ANNOUNCER: This is Grace in Focus. Today, continuing from our previous episode about 1 John 1:9. What is forgiveness? What is the result or reason for our need of ongoing forgiveness? Thank you for listening today. We are a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. More about us at faithalone.org. You will get access to many of our hundreds of articles about free grace theology at that website. You will learn about our free online seminary, our free full-length magazine, Grace in Focus, and about our national annual conference coming up in May, May the 18th through the 21st. You are invited to be there with us, get all the details at faithalone.org. 

And now, for today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we had a question in our last session that dealt with 1 John 1:9. We ran out of time, and I know that there were some issues that came up that I’m really interested in, and I’m sure that others are as well, and it deals with the forgiveness of sin. In case somebody didn’t hear the last podcast, let me just kind of summarize what we talked about. In 1 John 1:9 it says, if we confess our sins, he forgives us of those sins, the sins that we confess. But the issue was… 

BOB: And cleanses us from all unrighteousness. 

KEN: Right. But we brought up in that episode, what does forgiveness result in, or something like that? And we made a distinction between, what we discussed, is it a restoration of fellowship, which you rejected, or is it a, if I sin, does it break fellowship with the Lord in that sin? And you said no, but it is in that act you are not abiding. So the issue is, when a believer’s sins are they out of fellowship with the Lord? 

BOB: Okay, so, you know, I did my doctoral dissertation on repentance and salvation in the New Testament, and this was a big issue. Luke 15 was a big part of that, because, you know, different chapters in the Bible are known for different things. Like the love chapter? 

KEN: 1 Corinthians 13. 

BOB: Right. The resurrection chapter? 

KEN: 15.

BOB: 1 Corinthians 15, right? Well, what’s the repentance chapter? Probably Luke 15, right? Because we have three parables. You’ve got the lost sheep, you’ve got the lost coin, you’ve got the lost son, or the prodigal son. In all three cases, something is in fellowship, goes out of fellowship and comes back to fellowship. For example, in the first parable, you’ve got a hundred sheep, all of them are righteous, all of them are in fellowship with the shepherd. The one sheep strays away from the flock, and so no longer in fellowship. 

KEN: And by the way, we ought to say most of the time those parables are used to say, well, this is talking about unbelievers, but it’s clearly not talking about 

BOB: All of these are believers because all hundred were not only righteous in their position, but they were all righteous in their experience. 

KEN: And the coins and also 

BOB: And with the coins, all 10 were on this, probably it was a bracelet passed down from mother to daughter for generations. And one of the coins gets separated from the bracelet. So that coin is found, the woman finds it and brings it back. In the case of the sheep that strays, the shepherd finds it and brings it back. In the case of the son that strays, the father finds him and brings him back, but the father doesn’t go all the way to the far country. The father keeps going out part way looking for him. And then the one day he does see him, he runs and falls on his neck and kisses him and gives him the ring and the robe and slays the fatted calf for him and welcomes him back into fellowship. And remember what the father said, “This my son was dead.”

KEN: And now is alive.

BOB: And now is alive again? What does he mean dead? Well, I think it’s kind of like sometimes a person will say, well, he’s dead to me. When you say he’s dead to me, you basically mean, I don’t have any fellowship with this person. So when the father says he was dead and is alive again, this isn’t teaching he lost eternal life and now he’s got eternal life.

KEN: Or that he never had it. 

BOB: Or that he never had it. What it means is he was in fellowship with me alive. Then he went away. He was out of fellowship with me. Now he came back and he’s in fellowship with me again. So as I see it, repentance is the remedy for someone who’s out of fellowship with God. Confession is not that remedy. 

KEN: Okay. So we’re making a distinction here then. In 1 John 1:9 of a believer who needs to confess a sin and a believer who needs to repent. 

BOB: Well, so let me give you an example. The prodigal son, what if he confesses and says, you know, father, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone to the far country, but I’m staying here. 

KEN: Sure. He didn’t repay you in return. 

BOB: That confession wouldn’t work would it? On the other hand, if you have a person, he gets back to being in fellowship with his father. And then he offends his father in some way and he acknowledges it to his father. He doesn’t have to go back to the far country and return. He’s in fellowship with his father and he just acknowledges it and stays in fellowship with his father. My view is that there’s a difference between repentance and confession. There’s obviously an element of repentance every time we confess because when we’re confessing, we’re acknowledging our desire is to please the Lord. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a desire to repeat that sin. We may. But we acknowledge that too. 

Like, let’s say, you know, a person’s an alcoholic and they get drunk and they confess that and praying that God would change it because I don’t want to keep doing this. 

KEN: Or we might even say he realizes a high probability he’s going to do it again sometime down the road. 

