In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus instructs His disciples to petition, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt 6:12). Following the prayer, He clarifies the principle: “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matt 6:14–15). The audience is unmistakably believers, for Jesus speaks of God as their “Father.” Thus, the forgiveness in view is not forensic but relational, not judicial but familial.
Scripture distinguishes two categories of divine forgiveness. The first is judicial forgiveness, wherein God acts as Judge toward the unbeliever. At the moment of faith in Christ, the sinner receives full and final pardon, past, present, and future, so that the eternal penalty of sin is removed once for all (John 3:16; Acts 10:43; Rom 8:1; Eph 1:7; Col 2:13–14). According to Constable, “There is judicial forgiveness that every person experiences when he or she trusts in Christ as Savior (Rom 5:1). God will never condemn believers in Christ to eternal damnation for their sins, because they trust in His Son (Rom 8:1).”[1] This act of grace grants eternal life, secures the believer’s standing in God’s righteousness, and guarantees immunity from condemnation (John 5:24). Because it rests entirely upon the finished work of Christ, judicial forgiveness is irrevocable and unrepeatable.
The second category is familial forgiveness, wherein God acts as Father toward His children. Unlike judicial forgiveness, this does not concern eternal salvation but fellowship. Sin never dissolves the believer’s union with Christ, yet it does grieve the Spirit (Eph 4:30) and rupture communion with God. Familial forgiveness is restored when the believer confesses sin (1 John 1:9), acknowledging disobedience and submitting afresh to the Father’s will. Professor Hodges states, “What is considered in 1 John 1:9 may be described as ‘familial’ forgiveness. It is perfectly understandable how a son may need to ask his father to forgive him for his faults while at the same time his position within the family is not in jeopardy.”[2] Such confession does not re-secure salvation but re-establishes experiential fellowship, renewing intimacy with God and refreshing the soul. Hoyt states:
“The daily forgiveness of those who are within the family of God is distinguished from judicial and positional forgiveness which was applied forensically to all of a person’s sins the moment he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul writes of this forensic forgiveness in Colossians 2:13: “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” The point Paul makes is that the believer is completely forgiven legally before the sin is even committed. The question that arises concerning a believer’s sins is between the Father and a son, and not between a judge and a criminal [italics his].”[3]
It is this latter forgiveness that Jesus addresses in the Lord’s Prayer. An unforgiving spirit is itself sinful, for Christ commands His followers to forgive as they have been forgiven (Matt 18:21–35; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13). When believers refuse to extend forgiveness, they forfeit experiential fellowship with God until they repent of hardness of heart. In such cases, the Father withholds familial forgiveness, not as judicial punishment but as loving discipline designed to restore obedience and relational harmony (Heb 12:5–11).
The principle Jesus sets forth is plain: those who have received immeasurable forgiveness at salvation are obligated to extend forgiveness in daily life. Judicial forgiveness secures the believer’s eternal standing, while familial forgiveness maintains communion with the Father. Failure to forgive never jeopardizes one’s position in Christ, but it does ensure that fellowship remains broken until grace toward others is extended in the same measure it has been received.
Steven R. Cook, D.Min., M.Div.
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[1] Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ps 51:19.
[2] Zane C. Hodges, “1 John,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 886.
[3] Samuel L. Hoyt, “The Judgment Seat of Christ in Theological Perspective Part 1: The Judgment Seat of Christ and Unconfessed Sins,” Bibliotheca Sacra 137 (1980): 38.
In our relationship with God, there are two kinds of forgiveness. One is judicial and the other is parental. Judicial forgiveness is the forgiveness we receive from God when we stand before Him as the Judge of all humanity. This forgiveness occurs at the moment of faith in Christ, where “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43; cf. Eph 1:7; Col 1:14). This is a one-and-done event that is never repeated, as we are “forgiven us all our transgressions” (Col 2:13). Parental forgiveness is the ongoing forgiveness we receive from God as our Father and is repeated many times throughout a believer’s life. Judicial forgiveness brings us into a right relationship with Him at the moment of faith in Christ. Parental forgiveness restores our fellowship with Him. Joseph Dillow states, “There are two kinds of forgiveness in the New Testament. One pertains to our eternal salvation (justification by faith), and the other to our temporal fellowship with the Father.”
Judicial forgiveness relates to our eternal salvation and right relationship with God. Paul wrote, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7), and God has “forgiven us all our transgressions, having erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:13b-14). God’s forgiveness is not arbitrary, as though He simply releases someone from their sin-debt without any payment for the offenses that were committed. The payment for sin was not made by us, but Christ. Peter states, “you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18-19). God’s judicial forgiveness was made possible by the blood of Christ, which refers to His sacrificial atoning death on the cross where He died in our place, where “Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18). The blood of Christ is the only coin of the heavenly realm that the Father accepts as payment for our sin debt. This is the forgiveness we receive because Christ shed His blood on the cross and paid the penalty for our sins. Harold Hoehner notes, “The shedding of blood is necessary (Lev 17:11; Eph 2:13; 1 Pet 1:19) for without it there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22), and Paul makes it clear that God has been propitiated in Christ’s redemption, which was in connection with his blood (Rom 3:24–25), and that one is justified by means of Christ’s blood (Rom 5:9).”
The second kind of forgiveness is the parental forgiveness we receive as God’s children who have committed sin and broken fellowship with our Father. As Christians, we continue to live in a fallen world with all sorts of external temptations, and we continue to possess a sin nature that tempts us internally. The sin nature is what Paul referred to when he gave instruction to “make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Rom 13:14), and to “lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit” (Eph 4:22). Paul, as a Christian, described his own struggle with ongoing sin (Rom 7:14-20), saying, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good” (Rom 7:21). As Christians, we constantly deal with internal struggles as along we live in this world, as we have two opposing natures. Paul wrote of this struggle, saying, “the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal 5:17). When we yield to temptation, whether internal or external, we sin, which means we are operating according to Satan’s world-system (1 John 2:15-16), have grieved the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30), and broken fellowship with God as we are walking in the darkness and not practicing the truth (1 John 1:6). At that moment we are sinning saints, and we are not in fellowship with God. Being honest with God and ourselves is important, for “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us…[and] If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10). When we accept this truth, we can then be humble and honest with God and come before His throne of grace and find mercy (Heb 4:16).
What person can say, “I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin”? (Prov 20:9). No one is ever free from sin in this life, “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins” (Eccl 7:20). Sin (from the Hebrew חָטָא chata or the Greek ἁμαρτία hamartia) means to fall away or miss the mark of God’s intended will. Sin is failure to do God’s will, and both unbelievers and believers commit sin. According to Unger, “The sinfulness of sin lies in the fact that it is against God, even when the wrong we do is to others or ourselves (Gen 39:9; Psa 51:4).”