Question:
Is there hope for the fornicator? If he confesses his sins with godly sorrow and forsakes this sin and all others, will not God forgive for His Son’s sake and dwell in that person?
Answer:
We have abundant promises in God’s Word that He will save us from every sin for which there is repentance. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18). “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). Read also 1 Corinthians 6, where the apostle is speaking to the Corinthians whom he calls in the beginning of the epistle “saints.” He tells them that “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). We do not know where a more substantial, more explicit assurance could come to anyone who had sinned in any of those particulars than in that text. If we go on in our sins, there is no hope, but if we turn from our sins, it may be said of us as it was of these Corinthians.
