People avoided her. Thought she was whacko.
She claimed that she and Jesus talked one-on-one every night; said he told her about the shenanigans of people who thought their secrets were … well, secret.
Someone told her she should validate these alleged conversations by asking her minister if she was really talking with Jesus or hallucinating.
So happened that her minister was tormented by a sin he had fallen into many moons ago. He had prayed for forgiveness, but still had a feeling he was on thin ice. So when the woman asked him to legitimize her experience he told her the next time she talked to Jesus to ask him what the sin was that still had him spooked.
The next day he asked her if she had spoken with Jesus.
She said she had.
“What did he say my sin was?”
“He said he forgot.”
Now that’s a story about forgetting that’s worth remembering. God forgives and forgets sin.
Way back in Old Testament days God said the time was coming when he would make a new covenant with his people. The high point of the new treaty was thrillingly stated: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34 ESV).
Thank God we live on this side of that promise.
The sacrifices of the old covenant “were not able to clear the conscience,” but were only “external regulations applying until the time of the new order” (Heb. 9: 9, 10).
Under the old system there was “an annual reminder of sins” (Heb. 10:3). The best they could hope for was that the high priest’s sacrifice on the Day of Atonement would pay off their sins for a year; only to have them come back to haunt them twelve months later and have to pony up again. And again. And again. And again …
But “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all … by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:10, 14).
And that’s sealed with God’s promise: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Heb. 10:17).
Read and rejoice …
As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12).
Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him (Rom. 4:7-8).
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9).
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23). You can put your weight down on God’s promise to forget what he forgives: “You have put all my sins behind your back” (Isa. 38:17). Out of sight. Left behind.
You may remember a forgiven sin.
But if you were to ask God what it was he would say, “I forgot.”