Isaiah 43:18 English Standard Version (ESV) “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.”

Remember in the Hebrew here is zāḵar and one of the definitions is appropriate to this understanding. It says “to make a memorial”. Memorials are constant reminders of events that happened in the past. They indicate a part of life that has so much impact on your life that we should never forget them. It can be a form of worship. It can be a violation of “make no gods before me”. They can be glory days, or abuses we cannot put aside.

Galatians 5:24 English Standard Version (ESV) And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Think of it in this way; we are betrothed to Christ and have divorced ourselves from our old lives. We have chosen to love Christ more than our old lives. It is a stronger than “remember not” but softer than “crucify”. However we understand it, “remember not”, “crucify”, or “divorce” we have to understand the why is this “new thing”; Christ in us.

This new thing has been going on for almost 2000 years now and just as Israel had ancient history of relationship with God, we too can look back on Christian history and see what did not work because of abuses and those that strayed away from the Gospel.

The enemy of the Cross is still working in the world and has not given up on using our memorials against us. Nothing seems to undermine our confidence in obedience of faith than our former failures.

“You’re no better than they were!”

Does that lie appear in your memorials?

“You haven’t changed!”

Does that lie appear in your memorials?

“You’ll never be good enough!”

Does that lie get whispered in your ear?

Our memorials are nothing more than opportunities for the enemy of the Cross to keep our affections from Christ.

It is deflection.

2 Chronicles 7:14 English Standard Version (ESV) if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

This is the Old Testament way of doing things. It was true for a time and a people who had failed to do what was necessary to maintain a good relationship with God. They would fail over and over again. The Old Testament is laden with historical examples of mankind’s failures in this relationship.

They failed to humble themselves so God had to place them in a position to be humbled against their will.

Turning to prayer and seeking God became an issue of survival. They turned from the things that got them in trouble because of the consequences of their actions. God had a history of taking them back over and over again, so they knew God would respond to their changed behavior.

That was the past.

Isaiah 43:18-19 English Standard Version

¹⁸ “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. ¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

God foretold of a new way, a future and in that prophecy He declared, “forget how it was done in the past”. Sadly some of them did not perceive it and when the time came, they could not forget the past. They could not put it behind them and do things the new way.

Is it possible that in our studies in the OT that we forget to put the things of the past away? We are not doing things the old way. We are doing a new thing.

Christ in us is something that had never happened prior to the Cross. In this new life we need to forget the former things. But our memories remain. So what is forgetting if it is not about memory?