What Does 'Forgive Us Our Trespasses' Mean?

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” is the petition that touches the nerve of the whole Christian life—and its second half raises an urgent question: does my forgiving others earn God’s forgiveness of me? The answer is no, and getting this right matters enormously.

Luther is careful here. He explains that we pray “not that God would look at our sins… on account of them deny our prayer; for we are worthy of none of the things for which we pray, neither have we deserved them”—but that God would forgive us “by grace.” Our forgiveness of others is not the price of God’s forgiveness. Salvation is by grace, not by the good work of forgiving. So the “as we forgive” is not a transaction, as if we buy pardon by pardoning.

What, then, does the second half mean? It means that God’s forgiveness, when it truly takes hold of a heart, produces forgiveness toward others—and that a heart which flatly refuses to forgive shows it has not really grasped the forgiveness it claims. Luther continues that we “heartily forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.” The forgiven forgive; it is the fruit, not the root. This is why Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant, who was pardoned an unpayable debt and then throttled a fellow servant over a trivial one (Matthew 18:32-35): a man like that has not understood his own pardon at all. “Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32)—as, meaning in the same way and out of the mercy you received.

So this petition does two things at once. It sends us daily to God for the forgiveness we constantly need—naming us as people who keep sinning and keep needing pardon, which is a humbling and freeing thing to admit. And it presses us to extend to others the mercy we live on ourselves. If you find forgiving someone impossible (see “How do I forgive someone who hurt me?”), let that difficulty drive you back to the first half of the petition—to receive again, freshly, the vast forgiveness God pours out on you, until it begins to overflow toward the one who wronged you.