The Lord’s Prayer: Unless you Forgive, God will not Forgive you

From time to time someone will exposit Scripture in a way that challenges our doctrine, or our tradition. Dr. Farley makes the case that we should not be praying the Lord’s Prayer. Please give his talk a listen before reading further. It will provide context for the points I want to highlight.

The first Century church received teaching directing the Lord’s Prayer be prayed three times a day. For centuries the Lord’s Prayer has been prayed countless times every day. It is an unquestioned tradition. I believe that long standing tradition has muddled our understanding of New Covenant principles, most especially our understanding of God’s forgiveness. In addition, the prayer looks forward to things that were soon fulfilled.

Let’s begin with a very basic New Covenant principle.

Colossians 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

Our standing before God no longer rests on our law keeping. The regulations have been taken away and they no longer condemn us. God has forgiven us all our sins. Those sins were forgiven at the Cross long before we ever committed them. No sin was left out. All the sins of our entire life are forgiven. Not just our past sins, but all sins, past, present, and future. All of them. Every one of them. ALL. Jesus died to take away the sins of the whole world. We appropriate that good news when we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord. We died to the law and it no longer has power over us. It can no longer hold us accountable for the wrongs we commit. God has freed us from that system of judgement.

The Cross is a turning point from external law keeping to an indwelling of Christ in those who put their faith in Him. We are alive with Christ. Our walk is by the Spirit not by law keeping. We stand before God with a righteousness that is not our own, it is Christ’s. The is a made clear in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

The blood sacrifice on the Cross established the New Covenant. God has made His people perfect. We are complete in Christ. This is a onetime event with continuing effect. We are as complete in Christ as we will ever be. Faith in Jesus establishes us in a Covenant process that is making us holy. We have been made perfect and we are being made holy. That is God’s promise to us, and He is accomplishing it.

Hebrews 10:12-14 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

What does our forgiving others look like under the New Covenant where all our sins are forgiven? Paul is clear on this subject. He is consistent with our sins having been fully forgiven on the Cross.

Eph 4:31, 32 You must put away all bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and slanderous talk—indeed all malice. Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you. [NET]

Col 3:13 …Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others. [NET]

Our forgiving rests on our having been forgiven. The Lord has forgiven you, so forgive others. This reflects the New Covenant reality of our having all sins forgiven at the Cross. These verses look back to that reality

Now contrast this once-for-all-past forgiveness with what Jesus teaches the disciples in Matthew. Jesus, after giving the Jewish Disciples a model prayer, then explains a vital part of the prayer.

Matt: 6:14, 15 “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins. [NET]

Why does God withhold his forgiveness till we forgive? Isn’t that jarring considering that we are fully forgiven at the Cross? Jesus is teaching something that directly contradicts the concept of forgive as you have been forgiven. The Cross, shed blood, and forgiveness of the sins of the world, all your sins, are not on view.  Jesus is making it clear to His Jewish listeners that God’s forgiveness of their sins is dependent on their performance. It depends on their ability to forgive others.

The Lord’s prayer teaches a conditional forgiveness that belongs to the Old Covenant and not the New Covenant. Jesus Is not teaching New Covenant truth, He is teaching Old Covenant truth. If we tried to live a life where we forgive every slight, every wrong, would we succeed? I talked with a woman who had been severely abused by her stepfather over many years. She struggled to understand what forgiveness would even look like for her. Do we even have a true understanding of what it means to forgive? Do we forgive and then find that we have not really forgiven?

God does not keep score and He does not withhold His forgiveness till you perfectly forgive the wrongs against you. I find the Lord’s prayer shocking in the mouths of Christians in the light of the once-for-all forgiveness found under the New Covenant. It does not align with what Paul teaches about our forgiving based on the past forgiveness of all our sins.

The context of the giving of the Lord’s prayer occurs while Jesus is demonstrating to the Jews that their external law keeping missed the mark. True law keeping rested in their heart attitude. They were not keeping and could not keep the law perfectly. Jesus had come to atone for their failure by giving the blood sacrifice the law demanded. The Lord’s prayer presents another standard that they could not keep.

The Lord’s prayer looks to the coming of God’s kingdom, but isn’t that fulfilled in believers?  Aren’t we now in God’s kingdom? Haven’t we been delivered from the power of darkness?  

Col 1:13,14 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. [NET]

The disciples prayed for deliverance from evil, the evil one. We have been delivered from the power of death that Satan held over us.

Heb 2:14,15 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in their humanity, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil), and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death.

The disciples prayed to their Father in heaven. Jesus is indeed in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father. God the Father, Son and Sprit are also in us and with us. Christ in you the hope of glory.

The Lord’s prayer looks to a time that will shortly be fulfilled for those who were taught it. It speaks to Jews who are still under the law and who are learning that they cannot keep that law. The prayer is an Old Covenant prayer not a New Covenant prayer. It is a prayer for Jews before the cross, not Christians after the Cross.

I understand the resistance to accepting what I am presenting. Our tradition is stamped on our minds and emotions. We have been given a long list of things to believe in our statements of faith. Our doctrines tell us what to think about God and all that His reality means to us. Every Sunday we hear a sermon that informs us how to view our faith, ourselves and our world. We accept so many of these things without hesitation, without question.

Test what I have said above. Prove or disprove it for yourself. Make what you discover your own. You might find that you no longer pray an Old Covenant prayer.