How Does God Handle Our Sins

God desires to purify us, His children. Each of the 66 books in the Bible has a specific focus. The book of Leviticus focuses on holiness.

Leviticus 19:2 “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

In the old testament days, the people of Israel were God’s chosen people. God said to them, ‘You are ordinary, but I’ve chosen you as my own special people. You are my treasure’. Moreover, God gave them a set of rules for holy living, but that was mainly outward holiness - how to maintain hygiene as they lived as a community , how to bathe, etc.
 
In the old testament days, the emphasis was external holiness whereas in the new testament era, God gives significance to internal holiness. People look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the purity of the heart. We can dress neatly in white but carry hatred, bitterness etc inside us. Jesus called such people ‘white washed tombs’. Nothing is hidden before God’s eyes. 

When a person receives Jesus as their Lord and Savior, all their innumerable past sins are automatically and instantly erased. We are not sinners because we sin, instead we sin because we are sinners/ have the sinful nature in us. When God forgives the sinner, his/her sins are taken care of and here are the steps of how God takes away one’s sin:

Repentance → Confession→ Forgiven → Forgotten 

How Does God Handle Our Sins?

1. God forgives our sins 

Psalm 103:3 - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

2. He removes our sins

Psalm 103:12 - as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Nothing that we do as an atonement for sins can wipe away our sins. Only God can blot them out.

3. He throws our sins behind His back. 

Isaiah 38:17 you have put all my sins behind your back.

4. He sweeps away ours sins as the clouds

Isaiah 44:22 I have swept away your offences like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

5.  He treads our sins underfoot and sinks our sins in the depth of the sea.

Micah 7:19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

6. He remembers our sins no more

Hebrews 8:12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

7. He whitens our sins as white as snow

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

When a huge dispute happens between two parties, their hearts will be light years away though they may be physically standing beside each other. They’d have to sit down and settle the matter in order to be reconciled. In the same way, God desires to settle the matter that arose due to our wickedness and infirmities; and He settled it by giving His own Son.

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.