ANNOUNCER: Is there a connection between the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life? Does forgiveness of sins give you eternal life? Or does the gift of life include the forgiveness of sins? How should we look at this? Thank you, friend, for joining us today here on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is FaithAlone.org. Why don’t you go there and have a look at our store? We mostly sell books at our store. And our Old Testament Commentary Volume 1 has just been released. It is available there, as well as Bob Wilkin’s latest book, “The Gospel is Still Under Siege.” Find what you’re looking for at FaithAlone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we’ve got a question from Michael, and he’s asking about something that Mike Lii wrote. He’s saying, in this article entitled, “Is the Forgiveness of Sins Equivalent to Everlasting Life,” you can read that on FaithAlone.org, Mike Lii said, “If one evangelizes by discussing the forgiveness of sins, he must explain that the believer in Jesus receives irrevocable, everlasting life the moment he believes in Him.” And so, Michael is kind of countering that by bringing up Acts 10:43, where Peter evangelized Cornelius and his household, and he discusses, among other things, that whoever believes in Jesus will receive the remission of sins, but he doesn’t in that passage explain everlasting life, or that he receives everlasting life the moment he believes in Him. So did Mike Lii miss something when he was writing his article on this, is the question. 

BOB: Right. Okay, so good question, and I would say no, Mike Lii did not miss something when he was explaining it, but I still understand where Michael’s coming from. In fact, don’t you think Sam that it’s exceedingly common in Christianity for people to make the forgiveness of sins the issue in evangelism, right?

SAM: Yeah, primarily. And we were just recording a video on the three circles evangelism approach. Most people pose it as you’re a sinner, you have sin in your life because of that sin, you’re no good, however they explain it, you’re separated from God, and if you die with that sin then you’ll go to hell. But if you believe in Jesus, then He’ll wipe away that sin, and now you can go to heaven. And that’s basically how—

BOB: And by the way, I think you correctly characterized that position when you said, because he forgives your sins, you can go to heaven. It’s possible for you to go to heaven. You might go to heaven, but they almost all say, of course, you must follow Christ the rest of your life. You must obey Christ the rest of your life. You must persevere to the end of your life, or else you’re going to lose your salvation, or else you won’t win final salvation, or you prove you were never saved in the first place, whatever language they use, most people would say that the forgiveness of sins just gets you started on the right path. 

SAM: Right. I do think there’s some that would hold to a radical forgiveness view that once you’re forgiven, it’s once and for all time, nothing can undo it. But the problem that both of those groups are missing is neither of them address the real issue, and the real issue is that when Adam and Eve send death entered the world, sin is a problem, and it’s the problem that instigated it, but death is the problem that we really want to have solved, because you don’t want to die, and you definitely don’t want to be dead forever, or be separated from God forever, and that’s what it entails, and that’s what God’s plan for salvation, the big picture of it was. 

SAM: Okay, so Mike Lii’s point is the issue in evangelism is we’re spiritually dead, that is we lack the life of God, we lack everlasting life, and that’s what we need is everlasting life. So Mike Lii is saying, look, if you want to talk about the forgiveness of sins, fine, but you need to bring in the promise of everlasting life. Now before we get to Peter’s message in Acts chapter 10, let me say that if you look at the only evangelistic book in the Bible, the Gospel of John, you’ll never once find Jesus saying, he who believes in me receives the forgiveness of sins. Not once, in fact, He didn’t even mention the forgiveness of sins until after he rose from the dead in John chapter 20, and even there, he wasn’t talking about God forgiving sins, he was talking about the apostles forgiving sins. He says, “whoever sins you forgive will be forgiven, whoever sins you retain will be retained.” And that verse is talking about church discipline. It’s not talking about who’s born again and who’s not. 

Whatever Peter’s doing in Acts 10:43, is not contradicting what Jesus did in the Gospel of John. It’s not contradicting Ephesians 2:8-9. If you notice in Ephesians 2:8-9, it says nothing about the forgiveness of sins. It says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it’s the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” So it’s important to recognize that in Scripture, the issue is we’re dead, we lack the life of God and we need life. And so it would be a terrible mistake to make the forgiveness of sins the issue. 

