Forgiving like God forgives is a challenge. I know that His memory is not wiped out yet at the same time, His response to forgiven sin is just as if it never happened.
That said, God’s memory is not like mine. I forget where I put my glasses, or forget someone’s name, or forget a birthday, but God remembers everything — particularly His promises. For instance, the OT says that He even uses reminders, not for His sake but so we know He has not forgotten:
Genesis 9:13–16. I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
Moses knew about God’s memory. He pleaded with Him in Deuteronomy 9:27 to, “Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, lest the land from which you brought us say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.’ For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”
Hannah pleads with God to remember her (1 Samuel 1:11) and vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”
Psalm 74:2 asks God to “Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt” and the prophet also asked Him (Lamentations 5:1; 20-22), “Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! . . . Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old— unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.”
God’s memory can be negative. His prophets warned “He will now remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.” Yet the Lord also remembers our weaknesses and does not expect perfection from us. Psalm 103:13–14 says, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Because of God’s mercy, the NT speaks of His memory in terms of His covenant. Human failure to obey Him resulted in the coming of Jesus whose sacrifice means our sin is put on Him, forgiven and buried as “far as the east is from the west.”
Luke 1:68–72. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
For this, the thief of the cross beside Jesus could ask, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” and those who call on Jesus for salvation can experience the joy of knowing this:
Hebrews 8:10–12. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
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