Anonymous asked:

Does God really forgive and forget all sins, even the worst ones? If so, why does he remember them on judgement day?

I answered:

“For I will forgive their wickedness

and will remember their sins no more” Hebrews 8:12

Yes, God forgives sins. All of them. The worst ones, the secret ones, the habitual ones, the shameful ones, the ones we are still doing, all of them.

Not remembering them is a key part of that. If a parent forgives a kid for breaking something, but then brings it up all the time, it doesn’t feel much like forgiveness. God promises that His forgiveness means that He will never hold your sins against you or bring them up again. God’s forgiveness excludes guilt.

Psalm 103 says that God has removed our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west”. Think about that and picture a globe. If you go North long enough, you go over a pole and start going south, but you can go west forever and never go east. God has sent you one way and your sins another, and you don’t have to see them again.

The judgement day thing you mention is actually a next level of that forgiveness. In Matthew 16:27 Jesus says “the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” Not only do we have our sins removed from us when we accept the free gift of God’s grace, but we get righteousness. 

When the Bible says that we are justified by faith, that word “justified” means “to be declared righteous”. God forgives all we do, but not only that, He replaces it with something infinitely better.

-Matt from The Bridge

Ask Us A Question