"If I Sin, It's Ok Because God Will Forgive Me"

Today, I am going to show you two perspectives from this idea and both of them are wrong. The first perspective will be from someone who is truly born again and is genuinely concerned about pleasing God. We know that we will sin from time to time because we were not paying attention or were unwilling to fight against the temptation. This person may think "I don't want to sin but if I do, it's ok because God will forgive me." The reason that I say that this is wrong is because God has already forgiven you of your sins when Jesus died on the cross. Jesus suffered the wrath of God that we should have suffered and He did that over 2,000 years ago. When Jesus took our place in that way, He took care of all of the sins that we will ever commit and said "It is finished", not "I will take care of it later". A Christian should confess and repent when he sins, not so that he will be forgiven, but so that he will turn away from that sin and return to God. The debt has already been paid but we have to get our mind back on God instead of that sin.

The other perspective is from the individual who thinks that he was given a blank check from God because he believes that Jesus died for his sins. This person says "It doesn't matter if I sin because if I sin, God will forgive me." The apostle Paul clearly disagreed with that kind of thinking in Romans 6:1–2 (ESV) — 1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Then in the next few verses, Paul described what it means to be "baptized into Christ Jesus" by saying "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:3–4) In other words, we are not to choose sin because if we are truly born again, then we have "died to sin". Being a Christian does not give us a license to sin, it does the exact opposite. A Christian has been given a new nature, a spiritual nature through Jesus Christ, and with every temptation, God has given us a way of escape because He is faithful (1 Corinthians 10:13).

So instead of "It's ok if I sin", we must heed these words from Paul in Romans 6:11–13 (ESV) — 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.