Forgive,forgiving,forgiven: Matthew 6:12 and Luke 11:4

The structural dynamics of forgiveness

The semantics of the English word “forgive,” especially in its everyday usage, its etymology, and its suitability as a translation for the term employed in the Gospels offer little toward a careful, precise description of what the Lord’s Prayer teaches disciples to ask of God. Native English speakers use the term “forgive” in a financial context as a synonym for “cancel.” In the context of interpersonal relationships, it can designate anything along the spectrum from what one could describe as the “cheap forgiveness” of “letting something slide” (in rough analogy to the financial meaning) to the interpersonal engagement that affects a profound change in both the victim and the offender, and thus in their relationship. Etymologically, Old English and related early Germanic languages had up to three homonymous prefixes that survive in Modern English as “for(e)”: one connoting “completely,” another “before, in front of,” and the third “for the sake of, in the place of.” Coincidentally, usage of the modern German cognate term vergeben in the senses “to give away, gift, pardon” and reflexively “to damage one’s reputation, to err in distribution, to give falsely,” with the related adjective/adverb vergeben(s) “vainly, uselessly,” seems to reflect the fusion of at least two of the older prefixes. At the same time, it confirms the wide semantic range of cognate terms for forgiveness in Germanic languages. The Greek term employed in both the Matthean and Lucan versions of the Model Prayer, aphiēmi, denotes “to release” and, by extension “to permit” and “to forgive,” with little connotation related to the penitence of the one forgiven or the repair of the damaged relationship between the principal parties. The Hebrew Bible depicts God’s forgiveness of human sin and guilt with the term ns’, “to lift, carry, take away.” Oddly, the Hebrew Bible has little to say about interpersonal human forgiveness. A quick concordance search discovers only two references: From his deathbed, Jacob sends word to Joseph pleading with him to forgive (ns’) his brothers for selling him into slavery (Gen 50:17) and one proverb (17:9) celebrates those willing to forgive (ksh, “to cover”) as champions of love.

In recent years, theologians, pastoral counselors, psychologists of religion, clinical psychologists, and peace and reconciliation practitioners have invested significant energy in exploring the dynamics of forgiveness. Their efforts further indicate the deceptive complexity of the simple plea for God to forgive us “as we have forgiven.” A description of the components and process(es?) of forgiveness, with attention to points at which contemporary investigators disagree, provides a useful starting point for this examination.

A complete statement describing a specific act of forgiveness will have the following structure: “Someone (A) forgives someone (B) for an offense (which B has committed against A).” The verb “forgive” in such a statement belongs to a class of verbs that take double objects. The verb “teach” is analogous: “The professor teaches her students Hebrew.” Teaching involves both the content taught and the student who learns.

Several features of forgiveness already emerge from this simple observation. First, the absolute predicate for forgiveness is a legitimate offense or injury. It may be useful at this point, for example, to distinguish “forgiving” from “excusing.” Excusing someone involves the recognition that the potential “offender” in a given case has a valid excuse (the redundancy seems inevitable) for committing the “offense,” that the “offender” is therefore blameless. Perhaps a shopper leaves his shopping cart in an aisle while reaching for an item on the top shelf, thereby impeding another shopper’s progress. The inconvenience is slight and does not involve a component of malicious intent or callous neglect. In such a case, forgiveness would be too strong. Excusing may even be appropriate in instances involving significant harm but no intention, malfeasance, or neglect. Suppose a driver swerves suddenly to avoid hitting a child rushing into the street and, consequently, collides with a driver in the opposite lane causing appreciable damage to both automobiles. One can hardly assert that the first driver, by attempting to avoid injuring a child, has committed an offense meriting forgiveness. The driver did not intend the negative consequences of the decision to avoid hitting the child and was neither malfeasant nor negligent. In fact, one could argue that society would benefit from a more widespread willingness to excuse in contrast to the eagerness to take offense evident both in grocery store aisles and on the highways.

