Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
What Does Forgiveness of Sin Have to do with Salvation?
Let me throw you a curve ball right from the start. Did you know that from the days of Adam until now, God has always been forgiving people for their sin? Today’s churches are always teaching people that there was no forgiveness of sin before Jesus died on the cross. That it was His sacrifice that allows us to be forgiven and that is the entire concept of salvation. That sin cannot enter heaven and without that forgiveness, nobody can enter heaven. What if I told you that is arguably the most common false doctrine being taught today, and I can prove it!
Let’s first start off with a couple scriptures to set the stage….
Exodus 29:36 (NASB)
36 Each day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to consecrate it.
Exodus 32:30 (NASB)
30 And on the next day Moses said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
If you look up the word “atonement” in any Bible app, you will find many scriptures, just like these two, where God is commanding His people to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins.
Now admittedly, atonement is not the same as forgiveness. The definition of atonement is the action one takes to right a wrong in hopes of forgiveness. Why then, would God command the slaughter of animals to atone for sins He is not going to forgive? If God says He will forgive someone for their sins, He will forgive them. And in this next verse, He says just that.
Leviticus 4:20 (NASB)
20 He shall also do with the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; he shall do the same with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.
There really can be no debate on whether God was forgiving sin before Jesus was even born. But Jesus Himself said this…
John 3:13 (NASB)
13 No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
This leads us to a very interesting question. If God was already forgiving people for their sins, even in the days of Moses, then how is it nobody ever went to heaven? There is really only one answer for that. It is actually not the forgiveness of our sins that is keeping us out of heaven. If it was, then at least someone along the time from Adam to Jesus would have made it to heaven wouldn’t you think? At least one person would have sacrificed an animal to be forgiven for their sin and died before they had a chance to commit another sin. At least one would have made it. But nobody made it to heaven. Not one person! So there has to be something else that keeps us out of heaven and if that is the case, why did Jesus die for the forgiveness of sin?
The first truth is that the forgiveness of our sin is not about our salvation so much as it is about our relationship with the Lord. When men sacrifices animals to atone for their sin, it was not so they can go to heaven. It was to clean up their relationship with the Lord. Let me give you an analogy that you can understand easily enough.
A young man gets upset with his dad and loses control. He actually hauls off and belts his dad one, screams that he hates him and runs off. His son hitting him would upset the man greatly, but he still would not hate his kid. A good man would already be forgiving his son as he ran out the door. He loves the kid and calls him back but his son just runs off.
Later that evening the kid comes home but doesn’t say anything. The man doesn’t say anything either. He still loves the kid, but their relationship is currently strained. The actions of his son is creating a separation between the two. The man is not going to throw the kid out for what he did. He isn’t going to throw him to the wolves or anything like that, but their relationship is still strained.
Now if that young man breaks down and cries to his father that he is sorry and asks him to forgive him, the dad would be like, “I forgave you before you ran away from me son!” But the action the son has now taken to repent of his sin isn’t about being thrown out into the streets. It is about healing the relationship with his father. That is what is happening with us and God.
When we ask God to forgive us, we don’t do it in hopes of not being cast into hell. We do it because we love the Lord and we want to grow closer to Him in our relationship. And He is always willing to forgive us. He already has forgiven us for the sins we committed the moment we commit them, but we need to repent of those sins not for salvation but for our relationship with Him.
So what keeps us out of heaven?
When Adam and Eve sinned, it did more than just upset God. Sin is like a spiritual cancer. It corrupts us. God warned them that if they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would die. The moment they committed that sin, their souls became corrupt. Their bodies were meant to live forever, but that sin began destroying their bodies. They began to age and die. Worse, it corrupted their souls.
From that day on, everyone who was born of Adam’s seed, was born with a soul already corrupted by sin. Or as I prefer to say it, they were born with a soul already stained with sin. That is why we have verses saying we are born with a sinful nature.
Psalm 51:5 (NASB)
5 Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Psalm 58:3 (NASB)
3 The wicked have turned away from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.
Ephesians 2:3 (NASB)
3 Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.
It is that sin stained soul that is actually keeping us out of heaven. God allowed man to sacrifice animals to be forgiven for their sins and revive their relationship with Him, but no animal was pure or holy enough to wash our souls clean.
When Moses was on the mountain, he asked God to show him His glory. This was part of God’s reply…
Exodus 33:20 (NASB)
20 He further said, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live!”
You see, God, when in His full glory, is so pure and holy that nothing corrupted by sin can even exist in His presence. When He comes to people, it is always a version of Himself that is reeled back so as not to destroy us. But heaven is where He resides in His full glory. If anyone corrupted by sin was to enter heaven, it would destroy their soul. So God could not allow even the godliest of people to enter heaven because even though they were forgiven for their sins, they still had a soul that was corrupted by sin. And that is what Jesus really died for.
Yes His sacrifice allows us to be forgiven for our sins without having to sacrifice any animals. Yes, His sacrifice was the last sacrifice. That is for our relationship with the Lord. But Jesus was also God in the flesh. He was absolutely pure and holy; holy enough that His sacrifice was strong enough to do more than just allow us to be forgiven for our sins. His blood also washes us clean.
A common scripture Christians misinterpret to mean that sin is not allowed into heaven, is actually saying that once we believe, we are washed clean and no longer considered sinners.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Did Jesus die for the forgiveness of our sins? Technically, yes. We no longer need to sacrifice animals for God to forgive us. Now we only ask for forgiveness and our relationship is back on track. It makes for our relationship with the Lord to be more personal not having to slaughter an animal every time we do something wrong. But it is not the forgiveness of our sins that allows us into heaven. It is the cleansing of our sin stained souls that allows us into heaven.
