“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”
— Matthew 6:14
Notice, this verse immediately follows the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus didn’t say feed people as God has fed you. He didn’t say keep other people from being tempted as God has you. In the prayer, Jesus acknowledged God—His holiness, supremacy, reign, power, love, mercy, forgiveness, and wisdom.
The only time in the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus speaks about what a person is to do is in relation to forgiving another person. In the rest of this prayer, Jesus speaks about what God does, can do, or will do in relation to us.
Why is it significant that Jesus spoke about our action in a prayer to God? Why did He choose to speak to us about forgiving a person?
In each of the other parts of this prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray to God recognizing who He is and the most important things we need. He emphasized our relationship to God. When we pray, we are expressing our relationship with God. Just like when we speak with people with whom we are in relationship, we speak with God through prayer.
Still, why did Jesus include the phrase about us forgiving as God forgives? God created us for relationship. We desire relationship with Him and other people. In every other part of this prayer, Jesus spoke about our relationship with God in recognition of who He is. If we do not forgive people, it disrupts our relationships with God and people. Unforgiveness is like a seismic shift in the earth’s core. We don’t fit together well with God and people if we harbor hatred, anger, or grudges.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to recognize who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. In doing this, our relationship with God stays intact and not fractured. Jesus, in this prayer, also reminded us God forgives and restores relationship with us, and that we must forgive and restore relationships with people as God forgives us.
Jesus emphasized this by pointing it out in verse 14. He said, if you forgive people their wrongs against you, then God will forgive you. Is God’s forgiveness conditional? It’s conditioned on our repentance and confession. When we need to forgive someone, all the fault for the break in relationship is not on the other person. We have erred, too. When we forgive the person, we end up recognizing our part in the fractured relationship. This recognition leads us to confession and repentance to God. Forgiving others renews relationship with the person and with God. Verse 14, then, is accurate; we forgive others, then God forgives us.
“Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us” (Matt 6:12).
We pray in recognition of who God is. We forgive in recognition of God’s forgiving us. Both are about relationships. God created us for vertical and horizontal relationships. Forgiving renews vertical and horizontal relationships as does regular talking with God and significant people in our lives.
