John Macarthur; 1 John 1:9

...There is no way a forgive person can then be reversed, as it were, out of that condition of forgiveness and held before the judgment bar of God to pay ultimately for his own sins. I just want to make it very clear that all our sins are forgiven and yet in spite of this gracious, merciful generosity on God's part toward all of those who repent and embrace Jesus Christ we are still, according to 1 John 1, we are still known as Christians because we continue to confess our sins. And that is what verse 9 is saying, if we are confessing our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we looked at that in some detail and pointed out that is not a command, that is a statement of fact. True believers are habitual confessors who therefore demonstrate that their sins are continually being forgiven. We are still known as penitent. We are still known as eager to repent, as confessors of sin.
In our previous study we looked into this verse and into the context a little bit and we saw that John is providing one of these several tests to verify a true believer. There were those people with whom John was dealing who claimed to be in the light. They claimed to have fellowship with God. But in actuality they walked in darkness because they refused to confess their sins. They are so described in verses 8 and 10. Very different is the pattern of a true Christian. It is the pattern of our lives to be constant confessors, never denying our sin but always acknowledging our sin and always enjoying the on-going benefits of that confession and that repentance. In fact, we never come to the table of the Lord without the attitude of confession. We never come to the table of the Lord, such as we're doing tonight, without a heart searching to see if there's any sin in our lives that could cause us literally to bring chastening upon us by partaking of this table without due consideration of the confession of our sins. The godly are confessors. We learn that throughout the Scripture. I quoted to you from Romans chapter 4, "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven," and I said that comes from Psalm 32. Psalm 32 is prayed by David. David was a believer. David was a justified man. David was a child of God and yet he confessed his sin. He said, "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to Thee, my iniquity I didn't hide, I said I'll confess my transgression to the Lord and Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin." David was a believer. David was a child of God and yet when he didn't confess his sin he felt tremendous pressure. It dried up the fluids in his body. It distressed him. He ached all over. What was happening was the guilt that was flooding his mind was having an impact on his body. And then he confessed and he opened his heart. He felt the free flow of God's forgiveness and restoration. Those of us who are believers then, even though all our sins have been forgiven, are nonetheless confessors...confessors. And as I said, this isn't a command to confess, it's a statement of fact. Believers by nature do this. It is the result of the work of God in them. It is the result of the work of the Spirit in them. It is the result of the work of the Word in them, all of which convicts of sin. So even though we have been forgiven, we are very much aware of our sin, very eager to confess it, repent of it and be washed.

This is not a command in 1 John 1. But there are commands in the Bible that tell believers to seek forgiveness. Luke 11:4, what did Jesus teach the disciples? He taught them to pray this way, "Forgive us our sins...forgive us our sins."
....Now we have a problem here. You see where I'm going? We have a dilemma. Why would I be saying, "God, forgive my sins," when I know He's already forgiven my sins? How am I going to reconcile this?

Well, some teachers increasingly popular, by the way today, claim that since we are already forgiven we must never ask God to forgive our sins. To do so, they tell us, is an expression of unbelief. It's an expression of doubt. And, in fact, you are calling God's Word into question. Why would you ever ask the Lord to forgive your sins when He has told you all your sins are already forgiven? And so they insist that 1 John 1:9 has nothing to do with Christians but it is an invitation to non-Christians. When I was writing the book on forgiveness, I used some illustration from the best-known contemporary proponents of this view, a man named Bob George who teaches on the radio, a popular author, he says that Christians who pray for forgiveness, quote: "Live in daily insecurity, doubting whether all their sins are forgiven." He and several others who teach similarly claim that the only way to enjoy your liberty in Christ is to forget your sin, forget about it all together and just embrace God's forgiveness as a fully accomplished reality because of the work of Christ and never again pay any attention to your sin.
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As a righteous judge, He has done that because He thoroughly and completely punished Jesus Christ for our sins. The price is paid in full and therefore God by justice cannot hold us guilty because the price has been paid.

