And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrews 10:17
The federal government’s Department of Justice launched a program to promote the pardons that are available to people who have committed crimes in the past but who have been free of any crimes for years. A man from the department visited our newsroom to explain the program and the promotion, urging us to get the word out that people can get crimes removed from their record. A pardon, he told us, would be of great help to those whose criminal record prevents them from applying for certain jobs. It also allows such people to cross the border into the United States or visit other countries, something that a criminal record prevents them from doing. In effect, it would be just as though the person had never committed any crime. After we discussed the program for awhile, I asked the government man a question: was the criminal record permanently removed, or was it removed only as long as the person remained crime free? He assured us that if a person with a pardon were to re-offend, their past criminal record would be restored. Maintaining their pardon depended on maintaining their good behaviour. That policy is understandable, and we can accept it. But it is not the policy of the God Who pardons our sins.
A concept that is difficult for us to grasp is how the God of all knowledge, the God who knows everything, can block something from His memory. Yes, God knows everything about us from our moment of birth until the signing of our death certificate. But when it comes to our record before His judicial throne, God has no items that need to be dealt with. We have told lies, and all liars have their place in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8), but God has no lies on the record against us. We have broken God’s laws and come short of His glory, but there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). No wonder we as Christians can be joyous; we have the assurance from the Word of God that none of our sins can ever be brought up before us for judgment. God Who knows them all has punished His Son for them, and has wiped them forever from our account. Now, it is His desire that we would adopt the same attitude toward those who sin against us.
No greater example can be found than the Lord Jesus, of whom it was said ‘Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:23). Remember His words from the cross as He looked down upon His tormentors: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Could we ever be so loving and so forgiving? I know I couldn’t. But this is a goal that you and I could strive for.
Forgetting all of the bad things that people ever do to us isn’t so hard when we place them beside the bad things that our representatives did to the Lord Jesus. – Jim MacIntosh