Remembering and Forgetting

The Bible has a lot to say about God forgetting and remembering, and if we do not understand these words properly, we may get the wrong idea about some things. The most notable passage about God remembering is associated with Noah when the floodwaters were subsiding. Genesis 8:1 says, “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth…”

God remembered Noah? Had He forgotten about him before that? We don’t want to give ourselves the impression that Noah slipped God’s mind, and then one day God thought, “What was I supposed to do today? Oh, that’s right! Noah is on that ark, and I’d better do something to help him.” Remembering doesn’t have the absolute literal usage that implies having first forgotten; the idea is better thought of as God honoring His word. We also see God remembering Abraham (Genesis 19:29) and Rachel (Genesis 30:22), among others. Sometimes His remembering results in punishment, like when He remembers Babylon in Revelation 16:19.

But I want to focus on forgetting more than remembering. God’s remembering does not mean He has forgotten, but are there things He does not remember? Fortunately there are! Looking into the future, Isaiah 65:17 prophesies, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.”

What are the “former things” that “shall not be remembered”? The preceding verse says, “the former troubles are forgotten, and are hidden from my eyes.” All the worries and cares that made life hard, everything that is a product of the curse, all sin and its ugly consequences will be remembered no more. The author of Hebrews adds another thought to God forgetting: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more (8:12).”

Taken together, Isaiah and Hebrews teach that in the eternal state, God will not remember our sin, and neither will we remember the bad things from life. How is that possible? How can God, who is omniscient, forget that we have sinned? If God forgot our sin, and we remembered it, we could make the case that we know more than God in that regard, and that is foolishness. Alan W. Gomes, in his book 40 Questions About Heaven and Hell, says the idea in these verses is not about a strict forgetting, but about the events themselves no longer having their old effect. The sins that formerly separated us from God will no longer come between us. We will be treated as if we were completely sinless.

No, God does not forget, but He treats us as if He has. “Forgive and forget,” we often say, but that is impossible. But what is impossible with man is possible with God. Gomes continued, “God no longer ‘remembers’ our transgressions in the sense that He forgives them, treating us as if we had never committed them; He no longer ‘brings them to mind’ in order to punish us for them.”

I’m glad to have a God who remembers, yet treats us like He forgets.

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...

Catechism #15

Q. By what sin did our first parents fall from their original condition?  A. Our first parents’ sin was eating the forbidden fruit. The first sin we see in the Bible was in the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve. But as we saw last week, there are sins of commission and omission. The eating of the fruit was an act of commission—a sin that was committed in the Garden of Eden. But before Eve ever took her first bite, a few sins of omission occurred that led up to the sin of commission. First, notice that it was Eve, not Adam, that did all the talking with the serpent in Genesis 3. Yet it was Adam, not Eve, who was created as the spiritual leader of the family. For whatever reason Adam abdicated his role as the spiritual leader and stood silently by as Eve ate the fruit. After Eve’s bite, she gave it to Adam, and he ate it too. Not only did Adam omit his role as leader, Eve omitted her trust in the goodness of God. Not only did she misquote God ...

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...

Tommy Mann

Search This Blog