But that's not all the truth in this matter and to say that God therefore pays absolutely no attention to our sin is ridiculous and to say that you are to pay no attention to your sin is also ridiculous and dangerous. To say that we can sin and completely ignore it and bear no guilt and no remorse and offer no confession and ask for no forgiveness will, believe me, bring down on such a person's head the discipline and the displeasure of God. The idea that a Christian should never pray a penitent prayer seeking forgiveness is unbiblical, it's heretical. So-called Christians who think they can sin and never need to seek their Father's forgiveness is seriously deceived, but that is an increasingly popular view.
......You say, "Well what do people do with that verse?" Well, those who argue against praying for forgiveness say that that verse applies to the Old Covenant under Moses' law. They say that under the Old Covenant, under the law of Moses, under the legal dispensation of the past and maybe some future legal dispensations, some of them refer to, that prayer applied. In other words, when you ask for forgiveness you got it and the next time you asked you got it, and the next time you asked you got it. And that's how it was, they say, under the Old Covenant.
Guess what? That's never how it was under the Old Covenant...never. People were saved under the Old Covenant the same way they're saved under the New Covenant. They cried out to God about their sinful condition and God in mercy forgave all their sins...that's Psalm 32, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin at all. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Justification in the Old Testament was exactly the same as it is in the New Testament, as it is now...the sinner cries out to God, God forgives based upon the death of Jesus Christ. God applied the sacrifice of Christ to penitent sinners in the Old Testament even before Jesus died. The New Covenant was already in operation, though it wasn't ratified until Calvary. There wasn't any dispensation that operated like that, that if you confessed your sin it's forgiven, if you confess it's forgiven, if it's confessed...nobody would ever believe the Bible teaches a conditional salvation that comes and goes with every sin and be able to defend that biblically. There never was salvation by law. There never was salvation by works. And if they're trying to say that was some legal code that operated in time past and might operate in some time in the future, then they don't understand the role the law played. The way people were saved in the Old Testament was when they realized that they could not save themselves. No amount of penitence, no amount of confession, no amount of law keeping could overcome the fact that they could not...could not get over the just judgment of God against their sin. They needed a substitute. The substitute was pictured in the Old Testament sacrificial system. There would come one day one whose death would be in their place. This is a way they have to get around the issue.
Well how are we then to understand this apparent contradiction? Simple, really, they're two kinds of forgiveness...two kinds of forgiveness. It is true, as I said, that all our sins are forgiven insofar as the judgment of God is concerned because He meted out that judgment in Christ. It is true. It is also true that we need to continue to ask the Lord to forgive our sins. Both are true, both are taught in Scripture. I'll show you how they harmonize if you'll turn to the thirteenth chapter of John, and this in the words of our Lord Himself. John chapter 13, it is the upper room, the familiar account of Jesus with the disciples. They're sitting at the table, nobody has provided a very important part of any social gathering like this where they're reclining at a table, and that was the washing of feet. There was apparently no servant available to do that, none of the disciples had deferred and taken the humble place to do it on behalf of the others. Jesus manifesting again His own humility as well as seeing in this a very important lesson, verse 4 says, "Rose from supper, laid aside His garments, took a towel, girded Himself around, poured water into the basin, began to wash the disciples' feet and wiped them with a towel which He was girded." The most menial of all tasks. They wore sandals. The roads were either dusty or muddy. You didn't recline at a banquet without properly washing your feet. This was the commonest of courtesies done by the lowest of servants. But no one did it, so Jesus did it. And it provides an opportunity to help us to understand these two kinds of forgiveness.
He came to Simon Peter, said to him, "Lord, do You wash my feet?" I mean, Peter understood that this is ridiculous, what are You doing down there washing my dirty feet? It ought to be the other way around.
Jesus answered and said to him, "What I do you do not realize now, but you shall understand hereafter." It will become clear to you in a while.
Peter said to Him, with his usual brashness, he doesn't even hesitate to command Christ, "Never shall You wash my feet! Never!"
Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."
Whoa! Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." I want a part with You. I want a relationship with You. Wash everything, Lord, everything.
But Jesus said to him, and here is the lesson, "He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you're clean." Boy, that's so insightful. Here is the distinction in an unmistakable analogy. Bathing...Peter took an appropriate bath before he came. He was basically clean, he didn't need his head and his hands, he didn't need to be literally doused. He had just accumulated dirt on his feet. Bathing illustrates one kind of washing, one kind of forgiveness. It illustrates the forensic forgiveness of justification. That is to say it indicates those who are justified by God as being declared free from the penalty of sin, free from the penalty of sin forever. You've already been justified, you've already been declared righteous because even though Jesus hadn't died yet, Peter had already been justified before the cross God applying the cross before it even took place. You have already been declared free from the penalty of sin forever by God who has His justice satisfied through the sacrifice of Christ. So bathing illustrates the forensic forgiveness of justification, washing illustrates the fatherly forgiveness of sanctification.

