Why Do We Confess If Our Sins Are Already Forgiven?
00:00:00.000 | Well, why do we keep confessing our sins if all of our sins have been canceled in Christ?
00:00:10.000 | It's a great question from a listener to the podcast named Andy, who represents, I
00:00:14.240 | think, a lot of listeners out there who are asking this very same question.
00:00:19.000 | Here's how Andy put it, "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:21.000 | Can you help me understand the work of Jesus whereby all of our sins, past, present, and
00:00:25.960 | future, were forgiven in Christ, and yet we are called to continually confess?"
00:00:33.360 | Thinking specifically of the "it is finished" statement in John 19, 30, and also the amazing
00:00:39.040 | reality that Christ "forgave all our trespasses and canceled our record of debt that stood
00:00:45.320 | against us" in Colossians 2, verses 13 to 14.
00:00:49.480 | But then we're also called to constant confession, too, in 1 John 1, 9.
00:00:53.960 | So, Pastor John, how do we make sense of all these truths?
00:00:56.480 | Why do we keep confessing if all of our sins have been canceled in Christ?
00:01:01.280 | I love that question because it gives me an occasion to exult with you and with all of
00:01:10.120 | our listeners in the immeasurable greatness and beauty and preciousness and wonder of
00:01:16.960 | what Jesus did, in fact, on the cross, achieve once for all when He died and rose again for
00:01:24.080 | His sheep.
00:01:25.520 | And I say "for His sheep" because it says in John 10, 15, "Jesus laid down, I laid down
00:01:33.440 | my life for the sheep."
00:01:35.520 | In other words, in the death of Jesus, God has a very special, peculiar design or intention
00:01:44.200 | or purpose to purchase and create a flock for Himself, including the purchase of our
00:01:54.040 | faith, our union with Christ, our forgiveness of every sin, past, present, future, our eternal
00:02:01.040 | right standing with God as adopted children and as new creatures in Christ—all that
00:02:06.800 | purchased once for all by Jesus.
00:02:09.400 | That's what God intended and achieved when Christ died and stood in the place of His
00:02:17.440 | sinful flock, His sheep.
00:02:20.760 | Now Andy sees this glory.
00:02:23.400 | He sees it, and he's exulting in it with me, I believe.
00:02:27.120 | He says in John 19, 30, he sees it is finished.
00:02:32.240 | He sees in Colossians 2, 13, God made us alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all
00:02:42.040 | our trespasses by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal
00:02:47.400 | demands.
00:02:48.400 | This, He set aside, nailing it to the cross.
00:02:52.240 | That's just got to be one of the most amazing two verses in all the Bible for describing
00:02:57.120 | what became of our debt that we could never pay, canceled, nailed to the cross.
00:03:06.820 | And you can add to what Andy has seen and pointed out in those verses these, like Hebrews
00:03:13.440 | 7, 27, "Christ has no need like the Old Testament high priests to offer sacrifices
00:03:19.880 | daily since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself," or Hebrews 9, 26,
00:03:27.840 | "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice
00:03:35.380 | of Himself," or 10, 14.
00:03:37.240 | I mean, Hebrews is really good at this.
00:03:39.600 | "For by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
00:03:48.720 | So there it is, once for all, not repeated.
00:03:52.960 | Not repeated in history, not repeated in the mass, in the Roman Catholic mass, Sunday after
00:03:57.240 | Sunday, not repeated in any kind of Protestant religious performances that we may attempt
00:04:02.120 | through baptism or whatever.
00:04:04.880 | Once for all, done, finished, complete, debt paid in full, can't be added to, can't be
00:04:11.520 | improved upon.
00:04:13.280 | That's the foundational glory of the achievement of Christ when He died for us on the cross.
00:04:21.000 | So Andy's question is, well, if the death of Christ achieved the forgiveness of all
00:04:29.780 | the sins of all God's people for all time, what does 1 John 1, 9 imply when it says,
00:04:38.080 | "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us
00:04:44.920 | from all unrighteousness."
00:04:47.120 | Or verse 7, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus His Son
00:04:57.240 | cleanses us from all sin."
00:05:00.580 | So Colossians 2, 13 and the passages that we saw in Hebrews sound like our forgiveness
00:05:07.840 | was achieved, completed in the death of Christ, but 1 John 1, 9 and 1, 7 sound like our forgiveness
00:05:16.180 | and our cleansing depend on our confessing those sins and walking in the light.
00:05:23.760 | And that's the issue that Andy is raising.
00:05:27.100 | Here's how I would resolve the tension biblically, and there are two steps in the resolution.
00:05:33.660 | So number one, we should distinguish between the purchase, and that includes the permanent
00:05:43.020 | securing, so the purpose and the permanent securing of our forgiveness once for all at
00:05:51.100 | the death of Jesus, on the one hand, from the personal possession and enjoyment of that
00:06:01.320 | benefit, on the other hand, which comes to us through faith.
00:06:07.440 | So at the death of Jesus, our sins are canceled, nailed to the cross, debt fully paid, so payment
00:06:17.000 | and securing accomplished.
