All My Sins Were Canceled — So Why Continue to Confess?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, welcome back to the podcast on this Monday morning.

00:00:06.680 | If you are with us on Friday,

00:00:07.760 | we looked at the sin that remains in us as believers.

00:00:11.480 | And it raises another question,

00:00:13.720 | one about confession for sin.

00:00:15.780 | That is, if God has forgiven all of our trespasses,

00:00:19.920 | and if all of our sins were canceled at the cross,

00:00:23.840 | why do we need to continue to repent?

00:00:26.760 | It's a question inspired by the glorious truth

00:00:28.760 | of Christ's finished work in Colossians 2, verses 13 to 14.

00:00:33.040 | And the question comes to us from a listener named Judy,

00:00:35.200 | who lives in Rockford, Illinois.

00:00:37.880 | Dear Pastor John, I'm struggling with a question

00:00:39.400 | regarding God's word and want your input.

00:00:42.000 | Once we have repented and turned to the Lord for salvation,

00:00:45.640 | is it necessary to repent every time we sin afterwards?

00:00:50.000 | I've always believed that,

00:00:51.320 | but recently someone told me

00:00:52.400 | that after our initial repentance at the time of salvation,

00:00:55.860 | ongoing repentance is no longer necessary.

00:00:59.240 | At first I was flummoxed,

00:01:00.860 | but then there are so many verses that say

00:01:02.780 | he has forgiven our sins past, present, and future,

00:01:05.540 | Colossians 2, 13 to 14, for example.

00:01:08.520 | Christ has forgiven all of our sins,

00:01:10.240 | canceled all of our debts,

00:01:11.620 | and has nailed it all to the cross finally and fully.

00:01:14.740 | So am I doubting this work

00:01:16.420 | if I go on repenting for my sin?

00:01:18.340 | I'm a former Roman Catholic,

00:01:19.700 | and this ongoing confession of sin reminds me

00:01:22.560 | of their way of keeping Jesus on the cross

00:01:24.660 | through false traditions.

00:01:27.020 | Can you help me think through this?

00:01:29.300 | - Maybe the most important thing

00:01:30.980 | that I could do to help Judy

00:01:34.060 | is to point her and the rest of us

00:01:37.740 | to the all-important distinction

00:01:39.780 | between redemption as something

00:01:42.700 | that is already accomplished and finished once for all,

00:01:47.060 | never to be repeated or added to,

00:01:50.540 | and redemption that is applied to us

00:01:53.540 | when we're saved, when we're converted,

00:01:58.700 | and then in an ongoing way now and forever.

00:02:02.280 | And in making that distinction,

00:02:05.860 | we will see that forgiveness of sins,

00:02:08.860 | which is what she asked him in particular,

00:02:13.580 | can be viewed in these two ways,

00:02:16.820 | accomplished and applied.

00:02:19.900 | Which relate, I think, directly to her question.

00:02:23.700 | So let me unpack this understanding of redemption

00:02:27.780 | for just a moment,

00:02:29.580 | and then look at her question specifically.

00:02:33.740 | Here's what I mean by the once for all,

00:02:37.540 | finished, complete, never to be repeated,

00:02:41.020 | never to be added to, redemption.

00:02:43.780 | When Christ died on the cross

00:02:47.860 | for his bride, the church,

00:02:50.780 | as Paul says in Ephesians 5, 25 to 27,

00:02:53.940 | he accomplished at least four decisive

00:02:58.820 | once for all things.

00:03:02.660 | First, Christ offered a perfect

00:03:05.260 | sin-covering sacrifice to God.

00:03:08.640 | So perfect that unlike the Old Testament sacrifices,

00:03:14.340 | it never needs to be repeated.

00:03:16.840 | To be repeated, cannot be repeated.

00:03:19.800 | Hebrew 7, 27, Christ has no need

00:03:22.480 | like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily,

00:03:28.160 | first for his own sins and then for the people,

00:03:31.480 | since he did this once for all

00:03:33.980 | when he offered up himself.

00:03:37.480 | In other words, a perfect once for all,

00:03:40.800 | never to be repeated, sacrifice for sin.

00:03:44.800 | That's number one, that happened decisively on the cross.

00:03:48.320 | Number two, this sacrifice accomplished

00:03:51.560 | what the New Testament calls propitiation.

00:03:56.880 | Romans 3, 25, God put Christ forward

00:03:59.880 | as a propitiation by his blood.

00:04:03.900 | In other words, when he died, this happened.

00:04:08.800 | To be received later, when you come into existence

00:04:12.360 | 2,000 years later, by faith.

00:04:15.200 | This means that the sacrifice of Christ

00:04:18.920 | provided a holy and righteous satisfaction

00:04:22.420 | of the demands of God's justice in the punishment of sin.

