Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 6:12

"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." — Matthew 6:12 (ASV)

Forgive us our debts — Duty—that is, what we owe or should do. It may be noted that duty and debts are only different forms of the same word. A duty unfulfilled is a debt unpaid. Primarily, therefore, the words “our debts” represent sins of omission, while “trespasses” represent the transgression of a law, or sins of commission. This distinction, however, though convenient, is more or less technical.

Every transgression implies the non-fulfillment of duty in a more aggravated form, and the memory of both is felt by the awakened conscience as an ever-accumulating debt. Even sins against our neighbor are, in this sense, debts we have incurred to God; and since the past cannot be undone, they are debts we can never pay. For us, therefore, the one helpful prayer is, “Forgive the debt,” and the gospel our Lord proclaimed was that the Father was ready to forgive. The confession of the debt was enough to ensure its remission. Then, a willing service born of grateful love was to replace the vain attempt, which Pharisaism encouraged, to build up an account of good works as a partial payment to reduce the amount of the debt. The parables of the Two Debtors (Luke 7:41) and of the Unforgiving Servant whose own debt had been forgiven (Matthew 18:23–35) are expansions of the thought we find in its germ in this clause of the Lord’s Prayer.

In striking contrast with that clause is the claim of merit that so readily insinuates itself into the hearts of those who worship without the consciousness that they need forgiveness. This was expressed in the daring prayer attributed to Apollonius of Tyana: “Give me what is my due—pay me, you gods, the debts you owe to me.”

As we forgive our debtors — The better reading gives, We have forgiven, as a completed act before we begin to pray. In the very act of prayer, we are taught to remind ourselves of the conditions of forgiveness. Even here, in the realm of God’s free grace, there is a law of retribution. The temper that does not forgive cannot be forgiven because it is, ipso facto, proof that we do not realize the amount of the debt we owe. We forget the ten thousand talents as we exact the hundred denarii, and in the act of exacting, we bring back the burden of the greater debt upon ourselves.

Up to this point in the Lord’s Prayer, we may think of the Man Christ Jesus as having not only taught the prayer but also used it Himself. During His years of youth and manhood, it may well have been the embodiment of His soul’s outpourings in communion with His Father. Even the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” whether taken in its higher or lower meaning, would be a fitting expression of His dependence as the Son of Man. But can we think the same of the prayer, “Forgive us our debts?” It is, of course, opposed to the whole teaching of Scripture to believe that the memory of a single transgression dwelt on His human spirit. In the fullest sense of the word, He was without sin, the Just One, needing no repentance.

And yet, the analogy of His saints and servants who have followed most closely in the footsteps of His holiness may lead us to think it possible that even these words may have had a meaning in which He could use them. As people attain holiness and cease to transgress, they gain a clearer perception of God’s infinite holiness and seek to be made partakers of it. They would gladly pray, praise, and work for Him always, but though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. They grow weary and faint, becoming more intensely conscious of the limits of their human powers when contrasted with the limitless range of their desires. In this sense, therefore, and strictly in reference to the limitations of the true yet absolutely sinless humanity He condescended to assume, it is just conceivable that He too may have used this prayer.

Furthermore, we must remember that He prayed as the Brother of humanity, as the representative of the race. The intensity of His sympathy with sinners, which was the condition of His atoning work (Hebrews 4:15), would cause Him, though He knew no sin, to identify Himself with sinners. He would feel as if their transgressions were His transgressions, their debts His debts.