00:06:20.140 | Once for all, never to be repeated, permanently, infallibly for all God's people when Christ
00:06:25.880 | died.
00:06:27.280 | But the personal reception, the possession, the enjoyment of that achievement, that purchase,
00:06:36.520 | that securing of forgiveness only comes to God's people through faith in Christ, union
00:06:44.740 | with Christ by faith.
00:06:47.660 | So I say that because of texts like Acts 10:43, "Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness
00:06:57.660 | of sins."
00:06:58.660 | I mean, that's clear.
00:07:00.200 | Everyone who believes receives forgiveness of sins.
00:07:03.820 | And Romans 3:28, "We hold that one is justified by faith."
00:07:09.860 | So justified, including forgiveness of sins, right standing with God, by faith.
00:07:15.420 | And the reason there's no conflict, no tension between the absolute certainty of the forgiveness
00:07:23.740 | achieved in the moment of Christ's death and the fact that this forgiveness is dependent
00:07:30.820 | upon, contingent upon God's people coming to faith in Christ, the reason there's no
00:07:36.140 | conflict, no danger of anyone missing out who was died for in that way, is that God
00:07:42.940 | sees to it in his sovereignty that all those for whom he fully paid do in fact come to
00:07:50.900 | faith.
00:07:52.260 | There's no dropout.
00:07:54.180 | Those of me foreknew, he predestined.
00:07:56.580 | Those of me predestined, he called.
00:07:57.580 | Those of me called, he justified.
00:07:58.580 | Those of me justified, he glorified.
00:08:00.580 | He sees to it.
00:08:02.020 | That's the first step in resolving the tension between Colossians 2:13 and 1 John 1:9.
00:08:09.860 | Here's the other one.
00:08:11.180 | The Bible teaches that there are traits that God's people have that show they are in
00:08:20.300 | fact God's people and do truly belong to Christ, truly born again, truly have union
00:08:27.220 | with Jesus.
00:08:28.740 | These traits are how we can know that our sins were fully paid for and our forgiveness
00:08:38.540 | fully secured by the death of Jesus.
00:08:41.660 | One of those traits is how we deal with ongoing sinning in our lives.
00:08:51.020 | This is the complicating issue.
00:08:53.940 | Christians sin.
00:08:54.940 | 1 John 1.8, that's what John is dealing with.
00:08:57.940 | 1 John 1.8 says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves."
00:09:04.420 | The question becomes, well, if you are a true child of God, if your sins are truly and fully
00:09:14.300 | paid for, covered, canceled, what will you feel?
00:09:20.500 | What will your thoughts and actions be toward your ongoing sinning?
00:09:27.060 | What trait will mark you?
00:09:29.660 | And here are two biblical answers.
00:09:32.740 | Colossians 3.3, "You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
00:09:40.620 | That's a description of wonderful, completed salvation.
00:09:43.740 | We're already home.
00:09:46.060 | Next verse, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity,
00:09:53.180 | passion, evil desire."
00:09:54.300 | So one trait of those whose sins are fully paid for is that we make war on our sinning.
00:10:02.080 | That's the mark of those whose sins are fully canceled.
00:10:05.640 | We make war on our sinning.
00:10:08.380 | We put them to death.
00:10:10.580 | But you can't do that if you don't admit, that is, confess that you have any.
00:10:19.500 | So the second trait, 1 John 1.9, is confession.
00:10:24.260 | If we confess our sins, which you have to do in order to make war on them, if you don't
00:10:28.860 | think you have any, if you're not confessing, "Yes, I have sinned.
00:10:31.460 | I'm sorry."
00:10:32.700 | If you don't confess that, you won't make war.
00:10:35.540 | If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive our sins.
00:10:39.540 | So confessing our sin is the agreement with God that we have sin, and it must be fought
00:10:49.260 | and killed.
00:10:50.860 | If we don't confess this truth, we're living, John says, in an illusion.
00:10:56.580 | We're lying, we're deceived, we're calling God a deceiver, and we're not saved.
00:11:01.160 | If we're living in the illusion that we have no sin and that it doesn't need to be killed,
00:11:08.360 | we're living in an illusion, not in salvation.
00:11:11.640 | So confession of sin is not the basis of our forgiveness.
00:11:17.260 | It is one of the traits that show we are truly in Christ, where all our sins are covered
00:11:26.220 | by His blood.
00:11:27.220 | Yeah, that's fascinating, and a great point to end on here.
00:11:31.500 | Thank you, Pastor John, for walking us through those texts, and thank you for listening.
00:11:36.100 | If you haven't done so, you can get the latest episodes by subscribing to Ask Pastor John
00:11:39.400 | on your favorite podcast app in Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.
00:11:44.420 | To find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question of your own, go online to
00:11:48.260 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:49.260 | Well, if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that the times are always uncertain, and our
00:11:59.220 | lives in this world are far less stable than we ever imagined.
00:12:03.760 | So where do we find comfort and confidence to walk forward in seasons like we've experienced
00:12:09.300 | in the spring of 2020?
00:12:10.880 | That is the question up next on Wednesday.
00:12:13.980 | I'm your host Tony Reinhke.
00:12:14.980 | We'll see you then.
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