you ascend up into heaven, he is there; if you make your bed in hell, behold he is there…’ [Ps. 139:8].”²⁷

Do not harden your hearts to Scriptures’ warnings. We need to humbly acknowledge that each one of us has amassed a vast debt that we can never hope to pay off. Our only recourse is to turn to God, falling on our face, pleading for his mercy, and making unreserved confession of all our sins (Ps. 32:5). “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Pr. 28:13). Added to this, we need to express a sincere desire to forgive others, recognizing that God has forgiven us immeasurably much, so how can we ever refuse to forgive another person who owes us comparatively little (cf. Mt. 18:32-33)? Finally, we need to earnestly resolve to abandon our sin (Isa. 55:7; cf. Job 34:32).

Footnotes

1
There is a threefold sense in which we need to be delivered from sin. We need to be freed from sin’s penalty, power, and presence. God’s remedy for these come in the form of justification, sanctification, and glorification, respectively.
2
Any attempt to pay off the debt of sin according to our own efforts is futile. Our best deeds are mixed with sin.
3
Recall, the sinfulness of the offense is related to the one who is offended. Consider the following example: suppose a child stomps on some ants on the sidewalk, we would probably pay little attention. But, if the same child begins to torture neighbor dogs and cats, we would immediately do what we can to stop him, then report him to his parents or authorities. This is because we place greater worth in animals than ants. How much more worth is God. The seriousness of the offense is proportionate to the one offended.
4
Watson, Thomas. The Lord’s Prayer. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965, pp. 211-212.
5
These include original sin, imputed sin, and inherent (actual) sin. Of the latter, there are sins of commission and omission, sins of ignorance, and sins deliberately committed (cf. Ps. 19:13). These are innumerable.
6
Boston, Thomas. Works. IV:197.
7
Witsius, Herman. Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer. Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, pp. 315-316.
8
“It is impossible to say how far the burden of unpardoned sin weighs down the soul, and oppresses the conscience. ‘For mine iniquities have gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me’ [Ps. 38:4]. There is no inward calmness, no peace, till the mind, freed from the guilt of its iniquities, has nothing to fear from itself… or from God.” Ibid, p. 326.
9
Consider this vivid description of hell, a place of torment for all those who remain unforgiven of their sins. “O were I permitted to lead by the hand, or rather by the ear, those irreligious persons who live in hardened neglect of their danger, and conduct them to the iron gates of hell—presently to behold the excruciating torments of the damned—to hear the wailings and lamentations with which they unavailingly lament the irrecoverable loss of time sinfully wasted, of labor sinfully bestowed, of Divine grace sinfully neglected—to perceive, as it were, in their own presence, the dreadful but uninterrupted strokes of the sharpest chastisements, with which not flesh only, but the bones, the marrow, the whole frame is scourged by the righteous severity of God.” Ibid, p. 328.
10
This is called the “great exchange.” A beautiful expression of this is found in the early church letter, the Epistle to Diognetus (from the late second century AD): “In whom was it possible for us, the lawless and ungodly, to be justified, except in the Son of God alone? O the sweet exchange, O the incomprehensible work of God, O the unexpected blessings, that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous man, while the righteousness of one should justify many sinners!” (9:4-5). Beale, G. K. A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011, p. 477, fn. 17.
11
Witsius, Herman. Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer. Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, p. 319.
12
Jesus tells the parable of the debtors in Luke 7:40-50 to explain the behavior of the woman who anointed his feet with perfume (vv. 37-39). Her love was not the cause, but proof of forgiveness. Real love for Jesus is always preceded by a deep consciousness of our own sinfulness before the Holy God, and accompanied by a sense of assurance that our sins are forgiven, no matter how great, for Jesus Christ’s sake!
13
Watson, Thomas. The Lord’s Prayer. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965, p. 213.
14
Horton, Michael. Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace. Baker Books, 1994, p. 46.
15
The fifth petition speaks of “our debtors” but not in a civil manner or in the commercial sphere. In other words, it is not an excuse to ignore financial debts. After all, Romans 13:7-8a instructs, “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything except to love one another.” Take, for example, Onesimus, who stole before he became a Christian. Later, after his conversion, Paul pled on Onesimus’ behalf to his mater, Philemon, asking for his forgiveness, and at the same time promising repayment for what was stolen (Phile. 1:18-19). Ibid, pp. 320-321.
16
Ibid, p. 323.
17
It was Jewish practice to forgive others three times. The instruction to forgive others seventy times seven is not to be literally applied, as if we are to keep a tally up to 490, but rather hyperbole (cf. Gen. 4:24).
18
To be more precise, it is probably over $8 billion in today’s currency, assuming that one silver talent is around 6000 denarii, and each denarius equalling 1 day’s wages for an average laborer (cf. Mt. 20:1-15). If the average salary today is $50,000 per year (or 365 denarii), then 10,000 talents is 60 million denarii or just over $8.2 billion. For the average worker, a debt this larger is essentially “infinite” and unpayable.
19
Based on a similar arithmetic, 3 to 4 months’ wages, could be about $15,000 dollars for the average person.
20
Witsius, Herman. Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer. Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, p. 142. We need to make reconciliation with others, as much as we are able, otherwise we should not presume that God will receive us (Mt. 5:23-24). “He who does not cherish a disposition to forgive the offenses of his fellowmen is no better prepared for offering any other prayer to God, than for offering this prayer [of the fifth petition].” Ibid, p. 141.
21
Vos, Johannes Geerhardus. The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary. P&R Publishing, 2002, pp. 563-574.
22
The promise of forgiveness is attached to the condition of repentance (cf. Acts 3:19). This is not to say that repentance is the meritorious cause of our forgiveness. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 15, paragraph 3 explains: “Although repentance be not to be rested in as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof [Eze. 16:61-63; 36:31-32], which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ [Hos. 14:2, 4; Rom. 3:24; Eph. 1:7]; yet is it of such necessity to all sinners that none may expect pardon without it [Lk. 13:3, 5; Acts 17:30-31].”
23
Packer, J.I. A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Crossway Books, 1990, p. 280. “It is possible, and frequently happens, that the same believers, who have been brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace, fall into some heinous crime, or even into a languishing and sluggish condition of the soul. In such cases, with a view to demonstrate the holiness of God, and the hatred which he bears to sin, God usually hides his face, expresses his heaviest displeasure, employs the rod of fatherly correction, and, even in answer to prayer, does not immediately restore the sweet enjoyment of his former kindness.” Witsius, Herman. Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer. Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, pp. 319-320. When this happens, true believers cry out to God with sorrow and lamentation until fellowship is again graciously restored (cf. Ps. 51:1-4, 10-12). “Those believers, to whom the joy of God’s salvation has been restored, are liable to be again deprived of that enjoyment by falling into those sins which are visited by his fatherly displeasure. But the act of justification can never be suspended or reversed.” Ibid, p. 341, fn. 3. For a similar statement, see the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 11, paragraph 5.
24
The sinner, though justified (and declared righteous) remains a sinner in this life. He is “at the same time righteous and a sinner” (simul iustus et peccator).
25
Edwards, Jonathan, Faust, Clarence, and Thomas Johnson. Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections. New York: Hill and Wang, 1962. p. 70; cf. Psalm 130:3.
26
Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge. The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield. Vol. 7. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981. pp. 113-114.
27
Witsius, Herman. Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer. Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, p. 333.

Footnotes

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