Forgive us our Trespasses

This partial sentence teaches us a lot about forgiveness, and confession. Let’s clarify one thing though before we begin…

Our sins are gone because of Christ and Calvary. We do not obtain more forgiveness through the confession of sin, because we have no sin in God’s sight; He has taken care of that for us long ago. So, why confess? Because we still live in this old world and must interact with our fellow man. You see, sin is seen in two ways in the Bible, as is true with many other things; we were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) at one time, and it is here that we see the distinction. In 2 Chronicles 33:19 we see the same distinction: “His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sin, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images, before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.” Note that in both passages, God inserts the little word “and”; “and” separates the two, as two distinct and separate categories of sin. So when we ask the Lord to forgive us our sins, we are only asking Him to forgive our trespasses, which are encroachments upon our fellow man, and not transgressions against God only. If this were not so, why bother with Calvary? Please don’t slight Calvary by thinking that 1 Jn. 1:9 is the way we obtain forgiveness for all sin, but realize that we are forgiven our “trespasses” (against others) through continual confession and reconciliation, while our “transgressions” (directly against God’s Person) are already forgiven at Calvary.