When applicants for a preacher’s license come before the North Georgia Ministerial Examining Committee, we always ask them to define “justification.” Most are better able to define “sanctification.” We then give them a simple definition. Justification is “just as if I had never sinned.”

That’s a hard concept for us to accept. How can we become someone who has never sinned? Well, in the eyes of the world, we can’t. They will always remember, and sometimes remind us, of who we were and what we did before we went to an altar and asked Jesus to forgive us. More importantly, we can’t forget what we did. Sometimes our past haunts us, and the devil loves to remind us. We can’t forget, but God can.

Nothing we will ever do will justify us in the eyes of God, but what Jesus did for us does, and that’s what we struggle to understand fully. How can God, who knows all things, forgive and forget?

Two verses come to mind. David, who knew what it was like to fail God and sin miserably, said in Psalm 103:11-12, “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;  As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Since the east and west never meet, God has removed our sins far away.

The second verse is often misquoted. We say that “God will cast our sins into the sea of forgetfulness.” Micah 7:19 actually says, “God will have compassion on us and will cast our sins into the depths of the sea.”

Either way, in God’s eyes, He sees us just as if we had never sinned. And it’s all because of what Jesus did for us at Calvary. His death, burial, and resurrection make it possible to have peace with God. We have to accept it and believe it. God does for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves.