A. C. Deane: There are some slight but interesting differences of wording in the petition for forgiveness as recorded in the First and Third Gospels. St. Matthew's version, literally rendered, is:
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven our debtors
and St. Luke's:
Forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves forgive every one indebted to us.
Another interesting variant is that of the Old Syriac version, which seems often to reproduce the original Aramaic with special fidelity. In place of the Matthean "we have forgiven," or the Lucan "we forgive," it has "we will forgive." According to the First Gospel, those using the Prayer say that they have forgiven already; according to the Third, that they forgive habitually, and in the Syriac version they promise that they will forgive. With all, obviously, the sense is practically identical; in each he who uses the Prayer accepts the condition on which our Lord insisted often, that we may not ask forgiveness of God unless we ourselves are ready to forgive our fellow-men. Such slight variations may represent, as we have seen already, slightly differing forms of the Prayer as taught by our Lord at different times. But the Matthean "debts" seems more probably the equivalent of what He said than the Lucan "sins." This evangelist himself has "debtors" in the second half of the sentence, and we may feel sure that the thought of the two parts - "our debts," "our debtors" would correspond. "Forgiveness of sins" was a phrase so constantly used in New Testament and other early Christian writings that we can easily understand how it would come naturally to mind and be written down in place of forgiveness of "debts." Yet our conviction that "debts," used by St. Matthew, more probably represents the word used by our Lord Himself in teaching the Prayer is strengthened when we recollect other passages in which he enforced the same truth. Particularly we shall remember the parable of the Two Debtors (Matt. 18:23-35) - of the man who was forgiven a debt of pounds but would not forgive a debt of pence.
Again, it may be thought that the difference of meaning between "sins" and "debts" is not important. The Greek word rendered "sins" [hamartia] means literally "a missing of the mark," so that "going astray" or "trespass" represents it accurately. The word rendered "debt" means, when not used figuratively, a literal "money-debt," and has been found in this sense in various papyri. It is true, of course, that all "sin" is, in some degree, a failure to pay our just debts to God - our debt of obedience, our debt of gratitude. Yet I incline to think that there is a distinction, and that when Jesus bade us pray "forgive us our debts", His choice of this word shows Him to have meant particularly what are termed "faults of omission." These, in the strict sense, are debts to God which we have failed to pay.
For it was upon these that He laid most stress in His doctrine. To regain its force, we must needs remember how amazingly novel it seemed to the people of His time. His standards and values differed widely from those of their accredited religious teachers. These, it is true, described "righteousness" as man's supreme aim, and the casual listener might hear this new Rabbi also extolling "righteousness," and therefore following apparently, the accustomed lines. But as he heard more, he discovered "with increasing astonishment" (Matt. 7:28, etc.) (such is the precise meaning of the word used by the Evangelists) that the content of our Lord's teaching, the ideas He held about the nature of "righteousness," were wholly new. In particular - this is the point which concerns us here - He seemed to be grieved by what men abstained from doing rather than by what they did.
With us it has become a truism that His positive teaching contrasted with the Rabbi's negative morality, that His "thou shalt" replaced the old "thou shalt not." Yet even now it may be doubted if we have made our moral code approximate to that of Jesus, or really have adopted His scale of values, His categories of right and wrong. He made astonishingly little of what were reckoned serious offenses; the omissions, the failures to use opportunities of doing good were the faults He condemned unsparingly. He put before His hearers a tremendous picture of a final judgment; its setting was reproduced, to a great extent, from Apocalyptic writings, but its appraisals of conduct were emphatically new. And in that picture, as we shall remember, the hapless condemned "at the left hand" (Matt. 25:41) were not they who, in the common phrase, "had done wrong," but they who had failed to do right - they who wilfully had missed opportunities for kindness, for comforting, for helping, for showing love to their neighbors.
Therefore it is strictly consonant with the rest of His teaching that His prayer bids us ask that we may be forgiven not for the wrong things we have done, but for the right things we have failed to do; not "forgive us our trespasses," but "forgive us our debts." Our trespasses also need forgiveness, beyond doubt. Yet He might suppose that, without prompting, we should seek God's pardon for these, while we are apt to think of less account, or to ignore entirely, those faults of omission which in fact are far more serious. Many a conscience is not seriously perturbed as it reviews the definitely wrong actions of which it has cognizance. Without undue boasting, a great many people are able to feel that -if only through the circumstances of their lives, their upbringing, and their freedom from the grosser temptations - they have been able to keep themselves comparatively free from what are commonly thought of as really base forms of moral turpitude. Their lapses (for which they are quite ready to ask the Divine forgiveness) have not been, they feel, very numerous. On the whole, they do not seem to themselves to have done a great deal of wrong. But how this complacency crumbles away if they come to apprehend Christ's view, and reckon the loss of each opportunity for doing good as real sin! How innumerable are the debts to God and our neighbor - and to God through our neighbor - we have failed to pay! And it is these - these lost opportunities, it seems - which Jesus thought the most serious of all failings. Does not that truth drive home to us our need of forgiveness?
Therefore, if we retain the familiar form of words and say "Forgive us our trespasses" when we repeat the Paternoster, we shall not use the sentence rightly unless we remember its true meaning, given in the Bible version of the Prayer, "forgive us our debts" - remission of debts left unpaid, forgiveness for missed opportunities, for kind words and deeds unsaid and undone. "Forgive us our debts!"
