ANNOUNCER: We recently had a discussion about the difference between cleansing and forgiveness. Well, today is part two, and we are glad you are with us, friend. This is Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website, faithalone.org. There you can find our magazine, Grace in Focus, as a free subscription. It is a very well done magazine. It comes out six times per year, great articles, full-length, full-color, and we want you to have it. Subscription is free, and that means it is free. All except if you live outside of the lower 48 contiguous United States, you only must pay the postage.

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And now here with our discussion of the day is Bob Wilkin, along with Ken Yates. 

KEN: We’ve been doing some sessions on forgiveness, which we hope will cause all of us, including Bob and myself, to think about this issue and biblically, what’s going on in these verses, and one of the issues that’s related to this is the difference between cleansing and forgiveness. 

BOB: And we started out talking about this five shows ago, maybe, and we started out by saying most theologians and pastors would say there is no difference. 

KEN: And that’s certainly what we were taught. Well, it was never even really discussed. I think it was just assumed. 

BOB: But it seems to me that 1 John 1:9 clearly establishes that forgiveness and cleansing are two different things. If we confess our sins, He forgives us for those sins, and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness, which is more than the sins we confess, because obviously we’re not aware of every sin we commit. So there’s a difference in 1 John 1:9 between forgiveness and cleansing. 

In fact, 1 John 1:7, two verses before said, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, then the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” 

KEN: Right. Notice that He doesn’t say, if you confess those.

BOB: Right. But what this means is, one of the things we said earlier, if you’re in the spiritual far country, you’re not walking in the light. So therefore, 1 John 1:9 doesn’t work because confessing your sins, when you’re walking in the darkness, doesn’t result in forgiveness and cleansing. In order to have forgiveness and cleansing, I have to be walking in the light. 

KEN: You have to return to walking in the light. 

BOB: If you’re in the darkness, right. And so the person who’s in the light, who’s walking in the light, then all they need to do is confess their sins as they become aware of them and they continue to be forgiven and they continue to be cleansed. But the question is, what is the difference? 

Okay? I like to think of it this way: you remember in John 13, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples? And He comes to Peter and Peter says, no, I’m not going to let you do that. And then He says, well, if you, I don’t wash your feet, you have no part with Me, which is a fellowship word. And He’s saying, look, if you want to have fellowship with Me, I’ve got to wash your feet. So he says, okay, give me a shampoo too. And He says, no, no…

KEN: I don’t think he said it like that. 

BOB: No, He didn’t. That’s the NIV. He said, no, I just need to wash your feet because you’re clean, but not all of you, which was both a reference to Judas and a reference to the fact that believers need ongoing cleansing. But it’s important to recognize Jesus doesn’t mention forgiveness in John 13. He doesn’t mention forgiveness until John 20 after His resurrection. And then He says, the sins you retain will be retained, and the sins you forgive will be forgiven, which seems to refer to church discipline. 

KEN: I think we also do put in here, this John cleansing when he’s washing the feet. That’s probably another reason why even if it’s subconsciously, most evangelicals see cleansing and forgiveness as the same thing because they’re going to look at Jesus cleansing the feet and says, okay, what he’s saying is when you’re a believer and you sin, you need your feet cleansed. That’s what that’s a picture of—the ongoing sins in a believer’s life. You wash your feet, your sins are forgiven. And Jesus says, you’re being cleansed. And so they’re going to see those words as synonymous. 

BOB: Ken, I’m still working this through, but I would suggest there’s clearly a difference. And another verse I would cite would be the washing of regeneration. Isn’t that Titus 3? 

KEN: Titus 3, right. 

BOB: He talks about the washing of regeneration. Well, that means that the moment we’re born again, we’re cleansed, we’re washed. And so there’s some kind of permanent cleansing that takes place when we’re born again. But then there’s a need for ongoing cleansing, like for our feet in the foot washing incident. And I kind of think of it this way, maybe the cleansing is how God looks at us. 

KEN: And by the way, let me just say in Mark 1, for example, there’s two sections, one after another. So in Mark 1, at the end of Mark 1, I find this interesting. Now again, people are going to say, well, it’s the same thing. He cleanses a leper and He says, now go offer the sacrifice for your cleansing. So He’s talking about cleansing. The very next verses He talks about the guy through the roof, the paralytic is lowered. He goes, your sins have been forgiven. So what’s the difference there? 

BOB: One’s cleansing, one’s forgiveness. 

KEN: And what is the distinction there? Now again, a lot, I think most people say, well, they’re the same thing. But I don’t think so. 

BOB: Well, obviously the cleansing of the leper wasn’t exactly forgiveness. It was a lot more than forgiveness. I mean, he healed him. 

KEN: Right. And the way you said it, I forgot the word you used, the way God sees us.

BOB: Something like that.

KEN: The cleansing there is more of a, maybe I would use the word status. And I’m just going to throw this out to you. So when we get to 1 John 1:9, when He says, if you confess your sins, you’ve been forgiven and then cleansed from all unrighteousness. So the ones that I’m not aware of, I’m just going to throw this out here then. So could we say that I’m really not forgiven of something that I’m unaware of? 

