- This is not illegitimate
to think and to wrestle with this question.
If we are justified
for all of our sins; past, present, and future,
then even the sins that we commit today and tomorrow,
is it necessary
to ask for forgiveness if we are already justified?
It almost seems as if we're asking
for the forgiveness of our sins that
we're not really taking our justification seriously.
Maybe we should just simply
say, "Well, you've already justified me,
"I don't need to ask for forgiveness,"
and sort of just repent and go on from there.
I mean, how do we then ask for forgiveness?
Are we asking to be rejustified again?
That can't be the case.
So how do we make sense of this?
I think we can make sense of it, first of all,
by looking at the biblical data.
Really, what justification is,
the declaration of God that we are just and righteous
in Christ because he has taken our place
so that all of our sins are paid for.
That is a biblical truth
and that is taught over and over and over again
in the Scripture, and particularly in the New Testament.
We also have other passages.
The Lord's prayer would be the first one that comes to mind
where we are to
ask the Lord, forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
The Lord's prayer is a model prayer,
it's not just to be done in kind of rote way
but it is teaching us that as the people of God,
we continue to sin.
God continues to forgive
our debts
and then we then say,
"Well, how do we put that with justification?"
This is how I think you do that.
Justification obviously deals with sins past, present, future.
Yet time is important.
History is important.
So even though God knows his people
before the foundation of the world,
God knows that we'll be justified in Christ
before the foundation of the world,
Christ still must come.
Our sin must be paid for.
There must be repentance in faith.
There must be the receiving of Christ.
There must be the declaration of justification,
so you have to be very careful
that you don't make something that is true for all time,
then not eliminate the importance of everyday
living before God, covenant relationship with God,
relationship with God.
This is how I think it's best understood that
what has happened to us in Christ,
well, we've been brought into relationship.
God is our God and we are his people.
That's a covenant relationship.
There's an ongoing relationship that even before
we are glorified,
we still sin.
Our asking for forgiveness
is not a rejustification
but it's the application of what Christ has done for us.
We don't just take a timeless declaration
and eliminate it from our daily lives.
As we do sin, we are in relationship to God,
we must repent.
He's not a stone.
When we sin, he is grieved.
All of that's taking place and there is a breakage of
the full communion that we have in the Spirit
so that that forgiveness of sin
restores us to that relationship,
we're in the family, we're not cast out of the covenant.
Yet there is a relationship that is ongoing.
Think of a family relationship.
My children are
my family.
They will never be cast out of my family.
Yet if they sin or I sin against them,
that relationship needs to be restored even though
the family relationship continues.
Certainly, in the covenant relationship with God,
that kind of reality is part of it
and that is how I think we make sense
of our full justification.
There's not one thing we add to Christ's work
yet there is the ongoing asking
for the forgiveness of our sins
as we reapply and reappropriate and live in light of
what Christ has done for us
as our covenant head and great high priest.
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