56. What do you believe concerning the "forgiveness of sins"?

That God, for the sake of Christ's satisfaction,1) will no more remember my sins, nor the sinful nature with which I have to struggle all my life long;2) but graciously imputes to me the righteousness of Christ, that I may nevermore come into condemnation.3)

1) And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. I John 2:2.

2) To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation ... For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Cor. 5:19,21.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. Rom. 7:24,25.

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases ... He hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities . . . As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Ps. 103:3,10,12.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jer. 31:34.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom. 8:1-4.

3) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:18.

* In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. Eph.

* Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Rom. 4:7,8.

* For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. Rom. 7:18.

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