Who taught you that when you come in for dinner, you don’t need to take a shower, you need to wash your hands? Your parents probably passed that lesson on to you, but where did they learn it? It’s not necessarily common sense but it does belong to how God made things to work. Imagine what laws today’s germaphobes might make if we didn’t have a couple thousand years’ worth of hand-washing success? How different would your day look if before handling any food you believed that a full body wash was necessary?

We know that’s not required and let’s not take that knowledge for granted. Similarly, what a great revelation from God to men that saved sinners don’t need to be saved again. We do not lose our salvation, we do not need to be regenerated again and again and again. Instead, we confess daily sins and Christ forgives and cleanses us. How different would your day look if after every sin you believed that a new conversion was necessary?

Every believer has been fundamentally washed in Christ. We were completely filthy, soiled by sin. Christ bathes us and clothes us in His righteousness. When–and it is when, not if–we sin again, we do not go back to dead. We do not need another bath. We need Him to wash up the dirty parts. If we drive the car into the curb we need to take it in for an alignment, we don’t need to trade it in for a new car.

This both comforts us and reminds us. We get comfort knowing that Christ’s work isn’t undone by our sin. We are also reminded that Christ continues to undo our sin and that we ought to keep coming to Him. In this process our consciences remain tender without being terrorized. Imagine what dread the legalists could lay upon us if after every sin we needed new salvation. God’s judgment against our sin is complete in Christ, and the Father calls us to confess any sin based on it.