“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

One of the most fundamental desires of fallen humanity is the desire for a fresh start. Since everyone fails in one way or another, since life itself often fails to live up to what we would like, the desire to start over is universal. Although every religion ever conceived by the mind of man has responded to this desire by creating its own unique teaching on how to achieve a fresh start, there is actually only one way. There is actually only God’s way. It is the way of the new covenant prophesied here in Jeremiah 31.

The only way to start with a clean slate is to start with Jesus Christ, the center of the new covenant. It is to repent of the sins of the past and receive the forgiveness that has been provided for us through Christ. He paid the penalty for our sins on the cross. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). A fresh start, a clean slate, has become more than just a futile quest. It has become an actual reality for those in Christ.

Indeed, a fresh start is more than just a onetime opportunity for those in Christ. It is an ongoing reality. Whenever we sin after accepting Christ, whenever we smudge our clean slate, there is always the opportunity to have it wiped clean again. The Apostle John said “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We may move forward through life unburdened by our past sins.

It gets even better. God doesn’t even remember our sins. God, of course, knows all things and doesn’t forget any of them. But He decides to not remember our sins. That is, He decides that they should not be taken into account. He decides to not allow them to affect His relationship to us. In human relationships, this is the hardest part of forgiveness — not letting the consequences of sin lurk in the past and spoil a relationship or even our view of ourselves. But not so with God. As far as He is concerned, they never happened. When God cleans a slate, it is clean indeed.

By John Huisman