Daniel in London asks, "In Hebrews 8.12 it says God will remember our sins no more. However, in Matthew 12.36 it says we will have to give an account for every careless word spoken. If God remembers our sins no more, why do we have to give an account? Pastor John, how do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory verses?" That's a good question.

And let's start with the fact that there will be a judgment of believers. Let's be careful though. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8.1. And that "now" is very precious, right? There is now no condemnation, which means, as Jesus says, you will not come into judgment.

That is, you will not have to be condemned ever. Your sentence is over. Not guilty. Righteous before the living God. And the reason, of course, is because we have been united to Christ. His punishment became our punishment, and his resurrection became our resurrection. We're already sitting at the right hand of God, and we have passed from death to life.

And therefore, in that sense, we don't come into judgment. There's no condemnation. Nevertheless, clearly we're going to come into a judgment according to our works. Revelation 20.12 says there are books being written, and there's a book, the book of life, is the book in which if your name exists, you have life forevermore.

And the books are where your works are written, and those books, I believe, will reveal the evidence that your name does belong in the book of life. But the book of life is the book of the life that was slain before the foundation of the world, and therefore the ground for being in the book of life is not that you've earned it or that your works merit it, but that the one who was slain is your Savior.

So what then is this judgment according to works? And Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 3. He says, "If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. And if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved only as through fire." So we lose rewards and we gain rewards according to whether we've built with wood, hay, or stubble, or gold, and silver, and precious stone.

Now if that's true, if there's a rewarding and a loss of rewarding according to what we do, what in the world does it mean in the several texts where it says God doesn't remember our sins? Because it seems like, "Well, I've obviously sinned here, and those sins are going to be burned up at that moment.

I'm going to lose reward for them." And so they were remembered at that time because they couldn't have any function to do that if they weren't remembered. And here's what I think it means. God's not remembering, I think, means God will never call our sins to mind. I'm replacing "call to mind" with "remember" as a ground for our condemnation.

He will not call them to mind in any way that is destructive for us. In fact, I would go so far as to say it will always be only good for us, good for us, all things considered, if he calls them to mind this way. So that even the suffering of loss at the judgment, according to 1st Corinthians 3, 14, will be good, all things considered.

So here's an analogy that helps me. What about we forgetting our sins? Should we forget our sins or remember our sins? Because in Philippians 3, Paul says, "Brothers, I do not consider that I've made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on." So Paul says, "I forget.

I'm not paralyzed by the horrible memories of the fact that I was killing Christians, I was throwing them in prison, I was shaking my fist in the face of God. I'm forgetting all that and I'm pressing on." However, he wrote to the Ephesians, chapter 2, "Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers of the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world." Well, Paul, which is it?

Are we supposed to remember what it was like for us before we were saved? How horrible that was and what horrible things we did? Or are we supposed to forget those things which lie behind? And I think what Paul would say is, "We forget them and we remember them according to what's good for us." When he says, "Remember them," he means, "Remember them for your humbling, not for your paralysis.

Remember them for your deeper enjoyment of grace, not because of your destruction." And I think probably it's the same with God. God remembers and doesn't remember. That is, he calls to mind and applies, or he doesn't call to mind, according to what's good for us and what's good for for his glory.

So God is God. He is omniscient. He knows everything past, present, and future. But the not remembering is a not calling to mind for our destruction and a not calling to mind for anything except what would work good for us. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.

Email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org, and visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of free books, articles, and sermons, and other resources from John Piper. I'm your host Tony Ranke, thanks for listening.