How do we know that Jesus died for our past, present, and future sins?

Now the character of the blood is to cleanse from ALL sin. The moment it is efficacious in your case and mine it cleanses from ALL sin. We have past, present and future. In one sense God has no past, present and future with Him. His very name as Jehovah means I AM. Our future is present before Him. So we can take up the very language of Scripture, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), and yet not one of your sins or mine were committed when the Saviour died on the cross. And if God looked into the future thus and Christ bore the countless sins of multitudes unborn, we may ask. How many of our sins did He bear? If He only bore our sins up to conversion, it would avail nothing, for if we sin after conversion and Christ had not atoned for all our sins, He will not die again, and we should in that case be assuredly lost for ever.

Was not this verse also written for all time? Does it not cover untold millions of believers, who were unborn when our Lord died upon the cross? It must be as this Scripture states, that our Lord bore ALL our sins in His own body on the tree. Let us rejoice that in God’s sight the FUTURE is as the PAST, and that the precious blood of Christ cleanses from ALL SIN, judicially satisfying fully Divine justice, setting the believing sinner free from all charge of guilt the moment he believes.

You may ask, How can God forgive future sins till they are actually committed? One verse of Scripture will answer this question. The believer can say of our Lord, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). How many of our sins were committed when our Lord died on the cross and bore them? We have to answer, They were ALL future. And yet the Scripture speaks of their being all borne at the cross as if they were past. The fact is that the present tense of the verb, “cleanseth,” is used to set forth the power and efficacy of our Lord’s precious blood. When it cleanses, it cleanses from all sin.

The offer of grace reads on this wise, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from ALL SIN.” How many? All sin. How many of your sins were committed when Jesus died? None. They were all future, and therefore you cannot divide them into past sins and future sins. Your life was all spread out before God, when Jesus died, and we can say of Him, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” The Scriptures do not contemplate a believer sinning, though gracious provision is made when he falls into sin, that communion may be restored. But the question of eternal salvation is never raised again. The past is all settled, and nothing more is to be put to your account in the future. Why, David exclaimed, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” The atoning death of Jesus covers the liabilities of the believer’s whole history. Once and for ever his history as a child of Adam has been closed. Such is the atoning efficacy of the blood that for the believer there is no more imputation of sin. The books have been closed once and for ever. We have eternal forgiveness.

Do you believe, dear fellow-believer, that Christ answered to God for all your sins upon the cross 2000 years ago? Do not speak of past, present, or future sins; for when Christ bore them they were all future, and Scripture never speaks in that way. No, if one of your sins was borne, they were all borne; not up to your conversion, as some would say, for in that case what about the sins committed after conversion? Christ would have to die again. "For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world." (Heb. 9:26.)

The question of all our sins has thus been settled before the day of judgment, and according to God's mind. If not, we never can put them away. Christ cannot die again "death hath no more dominion over him." He "was once offered to bear the sins of many." I say "all our sins;" for all were future when that precious blood was shed — when Jesus bore them in His own body on the tree. If all were not there, if all were not borne and put away, they will most surely come up again at the day of judgment, and that would be eternal ruin. Thank God He has borne ours who believe. Others may reject it and perish, but there the love is, and there is the work of Christ to save all who believe in Him.

"Yes," you may perhaps reply, "my past sins." "No," we answer, "your sins; all your sins if you are a believer. For not one of them had been committed when the Saviour died; and so He took the burden of all of them, entered into and exhausted the judgment due to all of them, so that the whole of your guilt might for ever be swept away. Blessed truth!"

When Christ was on the cross for you, all your sins (past, present and future) were before God. What is more, your sinful nature with all its sinful thoughts, feelings and deeds were all under His eye; for God sees the future as well as the past. Time does not count with Him. Christ took your place and God dealt with Him instead of you. He treated Christ as though He was what you are and had done what you did, are doing and will do. That is what 2 Corinthians 5:21 means: "He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us."

But I can imagine my reader exclaiming "What! do you mean to say that my future sins were all atoned for?" To this I reply, that all our sins were future when Christ bore them on the cursed tree. The sins of all believers, for the last eighteen centuries, were future when Christ died for them. Hence, if the idea of future sins presents a difficulty in reference to what we may commit, if left here, it presents just as great a difficulty in reference to what we have committed. But, in truth, all this perplexity about future sins arises very much from the habit of looking at the cross from our own point of view, instead of God's — looking at it from earth instead of from heaven. Scripture never speaks of future sins. Past, present, and future are only human and earthly. All is an eternal now with God.

But you say, "How then are the believer's sins dealt with?" Ah, that is just the very marrow of the question. They have been dealt with on the cross. "What, my future sins?" I never ought to say or think of committing future sins, but to follow holiness. "True, but if I should sin again, would not that be a future sin?" Well, as to that, do not you see that all our sins were future when Christ died for them on the cross? Did He die for some of our sins only, or for all of them? He has been the substitute for all our sins first; and then all were future. They have all of them been dealt with in the glorious person of our substitute, Jesus Christ the Son of God — perfectly dealt with, so dealt with, that we are for ever perfected as to the conscience. That precious blood, once shed, for ever cleanses us from all sin. And if you are walking in His light, you will know this. Oh how few give this one sacrifice its true place before the soul. I do bless God it has its true place before Him. He sees the blood, and He says, "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." And if this were not so, if all our sins had not been laid on Him, then would He have often to have suffered since the foundation of the world.