Category: Confession, Repentance, and Forgiveness

Introduction

In churches across America this week, there will be a time set aside to repent of your sins.  A time to confess your sins.  A time to seek God’s forgiveness.  But is this the pattern for addressing sin in the New Testament?

Before we answer that question, let’s talk about why this matters.  If you believe that you are completely forgiven, if you believe that there is no separation between you and the Father, and if you believe that you cannot stop the flow of love and grace that God is extending to His children, then any suggestion that God is holding your sins against you goes against all that we believe about our right standing with God.  Complete forgiveness, no distance or separation, no stopping the love of God are clear teachings of the New Testament.

When we suggest that confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness from God are necessary for believers to get close to or stay close to God, we undermine all of these promises.  The cross worked, and any teaching of our current or besetting sins separating us from the Father is taking us back to an old covenant system of condemnation and separation; an old covenant system of sin management.

I have heard it preached this way.  Think about your human relationships.  When we sin against each other and don’t own up to that, there is a distance created in our connection.  (This is absolutely true, by the way.)  But the preaching illustration continues that it is the same with God.  Just like in human relationships, our fellowship with God is damaged by our sin.  A distance from God is created by our sin.

But this illustration completely misses a critical point.  Our life with Jesus is NOT like any human relationship.  It is founded completely upon His grace.  He is beyond gracious to us in every way.  Why?  Because our sin was taken care of at the cross.  Christ paid the price for us.  There is no more sacrifice, offering, repentance, or penance required of us once we have believed the gospel message of Jesus.  And teaching that there is more required adds a heaviness to our walk with Jesus that steals our joy.

Jesus said in many places that He came to make our joy full.  How can we be joyful, how can we live at peace, how can we experience His rest when we are taught to always be looking over our shoulder for where we are messing up?  Jesus taught what He taught, Jesus said what He said, and Jesus promised what He promised to bring us joy, peace, and rest.  He did not come to bring us angst, sorrow, or condemnation.

Do believers commit sins?  Yes.  Do I sin?  Yes.  And when I do, I agree with God that it is a sin.  This post isn’t about sweeping sin under the rug.  I am sorry when I sin.  I am sorry that I did not live into my new identity in Jesus.  And I am thankful that I have an Advocate in Jesus Christ who has paid the price and that sin is already forgiven.  There is no hand-wringing or promise of deeper commitment required.  Growing in grace is what helps us mature and grow into walking more and more in line with who we are in Christ.  Growing in grace helps us cooperate in godly ways with Christ living His life through us.

If anything in this introduction has cause a “uh?” or quizzical reaction, please stick with us for all five parts to this series.  There is a lot to unfold and maybe a few things to unlearn.  But I believe it will illuminate one more beautiful aspect of our freedom in Christ.  So back to our topic at the top; why do church leaders embrace this confession, repent, and seek forgiveness practice?  We will talk about it next time.

Animal sacrifices provided a temporary forgiveness and cleansing under the old covenant system.  The old covenant system required repeated confession and forgiveness.

But what about us today?  Is confession and seeking God’s forgiveness an over and over process for us?  What if all your sins – past, present, and future – have been forgiven the minute you believed the gospel of Jesus Christ?  It is an important question to ponder.

Hidden within the pages of the Old Testament is a promise of something better; the promise of a new covenant.  And the promise of this new covenant, this new arrangement between God and His people, has been completely fulfilled in Jesus.  And this is its fulfillment:  when we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are immediately and forever forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus.  The minute we believed, Christ’s forgiveness and cleansing – accomplished on the cross – was granted to us; was credited to us.  Not because of anything we had done, but because of what Christ had done for us.

This is such an important promise to grasp.  Many of us have been taught that some process of continual confession of sin is necessary to be in right standing with God.  Friend, the blood of Jesus Christ has eternally forgiven and internally cleansed you from your sin.  Once and done.

1. What is your reaction to this once and done idea of being forgiven and cleansed? What questions remain about your new purity?

 

Now let’s visit a passage of Scripture from the New Testament that has led to some confusion in this area, I John 1:9.  It reads, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Many Bible teachers hold this verse up as an example of repeated confession, forgiveness, and cleansing being required of us as believers.  I don’t believe this fits the context of John’s letter.

In the first letter of John’s epistles, the apostle is addressing infiltrators in the church who came in preaching a Gnostic-type message.  The Gnostics of John’s era placed a great deal of value on what they saw as a secret knowledge.  It was a knowledge that combined ideas derived from Greek philosophy, Oriental mysticism, and Christianity.

