Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Forgiveness; East to West

While preparing for my message this Sunday, I began to research and develop an interesting line of thought about forgiveness. Reflect on this...

Psalm 103:12 "As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us."

So, what is this East to West thing? Think about this...no matter how far east you travel, you will never touch west. This is true whether you travel in a straight line into space or in a circle around the earth. Mathematicians refer to the distance between east and west as “infinity”.

What a beautiful thing this is to contemplate, that our sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west. At the risk of stretching the metaphor too far, isn't it amazing that He tells us they are removed as far as the east is from the west, not as far as the north is from the south? You see, if we travel north far enough, eventually we can go no further north. Standing on the north pole, there is nowhere to go but south. There is a fixed distance, then between the north and the south. It is a long distance, but a finite one.

Yet this is not true when we travel east. We never reach a point where eastward travel must end, and westward travel must start. Hence, the eastward removal of our sins has an infinite quality to it, a permanence.

In addition to this metaphor, an Old Testament prophet writes the following for God: “You (God), will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:19

This one has some interesting meaning as well relating to the make-up of the ocean. More later....

--Noah

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