Removed

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us,”   Psalm 103:12 

Removed – This word (rahaq) appears more than 50 times in the Old Testament.  Its primary meaning is to indicate a distance between someone or something.  In its ethical connotation it can be used to express God’s desire for His people to keep themselves far away from wicked and evil people or idols.

In this verse, the word is actually used twice – the same word expresses the distance that the East is from the West.  The verse might be translated, “As far as the east is from the west, that far God has put between us and our transgressions”.  Of course, east and west are infinitely far apart, so the image is that God has absolutely and completely separated us from our past sins.  There is great consolation for us in this picture.  All of our lives we had to live within the presence of our sin.  It was so much a part of us that we were never at any distance from our self-loathing.  In fact, the power of sin is kept alive by the proximity of our guilt and shame.  Since we could not remove ourselves from the self we had become, we were surely in hell.  But God’s act of forgiveness puts so great a distance between who we are and what we have done that the gap is infinite.  Our sins disappear over the horizon of God’s grace.  If they are so far away that there is no way to measure how far He has removed us from them, then we are free to live without them.  We can be new because we are separated from the old.

Next time you see the horizon, remember that God pushes all your sins right over the edge.  They are forever out of His sight.  When you look ahead, you will not see them.  When you look behind, they are gone.  Are you ready to live a life with new horizons?

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