What does it mean that God will blot out our transgressions?

This threefold character of our sinning has been met by a threefold grace on God's part. The transgression is FORGIVEN. Here the word means to lift away from. The great burden is removed: it no longer weighs upon the soul and conscience before God. Oh, the relief if it! How great is the blessedness of being forgiven! The load is gone. The sin is COVERED, it is concealed, blotted out of God's sight, so as to offend Him no more. The iniquity is not IMPUTED. It is not reckoned, it no longer stands against us in God's book of remembrance. It is remembered no more. It is as though it had never been.

This threefold character of our sinning has been met by a threefold grace on God's part. The transgression is FORGIVEN. Here the word means to lift away from. The great burden is removed: it no longer weighs upon the soul and conscience before God. Oh, the relief if it! How great is the blessedness of being forgiven! The load is gone. The sin is COVERED, it is concealed, blotted out of God's sight, so as to offend Him no more. The iniquity is not IMPUTED. It is not reckoned, it no longer stands against us in God's book of remembrance. It is remembered no more. It is as though it had never been.

Exodus 32:31-33; Isaiah 43:25. - Grace makes righteousness rest on the obedience of another, and so now it is not the sinner who is blotted out, but his sins, let them be never so vile. If I say I've sinned, and perhaps He will blot me out of His book, I am standing on law; but the moment I understand Christ is my righteousness, the ground is altered altogether, and I find God occupied with me constantly, and I say, "Go with me, for I am a poor stiff-necked, rebellious creature." What a God we have! No wonder if God can be with me when I am walking with Him; but to know that He is occupying Himself with my failings, well may we "joy in God."

"I am" is the Living, Unchanging, Self-existent One, necessarily independent of all others. As such, He acts from Himself in necessary independence also; and here is the ground of redemption, God acting from Himself, and, therefore, according to what He is Himself. God is showing forth Himself, showing forth the riches of His grace in His kindness toward us, glorifying Himself, letting the light of His glory shine. Is it not worthy of Him? We reason from ourselves to God, and can make nothing of it. We are sinners, and can merit nothing: why should not He punish, how can He do aught but punish, sin? How blessed, then, to hear Him say, "I, even I, am He who blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake." (Isa. 43:25.) Who can deny His right in this, if He chooses to do it, and declares that He has done it?

Meanwhile God brings out the contrast between the principles of law and grace, and shows us in what way He can now receive us, and make us to rejoice in His grace, because the work of redemption is accomplished; the Lord Jesus having already suffered for our sins. But since God has put man to the test under law, by means of the people of Israel, it is equally in favour of this people that He shows the resources of His grace. It is this side of the truth which is developed so forcibly and with such detail by the prophet Isaiah in connection with this name of grace - "The Holy One of ISRAEL." God reveals Himself thus in spite of all the rebellion of the people. Israel has been against Him; but He is for Israel. But in order to be this He must first be their Redeemer, and then the source of all the good which is to be produced in them. Chapters 40-57 are full of this marvellous revelation. One quotation will suffice as an example. "But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. … For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." (Isaiah 43:1-3.) God takes away their sins. He says, "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." (Isaiah 43:25; 44:22.) A the same time He reveals (chap. 53) the holy victim who should bear them, the Lord Jesus, on whom "the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all." (Acts 8:35; 1 Peter 2:24-25.)

It does not say that God forgets them, it says He remembers them no more, and the difference is important. I might owe a heavy bill to a tradesman, and he might forget all about it and not present it for payment. That does not cancel the debt. But if he presents it and I pay it, it is done with. He does not send it to me again. He remembers it against me no more. The sins were not forgotten, the full account of them was rendered for payment at the cross, and the blood of Jesus has obliterated the dreadful score. Justice is satisfied, and the question will never arise again. Our sins and iniquities are remembered no more.

(1) First, the year is changed; the preceding months are blotted out, as it were, and God begins time afresh for them with the paschal month. Grace it is that gives this new beginning, and grace can do nothing kinder than blot out the past. And so with our history, until that is known which is the antitype of the passover here. It will have its use, no doubt, as a lesson; all is not, in that sense, lost: will any thing in the world's history even be really so? All will have its moral in the fast-hastening day of revelation, and instead of being forgotten, will abide in profit for us forever. But when God says, "I will remember no more," it has a very different meaning. He can no more forget than He can repent; yet, relatively, both terms can be used of Him. He does not remember our sins when He treats us, and is to us, as if these had never happened — when we can find nothing whatever in His conduct toward us which indicates His remembrance of them; when they are not merely not a cloud in our heaven any longer, but not even a mote in the sunshine of His perfect love.

The blood of Jesus has infinitely glorified God about sin, hence your conscience is to be absolutely purged by that blood. By His offering you are sanctified, and more than that, you are perfect as pertaining to the conscience. You will find three beautiful things in this tenth of Hebrews: The will of God, the work of Christ, and the witness of the Holy Ghost. You have the Trinity active in our blessing. The will of God was to have us fit for his presence; Christ wrought the work of atonement for us on the cross, by which we are made fit; and the Holy Ghost came down to give us the witness that we are fit, saying, "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more" (ver. 17). It is not only, beloved friend, that your sins are forgiven, but God says, My memory has been so affected by the blood of atonement, shed on Calvary's cross, that I have not only forgiven your sins, but I have forgotten them. If I offended you, you might forgive me, but you will never forget it. That is what man is. He does not forget. But look at this, when God wants to give your soul deep solid eternal peace, He says, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Ah, what solid rest does that give.

He will remember them no more. They have been remembered, all of them, little and great. Every sin of your earthly history, from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age; in short, every sin has come up in remembrance before God. Do any ask, when? where? I answer, at Calvary. There the Saviour suffered for them, the Just for the unjust. There God remembered them, and dealt with Him about them. Therefore does the Holy Ghost witness that they shall be remembered no more.

29 Verse 17. "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." According to these words it was necessary that the question of sin should be solved, for God does not say, "I will not remember," but, "I will remember no more." He saw our sins and remembered them, since He determined upon the death of Christ to abolish them. And now that they are abolished He remembers them neither to-day, tomorrow, nor for ever.