he will remember your sins no more
“I am the one, I sweep away your transgressions for my own sake, and remember your sins no more.” — Isaiah 43:25
This is one of the staggering realities of being a Christian approaching Holy Week.
Namely, that Yahweh had always planned, from the very moment that the Fall had occurred, a rescue operation for a humanity stained by the sin that created a devastating separation between creature and Creator that could only end in death if he merely stood by and watched history unfold.
And so he didn’t stand by.
He made a plan.
Genesis 3:15
I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
The offspring of the woman would one day be stricken, “struck down by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4) This striking would be the act that would sweep away our transgressions. This striking would be what would enable God to remember our sins no more.
This flattens me.
It stuns me.
It shocks me.
You see, I — like you — am intimately familiar with my transgressions. I am an expert on my sins. I know the list and am embarrassed at the extent and repetitiveness of them. But what’s even potentially more troubling is, despite this close acquaintance with all my iniquity, I’m actually not the one who knows me best.
The prophet shares this ruinous news with us, something revealed to him by Yahweh himself —
Jeremiah 17:9
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked.
Who really knows how bad it is?”
Yes, indeed, who really knows?
Well, Yahweh doesn’t linger long, leaving us in suspense, but delivers this uncomfortable answer —
Jeremiah 17:10
But I, Yahweh, search all hearts
and examine secret motives.
Yahweh really knows, that’s who.
There’s nothing that escapes his gaze into our hearts as he examines all our most intimate, secret motives, the ones we’ve kept from every other human, or maybe even our own consciousness has kept from us.
Friend, not even we know how really bad we are.
Our hearts are the most deceitful of all things. Our hearts are desperately wicked. Our hearts need rescue, and salvation, and cleansing. Our hearts need sweeping up and non-remembering.
Friend, our hearts need Jesus.
Enter Lent.
Lent is meant to help us remember that God doesn’t.
Because of Jesus.
Because of the cross.
Because of the blood.
1 John 1:7
The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
And the pathway to this cleansing is confession.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And while confession may not always be easy, it really is pretty simple.
We get on our knees, we lift up our heads, we open our mouths, and we confess our sins to the extent that we are aware of our sins. And when we get to the end of our own recollection of all our messiness and unholiness, we ask the Holy Spirit to finish the job for us.
Romans 8:26-27
…the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us, with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
This is the kind of searching we need — by God himself — who is on our side to help us!
And if we struggle in this season of Lent to confess — for confession isn’t always easy, to open oneself this way, to peer into the darkness of our own hearts — let us remember that confession is also how we grab hold of all the promises bound up in a God who would remember our sins no more.
But sometimes the words for confession are hard to find, are they not? Which is why turning to the great saints of old who have gone before us, confessing, may be so helpful. We turn to the dead guys, who give us words to speak. Words of confession. And glorious words assuring our hearts of the pardon found in the Messiah.
Friend, I am deeply grateful for how God works though men like John Calvin, so that we might enter into the spiritual work of confession with intention, specificity, and vigor. Grab hold of words like this to free your soul:
Lord God, eternal and Almighty Father,
we confess and acknowledge without pretense before your holy Majesty, that we are poor sinners, conceived and born in iniquity and corruption; prone to do what is evil, incapable of any good; and that in our depravity, we endlessly transgress your holy commandments. And so, in your just judgment, we deserve ruin and damnation.
But Yahweh, we are displeased with ourselves for having offended you, and we condemn ourselves and our vices with true repentance, longing for your grace to relieve our distress.
May you, therefore, have mercy upon us, most gentle and merciful God and Father, in the name of your Son Jesus, Messiah, our Master. And as you blot out our vices and blemishes, extend and increase the graces of your Holy Spirit to us day by day, so that as we acknowledge our unrighteousness with all our heart, we might feel the sorrow that gives birth to true penitence, which as we mortify our sins may produce fruits of righteousness and innocence pleasing to you, through Jesus, Messiah, our Master.
Amen.
And then, in the rawness of such an earnest exposure of one’s heart and soul, in the vulnerability and maybe exhaustion of that state, don’t remain in that place, but now turn to the refreshing news of pardon that is found at the foot of the cross and the entrance to the empty tomb:
Psalm 103:8-14
Yahweh is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.
He will not always accuse us
or be angry forever.
He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve
or repaid us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his faithful love
toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed
our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.
For he knows what we are made of,
remembering that we are dust.
He knows what we are made of, he remembers that we are dust.
In other words, our shortcomings and waywardness don’t shock the one who Created us.
And he’s made a way forward into pardon.
Dear friend, all our transgressions are covered in the blood of the Son of God,
so that God the Father remembers your sins no more.
And Happy Easter!
