Read: Psalm 103:1-12; Micah 7:18-20
As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Ps. 103:12)
In his commentary on Psalm 103, Michael Wilcock wonders whether the psalmist understood just how apt this metaphor for God’s forgiveness is. Given the earth’s poles, if someone started walking north, eventually they would come to an end—the point where north turns into south. But no matter where they started, if a person walks due east or west, they never come to the end; they would just go on in the same direction forever. How far does God remove our sins from us? Forever far.
Micah says even more—that God casts “all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). The sea is pretty deep, as we know. But for the Hebrews it also represented the primordial chaos out of which God created the world. The sea stands for the opposite of the beautiful, bountiful, well-ordered world as God made it. It is the anti-creation. This is our sins’ final resting place. It’s as if to say that God will bury our sins in nothingness.
The prophet Jeremiah was given the difficult task of pronouncing in God’s name the final doom of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. His book contains many horrifying descriptions of the judgment that is visited upon the people. But then toward the end comes light. God promises he will make a new covenant with his people, which will result in this: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34).
The God who knows everything can forget some things? What good news!
As you pray, thank God for forgetting your sin.
David Bast is a writer and pastor who served for 23 years as the President and Broadcast Minister for Words of Hope. In his more than 40 years of devotional writing and preaching, he has been encouraging believers around the world to be shaped by God and his Word.
Prior to his ministry and work at Words of Hope, Dave served as a pastor for 18 years in congregations in the Reformed Church in America. A graduate of Hope College and Western Theological Seminary, he is the author of nine devotional books and Bible studies, including God of My Days,Why Doesn't God Act More Like God,Christ in the Psalms, andA Gospel for the World.
Dave and his wife, Betty Jo, have four children and eight grandchildren. Dave enjoys reading, growing tomatoes, and avidly follows the Detroit Tigers.
