p. 100 | FORGIVE US OUR “DEBTS;” by X. Y.

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 12, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 7

FORGIVE US OUR “DEBTS;”

By X. Y.

PROBABLY there are many to whom the petition, “Forgive us our debts,” according to Matthew, seems, as it once did to me, less satisfactory for use than as given by Luke, “Forgive us our sins,” or than that other form often preferred, though not in our Bibles, “Forgive us our trespasses.” But is it so?

Forgive us all we owe, as we forgive all that is due to ourselves. Our sins are past, and they have been, we trust, already forgiven. But our debts are a perpetually flowing stream, past, present, and future, without end; and we have nothing to pay, now or hereafter, save in Christ the Great Debt-payer. In his name, therefore, and through his perfect payment, we, as perpetual bankrupts, ask perpetual discharge. He is our assignee, to whom we have turned over liabilities incalculable, assets 0. He is also the assignee of all claimants, God and man, to whom all the wronged look for justice, and none in vain. Not only was all justice over-satisfied in his representative death; all dues from man to man or God are to be over-satisfied in the consummation of his almighty atonement. That which concerns the individual sinner is to be made a participator by faith in this vicarious passion and restitution. Forgiveness involves repentance, and repentance involves restitution; and therefore, all three are involved in this petition, for we ourselves can have nothing wherewith to make restitution to God or man. In the nature of the case, we could not exceed the fulfillment of current obligations, even if we were self-perfect beings. All we can give is the will for the deed, thus constituting us bona fide participators in the work which effectually is Christ’s alone. We put our powerlessness, as heartily as if it were strength, into the lift to which he puts his power through us. We come into a partnership to which Christ brings all the capital.

Most of us look back upon a series of grievous defaults, if not positive wrongs, to every one with whom we have had much to do; especially those to whom we have had the most responsible and tender relations, and very largely to the cause of Christ and to the world for which we have been made stewards of the manifold grace of God. Who shall repay this frightful debt? Who shall recompense the hurt of so many souls? Let us not flatter ourselves that the responsibility may pass from us, like a score wiped off with a sponge, by arbitrary decree. Debts are not paid in that way. Here is a distinct quantum of evil that is mine, my work, my product. What can separate me from it? Nothing in the universe, unless it shall be made to enter into the infinite complex of Christ’s redemptive work. When, therefore, we pray, “Forgive us our debts,” we mean “Forgive and fulfill for us and through us all we owe to God and man.” To repeat, he is the Great Assignee of all claims, and at the same time he is every creditor’s creditor by an ample balance, and so able to clear every debtor to the uttermost. “Against thee, and thee only, have I sinned.”

But “we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.” Do we? Are we, with this divine largeness of heart, generously forgetting all dues that should come to us from those whom we have benefited or may benefit, ready beforehand to take their defaults as if they were no defaults? Or, are we looking for what we conceive ourselves entitled to, especially returns of

kindness, affection, gratitude, and that not only with desire, which may be consistent with forgiveness of debts, but with a feeling of more or less urgent demand, and a readiness to feel hurt at a disappointment of our just expectations? And why should we not? Because it is not like our Father who is in Heaven, and doubly because we have had to ask all our own debts freely forgiven. We have taken the benefit of God’s bankrupt act; in so doing we have turned over all our accounts and bills receivable to our assignee, and we must recognize that there is henceforth nothing due to us from anybody, but only to him. Should we not, then, from our hearts, forgive every one that is indebted to us, lend, hoping for nothing again, and freely give as we have freely received?—X. Y., in Christian Weekly.