Do people go to Hell with their sins forgiven?
Two quick comments:
- I would not break fellowship with saints who hold that view, even though I strongly disagree.
- I’ve also seen some extremely disgraceful behavior over this debate. In some cases, I think awful behavior merits being marked and avoided (Rom. 16:17), because they’re offences contrary to the sound doctrines of grace we’ve been taught.
Let’s start with God’s judgment.
John tells us in Revelation 20 that at the Great White Throne, the unsaved shall be judged according to their works. What does that mean exactly? If sins are already paid for and already forgiven, what are the works that will be judged at the Great White Throne?
I’ve been told, “No-no, brother Joel. Works are just works. And works is not sin. The Bible makes a distinction between works and sin.”
If we’re talking about the actions of the unsaved, how can their works NOT be sin? “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Doesn’t whatsoever still mean whatsoever? Isn’t Paul saying that anything we, or unbelievers, do that is not in harmony with faith in His Word is sin?
A work is simply an action, according to Webster. A physical exertion. In the Bible, there are good works and there are bad works. Those bad works are sins. For example, Isaiah 59:6 says there are “works of iniquity.” In Rom 13:12 and Eph. 5:11, there are “works of darkness.”
What does Paul say in Gal. 5:19? “Now the works of the flesh are… these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like…”
What else are the works of the flesh but sin? Those are actions people choose to do that satisfies the temptations of their flesh because of sin. The flesh tempts a person to commit adultery, for example. One succumbs to that temptation, and that work of the flesh is a sin.
Do you remember how James described the process of sin? He wrote in James 1:14-15, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
He’s saying that when temptation has sparked the lust in our sin-corrupted flesh, that person makes a choice. “Shall I satisfy the lust of the flesh or not?” When the soul gives its consent to satisfy the lust of the flesh, then you carry out that work of the flesh, which is a sin.
That work, that action, is sin.
And when that sin is finished, when that work of the flesh is done, the consequence is death. By death, he means the death of our bodies plus the judgment of a spiritual death by God, called the second death (Rev. 20:14), which is the ultimate consequence of sin, an eternal separation from God, unless the penalty for all of our sins has been satisfied by an act of atonement, which only the Lord’s sacrifice can resolve for us.
Thus, at the Great White Throne, unbelievers will be judged according to their works. What are those works exactly? Those are the works of the flesh. Those are the works of iniquity. Those are the works of darkness. Those are the sins unbelievers committed when they succumbed to the temptations of their flesh and performed those works of the flesh.
And those works of the flesh are always sin.
Paul said to unbelievers in Rom. 2:5, that your “impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” If sins are already paid for, how can one treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Paul isn’t simply speaking of damnation for one sin of unbelief. He’s speaking of the accumulation of more wrath and more wrath for every new sin they commit. They are treasuring up unto themselves wrath by doing more sins.
Paul wrote in 1 Thess. 2:16 that they, the Jews, were “Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.” How is it that these Jews were filling up their sins alway? How can you fill up something that’s already forgiven? Why would Paul even be speaking of filling up sins in a post-Calvary world, if those sins, as some say, are already forgiven? The point is made plain here by Paul in this verse. They are filling up their sins in the sense that their volume of sins and depths of wicked works will bring their souls into contact with the uttermost of God’s wrath.
“To fill up their sins alway,” he writes. Why does Paul say alway? He means that this has consistently been a characteristic of the Jews to resist God and to oppose God in all their evil works. They have a long history of filling up their sins to receive the uttermost of the Lord’s wrath because of their constant opposition to God through wicked works.
Notice how Paul said the wrath is come upon THEM, not Christ. The wrath is for THEIR SINS, the actions they took to obstruct Paul. How can wrath be upon them if Christ took upon Himself all that wrath for their sins? Could it be that Christ’s atoning work of redemption hasn’t been imputed to their souls yet because of their unbelief?
Why is it that God’s wrath is come upon them to the uttermost? Does not the context demand that the uttermost of God’s wrath will be poured out upon these Jews for filling up their sins, for ALL their voluminous works of iniquity? What else are those works but sin?
Does this not coincide perfectly with Rom. 2:5, which we read? Your impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. They are treasuring up wrath FOR THEMSELVES with each and every new sin they commit.
The Lord Himself said in Matt. 23:14, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”
When the scribes and Pharisees devoured widows’ houses, “and for a pretence make long prayer” were those not works of the flesh? And why is it that the Lord is giving them the greater damnation? How can there be a greater damnation for devouring widows’ houses and making for a pretense long prayers? Because He’s judging them according to their works. If all sins are already paid for and forgiven, how can God be just in giving these men a greater damnation? Because these men added to their damnation with these egregiously sinful works.
