What Does “Their Sins … Will I Remember No More” Mean?

When Heb 8:12 says that after forgiving us God will “remember no more” our sins, it is not saying He can’t later recall them in his memory. Instead, it is saying He will never bring them back up against us again. Paul was forgiven of persecuting Christians as he became a Christian (Acts 22:16), but God and all of us recall those sins every time we read a text like Acts 9:1-2. David was forgiven of his adultery with Bathsheba (II Sam 12:13), but God and all of us recall remember that sin every time we read the context of II Sam 12. Sins that are forgiven are not erased from God’s memory (God still knows they happened), but the point is they are never held against us again.

The context of Heb 10:17 (“And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more”) is that in the Old Testament remembrance of sin was made even after forgiveness. Notice 10:1-3 – “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.” Remembrance was made for the same sins over and over. It was not talking about remembrance in the sense of “bring to mind,” but remembrance in the sense of “make another sacrifice for the same sin.” But now under the New Testament, once a sin is forgiven, it will never be brought back up by God again. Once one meets the conditions of forgiveness, it will never be brought back up such that conditions of forgiveness have to be met a second time for the same sin (like was sometimes necessary in the OT).

I like the way ChatGPT explained it – “When God says He will “remember sin no more,” it means He will no longer act against the person for that sin. This doesn’t mean God … loses knowledge. It means He will no longer hold the sin against them.” If a rescued (from drowning) creditor says to his saving debtor – “because you saved my life, I will forget your debt,” it doesn’t mean the creditor gets amnesia; instead, it means he forgives the debt, and will not bring up the debt against the debtor ever again.

We should be very thankful that once God forgives us (based upon the death of Christ and conditioned upon our repentance – Matt 26:28, II Pet 3:9), God will never, ever bring that sin back up against us. Don’t we wish people were like that?

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