Therefore, the Lord Christ commands all men, in every place, to repent. But when Christ here compares all sins with debts, as He also does in Matthew 6:12 in the Lord’s Prayer, where He calls them debts, He points us to the tablets of the divine Law, where it is written with eternal, indelible letters how much we have received from God and how great is the debt we have incurred. These tablets are made of stone; therefore, the debt is engraved deeply and permanently. Nor is the lender to whom we are indebted to be taken lightly. He has great power and gives close attention to the accounting. He places our “unknown sins in the light before His divine sight” (Psa. 90:8) and will hold a strict reckoning in due time (Mat. 18:34). Therefore, it is highly recommended that we come forth during the time of grace and humbly seek from Him the removal of our debts through Christ, take refuge in Christ, who has repaid them for us (Psa. 69:5) and has given His precious blood for us as the redemption price. With our own repayment, all is lost. We are indebted to the Lord God with all that we have. How, then, could we repay Him with it? Let us run to Christ with true faith, lay hold of His feet and not leave Him until He blesses us and absolves us from our debt of sin. And since there are so many things that would drive us away from Christ or keep us from Him, let us cling to Him all the more tightly. He will speak to us kindly in the end.
(Sermon for Mary Magdalene-July 22, Postilla Volume 3 by Johann Gerhard, Repristination Press, page 112-113)