There’s a famous verse in Jeremiah 17:9. We all know this verse. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Then, in the next verse, Jeremiah writes, “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” God isn’t simply going to judge mankind for all their works of the flesh, but He is also going to judge them for the fruit of those works as well, the impact of those sins on the world, the influence of those sins, which is a terrifying thought. Just imagine God judging someone today for their influence upon thousands of others through social media.
More terrifying still is Isaiah 59. The great prophet is talking about the Second Coming of Christ. He writes in Isa. 59:17-18, “For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.”
What is the Lord going to repay?
If every sin is paid for, then what is the Lord going to repay?
These are the enemies of His children who worshipped Satan through the antichrist and the image of the beast in his one-world system during the Tribulation, and God’s going to repay them for all their abominable acts, especially for the murdering of His people.
And what is He going to repay them WITH?
Mercy? Kindness because He already paid for their sins?
No.
He is going to repay them with divine justice. Retribution to His enemies. He will wipe them out from the power that’s in His glory when He returns at Armageddon, and they will be sent to a place of torment to await their sentencing at the Great White Throne.
Make no mistake. Every wicked deed is a sin. And it is a fearful thing to be a sinner in the hands of an angry God, as Jonathan Edwards once preached, because God will reward you with an eternal consequence for every single work of the flesh done in unbelief.
Unless you get saved.
Consider Rom. 12:19, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
I will repay, saith the Lord.
This is a future event in a post-Calvary verse.
If sins were already paid for and forgiven, how is it the Lord will carry out vengeance in the future for a wrong that was done to you? Plus, when the Lord says, “I will repay,” what’s He going to repay them with? Flowers? We know exactly what Paul is talking about here. He’s talking about divine justice for that work of iniquity done against you, which was a sin, and this principle is reinforced throughout the entire Bible.
How is it that Christ could judge sin (a.k.a. “the works of the flesh”), at the Great White Throne if He has already paid for it?
The Catchy Expressions of the Reconciliation Guys
I must commend these universal forgiveness guys for having some cute, catchy little soundbytes. “It’s not a sin question but a Son question.” Or, even better, “A debt paid is a debt forgiven.”
Those are adorable, aren’t they?
Let’s talk about the phrase, “A debt paid is a debt forgiven,” as if our whole thinking about Calvary is somehow centered around an accounting principle that doesn’t exist, as if we can’t understand Calvary unless it’s explained in accounting terms. Whoever came up with that phrase never took an accounting course.
Let me ask a question.
What does it mean to forgive a debt?
A debt forgiven is a debt that has NOT been paid.
To forgive a debt means that you’ve written off the money you’ve loaned out and you’ve released the debtor from paying back that loan. Not one accountant in a million is going to tell you that to forgive a debt means that that debt has been paid off! How can you forgive something that’s been paid off? There’s nothing to forgive! It’s been paid!
When it comes to our salvation, forget accounting. Paying off a debt has nothing to do with forgiveness of sins, and it has no application whatsoever to the cross. Sins have eternal consequences. How can you pay off something that’s eternal? When Christ paid for our sins, this was not a payment in the sense of paying off a debt to a lender. This is payment in the sense of taking on the consequence for something. Taking on the penalty of something. Such as, “I worked out for 2 hours yesterday, and today, I’m really paying for it.”
Whenever I say, “Christ paid for our sins,” I’m not saying that we had a debt to God that was paid by Christ. I’m saying that Christ paid the penalty for all our sins. I’m saying that Christ took on the punishment for our sins. Christ took on the consequence of our sins.
Let me ask another question.
Christ suffered for roughly 6 hours on the cross, and in those 6 hours, He paid for all the sins of all mankind for all time. Correct? Surely, if Christ could pay for the sins of all mankind in 6 hours, then an unbeliever need only spend a few minutes in the Lake of Fire to pay back to God every debt of sin He owed Him, wouldn’t he?
This is not about accounting.
This is about justice.
Courtrooms. Judges. Defendants. Verdicts. Sentencing.
In the realm of justice, pure justice, everyone MUST pay for the consequence of their OWN sins. True justice always demands that every one of us must be given our due consequence for sin.
Thus, true justice will always demand that every one of us be eternally separated from God in a Lake of Fire, because the consequence for sinning against a holy God is an eternal death.
Thus, in the realm of justice, God’s acceptance of Christ’s atoning work on your behalf when you come to Him by faith, that acceptance of Christ’s payment in lieu of your own eternal death will always be a forgiveness of your sins because true justice demands that YOU pay the consequence for YOUR sins. God’s forgiving you by allowing for the punishment of another in order to satisfy the demands of justice.
It’s in the realm of justice, not accounting, that God’s acceptance of Christ’s payment for you will always be a forgiveness of all your sins. Therefore, our redemption through His blood must of necessity always be synonymous with the forgiveness of all our sins.
