"AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR
DEBTORS."
It has been remarked, that whereas the first three
petitions might be offered by angels as well as by men, and the fourth would
have been suitable for the devotions of Eden, the fifth and the sixth are
suited only for sinners. The word "forgive" is the first sad note sounded in
this litany. In jubilant tones we may ask that our Father's name may be
hallowed, His Kingdom come, His Will be done, and His daily gifts bestowed,
but here we approach His throne as guilty suppliants, seeking mercy. The
first four petitions presuppose forgiveness. Rebellious children must have
repented before they can truly say, "Father, hallowed be Your Name." Here
there is a renewed confession of sin and a fresh application for pardon. The
little word "and" has a great significance, linking the prayer for bread
with that for pardon. I deserve not the supply of my bare necessities. I
have forfeited as a rebel my claim as a creature. Bread has little value
under sentence of death. No luxuries can relieve the hunger of a soul
convinced of sin. "Father, feed me! but at the same time pardon me! Give us
bread and forgive our debts."
Man has three chief necessities—bread for the body, quiet
for the conscience, righteousness for the soul; and these three needs we
urge in the last three petitions. With every lawful claim of the body fully
met, the conscience may be oppressed with guilt. There can be no peace
without pardon. This has been recognized under all forms of religion.
Prehistoric cromlechs, Egyptian monoliths, Grecian temples, Gothic spires,
all utter the prayer "Forgive," or at least ask, "What must I do to be
saved?" Penance, sacrifice, oblation, supplication, in all their varied
forms, have ever acknowledged man's sense of sin, his fear of punishment and
need of pardon.
I—SIN CONSIDERED AS A DEBT TO GOD
The words "sin" and "debt" are interchanged, as if
synonymous. Luke describes not only as sin what Matthew describes as debt,
but connects the forgiveness of our sins with our own remission of
our fellow-creatures' debts. A debt is what is due; what we owe; "oughtness."
We ought to render to God all righteousness, and this is a debt due from
every being endowed with a moral nature. Paul says, "We are debtors, not to
the flesh;" implying that we are debtors to God, to live according to His
Spirit, and thus to fulfill His purposes in the creation of our own spirit.
This obligation to be holy we do not ask to have remitted. "Abatement of
rent" may often be equitably asked between man and man, but there can be no
lowering of the claims of a perfectly righteous God without dishonor to
Himself and injury to His creatures. We ought not to desire it. It would be
impossible for God to grant it. His law is a transcript of His perfect Will.
To wish for a lower standard would be unworthy of ourselves as well as of
Him. It is the glory of man to recognize this obligation, to confess this
debt. But we have failed to discharge it, and so have incurred the penalty
of disobedience. This includes the displeasure of God. If He delights in
holiness, He must regard its opposite with displeasure. No one can be
perfectly good who does not hate evil. Besides this, sin injures the
sinner's own nature and exposes him to the righteous retribution of the Law.
Having failed in duty, we have incurred penalty, and this debt is due to
God.
Many sins are committed against ourselves. Abuse of
natural faculties brings its own punishment. How often by sensual excesses
the constitution is impaired, disease contracted, and life shortened!
Indolence entails poverty, and dissipation social disgrace and a premature
grave. And if not, every sin dishonors though it may not destroy the body
which is the agent of it. The tongue is disgraced by every false and
injurious word, the hand by every evil deed, the foot by every step it takes
in the service of a corrupted will. The intellect is degraded by thoughts of
wickedness, the imagination when its lofty powers are impressed in the mean
servitude of vice. Who can estimate the suicidal injury to conscience, when
dragged from its viceregal throne, and gagged lest it even utter its
indignant protests; the damage and dishonor to the grand nature God gave us,
when, contrary to His purpose, we compel the higher to serve the lower
instincts, and bind reason to the chariot-wheels of lust! The physical
consequences of violating natural laws are not obviated by my repentance.
Self -reproach however sincere, tears however plentiful, will not restore a
shattered constitution. Laments for past folly will not call back the wasted
property, and regrets however poignant will not regain the social position
once forfeited. If they could, the damage done to my moral nature would
remain, and memory would never lose the record. In sinning against myself, I
have sinned still more against my Maker. Could I neutralize the evil
consequences or accept and submit to them, I should still be a debtor to
God. My body and mind belong to Him as their Maker; therefore by injuring
myself I injure His property, by violating the laws of my own being I rebel
against the Author of those laws.
Even the lower animals have rights, the violation of
which creates a debt to God. Man is lord of the lower animals to use them
for his need, not to torture them for his pleasure. To urge them to labor
beyond their strength, to treat them with coward tyranny or heartless
negligence, to kill them not for necessary food but for the pleasure of
killing, cannot be according to the Will of that beneficent Creator who gave
them physical sensitiveness for their good, a sensitiveness which we share
and therefore should respect. If there are many who feel with the poet—
"I would not enter on my list of friends,
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility, the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm;"
much less can the universal Father regard as friends
those who deliberately torment the creatures which with ourselves are the
objects of His care. The Israelites, when delivered from the cruel
oppressions of Egypt, were taught compassion to God's inferior yet not
uncared-for creatures. The fallen donkey or ox was to be lifted up, and the
mother-bird sitting on the young or on the eggs was to be set free. The Son
of God said, "Your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are not two sparrows sold for
a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
Father." It is vain to plead that they are our own property; they are God's
supremely, and ours only as stewards who must render account, and answer for
all debts incurred by violation of the Will of Him who is their Protector
and our Judge.
"But many a crime, deemed innocent on earth,
Is registered in heaven; and these, no doubt,
Have each their record, with a curse annexed.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never." —Cowper
More obviously, all offences against our fellow-men are
debts to God. Wrongs to the property of our neighbor include not only
willful injury and open robbery, but all unfairness, however sanctioned by
the customs of trade and disguised by terms of political economy. Oppression
of the laborer by inadequate wages, or defrauding of the employer in the
quality of the work; misrepresentations or unrighteous suppression of the
truth in commercial transactions; depreciation of goods when we purchase,
exaggeration when we sell; advantage taken of distress; debts incurred
without reasonable prospect of payment; speculation with the property of
others without their consent; withholding what is due when we possess the
means of payment; all swell our debts to God. To these are to be added
wrongs to our neighbor's reputation—not only by inventing calumnious
charges and bearing false witness, but by "taking up a reproach against our
neighbor;" by finding pleasure in giving currency to coin minted by others
bearing some injurious charge, without any endeavor to certify its truth,
and not knowing but it may be altogether false; thus entailing on him
possibly loss of property, together with that of the good opinion and
perhaps the friendship that he values more than gold. Wrongs to his person
include not only acts of violence, but threats which may disturb his peace,
and angry and unkind words which may provoke or grieve him. How often has a
sarcastic speech been a lifelong sore, a passionate invective more bruising
than any blow, a proud or chilling look an abiding heart-grief! To these are
to be added faults of omission. As brethren invoking the same Father, we are
bound to show brotherly kindness to each other. Alas for the lost
opportunities of helping the needy, tending the sick, cheering the sad,
encouraging the timid, warning the foolish, saving the lost! How many might
have been rescued from sinking in despair by one kindly word! How many might
have been brought back to virtue and God by one helping hand-grasp!
"Alas! I have walked through life
Too heedless where I trod;
No, helping to trample my fellow-worm,
And fill the burial sod—
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls
Not unmarked of God!
The wounds I might have healed!
The human sorrow and smart!
And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part:
But evil is wrought by want of
Thought, As well as want of Heart." —Hood
Can we plead that all the evil we have done and all the
good we have neglected was never intentional? Alas for the money, time,
influence which have been employed merely for self-pleasing; the much we
have spent extravagantly or hoarded covetously compared with the little
given, and that often grudgingly, to benefit others! And when we consider
the priceless treasure of the gospel committed to us, not merely for our own
salvation but to communicate to others, how great becomes the debt
contracted in our neglect of opportunities! This debt to our neighbors we
cannot discharge nor they remit. In most cases the injury cannot be
redressed. The slander which went forth from our lips was spread from mouth
to mouth, and no published refutation would ever overtake it. The occasion
of doing a kindness cannot recur. Other opportunities will arise, but that
one is gone forever. Many whom we have wronged have disappeared in the crowd
or have entered another world. But could they be all convened and their
forgiveness obtained, the debt against God would remain. The "false balance"
was "abomination to the Lord." "The hire of the laborers kept back by fraud
cries" to heaven against the oppressor; "and the cries of those who have
reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." Every wrong to man
is a sin against man's Maker. David was deeply sensible of this. His great
crime was an incalculable injury to the individual wronged, and to the whole
nation whom his example had so dishonored and whose respect for law it had
so weakened. But when bowed down in overwhelming contrition, his sense of
the wrong done to his fellow-creatures was overshadowed by the still greater
wrong done to God. "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil
in Your sight." Above the human law is the Divine Will which appoints it,
and which demands payment of the debt. "We have broken a law which was not
framed on earth, and cannot be repealed on earth."
