I am so thankful for justification by faith. "We are not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 2:16) To be justified means to be declared blameless. It is for God to say your sins have been wiped clean, just as if you had never sinned. Christ is the One who places our inquities and sins in the sea of forgetfulness and no longer remembers them. It does not matter where we have been or what we have done, when we come to Christ with a repentive heart and ask forgiveness....He forgives and declares us blameless.
We are not declared blameless simply by doing good works, the works of the law. But we are justified by faith in Christ, in so much that we know that He honored our prayers of repentence and has totally wiped our slate clean of the junk from the past.
If God forgets our past, then we should too. We should live above our past, walk above our past, and live according to the law realizing that it is by our faith in Jesus Christ that we now walk in freedom.
To be guilty of sin and death, and then to experience forgiveness from death's penalty is to understand the love of God that surpasses all human understanding. When we repent, Christ declares us blameless of the penalty we are guilty of receiving and says, "you are justified." God places our sins behind Himself and refuses to remember our iniquities against Him.
