“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.”
Romans 3:22b-25a ESV
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
Colossians 2:13-14 ESV
Two weeks ago, in my Sunday morning sermon I spoke about God not forgetting our sins but choosing not to count them against us when we are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. A faithful member asked how this can square with Jeremiah 31:34 that states, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” This is a very good question. Let’s examine the broader reality of how God forgives our sins.
To understand how our sins are forgiven, we must look closely at the Bible doctrine of justification. Our sinfulness before God is not primarily an emotional or psychological problem that needs to be worked out within ourselves. We cannot change our personal outlook or embark on a plan of self-improvement to remedy our sin problem before a holy God. Our problem with sin is primarily a legal problem between us and God, which is why the Bible uses much legal language to describe how sin affects our relationship to God. Above, Colossians 2:14 speaks about the “legal demands” of sin against us. God proclaimed from the beginning that if our first parents rebelled against Him, they would surely die (Genesis 2:17). Adam, and all who followed after him, have rebelled against God bringing upon us a penalty, or wage, of death.
Your sins separate you from God who is holy and will allow no sin in His presence. If you die physically in this state, the death of your soul before God will last forever. You will forever be separated from God. You will forever exist in death and receive the just punishment of hell for a life lived in rebellion against God. This is a legal penalty that cannot be worked off or ignored, only forgiven through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
When you repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior you are justified. For Jesus’ sake you are declared ‘not guilty’ because He has paid the price for your sins by His own death. But after three days in the grave, Jesus resurrected from the dead never to die again! He lives to impart forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe in His name!
To receive this pardon, we must ask for forgiveness. Asking Jesus to forgive your sins is an inseparable part of repentance. Repentance is a turning away from the sinfulness and corruption of this world to the righteous and living ways of Jesus Christ. The ways of the world and the ways of Jesus are opposite of each other, leading to different ends of life and death. We ask God to forgive our sins because they cannot be worked off. In His great mercy, God forgives our sins because the price of justice has been paid. This means that God no longer counts our sins against us, but against Jesus, who Himself had no sin. It is a legal exchange that results in eternal life for us.
To be justified before God and have your sins no longer counted against you, is as if the sins were forgotten. This is what Jeremiah is speaking about. It’s helpful to think about a married couple arguing, then the sinning spouse changes their behavior and asks for forgiveness. The forgiving spouse chooses to no longer count past sins against their partner. They then go forward, not bringing up the past, and moving toward into a new future with a fresh start However, it’s not that easy with us. Even when we forgive those we love, we often have to intentionally and repeatedly choose to not count their sins against them because we cannot forget what was said or done. We follow in the ways of Jesus when we are truly able to leave the forgiven sin in the past and choose to no longer count it against the offending person.
Jeremiah’s language of “remembering our sins no more” should be understood in light of what has been said above. It is God actively not thinking of us in light of our sins, but thinking of us as clothed in Jesus’ righteousness. One of the firmly established incommunicable attributes of God is His omniscience – that God knows all things. If God literally forgot from His mind every sin ever forgiven by every believing person in the history of the world, God almighty would have very large portions of history erased from His memory. No! God knows all things and does not lose knowledge because He chooses, by grace, to not think upon our sins. He “remembers our sins no more” in the sense that they are permanently no longer counted against us as God considers our ways and standing before Him. Instead, we are seen by Him as covered in the perfect righteousness of Jesus the Son.
Let us rejoice in this glorious forgiveness and may God help us to practice this Christian forgiveness toward those around us. May we truly forgive because we have been forgiven! Let us especially forgive those who are closest to us or those who have sinned against us in the most serious of ways. May God help us to remember no more what has been forgiven.
Praise Jesus for His grace toward us,
Pastor Vic