Believers who desire to live an overcoming life must see the relationship between the believers and sins. There are many different views concerning this matter; however, we will consider only our relationship to sins, both before and after our salvation, according to the revelation in the Bible.
1. “Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him” (Isa. 53:6).
God caused all the sins that we committed prior to our salvation to fall on the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus was judged by God on the cross, He bore all the sins of those who would believe in Him, and He took them away. Therefore, on the cross the Lord dealt with all the sins that we committed prior to our believing in Him.
2. “Who Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24).
The Lord bore our sins as He hung on the cross because God put our sins onto the Lord Jesus at that time. Therefore, all the sins that we committed before we believed in Christ were borne by Him on the cross.
1. “Having forgiven us all our offenses” (Col. 2:13).
Since God caused the Lord Jesus to bear our sins on the cross and righteously judged Him, He has forgiven us for the sins that we committed prior to our believing because His righteous requirement has been satisfied. He has erased our sins before His righteous law.
2. “I have wiped away, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, / And like a cloud, your sins” (Isa. 44:22; see also 43:25).
God has not only forgiven us of our sins but also wiped away our sins because the Lord bore our sins upon the cross. Forgiving erases the record of sin; that is, it eliminates our responsibility to answer for our sins according to God’s righteousness. Wiping away removes the trace of sin to the point that it is as if the sins never occurred. The sins that we committed prior to our salvation have been completely wiped away, even though they were like a thick cloud hanging over us. When the Lord Jesus bore our sins, God wiped them away, causing them to disappear as if they had never been committed.
3. “Their sins and their lawlessnesses I shall by no means remember anymore” (Heb. 10:17; see also Jer. 31:34).
Not only does God forgive and wipe away the sins that we committed prior to our salvation; He does not even remember them. Forgiving eliminates the record of sin before the law of God, wiping away removes the trace of sin upon us, and not remembering erases the impression of our sin from God’s memory. Our sins have not only been eliminated before God’s law and removed from us; they also have been erased from God’s memory. God no longer remembers the sins that He has forgiven and wiped away. Now we are not only sinless before the law and sinless in our person; we are also sinless in God’s memory. Although it is difficult for us to forget our sins, God forgives us; He does not remember our sins because His forgiving is equal to His forgetting.
4. “As far as the east is from the west, / So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psa. 103:12).
God forgives our sins and causes our sins to be removed from us. They are as far away from us as the east is from the west. There is no way to determine the distance between east and west on the earth, because the earth is round. Who can find a fixed starting point for east or a fixed ending point for west? This word in the Bible is marvelous! David spoke this word before people even knew that the earth was round, but even then he did not say that our sins were as far away as north is from south, because for many the earth itself is a fixed starting point. Consequently, if a line was extended north into space, the distance between north and south could be measured. Instead, the Bible says that our sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west, a distance that has no fixed points for measurement and thus cannot be measured. This means that God removes our sins from us to the point that it is impossible to connect us with them.
5. “You have cast behind Your back / All my sins” (Isa. 38:17).
God has cast all our sins behind His back. God cannot see the sins that He has forgiven, because He is a God who does not look back. If a person saw God’s face in the Old Testament, he would die. Moses saw only God’s back. If God had turned His head, Moses would have died (Exo. 33:20-23). But praise God, He does not turn His head. He does not look back. When He forgives our sins, He throws them behind His back where He does not look.
6. “He will tread our iniquities underfoot. / And You will cast into the depths of the sea / All their sins” (Micah 7:19).
God treads our iniquities underfoot and casts our sins into the depths of the sea. Treading our iniquities underfoot means that they are beneath His consideration following His forgiveness, and casting them into the sea means that He is unwilling to consider them following His forgiveness. These descriptions in the Bible show that after God’s forgiveness and removal of our sins, our previous sins have no part in His consideration of us.