Will God continue to forgive you if you commit the same sin over and over again?

By "we" I suppose you mean believers. Yes, we do need forgiveness, as often as we sin. We have already seen that the forgiveness of sins which accompanies salvation (see Luke 1:77) is received once for all. It is a blessing which is always ours. But if we, the children of God, sin, our communion with Him is interrupted, and forgiveness, leading to the restoration of that communion, is needed. And God, our Father, is so ready to grant that forgiveness! If we are exhorted to forgive an offending brother until seventy times seven, we may be sure that He will never tire of forgiving us unto seventy thousand times seven.

We say "true confession," for it must be this if it be the fruit of the Spirit's work in the heart. It is not lightly and flippantly saying we have sinned, and then as lightly and flippantly sinning again. This is most sorrowful and most dangerous. We know nothing more hardening and demoralising than this sort of thing. It is sure to lead to the most disastrous consequences. We have known cases of persons living in sin and satisfying themselves by a mere lip confession of their sin, and then going and committing the sin again and again; and this has gone on for months and years, until God in His faithfulness caused the whole thing to come out openly before others.

All this is most dreadful. It is Satan's way of hardening and deceiving the heart. Oh that we may watch against it, and ever keep a tender conscience! We may rest assured that when a true-hearted child of God is betrayed into sin the Holy Ghost will produce in him such a sense of it &mddash; will lead him into such intense self-loathing, such an abhorrence of the evil, such thorough self-judgement in the presence of God — as that he cannot lightly go and commit the sin again. This we may learn from the words of the apostle when he says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and" — mark this weighty clause — "to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Here we have the precious fruit of the double advocacy. It is all presented in its fullness in this part of the First Epistle of John. If any man sin, the blessed Paraclete on high intercedes with the Father, pleads the full merits of His atoning work, prays for the erring one on the ground of His having borne the judgement of that very sin. Then the other Paraclete acts in the conscience, produces repentance and confession, and brings the soul back into the light in the sweet sense that the sin is forgiven, the unrighteousness cleansed, and the communion perfectly restored. "He restores my soul: He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." (Ps. 23:3)

The priesthood of Christ comes in to maintain me practically where the blood of Christ has set me. As in the expression in the Epistle of John, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous [Jesus Christ is at God's right hand on all principles of righteousness], and He is the propitiation [the mercy-seat] for our sins." "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." It is a much easier thing for a child to ask for pardon for some fault than to confess it. We may be asking for pardon for any special sin, and we have no Scripture warrant to know that it is put away; but when we confess it, it is a matter of faith to know that it is put away. I am speaking now of a believer: were it the question of an unconverted person, the blood of Christ meets that. God is "faithful and just (not gracious and merciful merely), to forgive us our sins," etc. The moment I have judged myself about it, I am entitled to know that it is gone.

1 John 1:9. Having a sinful nature, the fruits of it manifest themselves, even in the Christian, when he is not walking in communion with God. But our sins are not to be covered up; they are to be confessed. Coming in confession to God, we learn that He is faithful and righteous to forgive. We can have the fullest confidence in God: His faithfulness is known in the forgiveness we receive. With each other, we may be very slow to forgive, and very grudgingly pardon those who confess to us their wrongdoings. But God is faithful in His forgiving; we can come to Him perfectly assured that He will forgive, if we confess our sins. Without the confession, the guilt lies upon the conscience, and the defilement on the spirit. Forgiveness on God's part is also a righteous thing, and this because of the work of the cross. God could not pardon the sinner in righteousness apart from the work of Christ; therefore His forgiving of sins magnifies the great work of propitiation accomplished by the Lord Jesus. Then there is the cleansing from all unrighteousness. Unrighteousness in the Christian calls for confession, not only that we might have the sense of Gods pardon, but also that the defilement produced on the spirit might be removed. This is not cleansing by a fresh application of the blood to the believer, but is produced through the action of the word of God on the defiled spirit. Our first coming to God as guilty sinners could not rightly be excluded from this verse; its abstract nature leaves room for this; but it is good for us as failing Christians at all times.