BOB: Right. It’s not hypocritical for him to confess it. And guess what? God uses the very act of us confessing our sins to change us little by little over time. As we acknowledge our sins, then we receive cleansing, which we’ll probably talk about next time. And that has an impact on our future behavior. 

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KEN: I think one of the issues is, you mentioned in the last episode about, again, a believer who is not in the far country. Okay, So I sin. It’s not that I’m out of fellowship, but in that act, I’m not abiding in Him. And that’s the distinction that we’re making here.

BOB: Okay. And even that I need to clarify because, 1 John 2:28 says, “My little children abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink back in shame at His coming.” That’s all or nothing. But yet we all sin, right? First John 1:6; 1:8; 1:10, well, especially 1:8 and 1:10. “If we say we have no sin, we’re a liar and the truth is not in us.” If we say we have not sinned, we’re a liar, right? Sin is a part of the abiding experience. But when you get to chapter three where it says “in Him there is no sin and the one who abides in Him does not sin,” I believe what that verse is saying is that the abiding experience does not really include sin. 

KEN: Whenever I sin, I know it is not coming from me abiding in Him.

BOB: Right, but that doesn’t mean I’m not abiding. So that’s where it’s tricky because globally or as a whole person, I’m abiding in Christ even when I commit a sin, known or unknown. I’m still abiding, but that actual sin is not an expression of what I’m doing. So it’s kind of tricky, but we haven’t discussed one thing really important. Here it is, you ready, Ken? I’m ready. What is forgiveness? What is it? Tell me what forgiveness is.

KEN: Well, before, when we were talking about it, I suggested that it is a restoration of fellowship, but that just got blown out of the water. So when we say… 

BOB: Well, okay, even if we say it’s a continuation of fellowship, what would that mean? Let’s say we say, because there’s really, you can be forgiven when a person repents and you can be forgiven when a person confesses. So sometimes it may result in a continuation of fellowship and sometimes it may result in a restoration of fellowship. But really, what do we mean by fellowship? In other words, to say that it’s a continuation or a restoration of fellowship still doesn’t really answer the question what forgiveness is. Or maybe I’m missing it, but it seems to me we’ve got to discuss fellowship. So what is fellowship we’ve got? 

KEN: Fellowship is, I mean, as we talk about in general terms, a communion with Him, becoming more like Christ, walking with him, walking in the light, or in the words of John abiding in Him. 

BOB: Okay. So the word fellowship is the Greek word koinonia, right? 

KEN: Right. We’re sharing something. 

BOB: So in 1 John, what do we share with God when we are koinonia with Him? We’re in fellowship with Him. 

KEN: Well, we would share the light with Him. 

BOB: Okay. He is, God is light,  in Him there is no darkness at all. 

KEN: And there’s no sin in Him. 

BOB: Right. There’s no sin in Him. Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t sin. But what it does mean is our fellowship is not really a sinful experience. And also, I think what it means is that as we are walking in fellowship with God, we’re walking in the light. Like 1 John 1:7. :If we walk in the light as He is in the light.” Then what happens? “The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.” Right? So we’ll talk about cleansing in a future show. I don’t know. Forgiveness may take the next couple of shows. But it seems to me that what forgiveness is, is either a restoration of sharing. 

KEN: For the one who’s in the far country. 

BOB: Right. Or it’s a continuation of sharing. For the person who’s already sharing the light with God. Right? So let me use, let’s illustrate this in terms of husband and wife. If I get estranged from my wife and we’re not talking, we’re not even in the same house, we’re separated. That would be, to be out of fellowship. We’re not sharing the same space. We’re not sharing the same vision. We’re not having the same mission. We’re not having the same direction. Right? We’re just not sharing. So to restore that would be a restoration of our sharing life together. Wouldn’t it? And we would no longer be estranged. 

Well, the same thing can be true with God. Do I have the mind of Christ? 1 Corinthians 2:16. Do I see things the way Christ sees things? Do I desire to please God? Is my longing to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant?” If that’s the case, then I’m in fellowship with God. 

KEN: Even when you sin. 

BOB: Right. Even when I sin. Because that’s all part of the experience. And if I say that every time I sin, I’m no longer in fellowship, well, then that would probably mean I’m out of fellowship about 80% of the time. Wouldn’t it? Because I’m not aware of most of my sins. So you’d be going through life. And of course, that’s another thing. And maybe we can talk about the future, the relationship between fellowship and enduring. If we endure, we will reign with him. 

KEN: Well, I think we need to do another one of these two. We’ll do one more, and then we’ll do cleansing. 

BOB: And you know, to use Ken’s words, he’s been busting on me. 

KEN: No, no, no. I’ve enjoyed this. I’ve enjoyed this. So this is a, I hope that this causes all of our listeners to think about these issues. So it’s really good. But until our next session, remember, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: what does enduring to the end really mean? Please join us, and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.