In a similar fashion, when someone “forgives” a merely supposed offense, the event does not deserve the name “forgiveness.” Much like the modern public relations faux apology, “I’m sorry you were offended by my statement,” which masks the accusation that the offended party really should not be so thin-skinned, forgiving someone when the character of the incident as an offense is disputable may actually level an accusation camouflaged as magnanimity. ³

Contemporary discussion among social scientists and theologians, especially in the discipline of pastoral care and counseling, expends considerable energy on the question of whether the offender’s penitence, including appropriate restitution, constitutes a second predicate for forgiveness. Malcolm and Ramsey observe,

Theologians criticize psychologists for using forgiveness as a therapeutic means simply to feel better about oneself (without taking into account moral and communal factors). In turn, psychologists criticize theologians for turning forgiveness into an “ought” that keeps people (especially those with less agency in their relationships) from claiming what is rightfully theirs. ⁴

Surely forgiving is not tantamount simply to saying that one is not or no longer angry? ⁵ To return to the analysis of the statement “A forgives B for something” in analogy to “A teaches B something,” one can posit that, in the strict sense, true forgiveness requires the engagement of the offender and some form of redressing the harm just as teaching implies learning the content taught. Communication offers another parallel: One communicates successfully only when one’s partner successfully appropriates the content communicated.

Fulsome forgiveness, then, involves a victim of harm (perpetrated consciously if not intentionally), and the damage done to the victim (the content of forgiveness) occupies central importance in at least three respects. First, in forgiving, the victim must acknowledge the damage. Denial or “letting it slide” only masquerades as forgiveness and has no power to restore the victim or to reconcile victim and perpetrator. ⁶ In fact, treatment of the offense in a manner that denies its magnitude or dismisses the responsibility of the perpetrator entails the danger of people “forgiving” (actually forswearing) out of low self-esteem: The victim assumes responsibility for the injury, that is, by arguing that they deserved the offensive treatment. ⁷

Second, a fulsome forgiveness will always aim at the reconciliation of the parties. ⁸ Although a number of studies tout the psychological benefits of forgiving the victim, regardless of the offender’s stance, ⁹ unless the act of forgiveness is to consist merely of an intrapsychic decision to release negative emotions, if it is to bear the fruit of repaired, restored relationship, the perpetrator of the injury must also acknowledge the offense, express regret, and desire reconciliation. The purely psychological benefits that may accrue to the victim cannot be the main, or sufficient, motivation for forgiving. Such “forgiveness” borders on a betrayal of justice and of the victim’s self; it threatens to “[devolve] into condonation of the wrong done.” ¹⁰ It does not address the offense or affects the offender.

Third, the reconciliation that ensues from robust forgiveness must include the offender’s effort to repair the original injury, in part as a demonstration of sincerity. Otherwise, forgiveness faces the accusation that it perpetuates injustice. ¹¹ Suppose that a neighbor borrows and fails to return a power tool, but apologizes readily when confronted without returning the tool. The offender’s failure to attempt to make amends indicates only the appearance of penitence and no interest in true reconciliation. Offenders may be happy when victims have “released” them from the guilt of their original offenses, but they have no remorse. Like a child caught in the candy jar who is “sorry” to have been caught, but not for her action, such an offender is not, in fact, appropriating the forgiveness offered in keeping with its objective: reconciliation. Both parties must confront the reality of the offense. Forgiveness and forgetfulness are not companions. Instead, fulsome forgiveness requires that both parties “remember the injury and change the relationship.” ¹²

Of course, the nature of the offense may restrict the degree of the offender’s restorative efforts. If, for example, the offender has committed an injurious speech act, the damaging words cannot be unspoken (cf. Jas 3:5–10). Restoration in such an instance would consist primarily in the apology, perhaps, although the offender may have opportunities to counteract any damage done to the victim’s reputation or psyche. Similarly, if the offense were to involve bodily harm such as the loss of a limb, the offender obviously cannot restore the loss. She can, however, find some way to help alleviate the limitations on the victim’s life that result from the injury. For these and other reasons, forgiveness, then, may require compromise ¹³ so that the two parties can come together on something less than ideal ground since the original offense has put an ideal solution out of reach.

