‘Forgive us our debts…’

Forgiveness removes the guilt and penalty of sin and restores our closeness with God.

Humanity’s greatest problem

Humanity’s greatest problem is sin. It leaves us spiritually dead and alienated from God and from one another. The only solution is forgiveness, and the only source of that forgiveness is Jesus Christ.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), but Christ bore sin’s penalty and made it possible for us to be forgiven and receive eternal life through faith in Him (John 3:16). What a glorious reality.

Judicial forgiveness

Scripture speaks of two aspects of forgiveness: judicial and fatherly. Judicial forgiveness comes from God, the righteous Judge, who removes our sin from the record and frees us from its penalty and guilt.

At justification, He forgives all our sins — past, present and future — and declares us righteous because of Christ. That is why nothing can ever separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38–39).

Fatherly forgiveness

Fatherly forgiveness is given to believers by their loving heavenly Father when we confess our sin and seek forgiveness. This is the aspect Jesus addresses in Matthew 6:12.

When a child disobeys his father, the father–child relationship is not ended. The child is still part of the family and remains under the father’s love. Yet their closeness is disturbed until the child admits the wrong and seeks forgiveness.

In the same way, sins committed by believers do not remove our salvation, but they affect our fellowship with God. He still loves us and remains our Father, but the sweetness of fellowship is disturbed until we seek reconciliation through confession.

Grace is not permission to sin

As Christians, we are judicially forgiven and will never be condemned. But we must never turn grace into permission to sin. Those who are in Christ hate sin, love God and grow in holiness.

Always remember: sin is not sweeter than fellowship with God.

Even when the righteous person falls, he rises again (Proverbs 24:16) — not because he is strong in himself, but because God’s grace holds him.