FORGIVENESS: A simple yet profoundly significant misapprehension of the nature of forgiveness pervades the Church and it can be summed up in a statement I heard an highly educated Christian make recently: "Well, Jesus forgave all sin when He died on the cross. I can't even think of a sin that He didn't already die for. My sins are forgiven past, present and future."
This notion, that forgiveness flows automatically from the cross--or that forgiveness and atonement are synonyms--misses one very foundational reality. God does not forgive sinners. He forgives repentant sinners and only repentant sinners. That is a monumental distinction. And to make matters more serious, God "grants" repentance, and He grants it only to the sincere seeker.
"What?" you say. "I thought Jesus paid for all sin on the cross."
Indeed He did. But that payment does not become effective until we repent. Since we cannot repent for as yet uncommitted sins (because we don't know what they are), we also cannot be forgiven for as yet uncommitted sins. Though Jesus died for the unrepentant and for all their sin, He did not absolve them automatically at the cross, else all would be saved and universalism would be true and thus the Bible false.
The notion that, at salvation, all our sins are expiated, or wiped away, including our future sins, is held by mature as well as nominal Christians, but it is anti-biblical. The jury is still out on your future sins. How you will respond when you commit them is unknown to everyone but God. You don't even know. Else why would John state in 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (This is spoken by a believer to believers.)
As believers, our responsibility is to confess every sin the Holy Spirit convicts us of or brings to our remembrance. God knows what He wants us to deal with, and He will tell us what that is. This is not negotiable. We do our part, and God promises to cleanse us of "all unrighteousness" (known and unknown sins). Again, though Jesus died for the unrepentant, and even paid for all of their sins (past, present and future), those sins are only forgiven when they are dealt with through faith and repentance.
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