Blotting Away

Blotting Away

Over the years I have collected dozens of pencils. Some I have
bought, others I have received as gifts, and others I have obtained in
exhibitions. The idea was not to create collection, but to have
pencils available for my writing. As time passed, I found that I
prefer using certain pencils over others. I wondered why? Then one
day I caught myself testing erasers. I touched them to find which of
them have a particular feel. I know according to how the eraser feels
that they will erase the lead on the paper, without leaving blotches
of lead on the paper or destroying the paper. I wanted as little as
possible eraser marks where I had erased. I wanted the paper to look
as if nothing had been written on it after I erased what I had written
on it. All erasers may erase, but the question is to what extent?

A perusal of the verses cited in Monday's lesson - Act 26:18,
Ephesians 1:7, 4:32, Colossians 1:14, 2:13, and 1 John 1:9, 2:12 -
leave with no doubt that God has forgiven us in Jesus; but, to what
extent? He forgives us in such a way, that it is as if we had never
sinned before.

Let us read the next set of verses quoted in Monday's lesson,

Psalms 51:1 NKJV 1 Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your
lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.

Psalms 51:9 NKJV 9 Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities.

Isaiah 43:25 NKJV 25 "I, even I, am He who blots out your
transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.

Isaiah 44:22 NKJV 22 I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your
transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have
redeemed you."

Jeremiah 31:34 NKJV 34 "No more shall every man teach his neighbor,
and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall
know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the
LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember
no more."

Romans 3:25 NIV 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,
through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice,
because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished--

Romans 3:25 NKJV 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood,
through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His
forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously
committed,

From all these verses we can understand that God forgiveness is total.
Our iniquity and transgressions are blotted out. In the biblical
Hebrew language the verb to blot means to wipe out, obliterate or
exterminate.

In the biblical Hebrew language the verb to blot means to wipe out,
obliterate or exterminate. In other words to make it disappear. This
meaning is still in our modern use of the verb. Some of the
definitions of the verb to blot are:

1. To spot or stain, as with a discoloring substance.
2. To obliterate (writing, for example).
3. To make obscure; hide: clouds blotting out the moon.
4. To destroy utterly; annihilate: War blotted out their
traditional way of life.
5. To soak up or dry with absorbent material.

All these definitions paint a picture of what God achieved in Jesus.
Definition 1 gives a connotation of bleaching away. Numbers two and
four give a connotation of wiping out, eliminating or reducing to
nothing. Definition number three is used in Isaiah. Definition
number 5 may speak to Christ taking our Sin unto Himself. This
explains how Christ on the Cross justifies us. However, Christ
intention is that this blotting out of Sin becomes a reality in us.
The Holy Spirit – if we allow Him – blots all known and unknown Sin
from us. This is a purging or cleansing from Sin in us. So we choose
the Righteousness of Christ instead of our own Righteousness. The
Holy Spirit erases, bleaches away, wipes out, eliminates, or reduces
to nothing the Sin that exists in us. And, in it stead it replaces
the Sin with the perfect character of Jesus.
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