By Sherri Stevens

What if a group of Christians was assembled and asked, “How many of you believe Jesus meant what He said when He proclaimed from the cross, ‘It is finished!’?” Most likely we would see every hand go up. But if the same Christians were asked, “How many of you are still asking God to forgive you when you sin?” we would probably see those same hands raised again. So, what’s the disconnect here?

The problem is that we have a culture of guilt-ridden, weary Christians today who have been taught a faulty formula of forgiveness. They think that forgiveness is doled out to them on an “as needed” basis by their pleading for a fresh batch of forgiveness. They function out of a “faith” that offers them only partial, conditional forgiveness. They consider themselves as having only the potential to be forgiven—and only if they fulfill the right conditions. But God’s divine forgiveness was executed in a moment of time, once and for all. It is absolute, not ongoing. It is final, not temporal! It is complete, not partial. It is a reality, not a potential!

Paul told us, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Eph. 1:7). According to this verse, and many others throughout the New Testament, you are a forgiven person. You are not forgiven over and over again! “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins” (Col. 2:13). Read also Colossians 1:14; Ephesians 3:32; and 1 John 1:12.

It is not a function of faith but rather a dysfunction of faith to be asking God over and over to do something He said He has already accomplished. The Bible communicates that Jesus was sacrificed “once for all” for our sins. “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). And yet most Christians do not rest in that “once for all” provision that was made for them two thousand years ago. The book of Hebrews explains the forgiveness that New Covenant believers live under today: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary” (Heb.10:17).

Most garden-variety Christians, however, live a life in complete contradiction to this explanation of the New Covenant. They live as if God does remember their sins. They live as if they need to execute more forgiveness, and they continue to “sacrifice” for their sins in a vicious cycle of confession—or maybe some sort of self-imposed penance. Let me briefly address the potential question that commonly arises in dealing with this subject of total forgiveness: if we’ve already been forgiven, can’t we do whatever we want and not worry about sin? Interestingly enough, we read that the apostle Paul had to deal with this same question among church members who took issue with such a bold and broad reach of grace. He said, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1).

And what was Paul’s response? “By no means!” Then he continued in the next three chapters of Romans to explain that it is because we have died to the law and are now under grace that we have been set free from sin. Titus 2:11–12 says, “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It [grace] teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.” It is grace, not the law, that teaches us to say no to worldly passions.

Let me try to illustrate this concept of the finished work of forgiveness in accounting terms. Let’s say that your bank account was excessively overdrawn, and Jesus went into the bank and paid your debt in full. Then, on top of that, He deposited an extra one billion dollars into your account. But instead of being thankful for those generous dollars He deposited (reckoned to your account), you continued going back to the bank every other day, begging and badgering the teller, saying, “I am so sorry! I only have these two cents to deposit into my overdrawn account today. Please forgive me.” The bank teller tells you the same thing on every visit: “Go home. Your debt has been fully paid. The bank ledger has been balanced!” But sadly, most Christians today do not live much differently from the way Old Testament Jews used to live. They live with a self-imposed pseudosacrificial system. The only difference today is that instead of shedding the blood of bulls and goats, which was instituted by God as an acceptable and temporary system to cover sins, Christians today have devised their own pseudo-sacrificial system based on confession and begging God for more forgiveness.

This faulty formula of faith overlooks the most fundamental premise taught in scripture: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). God only gave man two systems acceptable to Himself to deal with sins, and both include the shedding of blood. The blood of bulls and goats atoned for sins in the Old Testament, and the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world in the New Testament! Jesus, the Lamb of God, was the propitiation for the sins of the world. The Greek word hilasmos, meaning “propitiation,” taught in the New Testament is different from the Hebrew word kippur, meaning “atonement,” taught in the Old Testament. Propitiation means “to take away” sins, whereas atonement means “to cover” sins. “He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2 KJV).

When Christians operate out of a faulty formula of faith, they neglect to rest in the finality of forgiveness that was accomplished by Jesus’s death on their behalf. But most Christians will never get off this merry-go-round model of forgiveness, because they have been misled regarding the proper context and application of one verse in particular: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Most Christians utilize this single Bible passage as a “Christian bar of soap,” thinking that somehow they are cleansing themselves of whatever sin they have committed according to their confession.

Let’s break down some of the problems with this very popular mode for receiving forgiveness. First, God did not give us the option to cleanse ourselves according to our confession. Remember: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Jesus shed His blood “once for all” on the cross, and He is not going to do it again…and again and again, according to our chronic and contrite confessions. Second, 1 John 1:9, when read in its proper context, is a salvation passage. Once we have acknowledged our sin of unbelief, we are cleansed of all unrighteousness by the blood of Jesus. This leads us to the third point: if you have been cleansed from all unrighteousness, how much more cleansing do you need?

So, what is the appropriate response when we sin? We confess our sin to God (which means to acknowledge and agree with Him concerning our sin), and then we thank Him that we have already been forgiven. We do not confess to be forgiven; we confess and thank Him that we are forgiven. That is the difference! Then we ask God for His guidance and strength to walk in the newness of life through the power of His Spirit.

If contemplating these points has helped you diagnose why you might be feeling so spiritually dizzy, then consider this blog entry as your invitation to exit the misery of a life lived on a “merry-go-round” of asking God to forgive you over and over again and rest in His total forgiveness.

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