Of course, viewed as a process leading from the offender’s penitence to the restoration of the relationship between offender and victim, which is to reconciliation, the victim’s decision to forgive constitutes the fulcrum. The difficulty of coming to that decision should not be underestimated. Surely Jesus taught his disciples to pursue justice, but the demand for justice easily morphs into the hunger to see the offender suffer like the victim. Thus, the common understanding of justice as the imposition of a penalty, as vengeance, as “payback,” cannot give rise to forgiveness. Not surprisingly, in fact, psychological studies demonstrate that motivations to seek vengeance, like those to avoid confronting the situation, hinder forgiveness. ¹⁴ Psychological studies have also shown that people find it easier to forgive offenders who exhibit what researchers have termed “spiritual humility,” ¹⁵ that is, those who express regret for their actions with sufficient sincerity. If, however, the Lord’s Prayer establishes the analogy between believers’ responses to offenses committed against them and God’s response to offenses that they have committed against God, ¹⁶ believers cannot predicate the decision to forgive on the worthiness of the offender.

Instead, a number of factors influence the believer’s decision to forgive, or, as van Loon has termed it, to do the “work of forgiveness.” ¹⁷ Minimally, forgiveness incorporates the decision to forego retribution and revenge. It also implies a degree of empathy with the offender that requires one to confront one’s own demands for perfection (from self and others) and admits one’s own imperfections, ¹⁸ and to do so without a sense of shame, that is, not to experience one’s imperfections as, themselves, unforgivable. ¹⁹ Indeed, psychological studies indicate that victims with a high degree of “spiritual humility” and victims who can imagine themselves transgressing are more likely to forgive. ²⁰ Inversely, victims “with low self-compassion [report] more perfectionistic self-presentation [and] less perceived forgiveness . . . than those with higher levels of self-reported compassion.” ²¹ These factors deal with the penitential vector of the broader forgiveness process. A third factor, hope, relates to the desired result. To decide to forgive is to enact respect for the capacity of persons to change. ²² This decision also reflects the victim’s recognition that his or her place in and responsibility to the community requires a commitment to mutuality. ²³ Forgiveness hopes for reconciliation and, when “prevenient” to the offender’s penitence, can even evoke the offender’s positive response. In this sense, forgiveness can be creative; by offering hope for change and restoration, it can create the space in which change and restoration can occur. ²⁴

Forgiveness in Matthew and Luke

The language of the Lord’s Prayer may comport with some or all of the preceding analysis. On its face, however, it is simply too simple to support a conclusion. Fortunately, other treatments of forgiveness and related issues elsewhere in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer guidance.

The issue that manifests itself across Christendom every Sunday (“debts” vs “trespasses”) constitutes a useful point of departure for the examination of the petition in its broader context of the Gospels. Scholars have long recognized that the variation between Matthew’s consistent reference to “debts” (ofeilēma) and Luke’s use of “sins” (hamartia) in the first clause of the petition and “debts” in the second probably reflects the underlying Aramaic term chwb, which means both “debt” and by extension “sin.” Gary Anderson has recently demonstrated the development of the concept of debt as a root metaphor for sin, beginning in the intertestamental period and reaching well into the early rabbinic era. ²⁵ If, as seems very likely, Jesus utilized this Aramaic term in the Model Prayer, did he intend it in its financial or its figurative sense? Alternatively, did he make purposeful use of the ambiguity?

