5 Minutes
For the glory of Christ, God puts out of His mind, our sin to remember no more. He regards us as being as righteous as Christ. This is intentional, not inadvertent, a decision, not a mistake. It is evidence of God’s character. And because we will be holy as God is holy, we will imitate our Father in His forgetfulness. We too will forget what we’ve done in sin. Our sins keep moving away from us, never to return.
Psalms 103:12
Let’s reason upon this text. Isaiah 65:17
Past troubles, past sins never to come to mind? Nothing, not even our thoughts will diminish the wonders of Heaven. How is it that we will appreciate the depth and meaning of Christ’s glorious work for us? Our awareness of the perfect justice of love will enhance the depth of gratitude to God of those in Heaven. The drama on earth will be so eclipsed by the omni-wonders prepared for us that no eye has seen, no mind comprehended.
Only God can do this, cause sin to be utterly non-existent. And that’s exactly what He did when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to die for us. We deserved to die, but on the cross all our sins were placed on Him, and He died in our place. The origin of sin upon man was due to disobedience. The existing of sin is due to disobedience. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, so loved us that God gave us His Son to reflect the immensity of that love. The essence of our relationship with Jesus was based upon this commitment. This same love that prompted God to send His Son will be the power of God to remember sin no more.
God is love. It is the propensity to sin that separated us from God and showed our need for a Savior. God loves us so much that He watched His Son die. And the most remarkable aspect of this love is that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit determined this to happen. Unlike the stated love we say we have for God, His love is immeasurably absolute. Our love is a love of posturing regardless of the words we use. If we loved God we would cooperate with His request...that we keep His commandments. Here we say we love Him yet the “if” renders us pretending. We cannot love God if we do not obey Him and we cannot obey God if we do not love Him. As our faith brings us into the fullness of the like character of Jesus, bringing us to perfection, our love will be as God wills. God the Son loved God the Father. Jesus’ obedience as a demonstration of his love for the Father was a side benefit. Jesus loves the Father because it is his nature: God is love. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, as one, all are love. Each member of the Triune cannot not love. It is their nature. Obedience of Jesus to the Father is a natural effect of being God and being a Spirit-filled man without sin. With hearts made new we will know the relationship between love and obedience. God knows that we will choose to love Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. In this we declare that Jesus is Lord. It is our faith in his finished work that we are changed, and obedience is natural. That love and this declaration comes with the territory of being born again while here on earth. That love will justify God remembering sin no more.
None of us are in perfect obedience to Jesus now. Yet, we can be characterized by “essential” obedience to Him by purposing to set our heart on hearing the word of God and acting on it. This includes what He asks of us in the Sabbath hours whereby we come to worship Him. Why the term “essential”...obedience is essential to salvation. Faith is essential to salvation. And faith is a command, a work, something required in obedience to God. Therefore, obedience is essential to salvation by faith in what Jesus did.
Here we may approach the throne of God boldly as we can be “in” the Spirit. In heaven the Spirit will be “in” us fully. Because the Holy Spirit is God and sin will not, cannot abide in the presence of God, He remembers sin no more. In God promising to remember sin no more, He makes known to His people His heart and His deeds, His ways and His acts. He wants us to know Him and to know what His heart is toward us. He gives us His Word so there can be no excuses. The only reason we may not know what He wants us to know is because we choose to ignore or disregard His Word. He does not want us to be ignorant or misled about His character or about how He thinks about us. He wants us to know what He has done for us and what He will do for us.
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