If I feel no guilt for my sin, am I truly saved?

The present possession of eternal life i, connected with a remarkable change both in experience and action. Conversion is really a transition from death unto life. Those who had previously prided themselves on their good qualities, now see themselves to be vile and worthless; and that blessed Saviour, whom they had so long despised and rejected, now becomes incomparably precious and lovely. That God, once so dreaded, is worshipped and adored as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. His word and ways honoured, and His people, once slighted if not persecuted, are now beloved objects of interest and affection. These are some of the workings of Divine life in the soul. But all who have life have not peace; they have eternal life, but do not know it. Such a sense of their own evil hearts and ways presses upon them; they cannot suppose it possible that such vile persons can have eternal life; yet they look to Christ, and cannot give Him up; they little think that the self-humbling experience they have is the effect of their having life. There are many such now, and there were also in the apostles' days; hence John wrote, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life;" and he assured them that they might know that they had passed from death unto life, because they loved the brethren. (1 John 5:13, 1 John 3:14.)

In order to obtain God's forgiveness, we must feel and acknowledge that we have done wrong, and thus sinned against Him. He will surely make us feel this, and lead us by His Holy Spirit to acknowledge it, for He is our Saviour and is willing to save us from our sins. He will make us very unhappy and even miserable till we confess our sins to Him, so that He may forgive us those sins, and restore us to happy communion with Himself. Now God is always ready to forgive us our sins as soon as we confess them to Him. His Word tells us so in Psalm 86:5: "For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee." Again in the same psalm, verse 15, "But Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth."

Merely asking for forgiveness, and the confession of sins, are two different things. Confession involves real exercise, and brings with it blessing. The mere asking for forgiveness is often only skin-deep. Confession must be individual. It is the individual who has failed, and he confesses his sin to his Father. The man who says he has "no sin," has not the truth in him. This should cause some latter-day perfectionists to call a halt, and see the solemn ground they are really on. The man who says he has "not sinned" makes God "a liar" (1 John 1:10), for He asserts that "all have sinned" (Rom. 3:23), and every person would do well to ponder this statement. But there is perfect relief here for the erring or backsliding saint, the one who has been a naughty child. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He is faithful and just to Christ, who has died for these sins. The man who really seeks this relief says, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord;" and what did he find? "Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (Ps. 32:5).

Now look at a verse lower down - "If we confess our sins." Look at this word "confession." There is a great deal of difference between confessing and asking for forgiveness. In confession we do not excuse ourselves. In asking for forgiveness we may say, and think too, things might have been different, and if they had been we should not have fallen in this way into the sin. Now the first thought in the soul of the one that is confessing is not the thought of forgiveness. Forgiveness comes to the one who confesses; but we have to do with the Father Himself, with the One against whom we have sinned, and we have sinned in spite of the grace that would have kept us. The first thought is, "I have sinned - sinned in spite of the grace, the blessed grace, that would have kept me from it." It is deeper, far deeper, than merely asking forgiveness. Grace would keep us. If we were always dependent on His grace, we should never sin; grace would keep us. But if we have sinned, what are we to do? "If we confess our sins" come before Him without making any excuse whatever, the soul laying itself before Him in all the blessed realization of what His love is, His grace is - acknowledging His grace would have kept us; but we have sinned. Well, I can come and tell Him all that without any thought that anything can change His love to me, and I do thus tell it all out to Him. This is confession, and far deeper and more searching than merely seeking forgiveness. Indeed, not to tell it is a pain, a sorrow, a burden.

Nor was it merely to be forgiven his sins that David desired; this he needed, no doubt, but he needed more; he needed to be inwardly cleansed from the defiling power of sin itself. "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." The apostle says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." To be cleansed from unrighteousness is more than to be forgiven our sins; and David desired the latter, as well as the former. Both are made to depend on the confession of our sins.

It is a much more difficult thing to confess our sin, than to ask for forgiveness. Really to confess before God the sin which we have committed, is a much more humbling thing than to ask for pardon in a general way. It is an easy thing to ask the Lord for pardon; but it is in vain unless we confess our sins; and then, observe, it is a matter of simple faith to know that sins are forgiven us. The word is, "If we confess"; David confessed his sin.