II
To remember this meaning will add also to the poignancy which the second clause of the petition has for us. In practice it is the "debts," owed to us but unpaid, that we find hardest to forgive our neighbor. No doubt, if we think that he has done us a definite wrong by word or deed, the task of forgiving him from our hearts is none too easy. Yet easier it is than to forgive those who have made no effort to pay what we had every right to expect. Perhaps we have done much for them. We have a substantial claim on their gratitude. But when in turn we need their help, when a little kindness or sympathy from them would mean much, and we, who have relied upon it, find that it is withheld - then the sense of injury rankles, and we do not find it easy to forgive these debtors of ours. "As we also have forgiven our debtors" is probably a more difficult word to say with full sincerity than "as we forgive them that trespass against us." But it must be said, if we are to ask that our own debts to God be remitted.
If we wonder why Jesus seemed to view as so far more heinous the faults of omission than those of commission, the reason does not seem beyond our understanding. We may remember that many of the deeds condemned by popular opinion as the worst sins were offenses, in part, against a real moral law, but in part also merely against a sociological code, with a basis human rather than divine. To neglect a chance of kindness on the contrary, was, in the view of Christ, to sin against the law of love - far more important, in His view, than any other. Again, we shall be helped to understand His judgment when we remember the view of God bestowed by Him, and emphasized in the first words of this Prayer. It is addressed to "our Father." There is no fault of children which pains a father so deeply as ingratitude. Let us imagine the instance of two sons; one of them gets into some foolish entanglement, or runs up bills extravagantly. He has done wrong, yet him the father, remembering the temptations of his own hot youth, will find it not very difficult to forgive. The other is a pattern of outward decorum. But he is self-centered and selfish. His father, being unwell, hopes that this son will keep him company for a few days. He does not suggest it, longing that the son should propose it himself. But the son departs, having a more lively engagement elsewhere. He gives never a thought to all that the father has done for him, the self-sacrifice which provided a good education; he makes no attempt at all to repay even a little of this debt of kindness. He ignores it with bland complacency. Will not the father find this attitude much harder to forgive than the other son's lapses from virtue, be grieved far more by the one's faults of omission than by the other's faults of commission? And as God's relation with us (so Jesus taught) is that of a loving father with his children, do we not get a glimpse of the manner in which He must sorrow over our terrible lack of gratitude, our so frequent forgetfulness of all we owe to him? Thinking of this, we seem to understand why our Lord has taught us in His Prayer to say, "Forgive us our debts."
Perhaps a word should be added about the second part of the sentence. When we pray "Forgive us ... as we forgive," clearly that does not mean a request that the Divine forgiveness shall be merely proportionate to ours. Ill would it be for us were there, so to speak, an exact scale of reciprocity, if the pardon we may hope to receive could not exceed the pardon we were able to bestow. We know that our unpaid debts to God are vastly greater than any owed to us by our fellow-men. St. Luke's version of the Prayer safeguards us against such misunderstanding. It replaces "as" by "for," so that unmistakably the petition is not "forgive us in proportion as we forgive," but "forgive us because we forgive." When we use the words, we affirm that we are trying to fulfil the condition which justifies us in asking forgiveness. We may try imperfectly, yet at least we try. Before we can make the petition for ourselves we must try to let the spirit of charity and forgiveness take possession of our hearts. So shall we put ourselves in tune with God, and be made ready to ask, without unfitness, for His pardon. Then, indeed, we are certain of gaining it. For the actions of God, as Jesus taught, are not arbitrary and capricious. They are controlled immutably by His own law. Therefore it is no mere matter of speculation whether or no God remits our debts. Two conditions must be fulfilled. There must be real "repentance" for our failures - which means no mere emotional regret but a steadfast purpose to do better. And there must be the spirit of forgiveness towards our debtors. Let these two things be present, and we can ask forgiveness in full certainty that the prayer will be answered. So prayed, it must gain its end, by God's perpetual law.
III
An attempt to study in full our Lord's teaching about forgiveness would take us too far from our present theme. Yet to understand and use rightly these words of the Paternoster will set us free from misunderstandings that are strangely common. People still speak as though the Master had enjoined a forgiveness quite indiscriminate. His words show how false an idea is this. For one thing we are to be ready to forgive the wrong-doer whenever he shall show penitence, but not before; "if thy brother sin against thee and he repent, forgive him" (Luke 17:3), is the command; if our forgiveness is to be molded upon God's, then we know that to forgive while there was exultant persistence in wrong-doing would be no act of true love. And, for another thing, it is not wrongs in general, still less wrongs done to others, but wrongs done to ourselves only, which we are to be ready to forgive. Not - reverting for a moment to the familiar rendering of the Prayer - "as we forgive them that trespass," but strictly "them that trespass against us." Other injuries must be left to another judgment. Only when we ourselves have suffered have we ourselves the duty and honor of forgiving. Such is the spirit, then, in which we shall make this petition; mindful of our illimitable failures, our ingratitude, our swiftness to judge others harshly. "Forgive us our debts. And this we ask, resolute ourselves to forgive our debtors."
by Anthony C. Deane, Canon of Worcester Cathedral, pre-1939.
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