Literary sources and the archeological record certainly indicate that poverty and debt were significant problems in the land of Israel in Jesus’s day. ²⁶ The regularity with which Jesus employed the topic of poverty, including indebtedness, at the center of his parables confirms that Jesus confronted the problem in his teaching. Furthermore, although the Gospels do not record any saying of Jesus—disregarding the possible exception of the Lord’s Prayer—that explicitly enjoins the forgiveness of economic debt, Jesus clearly identified with and advocated on behalf of the poor. The Torah enjoins the forgiveness/remission (Heb. simtah; LXX aphesis) of debt (Deut 15:1–11; cf. Lev 25) and debt-slaves (Deut 15:12–18; Exod 21:2–6) every seventh/Sabbath year, and the return of property to its original owner every Jubilee Year (Lev 25:13, 23–28). Therefore, some scholars consider it likely that Jesus had in mind, and was expressing his opposition to, ²⁷ the so-called prosbul, a legal mechanism instituted, according to mShev 9:3, by Hillel, which permitted a creditor to collect debts even in and even after an intervening Sabbath year. By assigning the collection of the debt to a local court, it took advantage of the legal technicality that the biblical injunction describes a transaction between individuals.

Three additional observations support the case that Jesus meant at least to include an economic perspective along with a figurative sin-debt concept. First, as Bazzana has recently demonstrated, Ptolemaic amnesty decrees use the language of debt forgiveness found in the Lord’s Prayer. ²⁸ Second, Matthew often “spiritualizes” his Aramaic original (Q?) in comparison to Luke as in the beatitude “Blessed are the poor” (Luke 6:20), to which Matthew adds “in spirit” (5:3). Contrary to expectation, Matthew preserves “debts” in both clauses of the petition, while Luke employs both terms. Third, elsewhere, Luke clearly portrays Jesus as an advocate of debt forgiveness (Luke 4:18–21; 6:34–35, 36; 7:41–43; 16).

Of course, Luke only recognizes the reality that, whereas human beings may release one another from financial debt, they do not make financial transactions with God. In other words, assuming the accuracy of the hypothesis concerning the underlying Aramaic term, its usage in the Lord’s Prayer inherently requires the figurative usage in a least one clause. Thus, that figurative sense likely applies to the other clause as well, although, given Jesus’s concern for economic justice, without excluding both senses in reference to human interaction. Contemporary users of the Model Prayer ought not overlook its economic justice harmonies.

Fortunately, Matthew clearly deals with forgiveness as the process ranging from the penitence of the offender to the restoration of the damaged relationship in a manner that permits one to map components of the analysis above onto elements of Matthew’s treatment of the subject. In addition to isolated pericopes, Matthew offers an extended, systematic paradigm for the practice of forgiveness in the church (Matt 18:15–35). Reserving the vexing question of whether forgiveness requires the penitence of the offender for last precisely because it is key, one can begin by noting the significance of the immediate context of Matthew’s extended discussion of forgiveness in the church, namely, Jesus’s discussion of the importance of caring for the “little ones” who are, in reality, the greatest in the kingdom (Matt 18:1–6, 10), a discussion that also includes the parable of the lost sheep (18:12–14). This parable emphasizes the extremes to which God (v. 14) goes to restore an errant “little one” to the fold.

The central text reads almost like a procedural manual outlining a series of steps that the victim should undertake with a view to restoring an errant “little one.” Jesus’s explication of the commandment against murder in the Sermon on the Mount begins, rather, with the putative or actual offender (5:23–26). It culminates in a sequence in which Jesus argues that anger toward and vilification/devaluation of another human being all lay along a spectrum of murderous behaviors and attitudes that put one in danger of the judgment. Significantly, Jesus places such emphasis on avoiding these precursors to actual murder that he enjoins his followers to interrupt plans to worship in the temple to go, instead, immediately to someone who may “[have] something against you (echei ti kata sou)” (5:23). Delay increases the danger that the other party may become murderous. Notably, Jesus does not make clear whether this “something” represents an actual or only a perceived offense. In keeping, however, with the radical tenor of Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, the phrasing suggests that Jesus means that even, or perhaps especially since the danger for another is dire, his disciples should seek reconciliation with another regardless of the accuracy of the other’s perceptions. In situations involving such danger for another, one cannot insist on one’s rights. Pride must not be permitted to interfere with reconciliation and restoration. The objective of restoration carries such weight that the individual who becomes aware that someone has “something against” him or her should immediately approach the other party and seek to “be reconciled” so that this other party may not begin down the path of anger that leads to murder.

