Monty Python, Forgiveness, and the True God

In Monty Python's "Quest for the Holy Grail", God speaks to the knights.

He complains thus:

"I am tired of your 'I'm sorrys' and your 'Please forgive mes'"

In truth, God has been saying the same thing, without such a curt or crude affect. (Nor is he limited to the form of a cranky bearded old man)

Believers have already been forgiven all our sins:

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses" (Colossians 2:13)

All tresspasses! And "all" means "all, every part part, nothing left."

"Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." (Colossians 3:13)

We do not need to keep asking for forgiveness, but we forgive because we have been forgiven.

Yet James writes about confession:

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (James 5:16)

Here this passage is addressed to non-believing Jews, as James' heading for this epistle would suggest:

"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting." (James 1:1)

He is writing to the twelve tribes of Israel, in which there were certainly non-believing as well as believing Jews.

Referring back to James 5:16, it is apparent that he is not addressing believers, for he directs certain people to confess their sins, then indicates in the third person, that the prayer of a "righteous man availeth much." "Righteous" is a characteristic of believers in Christ. Because of James' transition in address, it is apparent that those who exhorts to pray are not righteous -- as of yet, because they are not believers.

Yet what about 1 John 1:9? The same explanation to resolve any misunderstandings in James' epistle applies just as well to John:

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

This confession is once and for all, for the passage is written to non-believers. Pastor Joseph Prince has presented an effective argument that this passage is not for the believer.

Even the word "cleanses" implies a continuous cleansing, not one that is conditional on our confessing every sin every day.

We are made the righteousness of God (cf 2 Corinthians 5:21); therefore, for a believer, there is not need to confess sins again and again in order to maintain one's right standing with God, for our righteousness in Christ is a gift accorded by God's grace, which we receive by faith (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10).

Just as in portions of James' epistle, John is addressing non-believers. He changes his audience in the second chapter, when he writes:

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:" (1 John 2:1)

Contrary to John's exhortation in the first chapter, he does not tell his "little children" to confess their sins, but to look to their Advocate, Jesus Christ. Because John does not begin his first general epistle with "my little children," this makes the case that John is not writing to believers in the first chapter.

We are forgiven all our sins. We do not need to confess our sins afterwards in order to be restored to righteousness.

As was prophesied to Daniel, the believer's righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. (cf Daniel 9:24)

So, we can quit asking God to forgive us, receive by faith that we are His, and that His Holy Spirit is working in us to conform to the likeness of His Son.