At a bible study the other day, we discussed the fact that Jesus paid everyone’s sin debt. What we disagree on is this. The people who don’t accept the gift of Jesus Christ will either go to or are in hell, but are their sins forgiven? The reason they are condemned is because they didn’t invite Jesus into their life. Are their sins forgiven even though they are condemned?
Since we’re all sinners, we all owe a debt to God as the penalty for our sins. The Bible says that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22). Therefore, someone’s blood had to be shed to pay our debt. Jesus came to to do this for the whole world (John 1:29)
If we agree to let His shed blood pay our debt, God will forgive us for all of our sins. But if we don’t agree He can’t forgive us and we will have to pay the debt ourselves. The problem is since we’re sinners, our blood is contaminated and is not acceptable.
Therefore those who don’t agree to let the Lord’s blood pay their debt of sin are not forgiven, and that’s why they stand condemned. It’s not just inviting Jesus into our life, it’s also believing that His death paid the penalty for our sins.
1 Peter 3:18 makes it clear. “Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.” He traded His righteous life for our unrighteous one, shed His perfect blood in place of our contaminated blood, so we can be forgiven. If we believe it we will receive it, because Jesus died and rose gain to make it so.