To these must now be added sins immediately committed
against God. The cherished purpose of evil is a sin against the Searcher of
hearts. The permitted idea, the allowed wish, bears with it the character of
the act. Thus the lustful passion is adultery, and the cherished revenge is
murder. How great the debt thus accumulated in the records of Him who
"ponders the hearts"! Duties owing to God not thus relating to our neighbor
have been already suggested by the invocation "Our Father." We owe to Him
habitual reverence, cheerful obedience, constant gratitude, filial trust,
devout worship. This we should render every day. Alas! how often we have
forgotten God altogether, received His gifts without thankfulness, murmured
at His dispensations, disobeyed His laws! What excuses we have made for
setting aside His authority, for resisting the voice of conscience, for
pleasing ourselves! When we think of His love in redemption, our neglect of
such mercy is an additional debt. How little we have studied and tried to
practice the Will of God! How often we have refused to listen to the voice
of Jesus! How often we have grieved the Spirit of God by not heeding His
persuasions, by resisting His inward striving! If our chief end is to
glorify God, how much of life has been abused! "Sins of omission, of which
many think little, are far the larger half and no less deadly, even as
hunger, if unfed, is no less deadly than sickness" (Hare). To live without
seeking to please our Maker is to incur this debt. "The God in whose hand
your breath is, and whose are all your ways, have you not glorified." When
we consider the varied opportunities within our reach of glorifying God in
all the circumstances of daily life, and how little we have acted up to the
Divine ideal of duty, we may well tremble at the thought of the great debt
incurred.
Sins against God may be illustrated by the word "debts"
for the following reasons—They are entered in His books. Conscience
is one of these, and its records are sternly kept. All sins against God are
wounds on ourselves, and leave their mark. Divine Justice is another; the
record in the mind of Him "from whom no secrets are hidden," and who "will
bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing." "The books were
opened, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in
the books, according to their works." A record is being kept unobserved by
us. As a traveler calls for what he needs at his hotel, and no demand is
made at the time for payment, though every item is carefully recorded, so it
is with our daily incurred debts against God. Sins record themselves. As a
multitude entering some place of resort pass individually through the
turnstile, and a record is unerringly made, out of sight of the visitor; and
as mechanical contrivances in factories register every beat of the piston
and every fraction of the result produced, so, by the law of God impressed
on our own nature, all our actions are registered, all our debts recorded.
They increase; not merely by the addition of new sins but by
accretions to the old debt, as interest and compound interest in human
transactions. Non-repentance for a sin committed and non-renunciation of it
augment the amount. Every day's delay not only increases the old fault, but
renders more easy its repetition. If committed and not renounced, such a
seed is prolific after its own kind. One sin also often begets another of a
different kind, as falsehood to conceal vice, as murder to destroy evidence.
It also produces increased alienation from God. As a man in debt without
either the ability or inclination to pay it avoids the presence of his
creditor, and often cherishes towards him ill-will, so an impenitent sinner,
conscious of guilt, increasingly shuns the thought of the God he has
offended. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Thus, like earthly debts,
sin ever tends to augment its amount and degree.
These debts can never be discharged. We are more
severe with comparatively trivial injuries by man towards man than with
offences against Heaven because of our own liability to be injured." Fools
make a mock at sin." When some crime strikes at the very foundation of
society and threatens the principle of government which upholds all civil
rights, we are alive to an evil which far exceeds the injury done to the
individual. But who can adequately estimate the evil of sin as committed
against the Sovereign Ruler, by obedience to whom the happiness of
intelligent beings can be alone secured? If the majesty of a ruler and the
relationship of a father unite with the best interests of the community to
require obedience to a law identified with Truth and Righteousness,
disregard of that law is proportionably culpable. In this case the Ruler is
the Infinite God, our Father in heaven. Our Lord indicated the greatness of
our debt in the parable of the unforgiving servant, who, unrelenting to his
debtor of one hundred pence, owed his lord ten thousand talents and was
unable to pay. In vain we say, "Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay
You all; "since all that is in our power to render is due each day, and the
payment of it would leave the former debt undiminished. This also our Lord
taught in His description of the servant who, in waiting diligently on his
master, only performed his bare duty. "So also you, when you shall have done
all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable
servants—we have done that which was our duty to do." There can be no
"composition with the Creditor," no "payment by installments;" the debts are
recorded, are ever augmenting, and can never be paid.
They cannot be transferred to any fellow-creature. No
friend can interpose and say, "Put that to my account," since each is
equally unable to pay his own debt. There is no treasury of good works in
the keeping of the Church which can be allotted as a set-off to the debt of
any applicant; for the Church is composed of members every one of whom has
incurred a debt he has not discharged, and therefore there can be no balance
in favor of the aggregate; no works of supererogation when every member of
the Church has come short in ordinary duty. We ask that God would forgive
"our debts." Ours they emphatically are, and can belong to us alone.
Augustine says, "Nothing is so much our own as our sins." Our bodies are
God's creation; our mental faculties His endowment; our daily bread His
gift; but our voluntary actions are our own, and our sins are all stamped
with our own image and superscription. There is always a tendency to
transfer them. Adam laid the blame on Eve, Eve on the serpent. Faults are
attributed to organization, external circumstances, companionships,
prevalent customs, the devil, or fate. But if the action was voluntary, our
will made it our own. No such plea in justification would be admitted by an
earthly tribunal, and those who urge it are condemned by their own
conscience, their treatment of others, and their own daily life. Unless God
deliver us, we must carry our burden or be crushed beneath it. These are
debts we cannot escape by lapse of years. There is no "Statute of
Limitations" which annuls them after a certain period. If unforgiven, they
are valid at the end of the longest life. David in old age prayed, "Remember
not the sins of my youth." We cannot escape them by change of residence. To
whatever country we migrate, we carry with us this burden. We cannot go
beyond the reach of the King's writ. "Where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell at the uttermost parts of the
sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."
We cannot escape them by death. This event cancels human debts, but only
sums up the account with heaven, and is a summons for payment. "Death is
God's arrest." Payment will be claimed. It is not a nominal debt, recorded
but never to be exacted. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a
man sows, that shall he also reap." A day is coming to each with the
summons, "Give an account of your stewardship." It may seem delayed, but is
surely approaching. "After a long time the Lord of those servants comes and
reckons with them." How wretched men may be when they know themselves
encumbered with financial obligations they cannot meet! Their seeming
prosperity, by contrast with their real circumstances, aggravates their
distress. The comfortable house, the costly furniture, the pictures, the
grounds, the consideration paid them on account of their supposed wealth,
seem to mock them. How ill at ease they feel in the presence of their
creditor; in what daily apprehension they live; how a knock at the door, or
the arrival of a letter, may startle them; what a burden is this debt,
whatever the time granted for payment; what a relief when it is cleared off!
So is it with sinners. They carry a heavy load which impedes their progress
and destroys their comfort. They are tied and bound by a chain which hinders
their activity. So they try to dismiss the memory of the debt, as if by
forgetting they could be quit of it. But it is forgotten only for a season.
The record may be written in invisible ink, but it is written, and at any
moment may become terribly legible. Yes, we must give account for "duties
unfulfilled, words unspoken or spoken violently and untruly, holy
relationships neglected, days wasted forever, evil thoughts cherished,
talents cast away, affections trifled with, light within turned to darkness.
So speaks the conscience; in some it may be a feeble voice, soon lost in the
noises of the outward world, or silenced by violent efforts, or choked by
the senses, or bribed by the fancy. In others, it is loud and terrible
today, then comes a reaction of fierce merriment or a temporary lull. In
some it is a low but perpetually sounding knell, witnessing of a death begun
and going on in themselves; of the past accursed, the present withered, the
future vaguely terrible…These obligations sit like nightmares upon him, stop
his breathing, hold him chained. Why cannot he cast them from him as dreams
of the night? They come back with fearful distinctness; every circumstance,
look, tone, clearly recorded; it is no dream of the night. The voice is a
real one which says, 'It is done, and cannot be undone, and you are the
man.' What signifies it that years have passed away? The act is gone, but
you are still the same. The act is gone into Eternity, and there it will
meet you" (Maurice).
The writer once conversed with a man who had been
recently rescued from seeming death by drowning. He described his vain
efforts to keep afloat, then his gradual sinking until he lay flat at the
bottom. In a moment his whole life seemed to pass before him in review.
Scenes and actions long unthought of stood out vividly on the canvas of
memory. Then he saw his deliverer diving down for him, and lost further
consciousness. The man who rescued him had plunged after him within a few
seconds of his sinking. Thus in the case of everyone, debts long ago
forgotten may in a moment start into life and demand payment. Full of solemn
warning is the word of Abraham to Dives, "Son, remember!" Even in the
present life we feel respecting these debts to God, "The remembrance of them
is grievous to us; the burden of them is intolerable." But if, even until
death, a sinner remains unconvinced of guilt, his unconsciousness of debt
does not alter the fact. Many a man is insolvent without knowing it.
Carelessly or wilfully ignorant, he goes on blindly in reckless expenditure
without considering whether his income can meet it. He neglects to take
stock until sudden ruin overtakes him. "O that they were wise, that they
would consider their latter end! "
The vastness of our debt to God has often been overlooked
in the light of the gospel which proclaims remission. But we cannot rightly
appreciate the pardon without a due sense of the sin; as only those
conscious of sickness seek the physician, their earnestness in applying to
him and their recognition of cure being in proportion to their sense of pain
or peril. When sin is regarded as a trifle, the atoning sacrifice is
undervalued or altogether denied. A light estimate of past sin will render
us less watchful in the future. If the debt already incurred can be easily
set aside, no great harm need be feared from fresh trespasses. If our
violation of God's law were excusable error and not a debt recorded,
indelible, augmenting, beyond all power of ours to discharge, and which will
be brought against us in judgment, such repentance as the Word of God
describes would be excessive, and such a provision as the gospel announces
for its remission would be unnecessary.
