Will God Forgive Me For Repeating The Same Sin?
In his book, Abba’s Child, author Brennan Manning tells the story of how he used to whip himself for the sins he committed. The intention was to show remorse to God for those sins and hope that the punishment would keep him from doing those sins again. There was a deep anguish about whether God would forgive for repeating the same sin, and if he could ever be in right standing with Him. Here’s what he said about the experience…
I flailed away with such reckless abandon that I raised blood blisters on my back… Truth to tell, I was trying desperately to make myself pleasing to God.
-Brennan Manning (Abba’s Child, pg. 12)
And while many of us would not go to the lengths that Brennan Manning did, we often feel that same anguish in our own lives.
We feel like God must be so disappointed in us for doing things we know are wrong, but when we keep doing them repeatedly, doesn’t He just have to be downright angry? Surely, there is a limit to His forgiveness. There is no way that He will keep forgiving me if I keep sinning over and over again, right?
Well, let’s look at the Bible and see what it says about forgiveness.
JESUS BORE OUR SINS IN HIS BODY
In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter says…
24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Peter says that Jesus bore our sins in his body when He went to the cross. He didn’t have any sin to pay for, so He was able to substitute Himself in our place and take all of our sins onto Himself to pay the penalty for them.
So, let me ask you a question, “How many of your sins would be committed after Jesus’ death on the cross?”
All of them, right? So if he bore your sins in His body 2,000 years ago, it had to be every single one of the sins that you would ever commit in your entire lifetime. That includes whatever sin you might be repeating over and over again.
COMPLETE SACRIFICE FOR SINS
So, with Jesus bearing all of your sins in His body on the cross, let’s look at the sacrifice that He made on Good Friday.
The author of Hebrews refers to Jesus as our High Priest and the difference between His sacrifice on the cross and all of the other sacrifices for sins made by priests under the Old Covenant. Look what it says in Hebrews 10:11-12,
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God
The author of Hebrews says it was a one-time sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus sat down after this sacrifice. Sitting is a position of work being finished. Jesus sat down because there was no more work to do, no more sacrifices for sins that would have to be made.
The Old Testament priests could never sit down because their work to cover up sins was never enough to take them away (Hebrews 10:4), but Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient to take away all of the sins of the entire world.
Jesus Himself even said, “It is finished” (John 19:30) as He took His last breath and died. The one-time sacrifice for all sins was complete.
COMPLETE FORGIVENESS
If Jesus’ sacrifice was complete for all sins, then that means that you have complete forgiveness. All of your past, present, and future sins have been forgiven.
We are told this in Colossians 2:13-14
13 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, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Paul is writing to Christians. He is writing to those who have said “yes” to Jesus by placing their faith and trust in Him for salvation. They are in Christ, and he tells them that He forgave us ALL our sins.
Paul says it this way when writing to the believers in Ephesus. He writes this in Ephesians 1:7,
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us.
I love the language Paul uses here, riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. He’s provided an elaborate, overly abundant kind of grace and forgiveness to us. It’s been lavished upon you.
In Christ, you have forgiveness for all your sins. You are not lacking any forgiveness at all. You have complete forgiveness.
NO CONDEMNATION
So, if you have complete forgiveness, then you are not condemned by God for the sins that you commit.
And God wants you to know that. How do I know that to be true? Because He inspired the apostle Paul to write this truth in Romans 8:1, which says,
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
No condemnation. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. You are not condemned.
There’s no condemnation because there are no more sins to pay for. They’ve all been paid for by the one-time sacrifice of Jesus.
So you don’t have to ask the question, “Will God forgive me for repeating the same sin?” They’ve all been nailed to the cross 2,000 years ago.
You can breathe deeply. You don’t have to walk around in fear. You don’t have to do penance. You can rest in knowing that you have complete forgiveness.
CAN I FIND VICTORY OVER RECURRING SINS IN MY LIFE?
Yes! I write about that much more extensively here in this blog post (5 Ways to Avoid Sin), but for most people, including myself, the key is discovering your new identity in Christ.
You are a new creation. You are not who you once were. You are different. You have a new nature. You’ve been given a new heart.
Discovering who you are in Christ, will lead to you finally living out whom Jesus has already made you into. That doesn’t mean you’ll be perfect, but even when you do fail from time to time, you can thank God for the complete forgiveness you do have and trust in His unfailing love.