The Pulpit Commentary on Psalms 79:8

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

The trouble of our old sins.

Prayer book Version, "Oh remember not our old sins." Because a man cannot forget his old sins, he is very disposed to think that God cannot forget them either. And this he will do in face of the repeated assurances of God's Word, that his forgiving includes his forgetting. Three very striking figures are used to assure us that God will not keep the memory of the sins which he has forgiven and blotted out.

1. It is as if they were thrown "behind his back."

2. It is as if they were "cast into the depths of the sea."

3. It is as if they were removed from us "far as the east is from the west." We can never really think that God will bring up against us what he has forgiven. The fear that he will only tells of the state of our own hearts. We may, therefore, consider—

I. THE REASONABLE USE WE MAY MAKE OF THE MEMORY OF PAST SINS. This may be applied to both national and family sins. Israel was required to keep in memory the sins of its forefathers, and prophets made it part of their work to remind Israel of those bygone iniquities. So we may be sure that some moral value lies in such memories. This much we can see: they keep us

II. THE UNREASONABLE USE WE MAY MAKE OF THE MEMORY OF PAST SINS. Dwell chiefly on one point. We are always wrong, and we always act unworthily, when we think of our past sins without thinking also that they are forgiven, blotted out, put away; so far as God is concerned, done with, irrecoverable. It honours God for us to use the memory of our past sins in order to make us more watchful and humble; but it never honours God for us to worry over sins that he has forgiven, and put wholly away from him. We ought to enter into the full joy of his forgiveness.—R.T.

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