LD 51: The Fifth Petition

…ahh, the beauty of the gospel and its promise of the forgiveness we have in Christ!

It’s been almost a week since LD 50 now, and I can’t think of anything better to write than what was preached last Sunday.  That’s a good problem, one for which I’m thankful.  Why?  Worship is the highlight of the week, so it should have a lasting influence.   I can’t think of anything else, because the sermon we heard was so fitting and perfect for this fifth petition.  Here is the passage Pastor Jeff preached on in Luke 23:32-38:

32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. 35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” (emphasis mine)

Right there in the middle of His humiliation as Christ is stripped, mocked and beaten, Jesus calls on his Father in prayer.  This is the first of seven sayings Jesus made on the cross, where He would very soon thereafter receive the worst part of his humiliation–death on the cross.  Humiliation is Christ’s bearing the curse of God’s broken law on our behalf.  Every curse he bore should have been ours.  This is what theologians describe as His passive obedience to His Father which lasted from the time just before He wore swaddling clothes in the manger to the time just after His garments were divided according to the cast lots.  The entire duration of Christ’s life can be understood as Him obediently bearing the full curse of the law for us.  Jesus deserved none of this, and we deserved all of it.  He bore all of it, and we bore none of it.  Even more outrageous is the transaction of polar opposites that takes place: we give him ALL our sins and He gives us ALL His righteousness.  We are clothed with His righteousness fit for heaven, and He is made naked with our sins fit for eternal wrath in Hell upon the cross.  2 Corinthians 5:21 sums it up well:

²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

All this to make forgiveness ours.  How great is the work behind our forgiveness?  This is the context in which Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Jesus knows full well what He is asking of His Father.  Behind His request to the Father is that:

• The Father is completely holy.
• All sin must be punished.
• He himself would pay the eternal punishment of sin committed against the Father that His prayer request requires.
• This was the same prayer request our Lord taught His disciples to pray earlier in Luke, but He would now establish the grounds for its fulfillment.

In His ever unchanging holiness, God cannot bypass and overlook sin.  Furthermore, Scripture is clear that everyone is a sinner.  This is the great chasm: the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.  All sin must be paid either by the offender or by someone who stands in the offender’s place.  This is the eternal difference between the Law and the Gospel.  You can take it upon yourself and see if you meet the Law’s perfectly holy expectations; in other words, you can try to save yourself by your own (not so) good works according to the Law, where even a single sin seals your destruction, because the standard is perfection.  Or (and it’s a big “or”).  You can leave it to someone who has already met the Law’s perfect expectations… Jesus.  In other words, He saves you by His works according to Law, so you rest in His eternally satisfying obedience through faith.  This is the Gospel.  God’s grace of  forgiveness in Christ is greater than the chasm our sin has wrought.  Where the Law asks you to look at yourself, the Gospel asks you to look at Christ and His merits.  Christ is the One who bridges the gap between His holiness and our sinfulness.  This is why He is called our Mediator; He has fully merited that honor.

In this petition, we cling on to the blood of Christ, asking our Father to not hold any sins against us.  Not a single one.  What we are asking then is to have the Father look upon His Son’s already paid punishment of our sins, instead of looking at our ever-present, guilt-incurring sin.  Jesus satisfied the Father’s anger for our sins and we thank Him for that work every single time we pray this.  So if this forgiveness is great (which it is), then our response in gratitude should be to forgive others as freely as Christ has forgiven us.  We petition for the same heart of forgiveness that the Father has.  The prayer is essentially:

Father, thank you for forgiving me, a poor sinner, in Christ my Mediator.  Help me in gratitude to forgive my neighbors with the same heart of forgiveness which Christ displayed in Luke 23:34.

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Lord’s Day 51

Q & A 126

Q. What does the fifth request mean?
A. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” means,
Because of Christ’s blood, do not hold against us, poor sinners that we are, any of the sins we do or the evil that constantly clings to us.  Forgive us just as we are fully determined, as evidence of your grace in us, to forgive our neighbors.