II—THE DEBTS OF GOD'S PARDONED
CHILDREN
Can those who have repented and are forgiven
appropriately present this prayer? All who truly call God "Father," who
desire that His name may be hallowed, that His kingdom may come and His holy
Will be done, must have been welcomed home as His adopted children. He gave
them the kiss of forgiveness, and put on them "the best robe." What need to
come day by day for the pardon received once for all? And why ever again
confess themselves "miserable sinners," instead of exulting as God's happy
children?
When a sinner unfeignedly repents, he is forgiven and
reconciled; but as long as he is liable to transgress, it is suitable and
necessary to ask for pardon. Unless he has attained a state of absolute
perfection, he needs still to pray, "Forgive us our debts." Our Lord said to
Peter, "He who is bathed only needs to wash his feet, but is completely
clean" (John 13:10). By repentance and faith the converted sinner is bathed
in "the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." But as in walking from the
has the feet are soiled and need cleansing, so a pardoned sinner, though
justified as regards his former ungodly life, is liable to contract fresh
stains which make the prayer for pardon as appropriate each day as that for
daily bread.
To avoid this inference, some interpreters maintain that
this prayer is not evangelical, because given to those still under the Law,
and prior to the crucifixion. But it was twice recorded long after that
event for those who were under the New Covenant. It is true that when a
sinner repents he is pardoned and becomes "a new creature," is "turned from
darkness to light," and "walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
John says, "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin;" but this same
beloved disciple teaches in the same epistle, "If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," which Dean Alford
thus interprets—"John is writing to persons whose sins have been forgiven
them (2:2), and therefore necessarily the present tense refers not to any
previous state of sinful life before conversion, but to their now existing
state, and the sins to which they are liable in that state. This state of
needing cleansing from all present sin is veritably that of all of us; and
our recognition and confession of it is the very first essential of walking
in light." The preceding verse teaches us that "if we walk in the light, the
blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin;" the cleansing here spoken
of being the pardon of the faults of the children of light who have already,
in repentance and faith, been cleansed from their old sins. Again, John
connects a state of sanctification with the continued need of pardon when he
says, "These things write I to you that you sin not. And if any man sins, we
have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." "They cannot
sin" if truly "born of God," as they once did when wandering in rebellion;
they cannot sin habitually, encouraging it, persevering in it; they hate it,
resist it, mourn over it; yet are they liable to be overcome by occasional
temptation; but they are not on this account to despair as though no fresh
pardon were possible, since those who believe have One who always pleads
their cause with God. (1 John 2:1, 2) Paul teaches the same truth by
warnings to believers in every epistle. Exhortations to holiness show that
perfection was far from having been reached. He says of himself, "Not that I
have already obtained, or am already made perfect. Brethren, I count not
myself yet to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting the things
which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I
press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus."
The two classes of statement are in beautiful harmony.
When a sinner repents, his sins are pardoned and the Holy Spirit is given,
but he is still liable to the influence of the flesh, he is still in a world
full of snares, and exposed to the crafts and assaults of the devil. Sin is
now alien to his nature, and when he falls into it he has no peace until he
repents of it. But he has often occasion to lament such failures. He still
with the tax-collector prays, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The larger
knowledge which, by the Spirit, He now enjoys of God, shows the vast
interval between himself and Divine perfection. An increasing sense of
obligation with growing love to God makes him more sensitive to his
failures. The more he advances in holiness, the more he perceives his
imperfections. The stronger the light, the more obvious the stains; the
brighter the sunbeam, the plainer the motes. The summit of the mountain
piercing the skies with its glittering pinnacles and spotless dome is not
seen from the low-lying valley, and he who wishes to climb has a very
imperfect notion of the task before him. The precipice concealing the
distance must first be surmounted, requiring his utmost efforts. But when,
after much toil and peril, this has been conquered, instead of thinking he
has gained the goal, he is filled with admiring awe as he beholds the
mountain rising far, far beyond and above him. The sinner first seeking
pardon has no such conception of his need of it while climbing the craggy
cliffs of penitence, as when from the tableland of forgiveness he gazes
upwards at the mountain-heights of God's holiness.
"Christian perfection" is obedience to God by men on
earth similar to that of angels in heaven. This all should hold as the true
ideal; but when the term is used as actually characterizing individuals, the
real meaning intended is generally that of maturity of character, habitual
faith in God, a steady purpose of obedience, and progress heavenward. To
profess to have reached the goal indicates a low ideal; to be unconscious of
defect betrays a dullness of the spiritual sense; to be satisfied with the
service rendered reveals rather the weakness than the strength of love. The
Rev. C. H. Spurgeon remarked to the writer respecting one who held the
opinion here questioned, "I always thought him perfect until he told me he
was."
Some speak of Sanctification as attainable
instantaneously by a simple act of faith. As a sinner believing is at once
released from debt, so, they say, if we believe in Christ as the Sanctifier,
we are at once freed from the liability to sin again. But the two great
blessings of salvation, while inseparable in fact, are essentially distinct
in development. In Justification, Divine Grace annuls the sentence of
condemnation; in Sanctification, the Divine Spirit produces holiness of
thought, motive, habit, conduct, character. In the nature of things this
must be gradual and continuous. The seed is sown as soon as we believe;
there is no interval between the pardon of a sinner and his reception of the
germ of the new and heavenly life, but this has to grow and blossom and bear
fruit. The chains are struck off the captive, and he is animated with new
courage and strength; but the battle has only begun, though the final
victory is promised. The leaven has been put into the meal, but the whole
lump is not immediately leavened. Thus we are admonished to "grow in grace;"
to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling." This has been the
concurrent experience of the holiest of God's children. Few of ancient times
were nearer perfection than Daniel, yet he says, "While I was praying and
confessing my sin." There is scarcely one of the Bible saints of whom some
fault is not recorded. David says, "Who can understand his errors? cleanse
me from secret faults;" and Solomon, "There is not a just man upon earth
that does good and sins not;" and James, "In many things we all stumble."
Paul repudiated any claim to be perfect; for though he triumphed in the
assurance of final victory, he was conscious of a liability to temporary
reverses. It was said of the Romans that they might be worsted in battle but
never in war; and the soldiers of Christ, when most hopeful of the result,
are most aware of temporary failures, and confess them with penitence lest
they should become permanent. Augustine speaks of "sins of a daily infirmity
in which even he who watches most will yet be entangled; scarcely without
some of the world's dust adhering to him will even the faithful man walk
through the world's paths. But in this prayer there is the shaking off this
dust before it has settled and hardened upon him."
There are occasional seasons of spiritual calm when a
believer may be induced to suppose that peace of mind means freedom from
sin. "It may be under some great affliction, it may be in some eminent
enjoyment of God, in the sense of the sweetness of blessed communion with
Christ, we have been ready to say that sin was dead and gone forever. But
have we not found by experience the contrary? Has it not manifested that it
was only retired into some unsearchable recesses of the heart, as to its
nature, though greatly weakened in its power? God's delight is with the
humble and contrite ones, and such are we only when we have a due sense of
our own vile condition. This will beget reverence of God, sense of our
distance from Him, admiration of His grace and condescension, a due
valuation of mercy, far above those light, verbal, airy attainments that
some have boasted of" (Owen). To suppose perfection already reached, is not
merely a theological error, but a moral defect and disguised peril. It
lowers the standard of duty to think we have reached it; it lessens the
sense of obligation to consider we have discharged it; it weakens the motive
to watchfulness to imagine the foe is slain. "Let him who thinks he stands,
take heed lest he fall." Because the faults of God's children differ from
the daring sins of rebels, they do not therefore lose the character of sin,
nor cease to incur a debt which must be cancelled or paid. It is possible to
receive pardon of some great trespass, and by repeated commission of smaller
sins to perish. It is only when God's pardoned children continue to "add on
their part all diligence," that they are "not idle nor unfruitful;" whereas
"he who lacks these things is blind, having forgotten the cleansing from his
old sins. Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling
and election sure." Lack of diligence in repenting of the smaller sins of
God's children weakens such surety. Little expenses multiplied may ruin a
business or impoverish a family. Debts neglected because each is small, may
so accumulate as to cause bankruptcy. Buildups of rust, each particle
invisible, may stop a watch or fasten up a door. Augustine says, "It is of
little drops that mighty rivers, yes ruinous and wide-wasting inundations,
are made up. The leak may be trifling, yet if waters are always coming in,
and not being continually pumped out, they will in the end sink the ship. A
mountain of minute grains of sand will as effectually crush out the life, as
the same bulk of solid lead. Little venomous insects, if only there are
enough of them, will kill a man with their multitudinous bites, as certainly
as some wild beast with its single one. But in this prayer there is for the
man who faithfully uses it, the pledge and power of a daily cleansing, the
medicine of his slight but ever-recurring hurts" (Trench).
