By Jennifer Hartline, The Stream - And suddenly there it was. “…by the forgiveness of their sins.” It jumped off the page: salvation comes by the forgiveness of sins… There is a great need for the Church to return to this simple, core truth, and to sweep away everything else that obscures it… There is no salvation apart from the forgiveness of sin. That means we must first confess that we have sinned. We must first recognize that we have transgressed against God’s holy law, and against God Himself.