THE ULTIMATE ERASER

October 29- November 4, 2014

“Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing punishment on the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria. 19 I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. 20 In those days and in that time, declares the Lord, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none, and sin in Judah, and none shall be found, for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.”      Jeremiah 50:18-20

Years ago, one man made a rather large fortune by inventing erasers for pencils. Someone else made an even bigger fortune when he invented the delete button on computers. God, however, makes no mistakes, and consequently, He needs no eraser. Yet, in a sense, He erases, not His, but people’s –our- mistakes. There’s a song I know that says it this way: “All our sinfulness erase with the increase of His grace.”

The Bible doesn’t use the word “erase” to describe God’s forgiveness, but it does put forward expressions like these: God removes our sins; puts them behind Him; buries them in the deep sea; cleanses and washes them away with the blood of Jesus; blots them out; cancels them. And we know that the erasing of our sins ultimately resulted in Christ’s death on the cross as they were the nails driven thru His hands and feet that yielded up His life and granted us His righteousness that covers us –that erases our sins and deletes them from memory.

Because He lives & bestows on us the promises of life and salvation via His righteousness, this is our Good News and with faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, His righteousness does indeed become our righteousness. For His sake and by His doing, God declares us just and holy because the Father sees only His Son’s righteousness covering us, like a warm, fuzzy blanket, and that makes all the difference for us.

Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet stated it another way: “’Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet; they shall be as white as snow; though they be as red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’” (Isaiah 1:18)  Yes, my friend in Christ, this shows how God takes us out of the red ink of our sinful indebtedness and puts us on the plus of His loving countenance.

BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD ABOVE I have a strong, a perfect plea:

a great High Priest, whose name is Love, who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands, my name is written on His heart;

I know that while in heaven He stands no tongue can bid me thence depart.

Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free;

for God, the just, is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there! The risen Lamb! My perfect, spotless righteousness,

the great unchangeable I Am, the King of glory and of grace!

At one with Him, I cannot die, my soul is purchased by His blood;

my life is hid with Christ on high, with Christ, my Savior and my God.  AMEN                  

 (LSB 574)