00:04:29.320 | And so his condemning wrath is removed

00:04:32.480 | forever from his people.

00:04:35.640 | Third, positively the New Testament calls this

00:04:41.240 | reconciliation.

00:04:43.160 | From God's side, the hostility of wrath

00:04:47.000 | is removed toward his son's bride.

00:04:49.840 | And fourth, by this sacrifice,

00:04:54.300 | God decisively purchased, paid the finished price

00:05:00.240 | for the liberty of his people

00:05:04.480 | from sin and wrath and death and Satan.

00:05:07.960 | 1 Corinthians 6, 19, you are not your own,

00:05:11.960 | you were bought with a price.

00:05:14.380 | That's finished, that's done.

00:05:17.200 | The price has been paid.

00:05:18.960 | So these four realities are what I mean

00:05:22.120 | by a once for all, finished, complete,

00:05:27.220 | never to be repeated redemption.

00:05:30.160 | It happened in history before we ever existed.

00:05:33.880 | It was outside ourselves.

00:05:36.080 | I can remember, what, 45 years ago,

00:05:39.000 | sitting in a seminary class where the first time

00:05:45.200 | I heard the Latin phrase extra nos,

00:05:48.660 | because of Luther, outside ourselves,

00:05:51.760 | and it had just never hit me before

00:05:54.400 | that all the decisive things had been done already for me.

00:05:58.560 | So God did this for everyone who would be

00:06:05.960 | united to Christ.

00:06:07.380 | A perfect final sacrifice,

00:06:10.840 | an all-satisfying propitiation,

00:06:13.280 | a glorious reconciliation from God's side

00:06:16.520 | with the removal of all divine condemnation,

00:06:19.560 | a full purchase of our liberty from wrath and sin

00:06:23.840 | and death and Satan forever, a finished price paid.

00:06:28.600 | Then the question becomes,

00:06:30.960 | how does this once for all redemption

00:06:34.560 | get applied to actual people,

00:06:37.920 | us, individuals in real life?

00:06:40.640 | And of course, we could write books,

00:06:43.480 | I mean, books and books on the answer to that question.

00:06:46.880 | He calls us out of darkness into light.

00:06:49.800 | He regenerates us by the Holy Spirit.

00:06:52.000 | He unites us to Christ so that everything Christ accomplished

00:06:55.640 | is made ours in Him.

00:06:57.280 | He gives us the gift of faith.

00:06:58.880 | He justifies us.

00:07:00.120 | He adopts us.

00:07:01.360 | He sanctifies us over a lifetime.

00:07:03.600 | He causes us to persevere to the end.

00:07:05.640 | He intercedes for us continually in heaven.

00:07:08.280 | He glorifies us with life and joy forever in His presence.

00:07:13.240 | All of that is the application to us

00:07:17.800 | individually of what was decisively secured 2,000 years ago,

00:07:23.760 | once for all, when Christ died and rose again.

00:07:27.000 | And Judy's question relates now to the forgiveness of sins

00:07:33.200 | and the ongoing act, her act,

00:07:36.760 | of what she calls repentance.

00:07:40.360 | So let's put forgiveness of sins into this understanding

00:07:45.360 | of redemption accomplished and redemption applied,

00:07:49.040 | which by the way, is the title of a very important book

00:07:52.080 | by John Murray, which I recommend to everybody to read

00:07:54.680 | if you wanna go deep and get a lot of help

00:07:57.280 | about these things.

00:07:58.120 | Redemption accomplished and applied, John Murray.

00:08:01.160 | Ephesians 1, 7 says,

00:08:03.640 | so I'm focusing now on forgiveness of sins

00:08:06.360 | and trying to see whether the Bible

00:08:08.080 | puts it into this framework.

00:08:10.440 | In Christ, we have redemption through His blood,

00:08:15.440 | the forgiveness of our trespasses.

00:08:19.320 | In other words, in the shedding of Christ's blood,

00:08:23.080 | once for all in history,

00:08:25.840 | all who are in Christ have forgiveness

00:08:30.240 | for all their sins.

00:08:31.400 | We have it, he says, we have it.

00:08:33.400 | We have them absolutely secure.

00:08:38.400 | We have them purchased for us.

00:08:41.360 | That's what the blood accomplished and secured.

00:08:44.660 | Colossians 2, 14, that she referred to,

00:08:49.120 | the record of our debts was nailed to the cross.

00:08:54.120 | That's what I would call forgiveness accomplished.

00:08:59.060 | Christ paid redemption, offered nails,

00:09:03.320 | driven forgiveness secured.

00:09:06.640 | It is accomplished.

00:09:08.480 | Then Acts 10, 43 says,

00:09:12.440 | everyone who believes in Christ

00:09:16.440 | receives forgiveness of sins through His name.

00:09:21.440 | When we believe,

00:09:24.200 | we receive the forgiveness Christ purchased.

