Forgive Us Our Debts - As We Forgive Our Debtors

Hmmm……Now this is a very dangerous part of the prayer.

So let’s ask the question . . . “How do you want to be forgiven?” Completely? Fully? No record kept? No remembrance? With total reconciliation? Without it hanging over your head, ready to drop back on you at a moment’s notice if you slip up again? How about this one: Friends again?

You see, we tend to hang ‘guillotines of forgiveness’ over the heads of those in our lives. We remember. We withhold. We don’t reconcile. We don’t fully extend the hand and embrace the forgiven. Forgiveness – okay. Forget – probably not, but we’ll see. Friends – never.

This small phrase should give us tremendous pause. If I pray this, then I am asking Him to forgive me in the exact same way I forgive others. Am I sure I want to pray this? Because I better get it right. Eternity hangs in the balance. My eternity depends on His forgiveness of my sins, His willingness to forget them, and His love for me that is so deep that He now calls me ‘friend.’ (John 15:14, 15). That’s crucial – because to be called His friend means that His forgiveness has reached its natural end.

Forgive – Forget – Friends.

The real goal of Matthew 18 is more than forgiveness – and it’s not there to simply supply us with “Scripture Separation Stones” that we can toss at each other (the preferred use of this passage). The real goal is to ‘gain the brother,’ not to find an ‘out’ for separation, and for moving on and away from him. It’s certainly not there to allow us to publicly humiliate one of our brothers.

When a splinter or some bacteria invades the body, a pus-filled covering is immediately placed over it so that the healing can take place within. This is how a church should approach a ‘splinter.’ A covering of love should be placed over the offense – not to ignore it, but to protect it so that within the covering the problem can be dealt with. The goal is not to humiliate and then destroy – though we seem to prefer that method. The goal is to protect and bring healing – so that the brother is regained. The last step in Matthew 18 is the public pronouncement of separation, not the first thing that is done. Why is it that so many Christians like to go straight to separation, without any attempts at reconciliation? Where is the deep love for our brothers that makes us desperate to get them back?

Joseph Wept

In Genesis 50:15 - 21, we read one of the most touching passages of the entire account of Joseph and his brothers. Years after Joseph had forgiven and received his brothers, their father Jacob dies. They start to imagine that their ‘covering’ is now gone. They are afraid that Joseph will now exact revenge upon them, as if he's been secretly holding it in all this time, waiting until 'dad' died. So they write a letter expressing hope that he will honor Jacob’s wishes, and maintain the forgiveness that he enacted earlier. "Dad says you have to keep your promise!"

There are basically Five Acts to Forgiveness:

Act I – Forgiveness is Eternal

What Joseph’s brothers didn’t fully grasp is that his forgiveness was forever, and the passing of Israel was not going to change that. (We aren’t protected by the Law anyway!) Hebrews 10:14 says that “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Only under the blood of Christ does God see us perfect, and this is forever. Nothing will ever change that. This covering is eternal and will never be removed. That’s why Joseph wept, his brothers didn’t understand the completeness of his forgiveness, and the thought that they were still ‘looking over their shoulder’ made him weep for them. Christ must weep those same tears every time we question whether our past is really gone.

Act II - Being Made: Forget

But while we are covered forever, what happens beneath that covering – the ‘being made’ part – can be difficult and painful. This is where the reality of forgiveness is worked out. The consequences, the broken relationships, the pain that was caused, must be dealt with. To our benefit, God works out these imperfections in us, (again, under the covering of perfection). We may not like it at times, it may reveal those ‘inconvenient truths’ – but it is necessary to work out the imperfections that caused the separation in the first place. The splinter still needs to be removed. We need to get it out so we can forget about it.

This is the second part of forgiveness, the part of working it out. It’s hard to forget when the problems linger. If we are asking God to forgive us ‘as’ we forgive others, then we better be prepared to take this step as well. We can’t simply say that we forgive, without trying to work out the imperfections that caused the separation in the first place.

Act III – Friendship

There is a great ending to the story of Joseph, in Genesis 50:21: “And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” He wasn’t content with simply forgiving. He wanted his brothers back. So he took the step of reassuring them, and speaking kindly to them.

That’s true forgiveness: reassurance (“perfect love drives out fear”) and speaking kindly. It seems that we don’t seem to like the ‘speaking kindly’ part. We don’t really want to regain that brother. We just want some kind of Scriptural justification for not having to reconcile with them. We want Christ to give us some steps that will allow us to comfort ourselves in the fact that we tried, and now we can move on without guilt. But He doesn’t give us that ‘out.’ He wants us to take the higher road, to press on to reconciliation – to friendship - to regain that brother that He loves and that He died for.

So when we pray this phrase, when we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others, we are putting ourselves on the spot. We are claiming that we will offer not only forgiveness to someone who has offended us, but forgetfulness as well. And not only forgetfulness, but friendship. We will reassure our brother and speak kindly to him.

Act IV – Move On

In Hebrews 10:18 we read, “And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.” One way to look at this verse is that if someone rejects the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, then they have rejected their only way to forgiveness. There is no other sacrifice, not even self-sacrifice, that will take away their sins.

But another aspect of this verse is for the believer who has allowed the sacrifice of Christ to cover their sins completely. There is nothing more that needs to be done – so move on. “It is finished.” We are not to be crucifying Christ - or ourselves - over and over again. Until we truly grasp this, it is impossible to move on. That is why forgiveness is so important.

In Matthew 7:9 Jesus says, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” Of course we wouldn’t, but for some reason that’s what we think God does to us. We think that if we ask Him for the bread of forgiveness, for Christ, that He will drop a stone of remembrance on us, reminding us of all that we have done in the past. But God is not in the stone-delivery business. According to Isaiah 5:2, He takes us, His vineyard, digs us up, and clears us of stones. All of those things in our past - the stones that are killing us - are removed, not replaced.

Act V – The Result: Satan Denied

In the two letters to the Corinthians, Paul deals with a man who is living an immoral lifestyle. He tells them in the first letter to break off fellowship with the man so that he might repent and come to his senses. The good news is that it appears that the man does become sorrowful and repentant. Now, in the second letter, Paul asks them to remove that burden and bring him back. The goal of discipline is restoration, not destruction. And he concludes by saying that this act of forgiveness thwarts the schemes of Satan (II Corinthians 2:10, 11). Our ability and willingness to forgive stops Satan dead in his tracks. He is so evil that he cannot fathom forgiveness at all.

Forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us to advance His kingdom and to batter the gates of hell. When we personally recognize, according to Psalm 130, that God doesn’t keep a ‘record of sins’ and that with Him ‘there is full redemption,’ we feel a strength that empowers us to press forward. There is something unlocked deep within our soul that lifts the weight off of us. We have those same keys in our hands to forgive others and help them with their burdens.

Satan simply cannot understand this and he has no answer for it. He is so self-centered, so self-deceived, so full of hatred, that he could never wrap his mind around the concept of forgiveness. He can’t forgive. He can’t forget. And as the Father of Lies, his own deceitfulness will never allow him to be friends with anyone. So he uses this same mentality against us. But when we forgive from the heart, we deny him one of his greatest tools.

It’s time to wield the powerful sword of forgiveness that cuts right to the heart and brings true healing. It’s time to pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” the way it’s meant to be prayed.