"And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord, ' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Jeremiah 31:34
In a prophecy given to Jeremiah, God declared to the Israelites the forgiveness that He released to them even when they had repeatedly defiled and disobeyed God deliberately. In love and grace, God declared that as a result of forgiveness, He would "remember their sin no more."
I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "forgive and forget." Has God really called us to completely ignore the inconvenience of offense that others have caused us?
While the Bible says that God forgets our sins, it is not literal in its translation. It was because God remembered our sin that He made a way for us to be justified and that He continues to lavish His enabling grace upon us through His Spirit.
What God does forget and choose to ignore is our stubbornness and infidelity, constantly trusting us with His purposes even when we have been disqualified from His will and work. God also forgets the consequence of death and eternal separation when we have faith in His finished work on the cross.
When we bring up the virtue of "forgive and forget" in every situation, we fail to see the point. An entrepreneur who has fallen victim to someone who cheats in business transactions has no obligation to keep doing business with that person.
Looking at the example of David, in his dealings with King Saul, it is important to note that though there was forgiveness and an unwillingness to exact revenge, David fled for his life.
Does God call us to forgive to the point of erasing all records of wrongs? Yes, because He has done the same for us (1 Corinthians 13:5), but it also calls us to surrender the offender to God and step back to allow God to work in his or her life.
There is no reason to keep sharing secrets with a gossiper, to keep trusting a thief with belongings and to keep embracing someone who stabs your back. But there is also no need or right to judge. There is all grace to forgive and to heal, believing that God is the source of healing and not the relationship.
We are to forgive because we have been forgiven, but we must also be cautious because God has also called us to be wise.
