I see what you say but I asked what does holy scripture say about forgiveness. It's one thing to declare your doctrine and another to show it in holy scripture, right? Show it in holy scripture. It is not as if anybody has said that the cross of Christ is not relevant to forgiveness of sins. The question that is being debated (and it may not be a question answered in the holy scriptures so maybe it is better to treat it as a mystery of the faith) when does forgiveness happen?
If people agree that forgiveness happens because of Christ's work there, then that is the focal point. That's the important issue from Genesis til now, that a SAVIOR would die for our sins. Therein lies our forgiveness.
So many people have a problem with this because they think automatically that it means that everyone benefits, yet we know that not to be true. We benefit when we receive faith (by grace through faith for salvation because of God's Word). The Gospel is foolishness to the non-believer and God is at work bringing people to faith in order to believe for salvation. Not just believe there is a God. But a Savior who forgives.
Verses
Jesus has redeemed all people. John the Baptist declared, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) This statement, which we sing in the “Agnus Dei,” declares Jesus to be “objective justification personified.” 1 Paul also wrote to Timothy, that Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:6).
2 Corinthians 5:19: God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. “The only possible antecedent of ‘their’ in that sentence is ‘the world,’ and the world certainly includes all men.”
Romans 4:25: He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. “To refer to the words: Who was raised again for our justification,” to the so-called subjective justification, which takes place by faith, not only weakens the force of the words, but also violates the context.”3
Romans 3:22-24: There is no difference, for, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. The key word here is “all.” All have sinned and all those sinners are justified- there is no difference. “All have sinned. The verb ‘justified’ has the same subject, ‘all.”
Romans 5:18: Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. “By raising [Christ] from the dead, [God] absolved Him from our sins which had been imputed to Him, and therefore He also absolved us in Him, that Christ’s resurrection might thus be the case and the proof and the completion of our justification.”
