God has forgiven you.

Frequently I meet Christians who can’t stop praying the “forgive me” prayer.

• Sometimes because it’s already part of their rote prayers. “Forgive us our debts” (or “trespasses”) is already part of the Lord’s Prayer, y’know. And part of many other memorized prayers.
• Sometimes because they sin a lot. All Christians sin, but these folks figure they sin way more than average—and let’s be honest; maybe they do! So they have a lot to apologize to God about.
• Sometimes because they’re under the misbegotten belief that once you become Christian, you spontaneously stop sinning. Well, they’ve not stopped sinning… so they’re kinda worried about their salvation. Did the sinner’s prayer take?—’cause sometimes it doesn’t.
• And sometimes because they’re in one of those dark Christian churches which tell them every time they sin, it’s like they personally have crucified Jesus all over again. Which, if you’re the literal-minded type, is a traumatizing thing to believe. So of course these folks are begging forgiveness all the time.

Lemme address that last idea a bit more. The whole “crucifying Jesus all over again” idea comes from this verse:

Hebrews 6.6 KJV

If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

In context it’s not talking about just any sins. The author of Hebrews is writing about apostasy—about quitting Jesus—and how Christians who’ve had the full experience of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s supernatural power can’t just casually quit Jesus, then come back. These people didn’t quit Jesus; they sinned, but they didn’t commit that sin.

Problem is, dark Christians are gonna insist they kinda did commit that sin. If every sin alienates God (and it doesn’t), then every sin is functionally the same as quitting Jesus. Every sin is apostasy. Every sin has the power to plunge us into fiery hell: If we die with unrepented, unconfessed sin in our lives, we’re going to the hot place. Yeah God is gracious, but not that gracious.

So you can see why these people are constantly begging God’s forgiveness: They think they’re constantly dangling over hellfire, and their relationship with God is like a thin bungee cord which might not actually be able to hold their weight.

It’s awfully hard to think of God as love when you’re living with this kind of stress. Sure doesn’t feel like love. Feels like God is only moments away from pouring a bowl of heavenly fire upon you. Feels like the sins of the world might trigger the same response upon our country too… which is why so many dark Christians are big fans of Christian nationalism: Screw democracy; we gotta purge evildoers! But I digress; let’s get back to their mental picture of a very unforgiving God.

Okay. In God’s process of salvation, at what point do you believe he forgives you?

Let’s pin down when he forgave us.

Here’s a list of all the major options which various Christians believe, various Christian theologians argue for, and various Christian denominations have even decided are their official positions. More than likely there are other odd or crackpot theories out there, which only one or two people are promoting; I don’t care about them. These are the main categories.

1. When you first confess Jesus as Lord.
2. When you get baptized, or have your first communion.
3. Every time you have communion.
4. Every time you pray for forgiveness.
5. Not till you die and stand before Jesus’s throne.
6. Not till the very second Jesus died for the world’s sins in the year 33.
7. When God first created the universe.

And the correct answer is g.

Why’s it correct? Because God is everywhere. He’s not limited to only one place… and he’s not limited to only one time. (Spacetime is all the same thing anyway.) From his perspective, it’s now, and the first moment of creation, and the moment Jesus died, and the End, and the infinite time he’s gonna spend living with us on New Earth. Yeah there’s a past and future, but the past isn’t gone, and the future isn’t hypothetical. He’s there. And here.

So at what point did God forgive us? When he first created the universe, and stepped into his creation. All of his creation. When he entered time and space and utterly filled it, and observed every point in human history. Including all the sins and atrocities we committed. Yet he decided regardless to become one of us, to live a perfect human life as our example, and put our sin to death when he himself died.

Yep, from the very beginning. Really, there’s never been a point in time where God hasn’t forgiven us.

So when you first confessed Jesus as Lord, that may have been when you first became aware of God’s forgiveness, but that’s not when God forgave you. You were already forgiven. Long, long before.

When you first got baptized in water, or when you first participated in holy communion: You might’ve felt God’s forgiveness at that point. The whole point of our Christian rituals is to experience something tangible which reminds of his forgiveness, y’know. Hence plenty of Christians think that’s when God forgave us… or when he forgives us again, and again and again, throughout our lives. But nope. Already forgiven!

When you pray for forgiveness like Jesus taught us to, people naturally figure Jesus wouldn’t’ve told us to ask forgiveness unless we really need it at that point: Why request something God’s already granted us? But the point of Jesus including that request in the Lord’s Prayer is as a reminder, “Oh, and you need to forgive others same as God’s forgiven you.” Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us. Because, Jesus warned, if we won’t forgive others, God has every right to take back his own forgiveness. Which, if you remember the Unforgiving Debtor Story, the king granted, then took back. The unforgiving slave was forgiven, but he undid it with his graceless behavior. Don’t repeat his mistake! But you are forgiven.

Plenty of Christians figure our forgiveness isn’t really a done deal till we die. After all, we don’t know our future; we don’t know whether, at some point in that future, we might lose our tiny minds, quit Jesus, and abandon our salvation. To be fair, there are a lot of Christians whose relationships with Jesus suck. (Because, as I keep saying, they’re not religious about these relationships! Y’gotta work on it, people.) So they’re always one catastrophe away from losing faith, and abandoning Jesus altogether. I can see why such people would be anxious about their salvation; they’re barely Christian. Still Christian though. But y’know, we can resolve to do better, to follow Jesus no matter what, stick with him, and hold out till the end. Our salvation can totally be a done deal right now, if you want it to be. But as for God’s forgiveness: Yeah, that’s always been available.

Plenty of Christians also figure God’s forgiveness wasn’t available to humanity till Jesus died. These would be the dispensationalists, who believe God changed his plan of salvation at that time. Before Jesus, you got saved by your good karma; after Jesus, you got in by grace. Dispensationalism is the product of cessationists trying to defend their belief God turned off the miracles, so they overlaid a demented theory wherein God is limited by time. And he’s not. At all. Jesus’s self-sacrifice isn’t limited by time either: It takes care of humanity’s past and future sins. Everybody before Jesus was likewise saved by God’s grace. (After all, what did the ancient Hebrews do to get saved from Egypt? Nothing; grace.)

So yeah, the other ideas aren’t at all consistent with God’s omnipresence and character. God knew humanity was gonna sin—and forgave us. He became human so he could personally atone for that sin, and it’s a lot of sin!—but he’s the only one who could atone for it, and has. Fully. You’re forgiven.

So quit agitating over it!

We need to stop flogging ourselves over our need to be forgiven, and trust God. Trust that he’s forgiven us. Start taking his forgiveness as a given.

No, not for granted; that’s a whole other deal. Never make light of God’s forgiveness. Never treat his safety net as a trampoline. We should remember his forgiveness in our prayers and rituals, and appreciate Jesus’s self-sacrifice all the more for it. It’s awesome of God to forgive us everything. He deserves infinite praise for it.

But again: Take his forgiveness as a given. Your sins are out of the way. You don’t need to spend all your time and effort trying to make right your relationship with God; you’re good. He loves you. You’re his kid. Stop stressing.

Now take all that wasted effort, and follow Jesus.