I, Even I, Am He That Blotteth Out, and He Says Why

There is a stretch of road about forty minutes from where I live that I avoided for nine years.

Not because of anything on it. Because of something I did in the year I was driving that road every week, and every time I went past a particular sign I was back in it, and eventually I started taking a longer route and telling myself it was about traffic.

I have since found out how common that is. Almost everybody has a place. A building, a road, a town, a month of the calendar. It is not usually the worst thing in their life. It is the thing that has a location attached to it, and a location is a doorway that opens whether or not a person wants it open.

And here is what struck me about my own version. I had confessed it. Properly, and years earlier. I was not carrying an open account. What I had was a place that kept putting a settled matter back in front of me, and I could not tell those two things apart when I was standing in it.

Who does it, and why He says He does it

There is a verse in Isaiah where God speaks about the record in the first person, and the whole sentence is worth having.

I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. (Isaiah 43:25, King James Version)

Two things in that sentence and they are both unexpected.

The first is the doubling at the front. I, even I. That is emphasis, and in a legal setting emphasis of that kind is a claim about who has the authority. Nobody else is blotting anything out and nobody else is going to.

The second is the reason, and it is the part that has taken me years to absorb. For mine own sake.

Not for your sake. He does not say He does it because you have suffered enough, or because you were sorry, or because you have made progress. He says He does it for His own reasons, which are about Him.

You have a pardon whose motive sits entirely on His side, and that is what makes it stable rather than dependent on how you are doing (Isaiah 43:25), and it is His Spirit who makes a reason like that a relief rather than an insult.

And He says the same thing even more bluntly through Ezekiel, to a people who were under no illusions about their own record.

I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake. (Ezekiel 36:22)

That verse offends modern ears and it should not. If the motive were us, it would move when we move. Because the motive is Him, it does not.

That is worth turning over slowly by anybody who has spent years trying to be sorry enough. The stability of the thing is a direct consequence of the fact that it does not depend on you.

You have a pardon that cannot be destabilized by a bad week, and its stability comes from where the motive sits rather than from anybody's consistency (Isaiah 43:25), and that part belongs to the Holy Spirit, who makes that a rest instead of a technicality.

What that does to the mile marker

Here is why this is practical rather than only theological.

If a person believes the pardon rests on their sorrow, then every time they stand in the place, they are re-examining their sorrow. Is it still adequate. Was it real at the time. Do I feel it enough now, standing here.

That examination is the thing that makes the place unbearable, and it will happen every single time, because there is no way to finish it.

If the motive is His, there is nothing to examine. The place is still the place and the memory is still the memory, and neither of those is a live question about a person's standing.

You are not being re-assessed every time you drive past something, and the reason given in Isaiah puts the whole matter outside your emotional condition (Ezekiel 36:22). That work is the Spirit's, and He applies a settled thing to a person standing in a doorway.

I want to be plain about one more thing here, because this category reaches people at the edge. If what you carry has gone past a hard memory into somewhere darker, where being here at all has come into question, that is not for an article to hold. Tell somebody tonight: a doctor, a counselor, a pastor you trust, or call the 988 crisis line, in the United States. Going is strength.

What comes right before it

The verses just before that one in Isaiah are worth reading, because they are not what a person expects to find beside a promise about forgiveness.

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. (Isaiah 43:18 and 19)

Remember ye not the former things. That is spoken to a people whose whole national identity was built on remembering, and who had been commanded elsewhere to remember constantly.

So it is not a general instruction against memory. It is specific. There is a category of former things that a person is being told to stop consulting, and the reason given is that something new is being done.

You are permitted to stop consulting a thing you have already brought to Him, and the instruction to stop is in the text rather than in anybody's advice (Isaiah 43:18), and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the new thing that verse promises while a person is still standing in an old place.

And there is a prayer in the Psalms that asks for exactly this, and it is honest about which memories it means.

Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD. (Psalm 25:7)

For thy goodness' sake. The same move again. The petitioner does not argue his own case. He points at God's character and asks to be remembered on those terms.