Your Sins Are Forgiven and Forgotten

“Forgive and forget.” That’s a standard line in our culture’s morality. (It’s a standard line. I don’t know about a standard practice.)

The Bible talks an awful lot about forgiving others. You should forgive someone who sins against you 77 times (Matt 18:21-22)—in other words, stop trying to keep count! “If you do not forgive others their sins,” Jesus warns, “your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matt 6:15) We should “bear with each other and forgive one another,” Colossians says. “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (3:13)

As far as I know, though, the Bible never talks about ‘forgiving and forgetting’. You could take Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13 that way: love “keeps no record of wrongs.” (13:5) To me, those words rule out resentment and grudges, but they don’t advise amnesia. You ought to remember someone’s character and let that guide how to relate to them wisely going forward, but you shouldn’t rehearse a record of wrongs and keep fanning those flames of anger.

The Bible never says you have to forgive and forget.

But the Bible does tell us that God does. The Lord is a God who forgives and forgets.

A lot of folks think of Old Testament as the part of scripture filled with harsh words of judgment, while the New Testament is all mercy, grace, and love. There are reasons people have that impression, but it’s actually the Old Testament where you see this promise most clearly.

The Old Testament already strains our sense of distance when it says that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Ps 103:12) But then, it goes a step further, when the Lord promises: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jer 31:34)

I will remember your sins no more.

Not only are our sins incomprehensibly far gone, but God forgot all about them. The Lord doesn’t see you as a disappointing daughter who’s always falling short or an infuriatingly sin-sick son. God has chosen not to remember any of that. Forgive. Forget.

I think that’s why Paul, faced with his own imperfections, could talk about “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.” (Phil 3:13) There is no reason for you to dwell on your mistakes. God doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong: you might still need to take action to make things right with someone or in some situation, but you don’t need to swim in guilt and shame over who you’ve been. We all need a realistic self-awareness: you should know your weaknesses and your limits. But that ought to inform your journey of faith, not take you on a guilt trip. Forget what is behind, just like your Father remembers your sins no more. Like Maria Goff says over and over in her book, Love Lives Here: Jesus is more interested in who you’re becoming than in who you were.

So, do we need to forgive and forget with each other? Sort of. Not quite.

Will God forgive and forget with us? Every single time.

Listen to the devotional here: