Peace through Prayer – Forgive us our debts
This week we are looking at the penultimate theme in our series on prayer which is studying the prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples.
Matthew 6 v. 12 ‘And forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debts’.
Debts, trespasses, sins – which is it?
The words we use when we pray the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ are likely to depend on the church tradition we come from and the translation of the Bible that we read.
Anglicans, Methodists and Roman Catholics tend to pray for forgiveness of our ‘trespasses’.
Christians from Presbyterian or Reformed traditions will most likely ask forgiveness for their ‘debts’.
Those of us from churches that use a twentieth century liturgies are more likely to pray ‘forgive us our sins’.
Bible translations too span all three words.
The NIV and King James translations both refer to ‘debts’. In verse 12 of Matthew chapter 6. The NIV then refers to ‘sins’ in verses 14 and 15, whilst the KJV uses the word ‘trespasses’.
New International Version:
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors ……For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
King James Version:
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors ….. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Early Greek and Latin translations referred to ‘debts’. It wasn’t until William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in 1526 that trespasses make an appearance.
The truth is though that all three words – debts, trespasses, sins – capture an important meaning, and all three are valid from the scriptures.
The Net Testament Greek word for debts – opheilema – means to owe a moral and/or financial debt.
The word used for sins is hamartia. Luke uses this word in his account of the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11 verse 4.
The Greek word paraptoma used in Matthew 6:14 and 15 refers to the act of overstepping the mark i.e. trespassing, going somewhere we should be.
Forgive us our trespasses
So when Jesus tells his disciples to ask for forgiveness for the trespasses, he is talking about repenting of when we have overstepped the mark, a pattern of behaviour that is deeply rooted in human behaviour and goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve were warned not to take for themselves the knowledge of good and evil. One simple instruction, one clear line not to step over. And they chose to disobey.
We are the same. From an early age, children consistently want to push the boundaries. As adults, we long to be in control, to judge for ourselves what Is right and wrong. We also judge others, giving ourselves the right to judge other people’s motives and behaviour.
But Jesus is very clear. It isn’t our job to worry about our lives. We can’t add a day to our lifespan by worrying. Our times are written in his book and our destiny is in his hands. Equally, he warns ‘Do not judge, so that you will not be judged’. It is God who judges other people’s heart, minds and actions, and it isn’t really any of our business to do it.
So Jesus is teaching his disciples to say sorry for when they overstep the marks, when they – in the words of highly effective Brexit campaign slogan – take back control.
Forgive us our debts
So ‘forgive us our trespasses’ conveys a really important meaning to us. But so does ‘forgive us our debts’.
By overstepping the mark, trespassing in God’s territory, taking control for ourselves, we have sinned. And as Paul makes clear, ‘the wages of sin is death’.
The forgiveness of this debt that we owe God comes to us because Jesus has paid it off for us.
As Paul makes clear in his letters:
‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses (Ephesians 1 v. 7) and ‘Christ redeemed us (paid off our debt) from the curse of the law of sin and death’ (Galatians 3 v. 13). We have been bought with a price (1 Cor 6 v. 20).
The Father’s forgiveness is conditional
Slightly uncomfortably for us perhaps, Jesus makes it very clear in the Lord’s prayer that we should ask for forgiveness but that our Father in Heaven’s response to us is conditional on how we treat others.
Verses 14 and 15 of Matthew chapter 6 are crystal clear about this.
And so is the parable Jesus tells about the wicked servant who having been forgiven his own debt by his master won’t then forgive another servant who owes him money. The story is in Matthew 18 and expresses in startling language what happens to those who do not forgive others:
‘In his anger, the master handed him (the servant) over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart’.
And we know that forgiving others is important for our own relationship with God and therefore for our own peace and physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
The Amplified Bible translates Jesus’s words in Matthew 6 v. 15 as:
If you do not forgive other, nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God, then your Father will not forgive your trespasses’.
Forgiveness doesn’t come easily to us, but it is vital.
Hanneke Coates was born in Java in 1942 and imprisoned in brutal Japanese internment camps for the first three years of her life. As an adult she moved to the UK became a nurse and married. Her marriage broke up because her husband was violent and it took years for her to forgive her Japanese captors and her husband. She writes:
Questions for us
‘It was attending a Christian divorce recovery course at Lee Abbey where I first learned to deal with my traumas through forgiveness. I thought I had forgiven my Japanese captors, and yet I was aware of the hairs rising in the nape of my neck when I heard a Japanese voice. The Japanese tsunami changed all that. My church asked us to dig deep for the Japanese victims. After a lot of prayer I did just that. It was that one last and final gesture of letting God deal with the residue of my resentment brought me my final healing. I no longer worry about Japanese voices now.
Forgiveness is a healing process and positive force in my life. It gives me a constant sense of peace and grace.’
1. How have you overstepped the mark, trespassing in God’s territory by taking control of things that should not be under your control?
2. Do you worry about your life? Do you judge others? Ask your heavenly Father to forgive you and set you free from the need to know and the need to be right.
3. Do you need to forgive others for the way they have treated you? It may be something that happened today or this week. Or like Hanneke Coates, it could be something from long ago that you’ve learned to life with but is buried deep down inside and robbing you of the peace and release your heavenly Father longs to give you.
A prayer in response to God’s word
Join the psalmist and pray: ‘Search me, O God, …. and see if there is any wicked way in me’,
Reveal to me now Holy Spirit the things where I’ve overstepped the mark – the things I’ve done which I regret and the good things I’ve failed to do which I know I should have. Please forgive me and cancel out my debt.
And show me Lord the things that I need to forgive others for. To release them and to release myself. To bring peace and grace. I follow your example Jesus and I echo your prayer on the cross ‘Father, forgive them’. I forgive them from my heart and from today I am cancelling their debt. So help me God.
Steve Martin
30th January 2021