How Do We Know We Are Forgiven?

Forgiveness of our mistakes and sins is something most people seek. Whether religious or atheist, we do make mistakes and we do offend other people and, unless we have no conscience, we seek to correct what it is we have done. It is only in the sense that we have been forgiven, or our mistake overlooked, that the soul finds rest when the conscience convicts us.

Yet when we sin, or make a serious mistake, there are after effects in the world around us. What we have done, if it affects others, will affect their decision make process and how they interact with life. If what we have done affects things or situations, then all who approach this will be affected by what we have done. Further, no matter if it is a person or thing we have affected, there are the tangible after effects within ourselves. The proof of this is the fact that our conscience bothers us and drives us to seek appeasement of it.

We cannot be rid of the cause and effect relationship of our actions and decisions. It would seem then we must never make a mistake or sin in order to never deal with negative effects. To expect that we would never sin is about as sensible as asking us not to eat ever again.

The process of liberating ourselves from the sharp whip of the conscience is called repentance. Repentance is not unique to Christianity, for it could be said that merely offering an apology to one we have offended is repentance. But here we are going to discuss repentance before God, and how it is we know we are forgiven.

With a person we can hear words of forgiveness: "I forgive you." Yet with God we have only our own thoughts to determine our forgiveness. I may think I am forgiven when I ask for leniency, but unless God speaks to me directly I do not have proof that I am forgiven.

To Christian thought there are the promises of God, yet these promises are contingent upon our keeping the commandments, and thus if we are realistic with ourselves, we can see we do not have any reason for confidence.

To add to this, our conscience may reproach us even after we ask for forgiveness from God, or if not from God, even if another has granted us leniency for our mistakes. This issue is compounded by the other after effects around us when we sin, such as the words, actions, and even glances of other people. If it is an object, the mere lack of this object may bring to remembrance our mistake. If it is a situation, similar situations will evoke the memory of everyone involved.

We can affirm that repentance, whether before God or other people, necessitates a bearing of the after effects of our actions. In the first place we cannot escape these effects, even if we ignore them into oblivion, and even if we refuse to show remorse. But even if we could escape these after effects, it would be impossible to do so without shirking responsibility for our actions. Whether before people, on a job, with our families, or before God, we must be responsible. Those who do not are often deemed as morally weak.

Before God as before men we have to bear the responsibility of what we have done. Dealing with the cause and effect relationship of our actions is necessary. Yet when the effect of what we have caused is gone, there is no more responsibility for us to handle. This is how we know we are forgiven in an ultimate sense.

The responsibility we bear must include seeking correction of our actions. This includes and cannot happen outside of correcting ourselves - the cause of the mistakes made.

In an obvious and literal sense, when the mistakes have been corrected then there is no more responsibility, and no more labor other than to ensure the same mistake is never repeated. With sin it is the same, and so it may be said we are forgiven when the effects of our actions have dissipated from our lives, and this can only happen when we have corrected ourselves so as not to make the same mistake.

This forgiveness comes from God, and is only given for the sake of those who repent. The repentance is evidenced by our enduring responsibly the effects we have caused, and in seeking to correct them, and without fail seeking to correct ourselves. The fruition of our actions brings a loss of the necessary responsibility we once had, and in the almost literal inability to commit or want to commit the same mistakes or sins (though our free will always remains intact).

We can be forgiven, and without the labor of repentance we must not have any illusions of salvation's assurance no matter the title we give ourselves, even that of Christian. If we lack this labor, even this daily labor, then we can say can't be forgiven by God, since He came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance (Matt 9:13).

Let us then admit our errors, and even more so, seek after those errors we are not aware of coming from ourselves, so that in our struggle of repentance, we may cease to endure the effects of our sins and cease sinning in deed and be forgiven, both in this age and the age to come.