This is why Paul wrote in Eph 1:7 “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace…”
Why does Paul write the verse that way? Why does he say “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins…?”
Because the moment we obtained redemption through His blood is also the very same moment we obtained the forgiveness of sins. The two expressions are synonymous. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot have the forgiveness of sins without also having redemption through his blood. Our redemption through His blood is the means by which we were granted the forgiveness of sins. How? Because His blood washed you of all your sins. Because in the realm of justice, God’s acceptance of Christ’s payment for you will always be a forgiveness of your sins because true justice always demands that YOU pay the consequence for all YOUR sins. God’s forgiving you by allowing for the punishment of another in order to satisfy the demands of justice.
All of this is foreshadowed again and again through the sacrificial system in the OT. To say that all sins are paid and forgiven is to ignore everything the sacrificial system in the OT taught us about how substitutionary atonement works for sin. And it was pretty simple:
No faith + sacrifices = punishment for sins.
Faith + sacrifices = forgiveness of sins.
Let’s start here. Heb. 9:22 tells us this: “without shedding of blood is no remission.” Why the shedding of blood? Because “the life of the flesh is in the blood… for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11). At the heart of the sacrificial system was a life for a sin to atone for the consequence of death-by-sin. Each sin brings the consequence of death and so a life had to be offered to atone for every single sin. Sinners need a substitutionary atonement by the shedding of innocent blood because the life of the flesh is found in the blood. One cannot atone for death with something that has no life. Only the life of the blood within the innocent flesh of another can atone for each consequence of death-by-sin.
So God appointed the sprinkling (or the pouring-out) of the blood-life of a spotless lamb upon an altar to signify that that innocent life, as a sacrifice, was offered to God in place of that person’s sin, as a ransom (or a counter-payment) for that sin, all of which was a type and a shadow of the future ransom, the future propitiation, for all sin by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:6). The sacrificial system of the Old Testament illustrates so vividly the gravity of sinning against a righteous and holy God, because sin truly is a matter of life and death.
So how did all of that work exactly?
Consider Heb 11:4, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous…”
Notice those three words: sacrifice, offering, and faith.
That sacrifice was the payment for sin. This wasn’t about a debt to God. This was about an atonement for the eternal consequence of that sin, which was always death, which is why an innocent life had to die, because the consequence for each and every sin is death.
Just because a sacrifice was carried out perfectly, that didn’t mean the payment was automatically accepted by God.
Why not?
HOW was that payment given to God?
As an offering to Him, which He would only accept by faith. The sacrifice must be offered in faith to Him and in faithful obedience to His Word.
“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain…” If you carried out that sacrifice perfectly but it was not offered in faith, God would not accept that payment, which meant that atonement would not be imputed to you, which meant that your sin was not forgiven, and you were still guilty and deserving of God’s judgment for that sin.
Consider Amos 5.
Amos was an interesting guy. He was a nobody. He lived in Tekoa, a small town in the south of Judah. He was a herdsman, and he just gathered fruit off sycamore trees. He was not a prophet. He wasn’t the son of a prophet. He was just a lowly peasant of Judah.
Out of the blue, the Lord called him to leave his work and “Go, prophesy unto My people Israel” (7:14-15). So Amos went to Bethel in Israel. This was highly unusual. The Lord had never sent a prophet from Judah to prophesy to Israel.
Well, that got everyone’s attention. Of course, what Amos had to share was all bad news. Judgment was coming for their idolatry. Israel had fallen in love with these stupid idols called Moloch and Chiun, and they were all walking around with these little pocket statues.
But, as Jews, they were still doing the sacrifices required by the law…
…except they had no faith.
And the Lord totally goes off on them about their sacrifices.
What the Lord says is epic. Starting in Amo 5:21 the Lord says, I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Amo 5:22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Amo 5:23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. Amo 5:24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amo 5:25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? Amo 5:26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Amo 5:27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.
Do you see what’s happening? The Israelites were trying to make payments for their sins, but their Jewish Credit Card was getting declined – for insufficient faith.
Some might say, “Brother Joel, there was no sacrifice that could cover the sin of idolatry.” This is true! But see, the Lord wasn’t having ANYTHING to do with ANY of their sacrifices.
Why?
Because they had no faith. This means that…
No faith + sacrifices = punishment for sins.
Faith + sacrifices = forgiveness of sins.
Because of their lack of faith, in God’s eyes, it’s as if they never made a sacrifice at all. If God rejects your sacrifice, then you shall bear the iniquity of your sin (Lev. 7:18). Because of their lack of faith, God was still going to judge them on the Earth for their sins.
Remember what Jehoshaphat told the judges of Judah? They were to obey the law in the fear of the Lord faithfully and with a perfect heart (2 Chron. 19:9). Remember what David said in Psa 31, that the Lord God of Israel only preserveth the faithful (Psa. 31:23) and Moses said in Deut. 32 that God will hide His face from His children in whom there is no faith (Deut. 32:20).