One of its tenets was a separation between the spiritual and material world.  The spiritual world is good.  The material world is evil.  So the Gnostics refused to acknowledge Jesus as God in the flesh.  Since the material world is evil, God the Divine One could not have appeared in a human body.  That is why John repeatedly emphasized in his letter this core belief of ours; Jesus Christ came as God in the flesh.

One of the outcomes of this spiritual/material divide is that the Gnostics treated sin with indifference. Since sin took place in the material world which was already looked at as evil, sin was viewed as a natural outcome of our material lives.  There was no guilt involved here.  A person could be very spiritual while doing something sinful with their mortal body because the body is evil anyway and divorced from our spirituality.

With this cultural background in mind, John seeks to make clear that prior to our conversion, we were all guilty of sin; sin was our very nature.  So let’s look at the context of I John 1 in light of this Gnostic challenge to true Christian belief.

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5).

The contrast between God as light and evil as darkness is a prominent theme in the Bible.  The “no darkness in Him” suggests that those who walk in darkness are unbelievers with no connection to God.

“If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (I John 1:6).

If we say we are joined with God in His family and yet our true identity is one walking in darkness, we are lying.  Because the one walking in darkness is an unbeliever who has never come into the Light.

“But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7).

In contrast to the lost, believers walk in the Light, not the darkness.  Believers have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus provides a one-time cleansing from all sin.  (See Hebrews 9:14)

Now we switch back to the unbeliever.

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (I John 1:8).

This is another direct response to the Gnostics of John’s day who believed they had no need of Jesus as Savior because they were not guilty of sin.  John again calls them liars who are deceiving themselves because we all are guilty of sin.  But Christ has provided an answer for our sin in verse 9.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

This incredible promise was written as a choice offered those who are walking in darkness (I John 1:6); those who have yet to believe the gospel.

And the promise of I John 1:9 is this:  If we confess our sins – if we agree with God that here, prior to our conversion, we are sinners, and we need a savior, and that savior is Jesus – then Jesus will come to us, He will forgive us of all our sins, and He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  The blood of Jesus eternally forgives and internally cleanses from all sin at the time of our conversion.  This confession is a one-time agreement with God about our sin and when we agree with God in this way, He forgives, cleanses, and saves us forever.

Excerpt from Welcome to the New !!! A Study of What Christ Did FOR Us and TO Us

The idea of “forgiven and cleansed” has a prominent place in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.  The book of Leviticus is the manual for forgiveness and cleansing under the old covenant.  Regarding forgiveness, here are just two of the many verses on the topic.  “He shall then prepare a burnt offering according to the ordinance.  So the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin which he has committed, and it will be forgiven him” (Leviticus 5:10).  “The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him” (Leviticus 19:22).

Likewise regarding cleansing, “The priest shall next offer the sin offering and make atonement for the one to be cleansed from his uncleanness.  Then afterward, he shall slaughter the burnt offering” (Leviticus 14:19).  “Next he shall slaughter the lamb of the guilt offering; and the priest is to take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot” (Leviticus 14:25).  Animal sacrifices provided a temporary forgiveness and cleansing under the old covenant system.

But what about us today?  Is confession and forgiveness an over and over process for us?  What if all of your sins – past, present, and future – have been forgiven the minute you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ?

Hidden within the pages of the Old Testament is a promise of something better; the promise of a new covenant.  And the promise of this new covenant, this new arrangement between God and His people, has been completely fulfilled in Jesus.  And this is what it looks like … When we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are immediately and forever forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus.  The minute we believed, Christ’s forgiveness and cleansing – accomplished on the cross – was imputed to us.

The book of Hebrews outlines this revolutionary news that through Jesus’ blood, we are forgiven and cleansed, once and for all, when we believed the gospel.  “Jesus does not need daily, like those [Old Testament] high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this Jesus did once for all when He offered up Himself” (Hebrews 7:27).  Jesus offered up Himself, not over and over like the Old Testament sacrifices, but once for all.  And not for His sins, but for ours.

“By this we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.  For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10-14).

Sacrificed for our sins and proclaiming us forgiven, perfected, sanctified, and cleansed.  “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).

Finally, we come to the incredible promise of I John 1:9.  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  This verse was written to address those who are walking in darkness (I John 1:6); those who have yet to believe the gospel.  And the promise of I John 1:9 is this:  If we confess our sins, if we agree with God that here, prior to our conversion, we are sinners, and we need a savior, and that savior is Jesus … then Jesus will come to us, He will forgive us of all our sins, and He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  The blood of Jesus eternally forgives and internally cleanses from all sin.

This post is a summary of chapter 10 in Brad Robertson’s book Forgiven and Cleansed.  If this message is new to you – that your sins are forgiven forever and that you are forever clean before the Lord, or you struggle to believe this about yourself, I highly recommend you read Brad’s book.  It will be an encouragement and a blessing to you.