<p>10:17 <em>Then is added: And their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more</em>- The forgiveness of sins is in addition to the work of the Spirit in human hearts, changing us to be like the Lord whose righteousness is counted to us. Hence Paul notes that this &quot;is added&quot;, forgiveness is a separate promise to the sanctifying or transformation of human hearts. And this speaks exactly to our need as sinners; we need not only forgiveness but also the power to change so that we are not endlessly knocking on Heaven's door for the forgiveness of the same sins. Sins are &quot;remembered no more&quot; not in the sense that God 'forgets' them, for the Bible is full of historical accounts of human sin which has been forgiven. The sense is rather that He will not remember sin against us. Here is the final answer to all fears about ghosts from our past. Those sins will not be remembered against us.</p><p>Sin was completely overcome by the Lord's victory; &quot;For by one offering he hath perfected for ever (in their conscience) them that are sanctified&quot; (Heb. 10:14 cp. 9:9). &quot;Their sins and iniquities there seems no hint that this only refers to pre-baptismal sins will I remember no more&quot; (Heb. 10:17). If we sin wilfully after knowing this, there is no more sacrifice for sins- because that sacrifice was only ever made once (Heb. 10:26). At our baptism, our conscience was cleansed of all sin. We need to meditate upon that lifeless body of the Lord and what it meant. &quot;A covenant is of force over dead victims or sacrifices... it is never held to be of force while he who is the appointed sacrifice is alive&quot; (Heb. 9:17 Bullinger). Over that body the personal covenant to each of us (Gen. 17:7) came into real, living operation.</p><p>The Lord Jesus made <em>one</em> sacrifice for all sins for all time, and therefore we don't need to offer any more sacrifices or use a human priesthood; we are already totally forgiven of all our sins. There is further evidence, apart from the reasoning of Hebrews, that all our sins, past and future, were forgiven at Calvary:<br />- On the cross, sin was ended, iniquity reconciled, everlasting righteousness brought in (Dan. 9:24). One sin offering was made for all time.<br />-We must forgive one another even as God for Christ's sake <em>has</em> forgiven us (Eph. 4:32); not waiting for our brother to repent before we forgive him, but forgiving in advance, in prospect, even as we were forgiven. This takes this issue out of the realms of theology into the painfully practical. <br />- Our sins were / are forgiven by the blood of Christ- not by our repentance or words of prayer. &quot;God's forgiveness is not just a wiping clean of the slate from hour to hour... if it were, prayer would be immoral- a mere incantation to bring about a magical result: and we need to be continually wary of the pagan conception which would reduce it to such a level&quot;. These words are so true. Whenever a twinge of guilt arises, we rush off a quick prayer for forgiveness- and then, at the end of the day or the week, we are left with a doubt as to whether our spirituality is valid or not. If this is our experience, we are all too similar to Israel of old; offering the sin offering (cp. praying for forgiveness), feeling guilty, coming to the day of Atonement (cp. the breaking of bread), still feeling guilty, realizing that as the sin offering couldn't cleanse sin, neither could the sacrifice at that feast, offering more sin offerings... It can become the ritual of a bad conscience, stumbling on because there seems no other way to go. But our sins (yes, yours, that snap at your wife, that curse as you spilt your coffee) really were forgiven through the Lord's work on the cross; we really do have access to this through <em>really believing it</em>- and therefore expressing our faith in baptism. Our prayerful response to failure should be to confess it (1 Jn. 1:9), and also profess our faith in the redemption already achieved for us.&nbsp;</p><p><em>All</em> our sins were forgiven when the Lord died for us; both past and future. By baptism we identify ourselves with this work, and we are thereby in a position where we have &quot;no more conscience of sins&quot; (Heb. 10:2,22), knowing that all is forgiven, and only if we fall from grace will this become untrue. Thus YLT speaks of &quot;<em>the</em> conscience&quot; in the NT, as if it is something specific which we have, rather than an occasional twinge of guilt. We have this Biblical conscience &quot;toward God&quot;; this is how He sees us (Acts 23:1; 24:16; 1 Pet. 2:19; 3:21). Thus we may have a guilty feeling about something, we may doubt our salvation, but our conscience in God's eyes is pure; we are still cleansed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we have a clear conscience, God will punish those who persecute us (1 Pet. 3:16 RSV). 1 Pet. 3:21 teaches that baptism saves us not because in itself it means that we are free from the deeds of the flesh (&quot;putting away the filth of the flesh&quot; uses words which elsewhere carry this connotation), but because it gives us a good conscience in God's eyes- according to the Biblical definition of conscience.&nbsp;</p>