Now, let me say, again, before we get to the Acts 10 passage, I would slightly tweak what Mike Lii said and say, we must present the irrevocable, everlasting life, which a person receives when they believe in Jesus, I would add the words, or the equivalent. You have a relationship with him that’s never going to end. That would be acceptable, an irrevocable salvation, a permanent salvation, or guaranteed that you’re going to be with him forever. That kind of thing. 

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BOB: There was a time I was speaking down in the Texas hill country and there was a woman and the people were trying to evangelize her and she came from a cult background. And they were telling her that if you believe in Jesus, you get the forgiveness of all your sins, past, present, and future. At some point she said, okay, I get that. By believing in Jesus, past, present, future sins are forgiven, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have to follow them the rest of my life because if I don’t follow them, I’m going to hell. So a person can’t believe that all of my sins have been forgiven, but if I don’t persevere to the end, I’m still going to hell. Now, if you were to say to a person, because all your sins are forgiven, past, present, and future, that means you’re guaranteed that you’re going to spend eternity with the Lord and you’ll be in this kingdom forever and you have irrevocable salvation, you have irrevocable life. 

Okay, now let’s go to Acts 10:43. Why is it that Peter doesn’t mention eternal life? Because he’s not finished with his sermon. 

SAM: “To him, all the prophets witnessed that through his name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins,” and then verse 44, “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon those who heard the word.” 

BOB: While Peter was still speaking, in other words, he hadn’t finished his sermon. Look at Acts 11 and verse 14. This is where we’re told what the angel had told Cornelius. 

SAM: “The angel said to him, ‘send men to Joppa and call for Simon, who’s surname is Peter, who will tell you the words by which you and all your household will be saved.”

BOB: Okay, will be saved. So they didn’t come into this conversation cold. They had been told in advance, Peter will tell you what you must do to be saved. When he said, all the prophets witnessed that whoever believes in Him receives the remission of sins, they understood he was saying, whoever believes in Him is saved once and for all. And so they got it and they were convinced. And by the way, if you look over at Acts 15, verses seven through 11, Peter is explaining what happened when he went to evangelize Cornelius, because God sent him to be the first to evangelize the Gentiles. What does he say in Acts, this is the Jerusalem council, by the way. 

SAM: Verse seven, “When there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us and made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith.” 

BOB: And he goes on to say that all of this was justification that could not be received any other way. It wasn’t by works of the law, it was simply by faith in Christ. 

SAM: Right, he says, “but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they.” 

BOB: Yeah, and by the way, it shouldn’t be, we shall be saved. There’s no future tense there. It’s we believe to be saved. I have an article at faithalong.org on that, or we are saved or we have been saved. So he’s bringing up the salvation there. And that’s what he talked to Cornelius about. And he just didn’t get a chance to finish the whole message. 

So it’s very clear in John’s gospel that the issue is dead people need life, not unforgiven people need forgiveness. And we need to emphasize what God emphasizes. People begin the Christian life with the forgiveness of sins. That’s what Acts 10:43 is saying. In other words, we don’t have to confess our pre-salvation sins in order to get in fellowship with God. We confess our sins after we’re born again in order to remain in fellowship with God, 1 John 1:9. Peter is talking about the fact that we start the Christian life with a clean slate. And he was about to say that occurs when we are born again. 

SAM: Evangelism is a flexible thing. There’s a lot you can say to a person to try and hook them to get them to listen to you. But the thing that can’t be changed, the thing that’s not flexible in evangelism is the actual message, the promise of everlasting life. Anything else you do, you can talk about Genesis. You could talk about revelation. If you want to scare someone into believing like, there’s all different kinds of things you can go to. But the thing that you can’t get wrong is, what must I do to be saved? And if you say anything other than believe in Jesus Christ, then you’re not evangelizing the way that Jesus Himself did. 

BOB: And believing in Jesus Christ for everlasting life or the equivalent. Right. The forgiveness of sins is confusing to people because they think, well, that’s a fellowship concept. And all you’re really saying is, I’m in fellowship with God, but you’re not saying anything about my eternal destiny. So, Mike Lii was saying, we need to make sure people understand this is eternal, an eternal life that can never be lost. 

SAM: Right. And that’s the good news. 

BOB: Yeah, it is the good news. Well, thanks so much. And let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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