The sins of God's children have a speciality which
forbids us to treat them as trifles. When a friendship is peculiarly tender,
we feel sensitive to every hasty word which may grieve. The greater our
obligation, the greater our regret for any seeming ingratitude. The
pardoning love of our Father, and our privileges and joys now that we are at
home, form a new obligation specially strong and tender. We know more of His
loving heart and the goodness of His laws. Those who have tasted the bliss
of filial relationship feel that acts of negligence have now a guilt which
in kind, if not in degree, could not attach to acts of willful disobedience
committed when strangers to their Father's love. More knowledge of His Will
increases the guilt of resisting it; higher privileges entail heavier
responsibilities; filial love gives to conscience additional sensitivity;
and the child at home, without ever doubting the Father's favor, is
conscious of frequent defects in his own love and obedience.
This very prayer serves to convince us of our need of
this petition. Our Father—but how often I fail in the reverence,
trust, love, and obedience due from a child! Hallowed be Your Name—but
how have I come short in cherishing befitting reverence of it myself, and
promoting it in others! Your Kingdom, come—but how little I have done
to advance it! Your Will be done on earth as in heaven—but how
inferior my obedience to that of angels! Give us this day our daily
bread—but how often I have doubted or murmured, or been unthankful to
the Giver! If then I need to come "day by day" for "daily bread," I need
also to come day by day for daily pardon.
A dear friend now in glory, who on earth manifested more
of angelic piety than is often the privilege of men to witness, and who was
a distinguished member and minister of a church including "Christian
perfection" in its doctrinal system, thus records his own sense of daily
need of seeking remission of debts contracted as a child of God—
Sins Sins unnumbered I confess,
Of exceeding sinfulness,
Sins against Yourself alone,
Only to Omniscience known;
Deafness to Your whispered calls;
Rashness 'midst remembered falls;
Transient fears beneath the rod;
Treacherous trifling with my God;
Tasting that the Lord is good,
Pining then for poisoned food;
At the fountain of the skies
Craving creaturely supplies;
Worldly cares at worship-time;
Groveling aims in works sublime;
Pride, when God is passing by;
Sloth, when souls in darkness die.
O be merciful to me
Now in bitterness for You;
Father, pardon through Your Son,
Sins against the Spirit done." —W. Bunting
III—OUR FATHER'S FORGIVENESS
Belief in the possibility of pardon is essential to the
asking it. "He who comes to God must believe that He is a rewarder of those
who diligently seek Him." But is pardon within the possibility of such
reward? The "Forgiveness of Sins" is an article of the Creed much more
easily pronounced than explained. The universe is under the great law of
Cause and Effect. Every grain of sand and drop of dew, the rolling planets
and the central sun, alike obey it. Influences once set in motion continue
their operation both in the material and moral worlds. Violation of physical
law entails physical suffering, of social law social disgrace, of moral law
deterioration of character, of governmental law legal penalty. Conduct has
appropriate consequences, and "whatever a man sows, that shall he also
reap." But in asking pardon, we ask for an intervention between cause and
effect, for the neutralizing of influences actually at work. We ask for the
stone that has been flung to be stopped, for the flood that has been let
loose to be arrested, for the fire that has been lighted to be quenched, and
not only so, but also for the precious things it has ruined to be restored.
Nature does not forgive. Health enfeebled by folly is not
renovated by remorse. The spendthrift's riches do not fly back at the call
of regret. Repentance does not atone for crime, acquit the criminal, or
restore him to his former social position. Thus it has been questioned
whether there can ever be forgiveness of sin, and men under various systems
have endeavored by methods of their own to neutralize their guilt and its
consequences, without any assurance of success. Socrates doubted whether sin
could be forgiven. Without revelation, sinful men could never be free from
fear. Job felt the difficulty when he said that if he should justify
himself, his own mouth would condemn him; that if he made his hands never so
clean, he would still be as one plunged in a ditch; that God was not as a
man to come together with him in judgment; that there needed some
intermediary to effect reconciliation; but that, alas! there was no such
arbitrator to lay his hand on both. "The one Mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus," does "lay His hand on both," and by His atonement
declares and explains forgiveness.
"When Christ came, He spoke of forgiveness as the most
difficult of all God's secrets. He said that no one could tell of Atonement
but He who had been in heaven. If it were not for Christ's clear revelation,
I could not believe in a free forgiveness. Cause and effect, antecedent and
consequence, are so bound together on God's earth, that the idea of their
severance—which is, in other words, the release of the soul who has sinned
from the death which sin merits—can only be accepted as the explicit
assertion, the direct revelation, of Him who knows all things" (Vaughan).
Jehovah had revealed Himself to Moses as "merciful and
gracious, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin;" although "He will
not always clear the guilty." The holy God who will uphold His law and
punish willful transgressors, is the pardoning God. This truth is extolled
by the Psalmist, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who forgives all your
iniquities;" and by the Prophet, "Who is a God like You, who pardons
iniquity? because He delights in mercy." The typical sacrifices connected
with the confession of sin were about to be set aside when the Baptist said,
"Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Jesus said of
Himself that He came "to give His life a ransom for many." Him the apostles
proclaimed as "a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and
remission of sins." When Saul the persecutor was himself forgiven, he
proclaimed to all that "through this Man is preached the forgiveness of
sins." Though "all have sinned," those who repent are "justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth
to be a propitiation, through faith, by His blood, to show His righteousness
because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime." "God was in Christ,
reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses."
Christ is the medium of forgiveness, to whom all whose debts are cancelled
owe their deliverance, however defective their knowledge of Him. "In none
other is there salvation—for neither is there any other name under heaven
that is given among men, wherein we must be saved." However mysterious the
doctrine of the Atonement, the apostle plainly taught the fact "that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures." "He was wounded for our
transgressions, and with His stripes we are healed; and the Lord has laid on
Him the iniquity of us all." The truth that, "the blood of Jesus His Son
cleanses us from all sin," is the theme of the new song of heaven. "To Him
who loves us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood, be the glory and the
dominion forever and ever."
Dr. Dale, commenting on Eph. 1:7, "In Christ we have our
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
the riches of His grace," says—"To those who have known the power of the
Divine forgiveness to cancel the guilt of sin, the act is as clearly
supernatural as any of the miracles recorded in the Gospels, and it is more
wonderful, for it reveals the ascendency of the Divine will in a region of
life far nobler than that in which the physical miracles of the Gospels were
wrought…That the ground of our forgiveness is in Christ, not in ourselves,
and that His death has a unique relation to the remission of sins, are facts
which lie at the foundation of the faith, and hope, and life of the
Christian Church…The death of Christ was an act in which there was a
revelation of the righteousness of God which must otherwise have been
revealed in the infliction of the penalty of sin on the human race…Theories
of the Atonement have exercised and baffled the speculation of a long series
of theologians, but the Atonement itself has continued to give consolation
and courage to all penitent hearts, transforming their despair into hope,
their misery into peace, and their terror into perfect joy in the
righteousness and love of God."
Some have supposed that Christ actually paid the debt we
have incurred, His sufferings being exactly an equivalent for our
punishment. If so, it follows that the debt once paid cannot be justly
exacted afterwards. But if any for whom Christ suffered should themselves
suffer, it is inferred that their debt would be twice paid; and as many do
actually perish, some theological logicians have taught that for them Christ
did not die, while all whose debts were included in His Atonement must
necessarily be saved. Let it suffice here to say that Scripture nowhere
teaches the absolute payment by Christ of our debts, but that His sacrifice
is a sufficient provision for the pardon of all who, by repentance and
faith, are willing to receive it. If only one transgressor is pardoned, the
law seems to need to be honored and righteousness vindicated; no, we feel
this to be needed for the mere offering of pardon. The difficulty is that of
reconciling the holiness of God and His rule of the universe with His
proclamation of pardon. When this is removed, we cease to feel a difficulty
in reconciling the holiness of God with the pardon of any multitude of
penitent sinners. If the amnesty may righteously be proclaimed, it may
righteously be ratified. For one sinner to cross the great gulf dividing us
from heaven, a bridge seemed to be needed which Deity alone could construct,
but which, needed for one, was sufficient to bear all mankind. Yet if any
refuse to cross, their ruin is the fault, not of the bridge, but of their
own will. All may receive forgiveness, but those who reject the mercy will
bear their own burden, although provision was made for its remission in the
case of all who "repent and believe."
The gospel explains the mystery. The evil wrought by sin
is counteracted by Him who died for sin. The cross of Christ interposes
between the sinner who believes and the punishment due to violated law. If
forgiveness through the Atonement is mysterious, forgiveness without an
atonement is inexplicable. Sin as a cause does not result in punishment as
its effect, because the Atonement accomplishes that for which punishment
would have been required in relation to the Divine government; and, in
relation to our own nature, the injury of sin is counteracted by a new
spiritual life produced in Regeneration, whereby the power of the former
habit of sin is counteracted and eventually destroyed. Left to ourselves and
the natural effects of sin, the bad seed sown must grow, producing its
present and future harvest of "corruption." But by the heavenly life
imparted this seed is destroyed; old things have passed away, and all things
have "become new." The converted sinner has passed "from darkness to light,
and from the power of Satan unto God." This perfects the Divine forgiveness.
The record is effaced from the tablets of character. We are "new creatures
in Christ Jesus." Sanctification, the result of Regeneration, is evidence of
forgiveness; it is the canceling of the debt accumulated within us, it is
the very sending away, the dismissal, the absolute discharge we pray for…
the penalty of sin being remitted by deliverance not only from future
punishment by God, but from present pollution in ourselves. Thus God remits
sin; in Justification saving from its deserved penalty, in Sanctification
from its resulting influence.
