Forgiven?

I am constantly amazed as I hear Christians talk about the need to ask God for forgiveness of sin. What they are communicating is a lack of understanding of the cross and what Jesus did.

Are you surprised by that comment?

There is a lot of confusion on this topic of forgiveness. Throughout my Christian life I have been told I need to go to God to ask forgiveness for daily sins. In Campus Crusade they described it as spiritual cleansing, a spiritual bar of soap. It's almost universally accepted that a Christian has an ongoing need to ask forgiveness for sin.

May I tell you this is not biblically correct? This teaching that we need ongoing forgiveness communicates an error in theology that needs to be addressed. I know these ideas run deep in the Christian world and I will get a lot of "Ya, but..." from those who haven't thought through the implications of the cross. Let me see if I can walk through this and give you a different view of forgiveness....

When Jesus died on the cross how many sins did he die for? I hope you will answer "all of them". If you did you are right.

When he died on the cross how many of your sins were still future? Again, your answer should be "all of them".

So, when you trusted Christ as savior how many of your sins did he forgive? I hope you are getting the idea...the answer is all of them.

So, when you trusted him as savior, let me ask this again to make sure it's clear, how many of your sins were forgiven? Yes, again the correct answer is "all of them".

But, you might say, I haven't committed some sins yet, what do I do about those? That's a great question and we will answer that in a minute, but the one thing you can't do, if you followed my reasoning above, is ask for forgiveness. Why not? BECAUSE YOU ARE ALREADY FORGIVEN!

So what do I do about sin in my life? What do I do when I look at a woman? When I lie? When I get angry? How do I deal with ongoing sin? Those are important questions. Let me suggest this response-

When I sin as a Christian my need is not forgiveness, why? I'm already forgiven. What's my need? I need repentance. I've made a bad choice, sinned, lied, gotten angry. I've sinned. But as we noted above I'm already forgiven so what do I do now? I need to deal with sin in the right way. If I'm already forgiven then I need to focus on the real problem that caused my sin- a wrong choice, a bad decision, a wrong direction....I need to turn around, change my mind, I need to repent.

Here's a simple way to pray as we become aware of sin in our lives, "Lord, I just sinned (name what the sin is). Here's another reason I needed a savior. Thank you for forgiving my sins. Thank you for forgiving all my sins, even those I haven't done yet. I'm sorry I sinned. I repent (change my mind). Would you help me change directions? Would you help me repent and walk with you instead? I want to be like Christ, but I need your power to do it. Thank you."

If Christ's finished work on the cross is true then I never need to ask for forgiveness again....I simply need to thank him for what I already have and respond in repentance rather than seeking forgiveness (something that is already mine). We have a host of Christians asking for forgiveness and never repenting. Men and women continuing on in the sin they chose, but asking for God's forgiveness along the way. This is the worse possible theology and choice. Of course we are forgiven if we have trusted Christ, but there are consequences for ongoing sin. There are problems with it. That should be obvious.

We don't need more forgiveness. We have all we are going to get. What we need is repentance. We need Christians passionate to become like Christ and willing to change directions, as sin is revealed. Don't ask for what you already have. Repent and ask for God's help so ongoing sin is not part of your life.

Forgiven? YES, completely! And because of that our choices should be dramatically different.

Bible references for these thoughts: John 3, Romans 6-8, Hebrews 9-10, 2 Corinthians 5.