“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
We cannot do God’s work without the supply of our physical needs: therefore the last prayer was offered. But equally we cannot do God’s work unless we are at peace with Him: therefore this prayer follows. Sin may be regarded from many points of view—as a flaw or mistake in our nature or conduct: as a violation or transgression of a divine law (as in ver. 14): or (as here) as an act by which we have robbed God of His rights and incurred an obligation or debt which we cannot satisfy, and in regard to which we can only appeal to the divine pity. From the first point of view what is needed is nothing else than recovery and correction: from the second point of view we need forgiveness, but forgiveness of such sort as is only morally possible when our will is brought back into harmony with our Father’s will. Only from the third point of view is forgiveness the same as being let off. And the position which the petition to be forgiven holds in this prayer, preventsus from supposing that we can be “forgiven our debts” without having been brought into union with God’s will and into the fellowship of His Kingdom.
On the principle involved in this petition our Lord Himself immediately comments:
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Here is the divine principle which, as we noticed before, is made so plain in the parable (St. Matt. xviii. 31), where the unthankful servant finds that all the debt which had been forgiven him has rolled back upon him because he in his turn has behaved himself unforgivingly, unmercifully, towards his fellow-servant. God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men; and if we want to know how the face of God looks towards us, we must examine ourselves to see what is the aspect we present towards them.
“And bring us not into temptation.”
Now, this clause is intelligible enough to our hearts, but rather difficult to explain exactly. St. James writes, “Mybrethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” How can we pray not to be tempted or tried when we know that it is only through temptation that we can become strong? One explanation is to be got from our Lord’s words to His disciples at the time of His agony in the garden: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” If you fail to be on your guard, if you live carelessly, without watching or praying, God suffers you, as a punishment, to be brought within the scope of temptation, and you find it too strong for you. Therefore the prayer may be interpreted by expansion thus: make us watchful and prayerful, so that we never be suffered to fall into temptation as into a snare. But it seems better to interpret the prayer more generally as the expression of that self-distrust for which we have only too sufficient grounds, as a prayer like that of Christ’s,“Father, if it be possible let the cup of trial pass from me without my drinking it, nevertheless, thy will be done.”[72]
“But deliver us from the evil one.”
That is “from the devil.” Modern society seems to be very unwilling to believe in the devil or diabolical temptation. It has been cleverly said, “Satan never did a more successful stroke than when he persuaded people to disbelieve in his own existence.” There is truth in that. It is a real hindrance to our spiritual struggle, and an increase of despondency, if we forget that evil solicitations come, not only from our own nature, but from evil spirits. Moreover, if Christ is a true prophet—if He discerned the conditions of our spiritual struggle—certainly diabolical temptation must be real, for He is always talking of it. When He sees evil at work, evil for body or soul, His mind penetrates behind the appearances and detects hostile willsworking to pervert the kingdom of God, hostile wills which He knows are to be at last subdued to God and are even now controlled by Him, but which He knows also to be at present active and malevolent. He looks forth upon the disorder of the world and says, “An enemy hath done this.” And He teaches us to pray for deliverance from the evil one.
The familiar doxology “For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen,” which in our Church, though not over the greater part of Christendom, follows here, was not in the original Lord’s Prayer, though it was added to it very early. It was a doxology in use in the early Church, which was added at the end of many of the prayers, and which in very early times came to be attached to the Lord’s Prayer in some of the manuscripts. It was thus given a place which it cannot rightly claim, though it states, grandly enough, the reason why we thankfully worship the Father.