He says you're clean. You appear before God as clean and righteous. You are free from the penalty of sin in your justification. But then there's the matter of your sanctification and you need to be continually washed from the presence of sin and the power of sin. You don't need to be justified again, you just need to be being sanctified. And it is in that fatherly sense, it is in that sanctifying sense that Jesus tells us...Say to the Father...Father, forgive us our sins.
You're not doubting justification. You have been justified before God. You have been set free from the penalty of sin. But be honest and realistic and though you are set free from the penalty of sin, you have not been delivered from the presence and power of sin and while you don't need to be justified again, you need to be continually washed. Sin needs to be confessed and forsaken as a regular pattern of life, not before a judge who will otherwise condemn us to hell, but before a Father who will otherwise chasten us. And that too is clear from 1 John 1:9. We go on confessing, and He goes on forgiving and cleansing.

The on-going confession does not bring justification, the on-going confession is related to sanctification. The forensic decision regarding our freedom from the penalty of sin has been made, it's inviolable, it can't be reversed, we pointed that out. The fatherly concern for our holiness and our sanctification is related to the on-going confession and forgiveness. In Christ we have forever satisfied the judge. He will never be displeased. But God as Father is displeased when we behave sinfully.
Now to point this out is to clarify the issue. There are two kinds of forgiveness...judicial forgiveness, or forensic forgiveness. The forgiveness that was purchased in full by the atonement that Jesus Christ rendered on our behalf. That kind of forgiveness frees us from the threat of eternal punishment, eternal condemnation and that's why those who are in Christ Jesus are not under condemnation, Romans 8:1. It is the forgiveness of justification. But then there's not just the judicial, there's the paternal forgiveness. This is granted by God not as judge, but as father. He is still grieved when His children sin. Yes we are justified, but He also wants us to be sanctified, to be conformed to the image of Christ. He is pleased with that justification. He is displeased with the breach of sanctification. Forgiveness of justification takes care of judicial guilt, but it does not eliminate fatherly displeasure. We have been delivered from the penalty of sin by justification, but we haven't been delivered from the presence and the consequences of sin. That is an on-going process and that's why we are always confessing and always being forgiven and being cleansed. Your justification is a fixed and settled reality. Your sanctification ebbs and flows dependent on how you deal with the sin in your life. You are covered with the righteousness of Christ that pleases God and settles the issue of your eternity. In terms of punishment, there never will be any. But the sin in your life, in your humanness, displeases the loving Father, retards your sanctification which also displeases Him and muddies up the image of Christ which you and I are to manifest.
Are we supposed to believe that because Jesus Christ atoned for our sins God no longer cares about our sins? Of course He cares, why do you think the Bible is full of commands? What do these people do with them? What do they do with all the commands to holiness? One Christian confused about these things sent an e-mail, "Are you saying to me...are you saying God will become angry with His own children? If we're clothed with Christ's righteousness, how could God even see our sin? And if He can't even see our sin...that's a quick conclusion to his point...if He can't even see our sin how could He ever be displeased by it? I thought God was never displeased with any Christian because He accepts us in Christ as if we were as righteous as Christ and He's well pleased with His beloved Son. Besides, if we believe God gets angry with His own children when they sin, can we honestly say we believe He's forgiven us in the first place?"
So the forgiveness...back to 1 John 1...the forgiveness in 1 John 1:9 is parental forgiveness, relational forgiveness, it's restorational. It's like Psalm 32, Psalm 51, "Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation." It's the kind of discipline that deals with our sin and brings us to repentance, confession, forgiveness and restored joy. It is not the washing of regeneration, that's already done. It's not the forgiveness of justification, that's already done. It isn't the bath. We need one bath and many times need our feet washed.
......The aim of confession then is not to erase consequences, it's to restore joy. And then the consequences are what they are. Your sins have consequences. They're rocks thrown in the pond and the ripples go and they touch every shore. But God does promise when you've confessed and repented that He will show you loving kindness and compassion because you are His eternal child.. Your justification is settled forever. Don't cover your sin, confess it. That's what true Christians do. You've been bathed that you need continually to have your feet washed as they get dirty walking in your fallenness. If you don't confess, you'll be chastened. If you do confess, you may never be able to change the consequences but because you're God's child He'll come to you in compassion and loving kindness and minister to you. He disciplines His impenitent children because He loves them and He wants them to be holy and righteous and you can be holy and righteous even though the consequences are still painful. And while you're going through the pain of the consequences, He will flood you even if you're a broken-hearted child, with His mercy and compassion. That's why we are eager to confess our sins. We want that forgiveness, that compassion and that kindness to mitigate against the circumstances we've created.