Let’s first start off with a couple scriptures to set the stage….
Exodus 29:36 (NASB)
36 Each day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to consecrate it.
Exodus 32:30 (NASB)
30 And on the next day Moses said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
If you look up the word “atonement” in any Bible app, you will find many scriptures, just like these two, where God is commanding His people to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins.
Now admittedly, atonement is not the same as forgiveness. The definition of atonement is the action one takes to right a wrong in hopes of forgiveness. Why then, would God command the slaughter of animals to atone for sins He is not going to forgive? If God says He will forgive someone for their sins, He will forgive them. And in this next verse, He says just that.
Leviticus 4:20 (NASB)
20 He shall also do with the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; he shall do the same with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.
There really can be no debate on whether God was forgiving sin before Jesus was even born. But Jesus Himself said this…
John 3:13 (NASB)
13 No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
This leads us to a very interesting question. If God was already forgiving people for their sins, even in the days of Moses, then how is it nobody ever went to heaven? There is really only one answer for that. It is actually not the forgiveness of our sins that is keeping us out of heaven. If it was, then at least someone along the time from Adam to Jesus would have made it to heaven wouldn’t you think? At least one person would have sacrificed an animal to be forgiven for their sin and died before they had a chance to commit another sin. At least one would have made it. But nobody made it to heaven. Not one person! So there has to be something else that keeps us out of heaven and if that is the case, why did Jesus die for the forgiveness of sin?
The first truth is that the forgiveness of our sin is not about our salvation so much as it is about our relationship with the Lord. When men sacrifices animals to atone for their sin, it was not so they can go to heaven. It was to clean up their relationship with the Lord. Let me give you an analogy that you can understand easily enough.
A young man gets upset with his dad and loses control. He actually hauls off and belts his dad one, screams that he hates him and runs off. His son hitting him would upset the man greatly, but he still would not hate his kid. A good man would already be forgiving his son as he ran out the door. He loves the kid and calls him back but his son just runs off.
Later that evening the kid comes home but doesn’t say anything. The man doesn’t say anything either. He still loves the kid, but their relationship is currently strained. The actions of his son is creating a separation between the two. The man is not going to throw the kid out for what he did. He isn’t going to throw him to the wolves or anything like that, but their relationship is still strained.
Now if that young man breaks down and cries to his father that he is sorry and asks him to forgive him, the dad would be like, “I forgave you before you ran away from me son!” But the action the son has now taken to repent of his sin isn’t about being thrown out into the streets. It is about healing the relationship with his father. That is what is happening with us and God.
When we ask God to forgive us, we don’t do it in hopes of not being cast into hell. We do it because we love the Lord and we want to grow closer to Him in our relationship. And He is always willing to forgive us. He already has forgiven us for the sins we committed the moment we commit them, but we need to repent of those sins not for salvation but for our relationship with Him.
So what keeps us out of heaven?
When Adam and Eve sinned, it did more than just upset God. Sin is like a spiritual cancer. It corrupts us. God warned them that if they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would die. The moment they committed that sin, their souls became corrupt. Their bodies were meant to live forever, but that sin began destroying their bodies. They began to age and die. Worse, it corrupted their souls.
From that day on, everyone who was born of Adam’s seed, was born with a soul already corrupted by sin. Or as I prefer to say it, they were born with a soul already stained with sin. That is why we have verses saying we are born with a sinful nature.
Psalm 51:5 (NASB)
5 Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Psalm 58:3 (NASB)
3 The wicked have turned away from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.
Ephesians 2:3 (NASB)
3 Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.
It is that sin stained soul that is actually keeping us out of heaven. God allowed man to sacrifice animals to be forgiven for their sins and revive their relationship with Him, but no animal was pure or holy enough to wash our souls clean.
When Moses was on the mountain, he asked God to show him His glory. This was part of God’s reply…
Exodus 33:20 (NASB)
20 He further said, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live!”
You see, God, when in His full glory, is so pure and holy that nothing corrupted by sin can even exist in His presence. When He comes to people, it is always a version of Himself that is reeled back so as not to destroy us. But heaven is where He resides in His full glory. If anyone corrupted by sin was to enter heaven, it would destroy their soul. So God could not allow even the godliest of people to enter heaven because even though they were forgiven for their sins, they still had a soul that was corrupted by sin. And that is what Jesus really died for.
Yes His sacrifice allows us to be forgiven for our sins without having to sacrifice any animals. Yes, His sacrifice was the last sacrifice. That is for our relationship with the Lord. But Jesus was also God in the flesh. He was absolutely pure and holy; holy enough that His sacrifice was strong enough to do more than just allow us to be forgiven for our sins. His blood also washes us clean.
A common scripture Christians misinterpret to mean that sin is not allowed into heaven, is actually saying that once we believe, we are washed clean and no longer considered sinners.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Did Jesus die for the forgiveness of our sins? Technically, yes. We no longer need to sacrifice animals for God to forgive us. Now we only ask for forgiveness and our relationship is back on track. It makes for our relationship with the Lord to be more personal not having to slaughter an animal every time we do something wrong. But it is not the forgiveness of our sins that allows us into heaven. It is the cleansing of our sin stained souls that allows us into heaven.