Then, again, there is a style of praying for forgiveness, which involves a losing sight of the perfect ground of forgiveness, which has been laid in the sacrifice of the cross. If God forgives sins, He must be "faithful and just," in so doing. But it is quite clear that our prayers, be they ever so sincere and earnest, could not form the basis of God's faithfulness and justice, in forgiving us our sins. Nought save the work of the cross could do this. There the faithfulness and justice of God have had their fullest establishment, and that, too, in immediate reference to our actual sins, as well as to the root thereof, in our nature. God has already judged our sins in the Person of our Substitute, "on the tree;" and, in the act of confession, we judge ourselves. This is essential to divine forgiveness and restoration. The very smallest unconfessed, unjudged sin, on the conscience, will entirely mar our communion with God. Sin in us need not do this; but if we suffer sin to remain on us, we cannot have fellowship with God. He has put away our sins in such a manner, as that He can have us in His presence; and, so long as we abide in His presence, sin does not trouble us. But, if we get out of His presence, and commit sin, even in thought, our communion must, of necessity, be suspended, until, by confession, we have got rid of the sin. All this, I need hardly add, is founded, exclusively, upon the perfect sacrifice and righteous advocacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now in a sense no doubt this is true. Eternal forgiveness belongs only to God. And in one very real sense all sins are against Him, and against Him only, as David said by the Spirit (Ps. 51:4); and who but He can forgive them? And here I would wish to say a word about the Christian doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. This is set forth in the epistle to the Hebrews, in the entire putting away from God's memory of all the believer's sins. Whether past, present, or future is not the question; all are gone. "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb. 10:17.) The judicial ground of this is the sacrifice of the cross, where all were expiated. The Jew knew forgiveness in a sense. The sin he had committed was forgiven when the appointed victim was brought and offered. Not that the blood of bulls and goats could ever take away sin; but it was the picture of one whose conscience was cleansed up to a certain date, not purged for ever. Now Christians are apt to get a thought of forgiveness like this, and to run in their minds to the blood for fresh cleansing from fresh sins. The truth is, that the cross has already answered for that fresh sin. The moral character of the sin is aggravated by the fact that it is done against the Holy One, who has died that it might not be imputed. Now although sins are never imputed to the believer, yet sin interrupts communion with the Father, and the one who sins has to be restored in his soul. How is this done? Not by faith in the blood, but by his confession, as far as he is concerned. The confession is the fruit of Christ's advocacy on high, and the action of the Word on the conscience of the sinner. But the moral ground on which such a person is restored to communion is his repentance and confession, on which his sin is forgiven. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9.)

But there are two times when a sinner must speak—once to confess his sins, and, then, to confess his Saviour. Have you ever confessed your sins yet in the presence of God? It is a serious thing to get into God’s presence. If you get there, you must acknowledge that you are a poor sinner, only worthy of the deepest hell. You will confess your sins in the spirit of the Psalmist. He says, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” He got no relief as long as he kept silence about his sins, the burden of them lay heavy on his conscience, but at last he opened his lips, and confessed to God: “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.” Then he had to add, “And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

But there are two times when a sinner must speak—once to confess his sins, and, then, to confess his Saviour. Have you ever confessed your sins yet in the presence of God? It is a serious thing to get into God’s presence. If you get there, you must acknowledge that you are a poor sinner, only worthy of the deepest hell. You will confess your sins in the spirit of the Psalmist. He says, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” He got no relief as long as he kept silence about his sins, the burden of them lay heavy on his conscience, but at last he opened his lips, and confessed to God: “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.” Then he had to add, “And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

Until there is confession of sin, and not merely of a sin, there is no forgiveness. We find David (Ps. 51), when he was confessing his sin, saying, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me," etc.; not merely, 'I have done this particular evil;' that he does (ver. 1-4); but he recognizes the root and principle of sin. When our hearts are brought to recognize God's hand, it is not merely then a question of what particular sin, or of what particular iniquity, may need forgiveness; God has brought down the soul, through the working of His Spirit on it, to detect the principle of sin, and so there is confession of that, and not merely of a particular sin. There is then positive restoration of soul.