(upbeat music) - Well, welcome back to the podcast on this Monday morning. If you are with us on Friday, we looked at the sin that remains in us as believers. And it raises another question, one about confession for sin. That is, if God has forgiven all of our trespasses, and if all of our sins were canceled at the cross, why do we need to continue to repent?

It's a question inspired by the glorious truth of Christ's finished work in Colossians 2, verses 13 to 14. And the question comes to us from a listener named Judy, who lives in Rockford, Illinois. Dear Pastor John, I'm struggling with a question regarding God's word and want your input. Once we have repented and turned to the Lord for salvation, is it necessary to repent every time we sin afterwards?

I've always believed that, but recently someone told me that after our initial repentance at the time of salvation, ongoing repentance is no longer necessary. At first I was flummoxed, but then there are so many verses that say he has forgiven our sins past, present, and future, Colossians 2, 13 to 14, for example.

Christ has forgiven all of our sins, canceled all of our debts, and has nailed it all to the cross finally and fully. So am I doubting this work if I go on repenting for my sin? I'm a former Roman Catholic, and this ongoing confession of sin reminds me of their way of keeping Jesus on the cross through false traditions.

Can you help me think through this? - Maybe the most important thing that I could do to help Judy is to point her and the rest of us to the all-important distinction between redemption as something that is already accomplished and finished once for all, never to be repeated or added to, and redemption that is applied to us when we're saved, when we're converted, and then in an ongoing way now and forever.

And in making that distinction, we will see that forgiveness of sins, which is what she asked him in particular, can be viewed in these two ways, accomplished and applied. Which relate, I think, directly to her question. So let me unpack this understanding of redemption for just a moment, and then look at her question specifically.

Here's what I mean by the once for all, finished, complete, never to be repeated, never to be added to, redemption. When Christ died on the cross for his bride, the church, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, 25 to 27, he accomplished at least four decisive once for all things.

First, Christ offered a perfect sin-covering sacrifice to God. So perfect that unlike the Old Testament sacrifices, it never needs to be repeated. To be repeated, cannot be repeated. Hebrew 7, 27, Christ has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

In other words, a perfect once for all, never to be repeated, sacrifice for sin. That's number one, that happened decisively on the cross. Number two, this sacrifice accomplished what the New Testament calls propitiation. Romans 3, 25, God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood. In other words, when he died, this happened.

To be received later, when you come into existence 2,000 years later, by faith. This means that the sacrifice of Christ provided a holy and righteous satisfaction of the demands of God's justice in the punishment of sin. And so his condemning wrath is removed forever from his people. Third, positively the New Testament calls this reconciliation.

From God's side, the hostility of wrath is removed toward his son's bride. And fourth, by this sacrifice, God decisively purchased, paid the finished price for the liberty of his people from sin and wrath and death and Satan. 1 Corinthians 6, 19, you are not your own, you were bought with a price.

That's finished, that's done. The price has been paid. So these four realities are what I mean by a once for all, finished, complete, never to be repeated redemption. It happened in history before we ever existed. It was outside ourselves. I can remember, what, 45 years ago, sitting in a seminary class where the first time I heard the Latin phrase extra nos, because of Luther, outside ourselves, and it had just never hit me before that all the decisive things had been done already for me.

So God did this for everyone who would be united to Christ. A perfect final sacrifice, an all-satisfying propitiation, a glorious reconciliation from God's side with the removal of all divine condemnation, a full purchase of our liberty from wrath and sin and death and Satan forever, a finished price paid.

Then the question becomes, how does this once for all redemption get applied to actual people, us, individuals in real life? And of course, we could write books, I mean, books and books on the answer to that question. He calls us out of darkness into light. He regenerates us by the Holy Spirit.

He unites us to Christ so that everything Christ accomplished is made ours in Him. He gives us the gift of faith. He justifies us. He adopts us. He sanctifies us over a lifetime. He causes us to persevere to the end. He intercedes for us continually in heaven. He glorifies us with life and joy forever in His presence.

All of that is the application to us individually of what was decisively secured 2,000 years ago, once for all, when Christ died and rose again. And Judy's question relates now to the forgiveness of sins and the ongoing act, her act, of what she calls repentance. So let's put forgiveness of sins into this understanding of redemption accomplished and redemption applied, which by the way, is the title of a very important book by John Murray, which I recommend to everybody to read if you wanna go deep and get a lot of help about these things.

Redemption accomplished and applied, John Murray. Ephesians 1, 7 says, so I'm focusing now on forgiveness of sins and trying to see whether the Bible puts it into this framework. In Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. In other words, in the shedding of Christ's blood, once for all in history, all who are in Christ have forgiveness for all their sins.

We have it, he says, we have it. We have them absolutely secure. We have them purchased for us. That's what the blood accomplished and secured. Colossians 2, 14, that she referred to, the record of our debts was nailed to the cross. That's what I would call forgiveness accomplished. Christ paid redemption, offered nails, driven forgiveness secured.

It is accomplished. Then Acts 10, 43 says, everyone who believes in Christ receives forgiveness of sins through His name. When we believe, we receive the forgiveness Christ purchased. That's forgiveness applied. So when we become Christians, we are united to Christ so that the forgiveness He purchased becomes the forgiveness we experience.

And since the purchase was complete and He nailed the whole record of our debt to the cross, therefore, the whole purchase will be experienced. It will be. God doesn't lose any of His own. The final question is then, since we are conformed to Christ progressively and not all at once, therefore, Christians are going to sin.

There are no sinless Christians in action. If you say you have no sin, you're a liar, John said. What should our attitude be then toward our ongoing acts and attitudes and words of sin? No genuine Christian who loves Christ can be cavalier about the very thing Christ died to abolish, namely our sin.

That would be one mistake we could make. We could be cavalier in our attitude. Well, He died to forgive them all, so they don't really matter because they're all covered by blood. No true Christian talks like that about his own sin. But the other mistake would be to panic and feel that with every sin, there needs to be a new redemption, a new sacrifice, a new penance.

And I mention penance because that might be what Judy feels perhaps coming out of her former religious tradition that she mentions. I have to pay something, right? I see it, I have to pay something, I have to make this right. That would be a great mistake. The payment was perfect.

You can't add to it at all. You can't add to your sin covering at all. Instead, what the New Testament says in 1 John 1:9 is, "If we confess," I'm gonna underline that word, repentance or penance might not be the most helpful word here. Just stick with John's word.

"If we confess our sins." Confess means, homologo means agree with. See it the way God sees it. Feel about it the way God feels about it. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So confessing is not a payment.

It is simply an agreement with God that this was an ugly and unworthy thing for me to do and I'm ashamed of it. I'm sorry for it. I turn from it. I embrace the finished, complete, perfect, once for all work of Christ afresh. I rest in it. I enjoy the fellowship that He secured.

- Yeah, very good word. Thank you, Pastor John, for bringing all of those texts and realities together for us today on the podcast. And thank you for joining us today. If you have a Bible question like this one today from Judy, ask away. Email us your question through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

We have two remaining episodes this week and we're going to devote them both to the theme of physical healing. On Wednesday, we're gonna talk about timing. God has promised to heal us, so when will He do it? Now? Later? And why did Christ seem to heal so few in His own earthly ministry?

At least it appears that way. And then on Friday, we'll talk about healing ministries today, should we trust them or not? And do we avoid them because these ministries are fraudulent or do we avoid them because of our own unbelief? It's a big end to the week. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you back here on Wednesday.

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