According to the Bible, God also forgives upon honest repentance.
Or did you miss that part?
That’s something only God can know.
I’d estimate less than 5% of claimed repentance is honest. Very very few actually change their behavior in any substantial way. The vast majority of these claims are made to get people to let their guard down so the claimant can find more people to steal from (or worse).
It’s not an abstract concept to me, this is very very common behavior down South and only a complete fool would trust it without verifying.
I’ll give you an example. I know some people who have a property in the mountains with a river running along the edge. The mother of this family is infatuated with church and insists that the church members be invited to do baptisms there. Every single time the church group shows up, they get robbed. Every single time, without fail.
You cannot trust a claim of coming to Jesus. That’s a call only God can make and you are best off not believing it unless it manifests itself in a long term change of behavior - which it rarely does.