Forgive us … as we forgive …

Forgive us ... as we forgive ...

Uh Oh. Major Uh Oh. This sounds really important.

As in the previous verses, there's much more to the Lord's Prayer than just a bunch of words.  There's meaning behind those words.  A meaning that we need to understand to really do what Jesus said before giving us these words - use this prayer as a guideline - not simply for what we must pray - but rather for understanding how we should pray.

You may know this portion of The Lord's Prayer with the words above. Or maybe you know it with the word debt rather than sin. Or maybe trespass. Maybe something else?

Let's start by seeing what the original Greek word was, to try to see what the intent is for this verse.

3783 ὀφείλημα [opheilema /of·i·lay·mah/] n n. From (the alternate of) 3784; TDNT 5:565; TDNTA 746; GK 4052; Two occurrences; AV translates as “debt” twice. 1 that which is owed. 1A that which is justly or legally due, a debt. 2 metaph. offence, sin.  ¹Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.

and

88.299 ὀφείλημαc, τος n: (derivative of ὀφείλωd ‘to sin against,’ 88.298) the moral debt incurred as the result of sin—‘offense, sin, transgression, guilt.’ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν ‘forgive us our sins’ Mt 6:12.  ²Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 773). New York: United Bible Societies.

OK - sin looks like a good word to use. debt is in there as well, although today we generally think of debt as being related to owing money. what about trespass? Well, it turns out what's currently the 3rd definition, going out of style, is an offense, sin, or wrong, according to dictionary.com

So we'll stick with sin, since it's the most obvious. The New Living Translation (NLT) uses this word as well.

Forgive us our sins

forgive us the moral debts that we have racked up as a result of our sins.

I think every Christian knows about the importance of this. We're all sinners as a result of the fall - as a result of Eve and Adam eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And every time we sin - we chalk up (at least) one more moral debt as a result of that sin. Maybe we think that moral debt is owed to the person who we sinned against. Maybe we think, depending on the circumstances, that a moral debt is also owed to others that may be involved either directly or indirectly in the sin we committed.

For instance - if we kill someone, we have affected not only the person who died, but a whole bunch of other people who were in that person's life. They will have something missing in their lives without that person. So maybe we think that's where the forgiveness needs to come from. But what about the people whose lives haven't been touched yet, but would have been if the person had lived. How can one even begin to ask forgiveness from those people?

To make things worse - remember that Jesus said

^{Mt 5:21} “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Does that mean we should ask forgiveness from everyone we ever got angry with?

And what about this -

^{Mt 5:27} “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.