What does it mean to ask the Lord for forgiveness?

Does He always forgive us? Does He automatically forgive us? If He does, then why ask? And, really, what does it mean to be forgiven by Him?

Let's have a look at what the Bible says about it.

One thing is that we’re told to seek the Lord’s forgiveness. Here are two example passages:

- "Then the priest shall burn it on the altar, according to the offerings made by fire to the Lord. So the priest shall make atonement for his sin that he has committed, and it shall be forgiven him." (Leviticus 4:35)

- "In this manner, therefore, pray…. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." (Matthew 6:9-12)

Second, it's pretty clear that we must forgive in order to be forgiven:

- "For if you forgive people their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive people their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14, 15)

- "And his master was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." (Matthew 18:34, 35)

- "Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37)

Third, we can see that the Lord is ready to forgive:

- "For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You." (Psalm 86:5)

- "Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." (Luke 7:47)

- "And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents…. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt." (Matthew 18:24, 27)

- "And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.'" (Luke 23:33, 34)

Here are some New Church teachings that are based on these Bible passages.

1. The Lord isn't keeping a ledger (which is good news for all of us!). See this excerpt from "True Christian Religion":

"The Lord, being mercy itself, forgives everyone his sins, and does not hold even one of them against a person. For the Lord says, 'They do not know what they are doing' (but still this does not mean that the sins are abolished); for when Peter asked how many times he should forgive his brother his offences, whether as many as seven times, the Lord said: 'Not up to seven times, I tell you, but up to seventy times seven times,' (Matthew 18:21-22). What then will the Lord not do?" (True Christian Religion 539)

2. Forgiveness is a process. You can think of it as a loop. There are two stages: "being willing to forgive" and a "coming to be forgiven". This is well-described in the following passages from two of Swedenborg's theological works:

"The majority within the church think that the forgiveness of sins involves wiping and washing them away, like the removal of dirt by water, and that after forgiveness people go about clean and pure. This idea reigns especially with those who attribute all of salvation to faith alone. But let it be known that the situation with the forgiveness of sins is altogether different from that. Being Mercy itself, the Lord forgives everyone their sins. Nevertheless they do not come to be forgiven unless the person sincerely repents, refrains from evils, and after that leads a life of faith and charity, doing so to the end of his life. When this happens the person receives spiritual life from the Lord, called new life. Then when with this new life he looks at the evils of his former life, turns away from them, and abhors them, his evils have for the first time been forgiven. For the person is now maintained in truths and forms of good by the Lord and held back from evils. This shows what the forgiveness of sins is, and that it cannot take place within an hour, nor within a year." (Arcana Coelestia 9014:3)

"Another error of the age is to suppose that when sins have been forgiven they are also put away…. However, when this proposition is turned around, it becomes the truth, namely that when sins have been put away, they are also forgiven. For repentance precedes forgiveness, and apart from repentance there is no forgiveness…. The Lord forgives all people their sins. He does not accuse or impute. But He still cannot take those sins away except in accordance with the laws of His Divine providence." (Divine Providence 280)

3. We don’t need to pray for forgiveness. (Wait, what?) This is interesting. In the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus taught, we DO pray for forgiveness. But read this excerpt from "True Christian Religion":

"There are two obligations incumbent on one after self-examination: prayer and confession. Prayer should be that the Lord may have mercy, grant the power to resist the evils of which one has repented, and supply the inclination and affection for doing good, since without Him a person cannot do anything (John 15:5)…. There are two reasons why prayer ought not to be offered before the Lord for the forgiveness of sins. First, because sins are not wiped out, but taken away; and this happens as one subsequently desists from them and embarks on a new life. For there are countless longings attached like a cluster around every evil; these cannot be taken away in an instant, but only one after another, as a person allows himself to be reformed and regenerated. The second reason is that the Lord, being mercy itself, forgives everyone his sins, and does not hold even one of them against a person." (True Christian Religion 539)

So, what should we pray for? The point is fairly subtle. What I see in the passage above is that we don’t need to pray for forgiveness, per se, as part of the process of repentance, since during that process we’ve already prayed for mercy and the power to do better. These are the things we’re really asking for when we pray for forgiveness. Asking the Lord to forgive us is acting according to an appearance. It’s a useful exercise, which is why the Lord commands it in the letter of the Word, but the deeper truth is that we have never been anything but forgiven in His eyes, and whether or not we actually come to be forgiven is up to us, not Him.

Summing up...

Being forgiven by God has always involved an action on our part. In the Old Testament, people were required to make sacrifices. In the New Testament, Jesus surprised people, teaching that they needed to forgive others — many times. And now here, we can see that our own (hard) work of repentance is what we also need to bring to close the loop.

So the bottom line is that there are two levels of being forgiven by the Lord: ours and His. The Lord always forgives us. (As far as He Himself is concerned, we are never unforgiven.) But we don’t actually become forgiven until we do our part of the process; that's what allows the forgiveness to flow around the loop.

[This article has been adapted for use here from a November 2023 presentation by Rev. Jared Buss.]

561. X. Real repentance is easy for those who have repented a number of times, but highly distasteful to those who have not.

Real repentance is examining oneself, recognising one's sins, making one's confession before the Lord, and so beginning a new life. This has been described in the foregoing pages. In the part of the world where Reformed Christian churches are established — that means all who have split from the Roman Catholic church, as well as those members of it who have never really repented — both these groups find real repentance highly distasteful. The reason is that some are unwilling and some are afraid to repent, and lack of practice turns into a habit and leads to unwillingness, and eventually to acquiescence as the result of reasoning by the understanding. In some cases it leads to sorrow, fear and terror at the idea of repentance.

[2] The principal reason why real repentance is highly distasteful in the world of the Reformed Christian churches is their belief that repentance and charity contribute nothing to salvation, which is due to faith alone. Faith, they hold, being imputed brings with it the forgiveness of sins, justification, renewal, regeneration, sanctification and everlasting salvation, without a person co-operating of himself or as if of himself. Their theologians call co-operation useless and a hindrance to Christ's merit, something repugnant and harmful. The common people, though ignorant of the mysteries of that belief, have this idea implanted in them merely by hearing it said, that 'faith alone saves,' and 'no one can do good of himself.' It is because of this that repentance among the Reformed is like a nest full of chicks abandoned when the birds have been caught and killed by a fowler. An accessory reason is that the so-called 'reformed' person associates in his spirit only with those in the spiritual world who are like him. They put ideas like this into his thoughts, and divert him from his course towards introspection and self-examination.