Isaiah 43:25

There is one thing that God always does with sin. He removes it out of His presence. God cannot dwell with sin. When He casts away the guilty soul into an unapproachable distance, and when He pardons a penitent soul and lays it upon His bosom, He is doing the same thing equally in both cases, He is removing sin absolutely and infinitely.

I. Consider the Author of forgiveness. The expression, "I, even I," is not a very unfrequent one in Holy Scripture; but wherever it occurs whether in reference to justice or to mercy it is the mark of the Almighty, at that moment taking to Himself, in some special degree, some sovereign prerogative. Here, the magnificent repetition of that name, first given in the bush, was evidently intended to show one characteristic feature of God's love. He forgives like a sovereign. All His attributes are brought to bear upon our peace. The pardoned sinner stands upon the Eternal, leans upon the Infinite, and looks out upon the unfading.

II. The nature of forgiveness. (1) As to time. Observe, the verb runs in the present tense "I, even I, am He that blottethout thy transgressions." (2) As to degree. "Blot out." You could not read Satan could not read a trace where God's obliterating hand has once passed. (3) As to continuance. In the text the present swells out into the future. He "blotteth out and will not remember."

III. The reason of forgiveness. Look back and find it in that eternal counsel, wherein, before all worlds, God gave to His dear Son a kingdom and a people. Look forward and find it in God's will, that there shall be a multitude of washed saints around the throne of His glory, who shall be sending up praises to Him for ever and ever. Seek it in that unfathomable love in which He is the Father the loving Father of every creature He has made.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 279.

References: Isaiah 43:25. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 94; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. i., No. 24, vol. xix., No. 1142, vol. xxviii., No. 1685.Isaiah 43:25. C. Short, Expositor,1st series, vol. ix., p. 150.

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