November 20, 2023
Perfect Forgetfulness
(Some information may be too graphic for small children)
“ So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him;” John 19:32 (NASB)
Memories can be great; however, some can be horrible. I think one of the hardest things for Christians in life is in the area of confession of sin. It is easy for the believer to accept God’s forgiveness (1 John 1:9), but the hard thing is living with the memory. Our memories are permanent. They stay with us forever, unless something drastically happens to us through illness or accident, they remain. The Bible tells us when God forgives sin, He casts them as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19). It came at a supreme price though.
“So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other…” “The smashing of the lower leg bones was called in Latin the crurifragium. This caused death to occur fairly quickly by shock, loss of blood, and inability to breathe (the chest cavity would bear the pressure of the body’s weight after the legs were broken). Without this procedure, a person could live for many hours or even days. This crurifragium was done to the two thieves on each side of Jesus.”[1] The soldiers who were already at the cross had awaited similar commands from their commander. This time, the order was given to break the legs of the crucified. As they broke the legs of each condemned man, they saved Jesus for last. Perhaps the centurion who directed the soldiers was impressed by Jesus and ordered Him last. Luke describes a statement later by the centurion, “Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.” By then Jesus was already dead (vs. 33). Whatever the reasoning, Jesus’s bones would remain unbroken. This fulfilled Psalm 34:20, “He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.” God called for a perfect unblemished sacrifice to cover the sins of the people before this time. Note the word “covered.” God merely covered or pardoned their sins in the past. This is because all of creation was tainted by the sin in the Garden of Eden. All the world felt its effects. Even though the sacrificial lamb was unblemished, it still had the condemnation of sin upon its life due to sin. Now Jesus would remove their sins by His perfect sacrifice on the cross. This made Jesus’s death the unblemished Passover Lamb, and the perfect sacrifice acceptable to God for the sins of the world. God would forgive and forget sins when confessed and repented by the believer in Christ.
The area I think all of us struggle with is the area of remembrance of past sins or bad actions that caused pain in our or others' lives. I remember years ago, confessing my sins for the day, and asking God to forgive me and help me to change. I said, “God, I don’t know why you continue to put up with my foolishness sometimes.” It seemed at that time to be a signature sin (something unique to every Christian) that I found my biggest struggle in life. As I finished the confession and repentance part of my prayer, I said to God, “God, don’t You get sick of it too?” In my Spirit, I heard these words, “No Mark, I don’t know what you are talking about.” God forgave and forgot. How does He do that though? Only by Jesus’s sacrifice.
[1] Blum, E. A. (1985). In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 340). Victor Books.