Verse 9
I. The request. (1) We are in debt to God. We have only to listen to the voice of conscience to admit this at once. For amongst the deepest of all our instincts is the sense of responsibility a feeling that some things are due from us. (2) The Saviour's word, assuming the guilt of sin, proclaims at the same time the possibility of its pardon. How sweet is the suggestion of this word that forgiveness is granted to those who seek it! For forgiveness is a great word. It means forth-giving that is, the absolute dismissal and sending away of that which we acknowledge. This precept assumes the cross which is to follow, on which, owning the sin of men, sharing its curse and praying for its pardon, Christ makes propitiation for the sins of the world. It teaches us that "without money and without price" this most needed and richest of all gifts is to be obtained.
II. The clause which is added to the petition, "As we forgive our debtors." The Saviour does not take away with one hand what He gives with the other, and the addition of this clause does not proceed from any desire to limit the outflow of pardoning grace. He wants, on the contrary, to get the hearts of all who offer this petition into the mood which shall be most receptive of God's infinite gift. Observe: (1) A certain fitness to use and profit by God's blessings is uniformly a condition of their bestowment. Common mercies may be bestowed irrespective of spiritual character. But all His higher gifts are bestowed where they are welcomed, enjoyed, improved where they will be productive of some Divine result. (2) Penitence is the condition of heart to which alone God can impart forgiveness. (3) Wherever there is repentance it is easy to forgive our debtors. When the spirit of all grace has touched us, and our soul has become tenderly sensitive to the greatness of its Saviour, regardful of the claims of man, and obedient to the promptings of its own higher life, then humility beholds no fault equal to its own; and the heart, purged of its selfishness by its contrition, pities those who have injured it, and so penitence easily pardons every fault by which it has been injured.
R. Glover, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer, p. 74.
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