The doctrine of Forgiveness needs, however, to be
explained consistently with certain revealed truths and natural facts. God
is said to "visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and
fourth generation." Those children may themselves be penitent and pardoned
and yet suffer from the sins of their parents, as by inherited disease,
poverty, disgrace; and in the case of nations, one generation may have to
bear the debts incurred and the animosities fomented by wars they blush to
think of. So an individual may suffer disease, poverty, dishonor, long after
he has repented of the sins that caused them. God not only does not
interpose to arrest these results, but may even specially appoint suffering
as a sequence of sin the pardon of which has been assured. So it was with
David. Though he repented and was forgiven, the temporal evils did come upon
him, in the bitter shame that overshadowed his own home through Absalom. He
was assured of pardon, yet was adjudged to suffer. "The Lord has put away
your sin; you shall not die. Howbeit, because by this deed you have given
great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that
is born to you shall surely die."
The sorrows resulting from sins forgiven are to be
regarded not as penal but as disciplinary. They are often needed to
illustrate the evil of sin, to show that even the children of God must
suffer if they do wrong, and to deter others from similar faults. They are
needed to teach the transgressors to cultivate humility, watchfulness,
prayer and gratitude. In the case of a pardoned child of God, the sad
consequences of sin are not a sign of wrath but of loving discipline. "Whom
the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." The
injury to character, though at once subjected to remedial influence, is not
at once effaced. The habits of long years of sin need to be supplanted by
habits of holiness. From the pages of memory the records and images of evil
do not at once fade away, nor can those pages become at once crowded with
recollections of evil conquered and good achieved. The Jews, although
forgiveness was promised, were warned of the sorrows resulting from the
memory of sin. "Then shall you remember your ways, and be ashamed—and you
shall know that I am the Lord; that you may remember and be confounded, and
never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I am pacified
toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God." When God promises
that our sins and iniquities He will remember no more, the meaning is that
He will act towards us as if He forgot them. He would cease to be Omniscient
if any fact were to fade from His mind. It is questionable whether anything
that has once left its impress even on our finite minds is absolutely
forgotten. Paul, when rejoicing that God had "forgiven all trespasses," did
not cease to remember with self-abasement that he had persecuted the Church
of God. And saints in glory give thanks to Him who "washed them from their
sins," thus showing that the memory of sin remains. But as God acts towards
us as if He did not remember our sins, treating us as if we had never
sinned, so He can cause our joy to abound in spite of our own memory of
transgression—a memory which, while encouraging humility, will also prompt
to more intense gratitude and deeper tones of praise.
With these explanations we may rejoice to know that the
remission of our debts by God is absolute remission; no arrears
remain, no penal demands to be paid either in this world or the next. It is
immediate, for no sooner is the prayer truly offered than the answer
is recorded, "Your sins are forgiven you." The guilt is at once removed, the
sentence cancelled, and the work of progressive sanctification commenced,
never to end but in the absolute removal from the soul of every taint of
sin. Nothing is now owing. The liberated debtor is treated as if he had
never been in debt—unlike the case of earthly debtors, who may be cleared by
legal process but do not recover their former credit. The sinner whom God
forgives is trusted, adopted into His family, loved and treated as a child.
The prodigal son is not kept in the outer court with the servants, but
welcomed to the inner chamber and folded to the Father's heart. The
completeness of this pardon is expressed in the strongest language. "Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as wool." God says He will cast all our sins
"into the depths of the sea;" "As far as the east is from the west, so far
has He removed our transgressions from us;" "He delights in mercy." We may
safely appeal to Him as One "whose nature and property is ever to have mercy
and to forgive." In nothing so much as in forgiveness are His own words
illustrated—"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
"Kind hearts are here; yet would the tenderest one
Have limits to its mercy—God has none!
And man's forgiveness may be true and sweet,
But yet he stoops to give it. More complete
Is Love that lays forgiveness at your feet,
And pleads with you to raise it. Only Heaven
Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says Forgiven."
—Adelaide Procter
There is pardon for the chief of sinners. "Him who comes
to me I will in no wise cast out." A sin for which there is no possible
forgiveness is one for which there is no actual repentance. No one is shut
out by God from remission who does not shut himself out by persevering in
sin. Pardon is inseparable from penitence. Christ "is exalted to give
repentance and remission of sins." These gifts are indissoluble. The first
is a pledge of the second. Repentance is our actually moving out from the
shadow of death across the boundary into the sunshine of life and love. He
who repents is already in the region of pardon and the light of God.
Christ the High Priest, through whose sacrifice and
intercession this pardon is conferred, is the only Mediator at whose hands
we receive it, by whose word we are assured of it. It is the privilege and
duty of all who are forgiven to declare and pronounce to all others, being
penitent, the same absolution and remission of sin which they have received;
but it is Christ alone who can bestow it, and authoritatively declare and
confirm it. He said to the man whom He cured of the palsy, "Your sins are
forgiven," and claimed that "the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive
sin;" and as "none can forgive sins but God only," none but Christ may
assume this function. In the words of the Dean of Llandaff, "I cannot
believe that Christ meant any man to come, even as a helper, even as an
abettor, between the soul and its God. It is the glory, it is the
originality, it is the power of the Gospel, that it brings together, face to
face, without any intermediate, the two Beings which are at issue, God and
the soul. You say you can aid this meeting? Take heed that you do not hinder
it" (Vaughan). Luther said, "A pope or bishop has no more power to remit sin
than the humblest priest, and even without any priest the humblest
Christian, even though a woman or a child, can do the same. For if a simple
believer say to you, 'God pardon your sin in the name of Jesus Christ,' and
you receive that word with firm faith, and as though God Himself spoke it to
you, you are absolved." The absolution Christ bestows is plenary, immediate,
complete. If we have a multitude of transgressions to confess, He has a
"multitude of tender mercies" with which to hide them. "Our sin in respect
to His mercy is as a spark to the ocean; and cannot the ocean quench a
spark?" Can the food be insufficient for the guests whom He invites? Can the
lifeboat He equips be too small for the shipwrecked crew?
IV—PRAYER FOR PARDON
God, by His Ambassador of mercy, bids us say, "Forgive us
our debts," and encourages us by the promise, "Everyone who asks receives."
He who "was in the bosom of the Father," and knows His purpose, the Christ
who Himself suffered for our sins, teaches us thus to pray. The High Priest
who intercedes above instructs us how to plead below, so that our prayers
and His may blend, and "Him the Father hears always." Thus instructed by the
Son of God, we pray to a Father who pities His children and calls them to
Himself. Round about the throne of Majesty is the rainbow of Mercy
dispelling our fear. Acceptable prayer for pardon includes
1. Conviction of guilt. We must recognize our
indebtedness. Fallacies must be put away by which we have tried to persuade
ourselves that we are not guilty before God. We must not make weakness an
excuse for wickedness. If helpless as a worm, if lifeless as a corpse, we
cannot be guilty as men. God has endowed us with capacities which make it
possible for us to obey Him, but we have abused those capacities, and so
have incurred a debt which was both due and in our power to pay. Nor may we
plead temperament, circumstances, or the devil. We never yield but by our
own consent, and this is our sin. Let us beware of the false humility that
pleads helplessness, and cultivate the true humility that confesses our
abuse of ability and a depraved proneness to evil.
2. Contrition. Sorrow because of sin is an
essential condition of the pardon of it; sorrow, not merely for the
consequences but for the act. Many criminals are sorry when captured,
arraigned and condemned, who, were they to escape, would forget their grief;
and many sinners against God are sorry, not because they have sinned but
because they cannot sin with impunity, or because their sins are about to be
judged. Godly sorrow mourns for the sin itself, as evil in its own nature,
as rebellion against our Creator, as ingratitude towards our Benefactor, as
undutifulness towards our Father. "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in
dust and ashes." Thus the tax-collector in the parable bows his head with
shame and smites his bosom for sorrow, while he cries, "God be merciful to
me a sinner." The Psalms are full of the groanings of contrite hearts. All
Christian biography records the anguish caused by sin. Without such sorrow
there will be no true joy. "Blessed are those who mourn, fur they shall be
comforted." The hope of pardon does not altogether remove this sorrow. God
forgives us, but we do not forgive ourselves. The wound is healed, but the
scar remains. A little boy was told by his father to drive a nail into a
plank for every offence committed. Whenever he did something worthy of
praise, a nail was withdrawn. At length the father said with joy, "See, they
are all gone now." "Yes, father," said the son, "but the marks are there."
The remembrance of some act of unkindness to a friend, who, though grieved
at the time, has perfectly forgiven and forgotten it, is long afterwards
recalled with an inward blush; and the sorrow caused to parents in the days
of youthful heedlessness is a source of deep regret even in old age. Paul
never ceased to reflect with sorrow that he was once a "persecutor, and
injurious." The writer cannot forget an illustration of such sorrow in the
case of a very poor field-laborer who was groaning in extreme agony. When
there seemed a little abatement of suffering, some words of sympathy were
uttered, to which the dying man replied," My biggest pain is to think that I
ever grieved my dear Lord Jesus." Such sorrow is a mark of sonship and a
sign of pardon. "The seal is set on wax when it melts; so God sets pardon on
melting hearts." Such sorrow is a means of reformation. The seeds of truth
watered by penitential tears will bear fruit in the heavenly paradise.