If you were offering sacrifices without faith, you were wasting everyone’s time. You were just needlessly slaughtering animals, because God would never accept that atonement for that sin without faith. Although the sacrifice was made on their behalf, their sins were not forgiven because they had no faith. Israel’s sin covering was not a covering at all without faith, and without a sin covering, their sins exposed them to God’s righteous judgment here on the Earth, which meant that He was imputing their trespasses unto them.
No faith + sacrifices = punishment for sins.
Faith + sacrifices = forgiveness of sins.
The sacrifice was the payment for sin. It was payment in the sense of an atonement for the consequence of sin, which was always death.
And how was that sacrificial payment for sin given to God?
Always as an offering.
Just because a sacrifice had been made, that didn’t mean the payment had been accepted and their sins were forgiven. That atonement for the consequence of sin was always given to God as an offering and their offering was only accepted individually according to their faith. If they didn’t have faith, in God’s eyes, it was as if a sacrifice had never been made at all and they were still guilty and deserving of judgment, the imputation of their sins, here on the Earth.
No faith + sacrifices = punishment for sins.
Faith + sacrifices = forgiveness of sins.
In Eph. 5:2, we find Paul also reinforcing the longstanding Biblical definition of payment for sin exemplified in the OT sacrificial system. He writes, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”
Notice here that the Lord Jesus Christ wasn’t just a sacrifice. He was a sacrifice and an offering. Not only that, He wasn’t just a sacrifice and an offering, but He was a sacrifice and an offering for us.
But wait. Something’s missing. There was a third requirement in order for atonement to be complete, for sins to be forgiven.
What was that third requirement to get forgiveness?
Faith.
You must come to Christ by faith for that payment to be yours. If you don’t come to Christ by faith, you don’t have His atonement to cover your sins and you will pay the eternal consequence for each and every sin.
Just like the old sacrificial system.
Just like all the verses about unbelievers treasuring up wrath for themselves on the day they‘re judged for all their sinful works.
But now, in the age of grace, we have a new formula:
No faith = no atonement = punishment for sins.
Faith = redemption through His blood = forgiveness of sins.
The payment for all your sins through the shed blood of Christ will not be imputed to your soul until God the Father accepts Christ’s offering on your behalf after you come to Him by faith. People do not go to the Lake of Fire for all eternity with their sins fully paid for and fully forgiven by God, because, just like the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, the Lord’s sacrifice will not cover your sins unless you have faith.
But His covering for all your sins can be yours. The acceptable sacrifice, or propitiation, for all your sins has been made and is available to you as a free gift by grace through faith.
The gospel of the grace of God asks us to place our faith in the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection as the complete once-for-all sacrifice for all our sins. Our salvation is truly “not a sin question but a Son question,” not because all sins have already been paid for, but because there’s nothing we can do on our own to atone for our sins but to accept by faith Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice for all of us on the cross.
One final point.
If you want irrefutable proof that sins are not forgiven before you get saved, look no further than Acts 26. Let’s start in vs. 15.
Paul recounts the words of the Lord on the road to Damascus. 26:15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. 26:16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; 26:17 Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
When I first studied this topic and came across this verse, I simply had to face facts. The simplicity of Christ is on display in these passages. God made salvation simple. He made forgiveness simple. Our sins are not forgiven until we come to Christ by faith.
The whole point is that God sent Paul unto the Gentiles so they MAY RECEIVE forgiveness of sins. Why does He say MAY RECEIVE? Because forgiveness of sins was conditional. Forgiveness of sins is only given to us after we place our faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His all-sufficient work on the cross! Because, as Paul demonstrated in Eph. 1:7, our redemption through His blood is synonymous with our forgiveness of sins. You cannot have one without the other.
“No-no, brother Joel, forgiveness of sins is not a completed act until you’ve accepted the fact that your sins have already been forgiven.”
That’s not what the verse says.
This verse does not say that the Gentiles may acknowledge that their sins have already been forgiven in order to receive righteousness.
This verse says that they MAY RECEIVE the forgiveness of sins itself. We have to build our theology on what the Scriptures say and not what we feel the verses imply. This verse is made simple for all of us that God sent Paul to the Gentiles so they may receive forgiveness of sins. It means that before they were saved, their sins were not forgiven, and after they’ve were saved, their sins were forgiven. Because our redemption through His blood is one and the same as receiving forgiveness from God for all our sins.
Remember, in the realm of justice, everyone MUST pay the consequence of their sins. But with God, if you have faith, if you accept His free gift of eternal life, He will forgive you by allowing the punishment of His Son to satisfy the demands of justice for all your sins.
Grace & Peace!
SUPPLY OF GRACE 