*Can God Forget? *by Pastor Ricky Kurth

*Can God Forget? *
* by Pastor Ricky Kurth*
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more (Heb. 10:17).
We know that God forgives the sins of His people, but does He forget
them? It would seem so. Our text suggests that He will not remember
the sins committed against Him by His children (Isa. 43:25). Believers
have always found a great deal of comfort in this blessed thought.
But then God calls upon us to likewise forgive others even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you(Eph. 4:32). Doesn't this suggest that
we too should forgive and forget? Perhaps you are thinking, But Pastor,
you don't know what they did to me! True, but was it more than what was
done to God when men crucified His Son?
Remember, God's vow to forgive and forget the sins of His people
includes even the brutal murder of His only begotten Son. We are tempted
to think, Well, it's easy for God to forget, but such is not the case.
God says of the sins of unbelievers that He “will NEVER forget ANY of
their works (Amos 8:7). How then can this God of total recall forget
our sins? Does His memory have a convenient on/off switch that makes
it easy for Him to forgive and forget? If so, then we who do not have
such a switch would have an excuse for forgiving but not forgetting. But
if God has such a switch, would He not also have to erase His memory of
Calvary, or else forever wonder why His Son had to die? But it cannot be
that God could forget the Cross, for Revelation 5:6 joins John 20:27 to
reveal that the Lord's resurrection body will forever bear the scars of
the Cross, making it impossible for God'”or us”to ever forget His
sacrifice for our sins.
What then is the answer to our question? Can God forget our sins?
Perhaps the reader has noticed that we never read that God will forget
the sins of His people, but rather that He will not remember them. By
a deliberate act of His will He chooses to act toward us AS IF He has
forgotten our sins, on the basis of the blood of the Cross. That's how
fully and completely He has forgiven our sins. And if we are to forgive
others as God forgave us, then we too must choose to act toward others
as if we have so fully forgiven their transgressions against us that we
have forgotten them also on the basis of Christ's shed blood. This and
this alone is complete forgiveness of others, and it is high spiritual
ground indeed.
May God help us to begin the new year with a slate wiped clean of all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking...with
all malice(Eph. 4:31).