He Casts Them Into the Sea and Nobody Is Allowed to Go Diving

There is a man I know who believes God has forgiven him and has not, himself, and he says both of those things in the same breath without noticing that they are in tension.

He is not being difficult. He genuinely believes the first part. He would argue it with you from Scripture and he would win.

And then he will say something like: I know God has forgiven me, but I cannot forgive myself.

I used to nod at that and think it was humility. I do not any more, and the reason is not that I have become harder. It is that I finally asked a question that had never occurred to me: on whose authority is the second verdict being handed down?

Because there is a court in that sentence, and it is not God's. There is a judge sitting somewhere with a different set of records and a different standard, and he is issuing rulings that overturn the first one, and he has no jurisdiction whatsoever.

Micah has a picture about this that I think is the best one in the Bible, and it is about a place rather than a feeling.

The place He chooses to put it

Here is the verse.

He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19, King James Version)

The depths of the sea. Micah is writing to people who were not sailors and were frightened of deep water. The sea in Hebrew imagery is the place things do not come back from.

He could have said buried. He could have said forgotten. He picks the one location in the ancient world from which retrieval was understood to be impossible.

And the verb before it matters as much: he will subdue our iniquities. Subdue is a word for putting something under, holding it down, mastering it. It is active, and it is His.

So the picture is of God actively pushing a thing down into water nobody goes into, and then a person hiring a boat.

You have been given a location nobody retrieves anything from. Micah 7:19 puts sins in the depths of the sea rather than in a drawer. It is the Spirit of God, Romans 8:16 bearing witness with our spirit, who reports on where a thing actually is when a person has lost track.

Read the question Micah opens with

The verse before it is a question, and it is the one that shapes the whole passage.

Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. (Micah 7:18)

He delighteth in mercy. That is a statement about what God enjoys, and it is one of the least believed sentences in Scripture among people who have done real damage.

And notice what the verse assumes: that this is unusual. Who is a God like unto thee. Micah is saying there is nothing else like this and he is slightly amazed by it, which is the correct response.

A man who cannot forgive himself is usually operating on a picture of God as reluctant. Grudging, technically willing, but not pleased about it. Micah says the opposite in four words.

You are dealing with Somebody who delights in the mercy rather than tolerating it. Micah 7:18 says he delighteth in mercy, and it is His Spirit, Galatians 5:22 naming joy among His fruit, who makes a sentence about God's delight land in a person who assumes reluctance.

Hezekiah's line about the direction

There is another picture in Isaiah that I like even better because it is about where God puts things relative to Himself.

behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. (Isaiah 38:17)

Behind thy back. It is the only place an omnipresent God cannot see, and it is a deliberate joke about the physics of the thing, and it is a very warm one.

The point is not that God has poor eyesight. The point is that He has placed something in a position which is a decision rather than a limitation.

And Paul takes the same picture into a courtroom and asks the question that closes it:

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)

Who is he that condemneth. Paul asks for the name of the party bringing the charge. And a man who cannot forgive himself has an answer to that question, and the answer is his own name, and Paul's whole point is that the seat is occupied by Somebody making intercession rather than accusation.

You have Somebody at the right hand making intercession rather than a case. Romans 8:34 asks who is he that condemneth and answers with Christ interceding. It is the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:26 who also maketh intercession for us, described as doing the same work from inside.

Why the diving continues, and it is not stubbornness

I want to be fair to the man in the mirror, because he is not doing this out of pride.

He is doing it because holding the verdict feels like the only remaining way to take it seriously. If he lets go of it he is afraid he will become a man who did that thing and thinks it was fine, and he would rather be miserable than be that.

That instinct is honorable and it is aimed at the wrong target. Seriousness about what he did is demonstrated in how he lives now, in what he has changed and repaired and refused to do again. It is not demonstrated by holding a sentence that God has already overturned, and the holding costs the people around him more than they will ever say.

And there is a mercy in the picture that a person can actually use. You cannot dive into the depths of the sea. Not really. Every time a man goes back down for it he is going down in his own imagination, because the actual location is out of reach by design.

You are going back down to a place Scripture says nothing is retrieved from. Micah 7:19 puts the sins in the depths of the sea by God's own action. It is the same Spirit, John 8:32 attaching truth to freedom, who makes a picture like that do something rather than merely be admired.

And if the verdict you keep handing down has begun to sound like something worse than self reproach, say it out loud to a person: a doctor, a counselor, a pastor you trust, or the 988 crisis line, which answers every hour there is. A man who has appointed himself both judge and prisoner needs somebody else in the room, and there is no shame anywhere in that sentence.