First: Because it was God's hand that made the record, he it was who put down all your sins. He never rested in his work; week after week, month after month, year after year, the recording work was being done until your record became blacker than the blackest midnight; and behold the hand that made the record blots it out.
Second: It was his hand against which you offended. Your sin was against yourself. It is true it hurt your character, lowered your self-respect; but more especially was it against God, for you despised his authority, forsook his service, broke his laws, defied his justice; you grieved his spirit, and you crucified his Son. And behold it is the hand against which you committed all these offenses which blotted out your transgressions.
Third: It is the offended hand which blots them out. It was the hand that opened the fountains of the deep, and behold the floods came, the waters above and the waters below clasped their hands and destruction was everywhere save in the Ark. It was his hand that brought destruction upon the cities of the plain, consuming them with a mighty flame, and it was his hand that opened the sea for the children of Israel and then closed the sea over the pursuing Egyptians. The very thought of the offended hand makes us tremble, but behold, it is this hand that blots out all our transgressions.
Fourth: It is the hand of justice that does the work. The same hand wrote, "The wicked shall not go unpunished," and wrote again, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," and wrote yet again, "The wages of sin is death." This hand is stretched forth in our behalf.
I doubt not the question has often come to us, "How can God be just and be the justifier of them that believe?" In the light of such statements as these just quoted I am sure it is for this reason—it is for the offering of the just for the unjust. He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. A man was needed for such an offering, and Christ became man. The man required must be born under the law, so Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh. The man born under the law must be without sin, so he was born pure. The man born under the law and without sin must be willing to die, and so he came saying, "I delight to do thy will, O God." And the man born under the law, without sin and willing to die must be able to provide an atonement which would make the wandering sinner and the love of God one, and so Christ at the command of God was thus furnished a sacrifice of sufficient power and magnitude to save the whole world. It is this hand of God that blots out our transgressions.
Fifth: It is the hand of the Supreme Being that does the work. What a word of encouragement this is. It was this hand that made the worlds and hurled them off into space. It was this hand that created man and made him in the likeness of God. It was this hand that formed the countless number of angels, and has ever directed their heavenly movements. It was this hand that wrote the law upon Sinai. And it was this hand that holds the keys of the kingdoms of heaven and hell. He blots out our transgressions. From his decision there can be no appeal. With such a work as this, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Would God that justifieth do it, or Christ that died consent to it? In the light of such a thought the Apostle Paul says, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).
III
Our sins are blotted out for his sake. God saves the sinner not alone because of pity for the sinner, and certainly not simply because he is in danger of hell, but in order that he may glorify himself; and this is no selfish glorification, but rather in order that he may show to us now and throughout all the ages what he really is. God has made different revelations of himself. We have beheld his wisdom in creation, in his providences and in his word. We have seen his justice in that he gave his only begotten Son to die for poor lost men. We have seen his power in the working of miracles and the transforming effect of his grace. It remains for us to see his love in the story of salvation, for until we behold him as the Savior of the sinner we do not know him. It is this that shall make us not only rejoice here in time but rejoice with joy unspeakable in eternity. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:7-8, "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."
IV
Our sins are blotted out from God's memory. The last of this wonderful text is the best. When we detect a failure of memory here in this world among our friends it is an evidence of weakness, but it is no weakness in God to forget. This is but another one of those expressions descriptive of God in which human language is used to describe a thought and in which human language is too poor an agency to convey all the depth of the meaning. It is just another picture of God stooping down to meet our weakness and it is God assuring us that our sins are gone completely. It is as if they never had existed, for they shall never stand against us and in the day of judgment they shall not even be mentioned. Our sins must have been a grief to him, just as the sin of an earthly child is the source of sorrow to an earthly parent; but they are so no longer, for he has forgotten. The Bible represents God as being angry because of our transgressions, but if ever there was anger with him it is so no longer, for you cannot be angry with a person whose injury against you you have forgotten entirely. We do not in this world speak of what we have forgotten, nor will God speak of our sins. We do not punish what we have forgotten, nor will God permit us to be punished, for he has blotted out our transgressions and will remember them no more. There is no awaiting penalty for your sin, there is no judgment to meet at the great white throne, there is no hell for you at the last, for your sins, for Christ's sake, have been forgotten.