“Expunged”
“I forgive, but I don’t forget,” is the addendum most of us attach to the exercise of forgiveness. It rationalizes the leftover emotions that still remain even after we’ve decided to tear up someone’s IOU. It also insulates the distrust that forgiveness alone cannot immediately dismiss. Nevertheless God’s kind of forgiveness includes depth we are to aspire to as genuine disciples of Christ. Saying I forgive but I don’t forget is like punching the time clock for work but not going in to the job.
God not only forgives, He forgets too, “your sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” But the amazing Grace of God even goes beyond that. He says, “I am He that blots out your transgressions [1]. God has a delete button. He not only cancels our debt, He also clears the books. Our record is expunged. We become justified, just as if we never sinned. Rom.3:28 KJV.
Expunge is a legal term in human courts that can be applied to certain cases. Expunge means; erase or remove completely (something unwanted or unpleasant). When your record is expunged you become just as if you never did the crime. In effect, you no longer have a “record.”
I know of a man who testifies of being taken to heaven by an angel and shown the book of his life. Noticing blank sections on some of the pages, he asked what they meant. “Those were things that have been blotted out,” came the answer. It’s nice to know we aren’t going to have to go over our sins when we get to heaven. They’re gone, expunged.
As “blood washed,” we answer for our works, not our sins. When we re-mention the sins we’ve already confessed, God says, “what sins?” We are the ones that forget to forget them. It takes practice to forget our sins and lay aside the weight of their guilt. Why? Because it’s unnatural and challenging to reason. Nevertheless the truth is, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” including the memory and the record.
Maybe we can’t easily forget when it comes to the transgressions of others who have burned us, but we can grow in the exercise of receiving God’s Grace for our own transgressions and then endeavor to treat others as if they are to be forgiven as completely as we are.
There is a blessing in that exercise that comes back to us in our own freedom. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
[1] Is.43:25