Carrying on from our last look at the so-called "Lord's Prayer," we note that the section of the prayer regarding the forgiveness of sins. This teaching, just as the sections regarding the coming Kingdom and God's will in heaven that we examined is also foreign to the current age. The condition stated is the forgiving of our sins (debts) as we forgive others their sins against us. This is doubly problematic.
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 lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
For if you forgive men for their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men for their sins, neither will your Father forgive your sins.
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has resurrected together with Him, having forgiven you all sins.
-Colossians 2:13
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outbursts, and blasphemies, with all malice, be taken away from you. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.
-Ephesians 4:31-32
We forgive because Christ has already forgiven us. We stop to note that forgiveness of sin ("God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their sins against them" 2 Cor 5:19) is complete. God is holding no one's sins against him. This is why all judgment has been committed to the Son. The Son will judge the works of men for reward, the prize, crowns, etc., but not for sin as sins were fully atoned for in his death, lack of decay in the grave, and resurrection. Men must be reconciled to God to have Life, however.
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. The Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
-John 5:21-23
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
-John 20:30-31
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their sins against them, and has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you in Christ’s stead: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
-2 Corinthians 5:19-21