00:09:29.000 | That's forgiveness applied.

00:09:32.360 | So when we become Christians,

00:09:34.800 | we are united to Christ

00:09:36.800 | so that the forgiveness He purchased

00:09:39.960 | becomes the forgiveness we experience.

00:09:43.800 | And since the purchase was complete

00:09:46.080 | and He nailed the whole record of our debt to the cross,

00:09:50.720 | therefore, the whole purchase will be experienced.

00:09:55.120 | It will be.

00:09:56.200 | God doesn't lose any of His own.

00:09:59.240 | The final question is then,

00:10:01.720 | since we are conformed to Christ progressively

00:10:05.880 | and not all at once,

00:10:09.120 | therefore, Christians are going to sin.

00:10:12.460 | There are no sinless Christians in action.

00:10:18.240 | If you say you have no sin, you're a liar, John said.

00:10:21.240 | What should our attitude be then

00:10:24.160 | toward our ongoing acts and attitudes and words of sin?

00:10:29.160 | No genuine Christian who loves Christ

00:10:36.080 | can be cavalier about the very thing Christ died to abolish,

00:10:41.080 | namely our sin.

00:10:43.140 | That would be one mistake we could make.

00:10:45.280 | We could be cavalier in our attitude.

00:10:47.280 | Well, He died to forgive them all,

00:10:49.480 | so they don't really matter

00:10:51.520 | because they're all covered by blood.

00:10:53.680 | No true Christian talks like that about his own sin.

00:10:58.160 | But the other mistake would be to panic

00:11:02.520 | and feel that with every sin,

00:11:06.480 | there needs to be a new redemption,

00:11:09.080 | a new sacrifice, a new penance.

00:11:12.280 | And I mention penance because that might be

00:11:15.520 | what Judy feels perhaps coming out

00:11:17.400 | of her former religious tradition that she mentions.

00:11:20.620 | I have to pay something, right?

00:11:24.020 | I see it, I have to pay something, I have to make this right.

00:11:27.300 | That would be a great mistake.

00:11:29.320 | The payment was perfect.

00:11:32.280 | You can't add to it at all.

00:11:34.120 | You can't add to your sin covering at all.

00:11:37.040 | Instead, what the New Testament says in 1 John 1:9 is,

00:11:41.480 | "If we confess," I'm gonna underline that word,

00:11:46.760 | repentance or penance might not be

00:11:49.800 | the most helpful word here.

00:11:50.940 | Just stick with John's word.

00:11:52.920 | "If we confess our sins."

00:11:56.140 | Confess means, homologo means agree with.

00:12:00.580 | See it the way God sees it.

00:12:02.300 | Feel about it the way God feels about it.

00:12:04.960 | "If we confess our sins, He is faithful

00:12:07.240 | and just to forgive our sins

00:12:09.500 | and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

00:12:11.720 | So confessing is not a payment.

00:12:14.560 | It is simply an agreement with God

00:12:16.560 | that this was an ugly and unworthy thing for me to do

00:12:21.560 | and I'm ashamed of it.

00:12:22.920 | I'm sorry for it.

00:12:24.680 | I turn from it.

00:12:25.960 | I embrace the finished, complete, perfect, once for all

00:12:30.960 | work of Christ afresh.

00:12:34.000 | I rest in it.

00:12:35.260 | I enjoy the fellowship that He secured.

00:12:40.860 | - Yeah, very good word.

00:12:42.040 | Thank you, Pastor John, for bringing all of those texts

00:12:44.160 | and realities together for us today on the podcast.

00:12:46.360 | And thank you for joining us today.

00:12:48.000 | If you have a Bible question like this one today from Judy,

00:12:50.880 | ask away.

00:12:51.720 | Email us your question through our online home

00:12:53.840 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:12:57.560 | We have two remaining episodes this week

00:13:00.520 | and we're going to devote them both

00:13:01.840 | to the theme of physical healing.

00:13:03.320 | On Wednesday, we're gonna talk about timing.

00:13:05.880 | God has promised to heal us, so when will He do it?

00:13:08.720 | Now?

00:13:09.560 | Later?

00:13:10.600 | And why did Christ seem to heal so few

00:13:13.000 | in His own earthly ministry?

00:13:14.760 | At least it appears that way.

00:13:16.060 | And then on Friday, we'll talk about healing ministries

00:13:19.380 | today, should we trust them or not?

00:13:21.540 | And do we avoid them because these ministries are fraudulent

00:13:25.180 | or do we avoid them because of our own unbelief?

00:13:28.400 | It's a big end to the week.

00:13:29.480 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,

00:13:30.440 | and we'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:13:32.440 | (upbeat music)

00:13:35.020 | (upbeat music)

00:13:37.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

All My Sins Were Canceled — So Why Continue to Confess?

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