This is Part 2, Read Part 1 here…

Well, very touchy question I know and this is how I see it. Think back to the time of bulls and goats. Animals were brought to the altar so they could be sacrificed for the sins the person committed since the last time they sacrificed an animal. Think carefully about that for a while. If a person commits a sin, they had to bring an animal. The animal was sacrificed and their sin, up to that point, was forgiven. If they sinned again after this present animal was sacrificed, a new sacrifice was required. In other words, once the animal was slain, killed, sacrificed, NO NEW SIN could be added to it. Hence the reason why the sacrifices had to continue day after day, year after year (Heb 10:1, Heb 10:11, Ex 29:36-41).

Jesus was appointed once to die. His sacrifice was not like the bulls and goats rituals. He took upon Himself all the sin of the entire world, past present and future. Some say the Bible does not explicitly say this. I beg to differ.

Hbr 10:12            But this Man, after He had offered ONE sacrifice for sins FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God. (NKJV)

The Greek interpretation of ‘forever’ is the word diekenes, which means ‘to carry through perpetually and continually’. (See Strong’s G1336). So yes, your future sins were also included in this ONCE FOR ALL sacrifice and then Jesus was slain, killed and sacrificed. (See also Rom 6:10, Heb 7:27, Heb 9:12, Heb 10:10-12) According to the same principle, NO NEW SIN can be added to this completed sacrifice. Since you sinned thousands of years after this sacrifice, logically your sins had to have been included when Jesus died. If they weren’t included, you would not be able to even claim His death as the basis of your forgiveness in the first place.

Hbr 9:12            Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (NKJV)

Eternal redemption! Let me Greek that for those who don’t believe the English. Eternal, aionios, means everlasting, without beginning or end, never ceasing, that which has always been and will always be. (See Strong’s G166.) Redemption, lytrosis, means ‘deliverance from the penalty of sin.’ (See Strong’s G3085.)

Now ask yourself this: Did God look ahead into the future at the sins you were going to commit up until the second you would make the choice to believe in Jesus and only included those sins in Jesus’ sacrifice, or did He look beyond the point of your salvation to the sins you would also commit after you got saved till the day you die? The verses above make it very clear it included the sins of all time. Why do you think Jesus was able to sit down and rest? Because He finished atoning for all sin for all time! If not, He would not be in rest because new sin would require a new sacrifice, which means He would continually have to be killed day after day because believers mess up day after day because NO NEW SINS can be added to a finished sacrifice.

But let’s imagine that were not the case and see how that plays out. Assume your sins were only forgiven up and until the moment you believed and got saved. If Jesus’ sacrifice only included those sins, then unfortunately for you, any sins you commit after the moment you got saved could not be added to the finished sacrifice because NO NEW SIN can be added to a finished sacrifice. No matter how much you beg, plead, fast or pray, a finished sacrifice is a finished sacrifice and as you should have picked up by now, NO NEW SINS can be added to a finished sacrifice. That means the latter option, pre-salvation sins, present point of salvation sins, and post-salvation sins were included in Jesus’ ONCE FOR ALL sacrifice. What a Saviour!

1 Jo 2:1-2            My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (NKJV)

Bottom line, being saved and having all your sins forgiven past, present and future does not mean you get a free ticket to go and do whatever you want. But if you should sin, YOU HAVE AN ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER, JESUS CHRIST THE RIGHTEOUS. Jesus would not be able to be your advocate for the post-salvation sin in question, were it not already forgiven at the cross. All the prosecution would have to say is, ‘Sorry, Jesus, no new sin can be added to a finished sacrifice’ and Jesus would lose your case and you would be lost again forever since after Jesus there remains no longer any sacrifice for sins. For this very reason you will not find one verse in the entire New Covenant that instructs a believer to continually beg for new forgiveness.

I am going to stop it here now, but some of you are already shouting “What about 1 John 1:9!?” so I will once again address that in the next post. So to answer the original question, nothing happens to your forgiveness. You are as forgiven now as you were the day you got saved. Your forgiveness can not fluctuate because the sacrifice that secured it does not fluctuate.

Grace to you all!

Cornel

A few years ago some people hurt me pretty badly. I cried myself to sleep that night and woke up still crying the next morning. Then I decided to forgive them. The choice to forgive them was my own. I forgave them before they apologized. I forgave them before they ‘repented’ and before they ‘confessed.’ Before they even knew I forgave them. The moment I chose to forgive them, that was it. In my mind they were forgiven, as if they had never even wronged me in the first place. They had absolutely no say over my choice to forgive them.

Now think of what Jesus did. Did He wait for you to confess and repent before He forgave you, or did He forgive you on the cross? If your answer is on the cross, then that means you were forgiven because God in Christ made the choice to forgive you despite the fact that you didn’t repent or confess. Even the Bible says it!

Rom 5:8  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NKJV)

God demonstrated HIS love towards us while we were sinners. He died for you before you ever repented or confessed anything. The choice was His to forgive you. That means, in God’s mind, you are forgiven. Whether you are a believer or not, you are forgiven because God chose to forgive you. (Isa 43:25, Jer 31:34, Heb 8:12, Heb 10:17, Rom 3:24-26) Does that mean every single person is saved? Of course not. Forgiveness is not the be all and end all of salvation. Faith in Christ reveals in you the FREE GIFT of HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. It is His righteousness that gives you right-standing before God, not forgiveness.

Imagine you have credit card debt. Debt places you on the left of zero, in the negative. If I came and forgave your debt, out of my own decided to pay off all your credit card debt, where on the line would that place you? It would only put you at zero, because all I did was forgive your debt. Even though you don’t have any debt, you don’t have anything else either because now you are only at zero. The debt of sin is to the left of zero and righteousness to the right, and as such forgiveness doesn’t give you an ounce of righteousness. To move past zero to the right hand side requires the free gift of His righteousness. That is revealed and received by faith alone.

Rom 1:16-17            For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (NKJV)

For in it, ‘it’ meaning the Gospel, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD is revealed FROM FAITH to Faith. Forgiveness is the thing that placed you in a position where you were able to receive the free gift. It is this free gift revealed and received by faith that completes salvation, not mere forgiveness alone. Forgiveness is what placed you in a position where His ETERNAL PURPOSE (which is not salvation) in and through man could be realized once again. (I will write on this more in a later post since it goes beyond the scope of this article and because I am sure it is going to upset a few people very much.)

To recap, Jesus forgave you on the cross. You can’t do anything to change that. It was His choice, and He made it without you apologizing, asking, confessing, or repenting. It was His demonstration of love toward you. When you come to Him and confess your inability to achieve right-standing before God yourself (sin) and when you cease trying to achieve it for yourself (repentance) you receive His free gift and you then become a reborn son of God, CREATED IN RIGHTEOUSNESS and TRUE HOLINESS (Eph 4:24).

Why true holiness? Because only Jesus is truly holy. Your actions or inactions do not make you more or less holy. Jesus in you makes you holy. You are either holy or you’re not. Something or somebody is holy because God set him, her or it apart for Himself. He did it, not you. You can’t be partially holy and you can’t make yourself holy either. Jesus is holy and because you are in Him you are holy, set apart by God, for God, through God and to God.

If that doesn’t make you happy, I don’t know what will! Now if you are wondering what happens in regards to forgiveness when a believer sins, you will need to wait a little while for the next installment…

Grace, grace, grace and more grace to you all!

Cornel