Smoodock's Blog

We have now come to the fourth request in Jesus’ model prayer, and there seems to be only four requests. Some scholars count a few more, but I count four: first, we pray for God to sanctify his name through us; second for God to advance his Kingdom through us; third to prepare a table for us in our daily walk with him, and, finally, we desire that the Lord would grant us forgiveness. From what? Matthew claims our debts (Matthew 6:12), and Luke defines our debts as sins (Luke 11:4). It may be getting ahead of ourselves, but weren’t all of our sins washed away at the cross? If so, in what way are our sins forgiven (Matthew 6:12) or not forgiven (Matthew 6:14)?

Context is important, if we hope to understand anything in God’s word. In order to understand what is forgiven in verse-12 or not forgiven (verse-14) we need to keep in mind that this is part of what we call Jesus’ model prayer. We began by asking God to hollow or glorify his name (verse 9), and it is implied in Jesus’ discourse (Matthew 5, 6 and 7), that he would do so through us, Jesus disciples (Matthew 5:1). Next, we prayed for the advancement or influence of God Kingdom, which is his Presence (with us, and those we influence to be reconciled to God). Then we ask God for our daily bread. However, our study of this request unveiled the fact that it wasn’t a request that our physical needs would be supplied, because Jesus said, our Father knows what we need and will provide for his family; he’s a good Father.

The bread we pray to receive is ‘bread’ from the Lord’s Table, which David claimed he prepares before our enemies. It has to do with our experiences every day, which help us practice, what I call the prime directive, imitating or imaging God (Genesis 1:27). We want to be mature like he is, so we pray he will make it so through daily living. Then we come to our question: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” and the question is why pray for forgiveness, if our sins have been washed away at the cross?

The reason this is necessary is twofold. First, we need to keep in mind that our third request in the model prayer concerns the Lord’s Table, or the life experiences he brings us through in order that we could practice being like him (Genesis 1:27). With this in mind, the phrase following our request for forgiveness is: “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” The model prayer assumes the disciple of Christ would want to be like Jesus, because he has given us an example to follow (John 13:15), and this is very similar to the prime directive (cp. Genesis 1:27). Therefore, if we’ve already prayed for our daily bread (verse-11), which would help us become more like our heavenly Father, then not forgiving others for offenses against us is contrary to the prime directive (Genesis 1:27), which we have already prayed God would help us to fulfill. Thus, if God forgives everyone, so should we, if we don’t, we’ve already requested that God would make us more like him, so he would bring us through the school of hard knocks, vis-à-vis lead us through trials, from which we later pray to be delivered (Matthe 6:13).

Thus, the debt we owe God is to honor and respect him by wanting to be like him (Genesis 1:27). When we fail in this regard, we have expressed our disrespect of his Person, and we ask for forgiveness, but we phrase it in such a way that our forgiveness is fulfilled according to the manner in which we’ve forgiven others. This gives our Father the green light to treat us, as we’ve treated others, as that pertains to our becoming like or imaging God, our Father. God will do this through his mercy or he will do it through his discipline. The choice is ours, in that we have freewill. However, as a disciple of Christ, we’ve already freely chosen to be like God. Therefore, if we are stiff-necked about forgiving others, Jesus’ disciple would be relentlessly brought through trials that will bring him into submission (Matthew 6:14-15) and fulfill the prime directive (Genesis 1:27).

Put another way, if we don’t forgive others, the Table of the Lord would take the form of discipline. The disrespect of not imaging God’s love and mercy, which he has toward me would inherit the discipline of natural laws, which God has put in place from the beginning. An erring disciple would reap what he has sown (Galatians 6:7-8). This, of course, is not always the desired method one would choose for one’s daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Thus, the sense is not to keep God from actively bringing a trial upon us, but that the laws of nature are such that we would reap what we sow. The request of the disciple is for God to intervene in the laws of nature and forgive us without our having to go through the expected trials that would naturally come, if we sow to the flesh. (Matthew 6:14-15; cp. Galatians 6:8).

Jesus’ discourse in chapters 5 through 7 is all about being in God’s Presence and our desire to become like him (Genesis 1:27).