_ The Bible is very expressive when it comes to speaking about how God can forgive our sins.
It uses many descriptions to tell us how our sins are both forgiven and forgotten.

Here are some of the great promises:

Our sins are ‘forgiven,’ (Psalm 32:5);
‘washed thoroughly’ and ‘blotted out’ (Psalm 51:2, 9);
‘forgiven and covered’ (Psalm 85:2);
‘washed whiter than snow’ (Isaiah 1:18);
‘taken away’ (Isaiah 6:7);
‘put behind his back’ (Isaiah 38:17);
‘laid on him’ (Isaiah 53:6);
‘remembered no more’ (Jeremiah 31:34);
‘pardoned’ (Jeremiah 33:8);
‘destroyed’ (Romans 6:6);
‘purged’ (Hebrews 1:3)’
‘borne for us’ (1 Peter 2:24);
‘washed away’ (Revelation 1:5).

What glorious news this is! In Christ we are truly forgiven! Our sins are cancelled! God will not hold our guilty past against us!

The prophet Micah has a very dramatic way of telling us this.
He says that God has cast our sins ‘into the depths of the sea’ (7:19).
So how deep is the sea?
Far out in the Western Pacific Ocean, two hundred miles from the island of Guam, lies the deepest part of the earth’s oceans. It is called the Mariana Trench. It is more than 1500 miles long and over 40 miles wide but it is its depth that is awesome. It plunges down into the ocean bed for some 35,800 feet. By comparison, Everest, the world’s highest mountain, is 29,000 feet in

height. That means that the Mariana Trench goes lower into the ocean bed than the peak of Everest stretches up to the clouds. At that frightening depth the pressure from the waters above is more than eight tons to the square inch!

While these geographical facts and figures compel our attention, the theology of our forgiveness is even more wonderful!
When we are ‘in Christ’ as his redeemed people, our sins are truly forgiven. God has thrown them into the depth of the sea, never to be resurrected! They are buried forever in the vast abyss of God’s unfathomable love and mercy.

What great, good news the Gospel brings! Our guilty past is both forgiven and forgotten!
Alan Tuddenham