"He who lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
Eternity mourns that." —H. Taylor
3. Confession. The burden on the soul seeks relief
by utterance—"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." We should
confess an injury to our neighbor as a step towards redressing it. "Confess
your faults one to another"—the faults committed by one against another. So
our faults against God are to be confessed to God. "He who covers his sins
shall not prosper." If we wish God to hide them, we must not hide them
ourselves. If we would be healed, we must show our wound to the Physician.
If we would get our debt remitted, we must acknowledge our obligation. "When
I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my groaning all the day long. I
acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity have I not hidden. I said, I
will confess my transgressions to the Lord; and You forgave the iniquity of
my sin." As God alone forgives, so to God we are to confess. No
fellow-sinner may stand between ourselves and Him, except the One High
Priest who alone has power to absolve. To substitute auricular confession to
a man for spiritual confession to God, and to be satisfied with a
fellow-sinner's assurance of absolution, is calculated to encourage us in a
continual vibration between false comfort and fresh sin, like the see-saw of
children's play. The comfort which some say they find in frequent confession
to a priest may be really found by daily confession to God. When there are
no willful sins burdening the conscience, relief by daily confession is
still needed from the oppressive sense of frequent imperfections, such as
tainted motives, wandering thoughts, ingratitude, distrust, indolence,
neglect of opportunities, selfish abuse of stewardship, and the long, long
interval between our attainments and the perfect Example. If these are
habitually passed over as not needing to be confessed, we cannot rejoice as
we might in the full assurance of pardon, and our own character must suffer
from the tacit allowance of such imperfection. The most loving children are
the most sensitive, and are not happy until any disrespectful word, any act
of negligence, is confessed, and the parent's kiss of forgiveness received.
And thus the children of God will daily cultivate their filial graces,
relieve the burden on their loving hearts, and seek the reassurance of their
Father's pardoning mercy by repeated, acts of confession, not "dissembling
and cloaking their sins before the face of Almighty God our Heavenly Father,
but confessing them with a humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart." But
we are not required to ransack memory for every item, as though remission
depended on exact enumeration. Many faults escape consciousness when
committed, and others soon fade from remembrance. Our Father accepts us when
we come to Him with a humble sense of indebtedness, without imposing on us
the burden of detailing all the particulars. "One earnest gaze upon Christ
is worth a thousand scrutinies of self—the man who beholds the cross, and
beholding it weeps, cannot be really blind nor perilously self-ignorant"
(Vaughan). No one need fear that a sin neglected in the catalogue of
confession is omitted in the royal charter of pardon, if in self-abasement
yet filial trust he says, "Our Father, forgive!"
4. Purpose of reformation. Pardon is promised only
to those who repent; and repentance is a change of mind in regard to sin and
God. Sorrow for sin involves detestation of it; confession implies a
resolution to forsake it. It would be contrary to God's holiness to pardon
the sins of those who intend to go on sinning. He is Holy, and the object of
His mercy no less than of His law is to promote the holiness of His
creatures. "There is forgiveness with You that You may be feared." The
promise, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,"
immediately follows the precept, "Wash, make clean; cease to do evil, learn
to do well. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord." The promise
is linked with the precept, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and let him
return to the Lord, for He will abundantly pardon." The purpose of Christ in
redemption was not primarily to remit penalty but to purify the heart, the
former being a means towards the latter. "The grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and
godly in this present world." Pardon is obtained only by the mediation of
Him whose very Name declares Him to be a Savior, not from punishment merely,
but from sin. "His Name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people
from their sins." None can believe in Him without accepting this salvation,
and therefore resolving to renounce the sins they confess. Every prayer for
pardon is a pledge of reformation, and every debt remitted as penalty
increases the obligation of gratitude and is an additional motive to
obedience. The cost of our redemption being "not corruptible things as
silver and gold, but the precious blood of Christ," supplies the strongest
motive to forsake the sins the forgiveness of which we ask through such a
sacrifice. To feel that every sin must be confessed will surely help us to
abstain from committing it. If the evil I do must be as far as possible
redressed, why do it? If it must be sorrowed over, why give myself this pain
as well as grieve the Spirit of my Father? "He will speak peace to His
people, and to His saints; but let them not turn again to folly."
This petition, like the rest, looks beyond the
individual. First of all, we pray each for his own pardon—"Have mercy upon
me, a sinner." But having learned the brotherhood of humanity, we embrace
our neighbors in our request. We pray for the household, the congregation,
the church, the world, when we say, "Forgive us our debts;" and this helps
us to comply with the condition attached to the prayer. But in this
community of prayer there must be no merging our individual guilt, no
lessening our contrition because others share in the necessity for it. A
deep sense of our own sin helps us to feel for others, and to bear them on
our hearts at the throne of grace.
Some resolve to seek pardon at the eleventh hour, like
the dying thief. They do not consider that the present hour may be to them
the very last, that the end may approach unobserved, and that it may find
them less disposed than ever to seek forgiveness, owing to the strengthened
habit of impenitent delay. They seem to think that repentance can be
summoned to their bedside like the doctor, and that having been resolutely
ordered during many years to keep far away, it will come at a moment and at
a word. The repentance which precedes pardon is not a sudden regret for the
past or fear of the future, but a change of mind and heart. The dying thief
was not saved without such change. Reverence towards the Most High was
indicated in his appeal to his companion, "Do you not fear God?" confession
of sin in the words, "We indeed justly;" admiration of goodness in the
testimony, "This man has done nothing amiss;" faith in the royalty of Him
whom men derided in the address to Christ, "Lord, when You come in Your
kingdom;" humble prayer in the request, "Lord, remember me"—these, with
avowal of his own allegiance and care for the soul of his companion,
indicated a complete transformation of character. It took place suddenly in
this case; but can such repentance be reckoned on in the case of those who,
unlike him, have long known of Christ and neglected to seek mercy? Such
repentance needs the assistance of the Divine Spirit, but it is still our
work. "God commands all men to repent." It is a work so important and
difficult, that not a day should be lost in commencing it. If not one single
true Christian can be found willing deliberately to spare one day from his
religious life, so that for one day he should cease to pray and to resist
sin; if those who have had years of experience in religion so value one
single day in continuing to work out their own salvation, is it not the
utmost folly for those who have not yet even begun the work, to delay it for
months and years? "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
Behold, now is the day of salvation."
Let this daily petition remind us of our sins, and help
us to renounce them. Our debt is in God's book; let us bring it to
remembrance, that it may be confessed and cancelled before the account be
closed. Some neglect to seek pardon because they under-estimate their debt;
others despair because it is so great. "The devil shows some men their sins
at the little end of the perspective glass, and they seem little or none at
all; but he shows others their sins at the great end of the perspective, and
these frighten them into despair." They try to rid themselves of the burden
of fear as though they could thus be rid of the burden of guilt. There can
be no true peace but in pardon. "When conscience is troubled, they will try
what merry company can do, or drink, or cards; perhaps a Lent-whipping will
do the deed, or business so take up the time that they have no leisure to
hear the clamors of conscience; but still the wound bleeds inwardly, and
they can have no peace. Suppose a man has a thorn in his foot, which puts
him to pain; let him anoint it, or wrap it up, and keep it warm; yet, until
the thorn be plucked out, it aches and swells, and he has no ease" (Watson).
Many a wounded soldier would recover if the bullet were extracted, but while
it remains in the wound there can be no cure. So must sin be removed from us
by penitence and pardon, or death must result.
Many on what has seemed their dying bed have expressed a
repentance which, on their recovery, has been proved unreal. How perilous to
postpone such a work until there will be the briefest time for it and the
least capacity! as if a man should defer a task needing great exertion until
he was weak and weary, or one needing the clearest vision until the sun had
set and the shadows of night had fallen; as if the torrent could be stemmed
more easily when the boat had been drawn more into mid-channel; as if the
precipice could be better avoided after slipping partly over the impending
slope; as if a fire could be more effectually quenched when the flames had
gained greater mastery of the fuel; as if a disease could be better cured
when its force had more fully developed, and the patient had less strength
to rally! Every day's delay increases the debt, lessens the opportunity of
pardon, and weakens the inclination to seek it. To no work more than to this
does the exhortation apply, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your
might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the
grave where you go." Therefore "give no sleep to your eyes nor slumber to
your eyelids. Deliver yourself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as
a bird from the hand of the fowler." Luther said there were three things he
dared not think of without Christ—Sin, Death, Judgment. But if sin be
pardoned, the sting of death is extracted, and the judgment has no terrors.
How "blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity"! "Being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
If poor in this world, countless wealth is in the assurance, "There is now
no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." The sick are healed when
they hear His word, "Your sins are forgiven." If dying, behold we live when
our Father says, "This my son was dead, and is alive again."
This petition blends with those that precede. "Our
Father;" being this, pity and pardon Your erring children. "Hallowed be Your
Name;" by the exercise of the mercy it implies, and in the hearts of
grateful penitents. "Your Kingdom come;" in the extension of forgiveness, in
the increased number of the forgiven. "Your Will be done;" by the
manifestation of Your love in the canceling of debt. "Give us this day our
daily bread;" but in vain the supply of all temporal wants unless the hunger
of the soul is satisfied "Forgive us our debts."
