Many teach the false teaching that God is somehow fallible and actually forgets the memory of our sin.
Jer 31:34 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
But if you will simply look at the Hebrew you can see a truer understanding of this passage. The word for remember in this passage is zaw-kar
zaw-kar'
A primitive root; properly to mark (so as to be recognized), that is, to remember; by implication to mention; also (as denominative fro! m H2145) to be male: - X burn [incense], X earnestly, be male, (make) mention (of), be mindful, recount, record (-er), remember, make to be remembered, bring (call, come, keep, put) to (in) remembrance, X still, think on, X well.
God promises to actively forget our sins, overlook, cover, atone for them. Essentially to look away from our sins.
The permanent deletion of memory is not the common meaning of forget. Most often forget means to treat with inattention, overlook, disregard, cover over, intentionally not see. Consider the definition of the word remember. It means to bring to mind, to think of, to give attention to, or consider. When you remember something, you are retrieving that information from your stored knowledge (memory). To not remember is to not retrieve the stored data from your memory. Not remembering does not mean that the data has been lost or deleted. It also does not mean that it is irretrievable. It is retrievable but not retrieved. That is the common use of the word remember. Just look at verses such as – Gen30:22, Exodus 2:24, Lev 26:42, Ps 78:39, Ps 89:50, ps 105:8, Ps 105:42:43, Ez 16:60, Matt 5:23, Luke 16:25, and Luke 23:42.
Yeshua atones for our sins through His shed blood. God chooses to look over the atoned sin and not recall it. Our faith should not be in the fact that we can freely sin. It must be that we can choose to be in the presence of our God through obedience.
We cannot separate faith and obedience.
We are all familiar with the idea that faith comes by hearing.
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
In Hebrew the word for hearing is Shema. It means hear but it also means obey. In other words the basic idea is that if you truly hear the word of God you will obey it. Hearing the Word of God, and obeying it are synonymous. So then we can conclude that faith comes by obeying. Which makes perfect sense wehn you think about it. If you truly believe in the one True God, and creator of the universe how can you not obey Him - right. Then we can see how obedience would bring you into the presence of God.
Just look at Adam. While he was living in obedience to God, he was in a relationship with God. He actually walked and talked with our God in the garden.
Gen 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
God walking with people normally suggests closeness, intimacy and fellowship. The natural understanding, to me, is that God often did this, perhaps daily “in the cool of the day,” but what was remarkable this time was that man was afraid, because he had sinned.
There sin was about to greatly diminish there relationship. We are called to have a relationship with our God.
1Co 1:9 Elohim is trustworthy, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Yeshua Messiah our Master.
We know if we are in relationship with our Lord if we are living in obedience. Do we want to know how close our relationship with our Lord is, all we have to do is ask one simple question. How well am I at obeying Him.
(To know more about this please read the article How do we know if we know him)
The point is we cannot only teach sin, we have to start teaching Life. Our God does not want us to simply not sin. He does not want us to sit in a room with our hands in our laps simply not sinning. He wants us out in the world being His image, His representatives through obedience. The focus of our Bible is not simply against sinning, but acting out a Life of obedience. The abundant Life.
So what is this abundant Life?
Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
The life here is not our life, but it is Yeshua's life. To understand this lets look at the book of Matthew.
Mat 10:38 And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me.
Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
The life spoken of is not the quantity ,but the quality. It is no longer our life. There has to be an exchange!
The word abundantly in John 10:10 is the Greek word perissos.
per-is-sos'
From G4012 (in the sense of beyond); superabundant (in quantity) or superior (in quality); by implication excessive; adverb (with G1537) violently; neuter (as noun) preeminence: - exceeding abundantly above, more abundantly, advantage, exceedingly, very highly, beyond measure, more, superfluous, vehement [-ly].
The root word for this is peran, which means “from beyond”, or “from the other side”.
The word in Hebrew for Hebrew is Ivri, This word is first used to describe Abraham coming out of Ur and going to where God told him to go. Coming from where everyone else is, and going to where God told him to go. Genesis 14:13: Abram is described as a “Hebrew”. This is the word ivri. It means, “one who has crossed over”, or “one from beyond”.
This is also close in relation to the Greek word ekklēsia. (For a better understanding of this word see the article entitled “The authority of the church part 1”). It means to be a called out assembly. To go from the body where everyone else is and go to Where God is telling you to go for His purpose.
Peran speaks of the same thing. It is changing sides. Going form the world ,or self, and going to another place. Otherworldiness. We are called to be living a life of otherwordliness, a life from beyond.
It is because we are no longer supposed to be living a life that is our own. It is His life that He has given us. Not just His life as in death. Which is a true understanding of this. But I believe it is a secondary understanding to living His life. The Life He lived, if you have read many of my previous articles you will be familiar with this idea that we are to emulate our Messiah. He has given us His life as an example. That is the Abundant Life spoken of. It is a quality of Life previously unattainable. He set all new standards for righteousness. He made qualitative improvements over the way the Word of God was taught. These were not new ideas though. They were a restoration to how they were always supposed to be. When Yeshua said to Love your fellow man He added the all important verse to Love them the way He loved Us.
Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
The new commandment was not new at all. He is quoting Leviticus.
Lev 19:18 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Lev 19:34 The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the homeborn among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
What was new was not the commandment, but the qualitative improvement of how it was followed. He showed how we were supposed to be loving one another all along. He was saying that the bare minimum was no longer enough. We also see this with His teaching on the heart.
Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Here Yeshua is not adding to or changing the standard of adultery, He is saying that His disciples are to hold to a higher standard. He is teaching that this is how it was to be understood and more importantly lived out all along.
This fits well with what we have seen in John 10. The life offered is not simply a “better” life – or even a “new life” – it is a life from beyond. A life of “other worldliness”
We have stop only teaching what we shouldn’t do and start showing what we should. Yeshua is our Master, teacher, and example. He did not only teach judgment and sin. He taught a deeper level of obedience. He lived that level for us all to see. It was recorded for us all to know.
We must start teaching obedience, not just begrudgingly obeying, but choosing to obey as a response to what has been given. Do we believe in grace? Do we believe that our Messiah gave His life for us? Do we believe that our Father loves us? Then how should we respond.
We must start reading, understanding, and teaching our Bible as if it applies to us. Because it does. We must stop justifying our sin, as in trying to explain why we do not have to follow our God's Will. Instead we must start teaching what he said, and the obedience that should follow.
As we go forth and test these new ideas in Scripture let us pray that our Father gives us His Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and truth. So we may see and walk as our Messiah walked, and be true disciples in the Name of Yeshua (Jesus). May we pray for eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to change for the glory of our God
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