Remembering what we should Forget, Forgetting what we should Remember!
Meditation for the week of May 26, 2013
"THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR HEARTS, AND IN THEIR MINDS I WILL WRITE THEM," then He adds, "THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE." (Hebrews 10:16-17)
On Memorial Day many of us are going to go to a cemetery, and we will place flowers on graves of our loved ones. Most of the graves will have a stone there as a memorial to the person who has been laid to rest in that grave. These memorial stones are a reminder of the person and of the life that they lived.
We have many kinds of memorials. We have museums that memorialize certain periods of history. We have libraries that memorialize presidents. We have holidays that memorialize great men. But, thankfully, God does not have a memorial to remind Him of the forgiven sins of His saints.
In Hebrews 8-10, the Lord uses an old testament prophecy found in Jeremiah 31:31-34 to show that God has made a new covenant with Israel, a nation that had sinned against God over and over again. Under the old covenant, God blessed the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The blessing involved the possession of a physical land. The worship of God under that covenant was primarily national and ceremonial. But the new covenant involves a change in the hearts of His people. This covenant is spiritual and the worship is from the heart. While He makes this covenant with Israel, Ephesians makes it clear that Jews and Gentiles both are part of this new thing called the church and we are all saved the same way. So I am going to believe that this new covenant is applicable to me just as much as it is applicable to one born as a Jew. The new covenant is expressed in Hebrews 9:28, “So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. Hebrews 10:38 and 39 says, NOW THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; BUT IF ANYONE DRAWS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” Put simply, I believe the new covenant is summarized by John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
When God says that He will remember our sins and lawless deeds no more, He isn’t saying that He is going to lose His memory. He is saying that he will not memorialize them any longer. He will not have some memorial stone or some other way to make sure that these sins are being constantly brought to mind. While He doesn’t say He forgets, He does say that the sins of the redeemed will be blotted out (Acts 3:19). I understand this to mean that He has a book with a record of our sins in them and the moment we trust the Savior, those sins are blotted out of that book. The page is blank. Those sins are to be remembered no more. Since the death of Christ was sufficient to forgive all of our sins (past, present and future), I don’t think that God writes any sins we commit after trusting Christ in a book either.
While the sins of the redeemed are not remembered or memorialized by God, our names are remembered and memorialized. Our names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life and He knows each of us by name (Luke 10:20). I tend to forget names, and the older I get the worse I get. But God will never forget the names of those who trust His Son.
God remembers what He should remember, and He doesn’t remember what He chooses not to bring to remembrance. We tend to remember the sins that God doesn’t remember anymore, and we tend to forget the promise that God has made to us that He will never blot us out of His book. But this weekend those of us who are truly believers need to make sure we are not memorializing our sins since God has forgiven them. Also, let us renew our commitment to memorializing the person of Christ “Who loved us and gave Himself for us (Galatians 2:20).” We can do that by joining with a group of Christians meeting together as a local church and sharing in a fellowship meal called the “Lord’s Supper.” (See 1 Corinthians 11:17-20, 33). It is only fitting that we should remember the Savior who died for our sins and it is only fitting that we should thank God that those sins are remembered no more.
Bruce Collins