Earlier this week a friend of mine shared with me something that was said in a setting among friends that involved these verses:
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. "
Matthew 6:14-15
I was confident I knew what those verses did NOT say, and reasonably confident that I knew what Jesus was teaching there. My friend and I were on the same page where our understanding of those verses were concerned. She was going to be busy this week and asked if I would take a closer look at them just to be certain we were not "off beam." You don't have to ask me twice to spend time in the Word diving for pearls. After pondering and spending time in the Word, I thought I might as well post the following which is what I sent her regarding those verses.
As Christians we know that our eternal salvation is based on ones recognition of being in a state of sin, revelation that Jesus is the only One that has or will ever be the redemption for our sin, and then by the faith of God receive the Grace of His Son Jesus as our Savior. We come to that revelation and believe it in our heart and confess it with our mouth and we are saved, reborn.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that at He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10
...that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Romans 10:9
Salvation has absolutely nothing to do with what we do, our behavior, our works, and that includes after we are saved.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9
There is no salvation maintenance program that one must stay one step ahead of their sin in order to keep the warranty current on their salvation status. There is no sin, other than denying Jesus Christ as Savior, that is greater than the redemption Jesus purchased for all mankind.
There are things in scripture that lay out a blueprint for our lives, an operations manual if you will. Feeding and clothing the poor, visiting the sick and incarcerated, loving and forgiving others are all examples of some of that blueprint for our daily lives. Faith without works is dead, but God does not withhold forgiveness for wrong things done, or right things like forgiving others not done. Those are two very different things. The forgiveness and total restoration for us was a done deal on the cross. God accepted that payment for ALL sin- past, present and future! Choosing to not forgive someone is wrong, and it has consequences, but not damnation, and certainly not God not forgiving us for it. This forgiveness we received at salvation was the reconciliation back to God for us that Jesus came to give us, and it covers ALL of our sin, including not forgiving others. In that same vein, no one that dies outside of being saved will be able to stand in front of God and have any authority or success on being let into to Heaven just because He was a decent chap and forgave people.
We are the righteousness of God the instant we receive Jesus, salvation. That is because at that instant the Holy Spirit places Jesus in our Spirit. Our old dead man becomes completely alive and permanently a NEW creation. Righteousness and sin do not cohabitate- ever. We live in a flesh body, we have a soul that has emotion, makes decisions and is where our will is, but we ARE a spirit. That spirit is what goes to Heaven, and is where our true life is. That is where Jesus resides in us, and our entire spirit has Him in it.
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 1 Corinthians 5:21
For by one [Holy] Spirit we were all baptized into one body[new birth, Gods’ children]—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
So having laid all of that out there, what is the consequence these two verses refer to?
In essence we are not talking about the reconciliatory forgiveness we received at salvation. We are talking about the vanity of hypocrisy of asking for the forgiveness from God that we refuse to give others. This lack of forgiveness does not have anything to do with our right standing (being His righteousness) with God, but everything to do with the breach in daily fellowship with Him.
In John 13 Jesus uses a foot washing moment to talk to the disciples about how unless He washes them, they can have no part with Him.
Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” John 13:8
Obviously, no one is eternally separated from God because they did not get their feet washed.
In 1 Corinthians we see what the washing does.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:11
Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” John 13:10
The disciples were intimately close to Jesus, daily. They were His disciples, students of what He taught and imitators of what He did. For them there was no spiritual need for a complete washing as a bath would do, but the cleansing from the washing of the daily sin. This type of spiritual daily “foot washing” keeps the fellowship between them and Jesus. Today, it is the daily time with God, the confession of those sins that so easily and regularly beset us that keeps us connected to Him. Not forgiving others is sin and needs to be repented of and forgiven. To not do so interferes with our fellowship, but does not touch our salvation. The “but not all of you” refers to Judas. Refer up in the first two verses of John 13.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son,to betray Him... John 13:1-2
This is key in the two verses we are looking at.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. "
Matthew 6:14-15
In the prayer Jesus models for those He was teaching that day He says:
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Verse 12 says, And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
First off that word has been translated into “transgression” in some versions of the Bible. The word was written “debt”. Here is the word that was used here.
G3783 opheilēma: properly, that which is justly or legally due, a debt; that which is owed that which is justly or legally due, a debt. something owed, i.e. (figuratively) a due; morally, a fault:—debt. (metaphorically) offense, sin.
The root of the word above is G3784 opheilō: (through the idea of accruing); to owe (pecuniarily); figuratively, to be under obligation (ought, must, should); morally, to fail in duty:—behove, be bound, (be) debt(-or), (be) due(-ty), be guilty (indebted), (must) need(-s), ought, owe, should.
Remember this in Matthew’s gospel in the chapter just preceding the one we have been looking at?
But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:22-24
God is all about loving relationship. He want us to abide in His love, and then glorify Him by showing it to others. Now, God is no longer judging the believer. Judgment for our sin has been passed, and the penalty was paid by our dear Jesus on the cross of Calvary. However, men will judge us. As we judge others by imputing anything that exacts something from them, or on them, we are not walking in that love that extends forgiveness. As we judge others by not releasing them with forgiveness, that is how we will be judged and what we have sown is precisely what we will reap. We see this in the Matthew’s gospel in the chapter after the one we are looking at.
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:1-7
Matthew 7 just above is one consequence of not forgiving others.
You may have noticed that I have bolded the words “hypocrite” and “hypocrites” in the verses above. A large portion of Jesus teaching we find in Matthew has to do with religion and the Pharisees self righteousness. Jesus gets very emphatic regarding how dangerous that lifestyle is. He starts out this prayer in Matthew 6 by saying, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.” By the time He gets to verse 12, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” He is clearly saying that if when you go to your Father for forgiveness and are not willing to forgive, you are being a double minded man who can expect nothing from Him, you are therefore no better than a hypocrite! For the believer that is where Matthew 7:1-7 comes in and you will reap the judgement you have sown. Again, since God no longer judges us it will be the sow and reap principle already established.
When we pray for forgiveness we must make the amends toward those that have injured us, clearing the dirt on our feet of the everyday walking through life, just a foot washing. Otherwise this consequence of being hypocritically judgmental, reaping what we sow will come round and bite us.
There is another school of thought out there regarding these verses. Simply put it believes that when someone does not forgive others, they themselves have not genuinely experienced forgiveness from God. I do not believe this to be true of those that are truly believers, period. I do not believe all believers immediately have a compassionate heart toward forgiveness. There are things that take time, process and revelation to actualize. Many scriptures address forgiving others, and those scriptures were talking to the church, believers.
Postlude:
After studying this out and pulling my finds together I thought to look in the Amplified Bible and found this.
For if you forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others[nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God], then your Father will not forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6:14-15
I was delighted to see that because in one small bracketed definition the Amplified Bible made the point I pondered this past week. Once again the AMP did not disappoint.
For now I will close with this:
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32
