Forgiven to Love - Mining the Catechism

The request in the Lord’s Prayer may seem to some to make God’s forgiveness wholly dependent on ours, but that is not the true Biblical context of forgiveness. Jesus did want to make the necessary connection between the two clear to us, though. These two pieces of the Catechism, 70 questions apart, both root our forgiveness wholly in Christ’s satisfaction (payment), yet keep us “fully determined, as evidence of your grace in us, to forgive our neighbors.”

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Q & A 56

Q. What do you believe
concerning “the forgiveness of sins”?

A. I believe that God,

because of Christ’s satisfaction,

will no longer remember

any of my sins¹
or my sinful nature

which I need to struggle against all my life.²

Rather, by grace

God grants me the righteousness of Christ
to free me forever from judgment.³

¹ Ps. 103:3-4, 10, 12; Mic. 7:18-19; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; 1 John 1:7; 2:2
² Rom. 7:21-25
³ John 3:17-18; Rom. 8:1-2

 Q & A 126

Q. What does the fifth petition 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.¹

Forgive us just as we are fully determined,

as evidence of your grace in us,

to forgive our neighbors.²

¹ Ps. 51:1-7; 143:2; Rom. 8:1; 1 John 2:1-2
² Matt. 6:14-15; 18:21-35