The experience of forgiveness is reserved for those who come to understand sin within our relation to a personal God and to our fellow men. Otherwise we will not seek forgiveness with a contrite heart before God. Redemption also means that only Christ has control over the past. We all have a past. We cannot turn back the pages of time and begin all over again.
Sin commands a stiff price.
It sinks into our blood stream and into our nervous system. Only God has power to lay remedial hands on the past. We have no power to cleanse our past. Yet the past must be cleared if we are to experience redemption. Furthermore, only Christ has control over the future.