V—FORGIVENESS OF ONE ANOTHER
The appended clause, "As we forgive our debtors,"
indicates a necessary qualification for presenting the request, for only
those who forgive are in a state of mind truly to ask to be forgiven; it
lays down a condition of obtaining the boon, for none may expect forgiveness
who do not themselves forgive. Many who offer the prayer overlook the
condition; they desire the benefit, but are not anxious to perform the duty;
they seem to think they may confidently expect forgiveness, while only
admitting that it is their duty to exercise it; at best, they seem to think
that the wish or the intention to forgive entitles them to expect actual and
immediate forgiveness from God.
Some, out of mistaken regard for evangelical truth,
interpret the qualification less literally than the petition. They ask, How
can any good quality in ourselves recommend us to Divine favor? How can
works be a plea when we are suppliants for mercy? How can we dare to mention
our imperfect forgiveness of each other's trivial faults, when we seek such
full forgiveness of so great a debt from God? And how can we venture to ask
Him to pardon us in the manner and degree in which we pardon our brethren?
Thus the mental interpretation given to the clause is frequently
this—"Forgive us our debts, and help us to forgive our debtors;" or,
"Forgive us, and then enable us to forgive others." But the petition is
conditional not on a purpose, but on a fact; not on the admission of a duty,
but on the performance of it; not on something to be done hereafter, but
done already. It is a precedent necessity, not a resulting effect. So the
R.V. accurately renders it. Luke expresses the habitual state of mind of the
petitioners "For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us;"
Matthew, the already-accomplished fact—"As we also have forgiven our
debtors."
1. Human forgiveness—A difficult duty. Our
depraved nature is characterized by self-seeking. Our predominant thoughts,
desires, exertions have reference to our own safety, property, honor. We
think more of our rights than of our obligations, of what others owe us
rather than of what we owe them. We are apt to demand all; we are impatient
of delay or excuses, stand up for our rights, resent injuries, and insist on
the uttermost farthing. This is seen in the attitude of nations, which are
but combinations of individuals. Why are armies and navies maintained at
such prodigious cost, if not sternly to demand national rights? How often
some slight to an ambassador or insult to a flag is supposed to justify
wholesale slaughter! Most wars would have been prevented had there been a
mutual disposition to forgive a debt, instead of a blind determination to
enforce it. Beyond all reasonable plea of order and defense, are there not
many professed Christians who consider that national honor demands the
enforcing of national debts at whatever cost? If this spirit is regarded as
legitimate in public affairs, it is not surprising that it should influence
private life. But it is opposed to the plain teaching of Christ and His
apostles—"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those
who despitefully use you. Avenge not yourselves. If your enemy hungers, feed
him; if he thirsts, give him a drink. Charity suffers long, and is kind; is
not easily provoked." In this prayer our Lord specially emphasized this
appended condition—"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you—but if you forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
What is meant by this forgiveness of one another? The
term debt is figurative as regards our relations with God, and means guilt
and liability to penalty. In relation to ourselves, therefore, the term does
not necessarily mean monetary obligations. If all such debts are to be
remitted, none would be incurred; no one would lend if lending were
equivalent to giving; credit would be unknown in business, and commerce
would be almost impossible. Monetary obligations ought to be held sacred by
the debtor; but though the creditor may rightly claim payment, he ought, in
the spirit of this prayer, not to exercise undue pressure, not to take
advantage of the debtor's difficulties, but if misfortune has overtaken him
and he is unable to pay, to exercise patience and abate the claim rather
than risk the ruin of the debtor. Nor does the condition involve the
loosening of moral obligations. There are social and relative duties always
owing from one to another. We are not called on to submit to injustice. The
interests of society require that law should be upheld. "The magistrate
bears not the sword in vain." True humanity requires that law-breakers be
punished. A Christian, asking forgiveness from God, may therefore
consistently prosecute the ruffian and the thief, whose immunity would
encourage them in further outrage. But in thus vindicating law a Christian
should not indulge personal revenge, but feel kindly towards the wrong-doer
even when he calls upon the law to exact its righteous debt.
Moreover, forgiveness by man must necessarily be very
different to forgiveness by God. Weak, selfish, sinful, our forgiveness must
be as inferior to His as we are to Himself; and debts incurred to His
supreme majesty must be immeasurably greater than any of the petty
obligations we incur towards each other. When therefore we ask God to
forgive us "as we forgive our debtors," we do not mean that our forgiveness
can measure His either in nature or amount. But notwithstanding such
considerations, the duty of forgiving as God forgives must not be explained
away. Certain resemblances are essential.
Our forgiveness must be sincere. Much that passes
current as forgiveness is so in appearance only. Sometimes payment is not
exacted because there is no power to exact—"we do not bite because we have
no teeth;" sometimes because we deem it inexpedient, fearing discredit or
retaliation; sometimes because we only postpone exaction for a better
opportunity; and sometimes non-exaction is counterbalanced by cherished
ill-will, alienation, detraction, and the lingering resentment, "Though I
forgive, I can never forget." This is not forgiving as God forgives. "He
makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good;" and those who are truly
His children must cherish kind feelings even towards their foes. Our perfect
Exemplar, "when He was reviled, reviled not again," but prayed for His
murderers. Our forgiveness must be genuine; no secret grudge must be
cherished; our state of mind should be as free from bitterness as if the
record of the wrong had completely faded away from our memory.
But is not the repentance of one who has wronged us a
condition of our pardon, even as our repentance is a condition of God's
pardon? "If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him; and if he
repents, forgive him." If God does not receive us until we repent, we
are not required to assure of forgiveness any wrong-doer until he has
expressed sorrow. But prior to our repentance God cherishes pity, shows
kindness, waits to be gracious, is ready to pardon, makes advances, calls us
to Himself, beseeches us to be reconciled. "Return to me, and I will
abundantly pardon." Therefore we, on our part, before a "brother" who has
offended us asks forgiveness, are bound to cherish kind feelings towards
him, to pray for him, and to be willing to express forgiveness when he
repents. Many who are not Christians might profess to forgive an enemy
crouching for pardon, for their pride might be satisfied with his
humiliation; but a child of God is to overcome his resentment prior to the
repentance of the evil-doer, and to be ready to forgive before forgiveness
is sought. Although "the wrath of God abides" on all sinners who persist in
sin, his mercy is waiting to pardon—an ocean ready to flow out towards the
sinner and cover all his transgressions, as soon as the sinner's repentance
opens the floodgate. If thus we are to cherish forgiveness even towards
those who do not repent, how surely should we pardon generously, gladly, all
who do!
When an offender has been forgiven and repeats the
offense, we are apt to feel discharged from further leniency. But this our
Lord forbids. When Peter said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against
me and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not to
you, Until seven times, but until seventy times seven." The apostles
replied, "Lord, increase our faith;" as much as to say that such forgiveness
was impossible without strong faith; to which He answered, "If you had faith
as a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this sycamore tree, Be plucked
up by the root, and be planted in the sea; and it should obey you." What is
impossible in our own strength becomes easy by the power of Christ, and this
becomes ours by faith; so that we shall be able in the fullness of its
meaning to say, "Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone
who is indebted to us."
In Voices from Calvary, on "Father, forgive them,"
Dr. Stanford says, "This forgiveness is not to be on one side only. The way
some have treated us has really been very bad; but have they not some ground
to say the same thing of us? If we obey this voice, 'forgiving one another
even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you,' this forgiveness is going
on all round. You forgive me; I forgive you; individuals, individuals;
churches, churches; let bygones be bygones. O Lamb of God once slain! steep
us in the spirit of Your passion, show us the glory of Your cross, let Your
mighty love melt our hardness, quell our pride, and so master us all, that
each one may forgive his brother though seventy times seven he has sinned
against him. O Lord, our Vine, dwell in us richly, that so we may live with
Your life, and love with Your love, more and more, forever and ever."
2. Human forgiveness a condition of Divine—Our
forgiveness of each other is linked with forgiveness from God. The parable
of the unmerciful servant is recorded immediately after the precept to
forgive "until seventy times seven," with the solemn warning—"So likewise
shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive
not every one his brother their trespasses." "Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy." Does then our mercifulness to man deserve mercy
from God? Some have encouraged this notion by a false interpretation of the
text, "Charity covers a multitude of sins:" as though a forgiving
disposition towards others atones for a man's own sins against God. The
meaning is clear from Prov. 10:12—"Hatred stirs up strifes—but love covers
all transgression;" and 17:9—"He who covers a transgression seeks love, but
he who repeats a matter separate friends." So "charity suffers long, and is
kind," and instead of noticing every offense, "is not easily provoked." How
can the pardon fellow-sinners give each other be a title to pardon from the
God they have all offended? As well might a company of rebels plead that as
they had forgiven each other their petty wrongs in prison, they might all
claim exemption from the penalties of high treason! This is a statement not
of claim, but of fact—a fact the principle of which is involved in every
true asking of pardon from God. There cannot be any genuine prayer for
pardon unless we are ourselves cultivating a forgiving spirit; for the
following reasons—
1. Pardon is always linked with repentance of sins,
and these include an unforgiving spirit—I must "cease to do evil" if I
would plead the promise of the scarlet becoming white as snow. The
unrighteous man must "forsake his thoughts," if he would hope that God will
"abundantly pardon." Therefore he ceases from cherishing an unforgiving
spirit, with which the penitence implied in the prayer is incompatible. My
faults against God include faults against men. I say to God, "I am very
sorry for words, actions, thoughts, injurious to my fellow-men; sorry for a
proud, exacting, unforgiving spirit. Forgive me this debt!" How can I be
encouraging that for which I am sorry? My asking pardon means that I
renounce the sins confessed. If penitent, I have a humbling sense of my
debts to God, and must therefore be humble as regards debts to myself.