In contrast, the first step of the procedure outlined in Matthew 18 involves the victim’s initiative toward an actual offender: “If a member of your community ²⁹ sins against you, go and reprove this one, between the two of you alone. If he or she hears you, you have regained your comrade” (18:15). Rather than proudly insist that the offender first repent and apologize, the motivation to seek reconciliation continues to hold paramount importance, not only here, but also throughout the pericope. The willingness to forgive has the potential to create the conditions for reconciliation. Significantly, too, this attempt at rapprochement is to occur privately, presumably so as to protect the offender from unnecessary humiliation. No degree of vengeance has a place in true forgiveness.

Two elements of the procedure outlined in Matthew 18 stand out as key to Matthew’s understanding of Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness and thus on the petition for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer. First, the victim offers the grace of forgiveness unbidden, preveniently. The provision for the possibility that the offender may reject the victim’s embassy of reconciliation constitutes the other central feature of the procedure outlined in Matthew 18. In keeping with Jesus’s injunction that his disciples be willing to forgive “seventy times seven” times (Matt 18:21–22; Luke 17:4), Matthew outlines a second and even a third measure in pursuit of the goal of reconciliation. If rebuffed initially, the victim should enlist one or two others to serve as witnesses and repeat the effort. The involvement of witnesses suggests the authenticity of the offense in question: the injury had been real, not imagined.

The recommended course of action should the offender reject even this second embassy, namely that the matter be laid before the church, represents the persistence, even an increased intensity, both of the victim and of the community in the pursuit of reconciliation. Jesus’s disciples should not tire of forgiving (cf. Luke 17:4). Matthew 18 also points to the community’s interest in the repair of a breached relationship in its midst.

The text also entertains the possibility that, even after three attempts to affect reconciliation, the offender may still refuse to participate. Such cases illustrate the fact that the forgiveness envisioned in Matthew’s Gospel, and therefore likely in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, operates on the analogies to teaching/learning and communication discussed above: its purpose is to effectuate reconciliation which requires the mutual involvement of victim, offender, and in some cases even the larger community. One might read the forgiveness petition as an injunction to forgive any offender who seeks forgiveness. The procedure outlined in Matthew sets a higher bar. Disciples of Jesus should take the initiative by offering “prevenient” forgiveness hoping thereby to create conditions in which a previously unrepentant offender may respond to the gracious offer of forgiveness. Peacemaking will characterize citizens of the kingdom of God (Matt 5:9). In a sense, then, the financial metaphor applies to this variety of forgiveness in a manner similar to a situation in which someone opens a bank account on behalf of another with a significant deposit. Until and unless the second party actually accesses the money in the account, it has no value for its intended benefactor.

Conclusion

What, then, can one say about the character and quality of the forgiveness intended in the language of the Lord’s Prayer, particularly with regard to the linkage between forgiving others and being forgiven by God? First, one must acknowledge that the Gospels elsewhere establish this linkage beyond dispute:

For if you forgive others their trespasses (paraptōmata), your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt 6:14–15 NRSV)

Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. (Luke 6:37–38 NRSV; cf. Matt 7:1–2)

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt 18:23–35) that concludes Matthew’s programmatic description of forgiveness procedures exemplifies the relationship between forgiving and being forgiven. Notably, however, this example portrays the failure of one who has been forgiven to extend the grace of forgiveness to others. Such stinginess reflects the lack of empathy and the expectation of righteousness of others, but not of oneself, that clinical research has identified as fundamental obstacles to forgiveness. The linkage between forgiving and forgiveness involves mutuality and reciprocity that enables one both to give and to receive grace. ³⁰

The central questions about how this linkage works are whether human forgiveness is a precondition for God’s forgiveness; whether the Model Prayer encourages (requires?) Jesus’s disciples to forgive every offender, the penitent and the obstinate alike; and whether a process that fails to produce reconciliation fulfills the conditions of true forgiveness. The “prevenience” notion evident in Matthew 18 offers the key to all three questions.