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KEN: So I’m aware of a sin. I confess it and I’m forgiven. And then He cleanses me. It’s more of a status. I’m not even aware of these things. So it’s not really proper to say, forgive me of this sin of which I’m unaware of. I don’t confess that sin. I’m not aware of it. And so it’s more of a who I am as I continue to walk in the light. 

BOB: I like that. I like that. So in other words, I don’t need forgiveness of every one of my sins. What I need is cleansing from all of my sins and I need forgiveness of the sins of which I’m aware. 

KEN: In my simple mind, that’s the way I kind of want to word it. 

BOB: Now, maybe it’s true that when He forgives us for that sin, He also forgives us for all sins, but that’s not what 1 John 1:9 says. It doesn’t say if we confess our sins, He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to forgive us of all unrighteousness. 

KEN: And He could have said that. 

BOB: Right. But he says cleanses from all unrighteousness. So I kind of look at it this way. In fact, this was how Zane Hodges illustrated this in his course on 1 John. He said, imagine a man who’s wearing a white suit. Why anybody would have a white suit? I don’t get.

KEN: Colonel Sanders, Colonel Sanders had a white suit. 

BOB: All right. So imagine Colonel Sanders and he looks down and Colonel Sanders is flabbergasted to see that there are six mud spots on the front of his jacket and pants. And Colonel Sanders doesn’t realize there’s another 20 spots on the back of his jacket and the back of his suit pants. Are you with me? And Hodges says, when I look down and see the spots that I can see, I confess or acknowledge those and instantly my suit is white, not just on the front, but on the back too. All the ones I can’t see are cleansed too. And so he said, that’s how you have now a perfectly white suit once again. Well, I wonder if that’s the way God looks at us. It’s like when He cleanses us, it’s like we’re clean before Him. We’re pure before Him. 

KEN: Even of the ones we’re not aware of on the back of the suit. 

BOB: Yeah. All of them are cleansed. And so our standing before Him is, it’s almost like, you know, some people say, it’s almost like we never sinned when He forgives us. Well, that’s not totally true because we have consequences for our sins in this life and things. But it is true that I think the way God sees us, when He forgives us, He also cleanses us. And that cleansing means He’s seeing us now as people who look good to Him. 

KEN: Yeah. If we could summarize it, if I’m on the right path here on this, and I’m open to the fact that maybe I’m not, but I’m not forgiven of sins that I’m unaware of. I’m cleansed of sins I’m unaware of. I confess the sins that I’m aware of. And I’m forgiven of those. And then he also cleanses me. It’s not proper to say He’s forgiven them of me, because I’m not even aware of them. 

BOB: Maybe He does. I don’t know. I would say He probably does, but I don’t think I can think of a Scripture that says that. And besides, I don’t know that we need that. If He forgives me of the sins that I confess, and He cleanses me from all unrighteousness, what more do I need? It’s not like I’m unforgiven in these other areas. It’s just that’s not an issue. 

KEN: That’s not an issue, that’s my point. It’s the terminology that we’re using. Yeah. And again, maybe it’s just too literal, but we don’t, I’m not asking for forgiveness because I’m not even aware of it, but he cleanses me of it. And to go back to the, I’m throwing this out here again, in Mark, the leper. Okay. So we got the leper and then we got the paralytic. To one, he says, go do the sacrifices for your cleansing. Okay. If I’m going to press this.

BOB: Because he’s been cleansed. 

KEN: Right. And so that’s his status in society. 

BOB: Right. He no longer has to say, “Leper, leper, keep away, keep away.” 

KEN: Exactly. So it’s more of a, this is a change in his status with the people that he’s around, where the guy who’s coming down the roof, the paralytic, he’s been accused of being a paralytic his whole life because of his sins. And so Jesus is saying, I’m forgiving you of the, maybe He’s even thinking it’s because of the sins or whatever the case, these, these particular sins. And your sins have been forgiven. And so I’m wondering if we can make that distinction there as an illustration of the difference between cleansing and forgiveness here. 

BOB: Maybe we could. But you might think of the same thing to some degree with parents and children. You don’t want to send your children to school with spots all over their clothes and with dirty faces and dirty hands and everything else because they represent you. Well, we represent God on earth. “So let your lights shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is heaven,” Jesus said, right? In order to do that, we need to be cleansed people. If we’re cleansed people, then we can let our lights shine. 

KEN: And if we’re cleansed people of the sins, we’re not aware of, and we’re forgiven of the ones we confess, we walk in the light. That’s what our aim in life is—to walk in the light as He is in the light. And if so, the blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us from all sin. And we continue to walk in the light. We continue to enjoy fellowship with God. We can share with Him. 

All right. Well, this is good stuff, Ken. I hope you all have enjoyed this discussion. It’s been challenging on my end because we’re not just staying in the areas where, you know, this is well-established theology. This is stuff you need to pray about. But I hope we’ve given you food for thought. And in the meantime, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: if we had eternal life that can never be lost, why not live like the devil? Please join us again. And until then, let’s keep grace in focus.