Without saying the words "for we also forgive," the fact is implied in the
prayer, "Forgive us."
2. Faith in God's mercy is incompatible with
unmercifulness in ourselves—True prayer for pardon implies reliance on
God's pardoning mercy. We believe that He has great forgiveness for our
great guilt; and to this we appeal. Can we at the same time be cherishing an
unforgiving spirit? To say, "Forgive me, although I do not forgive others,"
is a prayer which cannot reach the throne of grace. "When you stand praying,
forgive, if you have ought against any; that your Father also which is in
heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither
will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses." The
forgiveness is to be exercised then and there; not postponed. It must
precede the prayer; it is a condition of the answer. Whatever may be our
sense of the justice of our claim and the wrong done us, we cannot as
sinners truly ask or reasonably expect remission of our debt against Divine
justice, unless cultivating in ourselves a merciful spirit to others.
"Though justice be your plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation—we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer does teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy."
3. Gratitude to God for pardon received or expected
prompts forgiveness of others—Is this our daily prayer? Then yesterday
we received pardon in reply to yesterday's petition; and today we should
gratefully remember the many pardons of the past. The prayer of faith we now
present anticipates a renewal of the gift and augments our obligation.
Gratefulness urges us to please our Benefactor, and God who forgives us bids
us glorify Him by forgiving others. Gratitude produces gladness and inspires
beneficence. I am happy in release from debt, and adore God's mercy. Must
not this produce mercifulness? My debt to God is infinitely greater than any
debt of my fellow-servant to myself. If God loves me in spite of my many
sins, may I not see something to love in the fellow-servant who wrongs me?"
Believers are not forgiven because they forgive; no, they forgive because
they are forgiven; and thus it is, that feeling themselves forgiven by God,
they are lovingly constrained to forgive" (J. de Valdez, tr. Betts).
4. The prayer includes those who wrong us—It is
not "Forgive me," but "Forgive us." We appear before God in company with
those who are our debtors. We pray for our enemies—"O God, forgive us; with
me, forgive also this man who has injured my property, reputation, honor;
this man who has cheated, maligned and hates me; for in so acting towards me
he has sinned against You, and his debt to You exceeds that which he owes to
me; our Father, forgive him!" How obvious it is that in truly offering this
prayer, "Our Father, forgive us," we have already ourselves forgiven!
5. It is the prayer of a child of God—Those who
truly say, "Our Father," love and resemble Him, and are "merciful even as
their Father who is in heaven is merciful." "If a man say, I love God, and
hates his brother, he is a liar—for he who loves not his brother whom he has
seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" God's children do already
"love one another," and "are in charity with their neighbors," with all who
under the same Fatherhood are brethren. Without a forgiving spirit, we can
have no true assurance of belonging to this Brotherhood. Its absence
invalidates our repentance and contradicts our prayer. Sin cannot have been
forgiven while unrenounced. What is our prevailing spirit towards men? Are
we chiefly bent on maintaining "our rights," and compelling others to pay
their dues? If so, is it not likely that we may in our hearts ascribe to God
the same disposition? "With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to
you again." If in ourselves a spirit of exaction rather than of forgiveness
is cherished, is it not reasonable that we should lose confidence in the
Divine forbearance? A master harsh in his requirements, a parent severe
towards his children, a citizen claiming all his rights regardless of
others, a man of business stern in enforcing all his dues, will naturally
regard God rather as a stern ruler than a forgiving Father, transferring to
Him their own spirit of exaction rather than attributing to Him delight in
showing mercy.
"Pay me what you owe; is not that our first natural
thought? There is abundance of good-natured charity afloat in the world; but
this is the fretwork of the building—the pillars of it, we seem to think,
are our rights; rights to position, property, rank, the homage of
others, their gratitude. It is the most fantastic of all dreams that a man
can cut his being into two portions, call one of them religious and the
other mundane, and administer them on directly opposite principles. One or
other must come to nothing. If we believe that individual Right is the great
principle we are to assert in all common transactions, that principle will
be carried to the highest ground, and so far as we acknowledge a Divine
Being at all, we shall regard Him as one like ourselves; we shall feel that
His main desire is to assert His rights over us. If self-will governs the
world, if we confess it to be our lord, it holds us in its iron bonds; we
are in prison, the evil spirit is our jailor, and we cannot come out until
we have paid the uttermost farthing" (Maurice). On the contrary, may I not
hope that God who has helped me to exercise compassion has had compassion on
me? If in my heart a pardoning rather than an exacting spirit prevails, is
it not likely that my own appeal will find response when I pray, "Father!
forgive"?
In this model-prayer our Lord has undoubtedly linked
together the duty of forgiveness with the prayer for it. The connection
always existed, but it is here so expressed that no one may ask the blessing
without being reminded of the duty. Knowing how apt we are to neglect mutual
forgiveness, He gave us a prayer so expressed, that in applying for daily
pardon we are compelled to profess our readiness to pardon each other.
Forgiveness is the law of Redemption, binding God to men, and men to men.
"Forbearing one another and forgiving one another; even as the Lord forgave
you, so also do you." The obligation is involved in every clause of the
prayer. "Our Father;" therefore we are brethren and should forgive each
other. "Hallowed be Your Name; "we hallow it by cultivating the compassion
it reveals. "Your kingdom come;" it is based on reconciliation, and comes in
proportion as men live together in forbearing love. "Your will be done;"
this is His will, that we forgive those who are indebted to us. "Give us
bread;" should we not forgive those who with ourselves are dependent on the
same fatherly care? "Forgive us;" should not we forgive who require so much
forgiveness?
This petition passes a solemn condemnation on those who
refuse to forgive. It almost amounts to asking God not to forgive them!
Chrysostom says, "God appoints you yourself the master of the verdict. The
judgment you pass upon yourself He will pass upon you." And Luther says,
"This prayer will, in the sight of God, be a sin; for when you say, 'I will
not forgive,' and stand before God with your precious prayer, and
mumble with your mouth, Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,
what is that but saying, O God, I am a debtor to You, and there is one
who is the same to myself. Now, I will not forgive him, and so do not
forgive me. I will not obey Your command, although You have told me to
forgive; I will rather renounce You and Your heaven, and all, and go to the
devil forevermore."
Let us then cultivate this grace of mercy. One means of
conquering an unforgiving spirit is ceasing to look back on the injuries
which provoked it. Memory is good, but sometimes forgetfulness is better.
Let us treasure the records of kindnesses to stimulate gratitude, but erase
those of injuries lest they continue to rouse ill-will. When Antony showed
the dagger-rents in Caesar's robe, the people were roused to fury as if they
beheld the murder in the very act. So imagination may brood over wrongs
until they become a constant presence, rousing ever fresh indignation. Let
us rather supplant such pictures by their opposites. Let us think of any
good qualities in our enemies, any wrongs done by ourselves. Let us not only
extinguish the spark, but bury the powder. Let us bear in mind our great
debt to God and His great remission-that these injuries from men were
permitted by God, and that in submission to Him we should cease to be
angry with them—and also that we possess in Himself infinitely more
than will compensate for any injury from man. If every wrong which pains us
becomes an occasion of renewed communion with God, we should feel that with
such a refuge we ought not to be vexed with the storm which drives us into
it; that with such an exhaustless treasury to supply the loss, we ought not
to be reluctant to forgive the thief; and that God's love and Christ's
example should have more effect in producing gentleness than any injuries
from man in stirring up wrath.
Forgiveness produces in us real happiness, while an
unforgiving spirit is ever a source of disquiet. We attain a higher dignity
when we remit than when we resent. "Greater is he who rules his spirit than
he who takes a city. It is the glory of a man to pass by a transgression."
Does our foe raise clouds of anxiety, a tempest of passion? A forgiving
spirit says to the troubled waters, "Peace, be still." Does he rob us of
wealth or reputation? To forgive him more than restores it; our treasury
becomes richer by this seeming loss. Like those who fire in retreat, we
conquer when we seem to yield. Our escutcheon is the brighter by the
dishonor flung at it. "When I am weak, then am I strong." Anger may cast our
foe prostrate, but forgiveness may raise him as a friend. Wrath can do no
more than slay him, but love transforms and makes him an ally. I may conquer
him by force, but to forgive is to conquer my own spirit by love, and so
makes me "more than a conqueror." "To render evil for good is devil-like; to
render evil for evil is beast-like; to render good for good is man-like; to
render good for evil is Godlike."
"The quality of mercy is not strained;
It drops as the gentle dew from heaven
Upon the place beneath—it is twice blessed,
It blesses him that gives and him that takes."
Our Father, forgive us. We all have sinned against both
You and one another. By Your grace we have been enabled to forgive others.
This is no proof of merit in us, but the result of mercy in You. Grant us
more grace to forgive the small debts due to us from our brother, and grant
us day by day forgiveness of the great debts due from us to You.