As God no longer associates us with our old sins, so should we put the past behind us. With our old sins now buried in the grave, as pictured by baptism, we should not go back and dig them up. Considering the symbolism involved, this would be akin to grave robbing.
For some, such grave robbery in the form of continuing to fret about past sins may seem like repentance. But it’s more a way of punishing oneself. We need to understand that God wants repentance, not penance. He does not want us to throw old sins back into His face by continuing to be consumed with thinking about them. He expects us to trust Him and His desire to completely forgive and forget.
We need to learn from our mistakes; but once we have done so, we need to leave them buried in the past. We are to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). An individual who does this, in God’s eyes, becomes a new person, someone completely forgiven as though he or she had never sinned.
It is important that we see ourselves from this perspective and focus on the future. Paul expressed the concept this way in Philippians 3:13-14: “One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Realizing how complete forgiveness is possible through Christ’s perfect sacrifice, we must look ahead to maintaining the right course. In the next chapter we will see how to stay on the road to eternal life.
