“He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12)
“For all have sinned.” That’s what the bible tells us. I wish I could say that I have not sinned since the day I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior 50 years ago, but that would be a lie and the lie would be a sin. So, here I am. A sinner. Just like we all are. And what do we do when we sin? Well, I pray we first seek forgiveness. But what do we do after that? Do we enter the boxing ring, put on the gloves, and start giving ourselves one-two punches that lead to depression, self-loathing, and self-condemnation? What is our problem? I mean, if we sin and ask God to forgive us, why do we beat ourselves up over our sin? Why do we continue to carry a load of shame?
I believe it is because we don’t understand what Jesus Christ does with our sin. The first Temple in Jerusalem was built in such a way that set a precedent for any future temples. It was built in accordance with what is called the kedem. Kedem is the direction we know as east. God required that the Temple face east. That was where the altar of the sacrifice had to be. The Holy of holies was then placed at the westernmost end of the Temple. Everything in the Temple existed in an east-west continuum. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would make the sacrifice on the altar in the east, and then sprinkle the blood on the ark of the covenant that was in the west end of the Temple.
Why did God command these directions? Because the earth is a sphere, and it turns on its axis on an east-west- continuum. Therefore, the earth has a north pole and a south pole, but no east or west pole. North comes to an end at the North Pole, and south comes to an end at the South Pole. Back in the time of the building of the first Temple only God knew the earth was a sphere. Man did not. God knew if the Temple had been built on a north-south continuum, then sin would have been removed only a few thousand miles from the sinner. But because the east and west have no poles, therefore they never end, but go on forever. He knew that east and west are infinite, and therefore sin would be removed into infinity. In fact, the Hebrew word for east, kedem, also means everlasting.
So in Christ, when we confess our sin, our sin is removed from us an infinity away…..an eternity away. So far away, that if you looked for all eternity, you could never find it again. That is what Psalm 103:12 is talking about when we read, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” So, when we sin, whether sins of omission and commission, if we go to our Savior and ask for forgiveness, he will take those sins and send them off to the east where they will be permanently and eternally removed. And we can put the boxing gloves away.
Darlene