I think that many people visualize God as a grey-bearded old man sitting up in heaven with a feather quill pen writing down all our sins and transgressions on a huge scroll, with the thought in mind that, even though we might have thought we “got by with it”, he saw what we did and will get even with us sooner or later.  In reality, however, nothing could be more false, unbiblical, and further from the truth.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians, chapter two, verse fourteen, “He has utterly wiped out the written evidence of broken commandments which always hung over our heads and has completely annulled it by nailing it to his cross.”  Notice that, not only is God not keeping a record of our misdeeds, he has “utterly wiped out the written evidence” against us and “annulled it”.  The word “annul” means “to have no legal existence”. 

Here is another passage that says very much the same thing.  Again, it is Paul, writing this time to the Corinthians, in his second epistle, chapter five, verse nineteen: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them, but canceling them.”  Rather than keeping a record of the sins of mankind, this verse says that God has canceled them.

Of course, God is a just judge, and cannot overlook sin.  On the contrary, in order to be righteous, he must punish all sin fairly and completely.  The good news is that this judgment has already taken place, two thousand years ago, in the person of Christ, who “carried our sins in his own body on the tree” (I Peter 2:24).  This is why a passage like Hebrews 9:26 says that Jesus “put away sin by the sacrifice of himself”.

Furthermore, Jesus not only carried the sins of the Christians, but the sins of the whole world.  John writes that Jesus is “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” God is not keeping a record of any sin whatsoever.  He is not angry with anyone because of sin.  God is interested in reconciliation rather than retribution.  God is not keeping score anymore.