There is a little known dilemma in the Bible that “highly sophisticated skeptics” and “educated atheist debaters” occasionally bring up with their knowing air that says “I’ve got you now, Dummy.” The apparent scriptural contradiction does require us to “search out the matter,” which God says “is the glory of kings,” but once the solution is discovered it not only ends the debate, but it unlocks one of God’s secrets that is beyond awesome.

        The controversy starts in 1 Kings 6:1, where we are told about Solomon, “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt … he began to build the temple.” The contradiction arises from the fact that in Acts 13 Paul gives a chronology of this same time period, and he lists 40 years in the wilderness, 450 years under the judges, and 40 years under the reign of Saul, making a total of 530 years. On top those 530 years that Paul describes, we must add the 40 years of David’s reign and the first three years of Solomon’s reign before he actually started the temple. That makes 573 years for the exact same 480 year period described in Kings. Biblical critics, of course, point to this as being an undeniable error in the Bible. As usual, they are dead wrong.

        Once we search out the matter we find that during this time period God gave up the Israelites again and again in punishment for their persistent idolatry. In fact, God allowed them to become slaves to Mesopotamia for 8 years, to Moab for 18 years, to the Canaanites for 20 years, to the Midianites for 7 years, and finally to the Philistines for 40 years. Those periods of slavery add up to 93 years, which if subtracted from the total 573 years brings us back to the exact 480 year figure mentioned in Kings. Amazing. Every year the Jews had been cast off by God had been completely eliminated in God’s account in Kings. The reason those years were not added in was that God “forgot” them.

        Now, having resolved that controversy, but with God’s intentional “forgetting” still in our minds, let’s look at the 70 week prophesy in Daniel, in which we know that each “week” represented seven years. As was covered in Unlocking God’s Secrets, the first 69 weeks were fulfilled exactly to the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. After that, Jesus made reference to the 70th week when He said in Matthew 24 that the abomination of desolation, which would occur in the middle of the 70th week (the seven years of the tribulation), would be the definitive sign of His second coming.

        The idea that the delay between the 69th and 70th week, which so far has lasted two thousand years, was the time period needed to bring the Gentiles into God’s Kingdom is commonly taught. And we know from God’s Word that the eyes of the Israelites were purposefully blinded during this time specifically in order that the church age could occur. Of that, by the way, we need to be extremely grateful.

        The revelation that is so awesome is the truth that “God not only forgives, but he also forgets” is an actual fact. The 93 years and the time of the delay between the 69th and 70th weeks, the time periods God has ostracized His chosen people, have literally been forgotten by God. God does not remember them, just as He promised us. Unlike humans who make a person serve time in jail but still refer to him as an ex con after his time is up, or a parent who punishes a child but still remembers the offense, God can literally wipe these times out of His phenomenal mind. He truly remembers it no more.

        This revelation gives birth to another one, which is more personal, and therefore more meaningful to us. Just as the forgetting of those times by God for the Jews is literal, so the forgetting of our sins, as told to us in my favorite Old Testament chapter, Psalm 103, is just as literally true. There is not an inkling of a possibility that God will remember our past sins. To Him, they are gone.

        Of course, we know that our sins are covered by the blood of our Lord, and therefore unseen by the Father, and we can read over and over in God’s Word that they are forgotten, but now we can know what that means. We now can have an even clearer, and more deeply rooted knowledge of the meaning of our past sins being “forgotten”. To God, they absolutely do not exist, and never will. Imagine that, unlike humans, God really forgets our sins.

        The next time any one of us recalls our own past sins, and the guilt still carried with them, we have a more clear biblical example of what “forgotten” really means. And since God has forgotten, we should as well, and move on.

         Likewise, since we are to strive daily to be more Christlike, the next time we think about the wrong that someone has done to us in the past, we need to stop and remember what “forgive and forget” means to our Lord. And in the same manner we need to forget their past wrongdoings just as completely. If we forgive someone, we must forget. We are instructed by God to “be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16.

        What a phenomenal thing it is to be a child of God. How constantly thankful we all should be. His love for us is truly beyond description. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12.

        “I will remember their sins no more.” Jeremiah 31:34.