Are our Future Sins Forgiven?

This is a doctrine being taught in churches that when you ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins, He forgives you of all your future sins as well as your past sins. Well, that is a doctrine not supported by scripture, and is therefore a false doctrine.

The fact of the matter is this. Only your PAST sins have been forgiven. Paul in Romans 3:25 tells us that Christ became a sacrifice to forgive us of PAST sins. The word past in the original Greek means “to be already, i.e. have previously transpired”. Paul didn’t tell us that Christ became a sacrifice to forgive us of every single sin that we have done, and are going to commit!

Some of you are already saying I’m wrong, and that all of our sins are forgiven. Well you are partially right on that point. Let me ask you this. When you sin, do you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness for that sin? If so, why do you ask for forgiveness for it if it was already forgiven you? Why do you slap Jesus on the face and tell Him His forgiveness wasn’t good enough the first time around? Think about these things while I continue to show you why this doctrine is a false doctrine.

When Jesus forgives you, what happens to that sin? David tells us in Psalms 103:12. God removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He removes them from us so that we know longer have that sin accounted toward us. When something is removed out of your life, you no longer have that item. Since the sin is no longer accounted to us, then we are without sin since God has removed it from us.

Now, if God has removed our future sins from us, why did John write in 1 John 1:8. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” ? If God forgives our future sins, and removes them from us, then we have a contradiction. For by default, if we say all of our future sins have been forgiven us, and God removes them as far as the east is from the west, then we have no sin. Again I ask, why did John tell us that the truth is not in us since apparently we have no sin? John is writing to Christians, not the unbeliever here, so it applies to us.

We know that there are no contradictions in the Bible, so where does that leave us? It leaves us right back at Romans 3:25, Jesus came to forgive us of our past sins only, not the future ones. Peter confirms this in 2 Peter 1:9 when he says “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” What did Peter mean by the first part of this verse? We need to look back to verses 5 through 8. These things are virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and finally love. Now verse 9 makes more sense when you read it in context. Notice that Peter says “purged from his old sins”. Purged means purified, cleansed, washed off, while the word old denotes something that has passed. Peter did not tell us that we have been purged of our future sins, only our old sins.

Throughout scripture – especially in the New Testament – we are told to repent, ask forgiveness of our sins. 1 John 1:9 tells us “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Remember that John was writing to Christians, not the unsaved. So why would John write “If we confess our sins…” if they have already been forgiven?

Here’s another question. Why do we feel guilty when we sin? If our future sins have been forgiven us, why does the Holy Spirit convict us of those sins, and tell us we need to fess up? The Holy Spirit convicts us because our future sins have not been forgiven us!

If our future sins have been forgiven us then we have no need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phillipians 2:12). The fear here is not the reverence fear, but is the Greek word meaning from a primary phebomai (to be put in fear); alarm or fright :- be afraid, + exceedingly, fear, terror. This is a physical fear!

What some people think and do is this. They think that since they have been forgiven of every single sin they have, and will commit, they can go about living their lives as they had before. By saying all future sins are forgiven they have a false sense of security of their salvation, and end up falling out of their faith.

Take heed and remember that God is not mocked. By declaring that all future sins are forgiven, and then asking for forgiveness of them again, you are mocking God. In Galatians 6:7, mocked in the original Greek means “to ridicule”. We ridicule God when we say all of our future sins are forgiven, and yet, when we actually commit those sins, we ask for forgiveness of them a second time.