The truth then is, that once cleansed from the guilt of sin we are cleansed for ever. "By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Heb. 10:14.) On the ground of the efficacy of that one perfect sacrifice, God in His grace not only forgives our sins, but He never more imputes guilt to the believer. He cannot tolerate sin in His people, and thus, if they sin, the Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, undertakes their cause, on the foundation of His one perfect propitiation for their sins, prays for them, in response to which God, acting by His Spirit, brings home, through the instrumentality of the Word, the sin to their consciences, produces self-judgment and confession, and then, as the apostle also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Every believer is under the abiding efficacy of the precious blood, and as a consequence there is no further question of guilt. But God will surely deal with His children in the way of chastisement if they sin, and continue in sin, with the object of humbling them in His presence, that they may tell out their sins before Him. Then they are washed by the water of the Word — by the action of the word of God upon their hearts and consciences — not cleansed by the blood, for that has been done once and for all, and cannot be repeated. It is therefore absolutely true, as stated in this scripture, that the sins of all the children of God are forgiven — forgiven for His (Christ's) name's sake, and forgiven eternally.

But if we cannot get rid of sin, what are we to do when the evil nature becomes active, and we commit sins? "If we confess our sins, He is faithful" — I like that word "faithful." God is faithful. He is not like man. It is man's way to relinquish his side of the bargain when the other fails on his side. But what does God do when we fail? He will never let us go. He shows the remedy. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful … to forgive us our sins." If then you have sinned, own it without any qualification or excuse. Say, "I have sinned. I have done this evil in Thy sight." He will forgive and cleanse you.

But, then, "if any man sin," what is to be done? The inspired apostle furnishes a full and most blessed answer: "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) Confession is the mode in which the conscience is to be kept free. The apostle does not say, "If we pray for pardon, he is gracious and merciful to forgive us." No doubt, it is ever happy for a child to breathe the sense of need into his father's ear — to tell him of feebleness, to confess folly, infirmity, and failure. All this is most true; and, moreover, it is equally true that our Father is most gracious and merciful to meet His children in all their weakness and ignorance; but, while all this is true, the Holy Ghost declares, by the apostle, that, "if we confess," God is "faithful and just to forgive." confession, therefore, is the divine mode. A Christian, having erred, in thought, word, or deed, might pray for pardon, for days and months together, and not have any assurance, from 1 John 1:9, that he was forgiven; whereas the moment he truly confesses his sin, before God, it is a simple matter of faith to know that he is perfectly forgiven and perfectly cleansed.

We should distinguish between the forgiveness we receive when we first come to the Lord Jesus, and the forgiveness we receive from God when, as His redeemed children, we have sinned against Him through our carelessness, and foolishness, and perhaps our wilfulness. In the former case, we come as sinners, and receive from Him full and free forgiveness of all our sins; in the latter, we come as His children, not only to be forgiven, but to be restored to communion with Him, which we had lost through our sins. He is ever ready to forgive us our sins, when we confess them to Him, for He longs to have us near to Himself, in communion with Him, to enjoy all the fulness of His love.

But many have thought, "If we have the 'forgiveness of sins,' why do we read, in 1 John 1:9, 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins'?" There is another sense in which Scripture speaks of forgiveness; when a child of God has sinned, and his communion has been interrupted, and he confesses his sin, he gets forgiveness, not in the sense of non-imputation, as in Rom. 4:7-8, but of communion and joy being restored, which had been interrupted by the sin. The above verse (1 John 1:9) is a general statement, and would apply either to a sinner first coming to God and confessing his sins, and so getting forgiveness once for all on the ground of the death of Christ, or to a child of God who has sinned and confesses, and gets forgiveness as a child by the Father. The one might be called justifying forgiveness in the case of the sinner; and the other, Fatherly, or governmental, forgiveness in the case of a saint; and it is very important to distinguish between the two.

There is one other thing that I must close with. Peter says to our Lord, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?" We had the case of how we were to act in the case of a personal trespass. But Peter raises another question. Supposing my brother sins against me over and over, how often am I to forgive him? The answer is, "I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven." In the kingdom of heaven — not under the law, but under the rule of Christ — forgiveness is unlimited. How wonderful! To think that holiness, the deeper holiness that Christianity reveals, is at the same time that which feels with the deepest possible love, and which goes out with it to others. So we find here. "I say not unto thee, Until seven times," which was Peter's idea of the largest grace, "but, Until seventy times seven." Our Lord insists that there really was no end to forgiveness. It is always to be flowing out. But remember this: it is a sin against you: it is a person that does wrong to you. We are not to forgive a wrong done to the Lord, till the Lord has forgiven it; and the Lord only forgives upon confession of sin. I am now speaking, not of the grace that meets a man in his unconverted state, the case here is that of a brother. When a man is converted, he has to confess his sins day by day. It shows a wretched state of soul if a person breaks down in his daily path without confession to God. But what we learn here is, that if it is some sin done against you personally, and it is a question how often you are to forgive, the answer is, "Till seventy times seven." God will never be outdone in His perfect love: but even a man upon earth is called to forgive after this wonderful and divine pattern.