He will pull out all the “F’s” and put them in a pile. When you stand before the “judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:1) to be judged “according to what you have done, whether good or bad,” God will open the file and lay out the tests with their grades. All you’ve ever done or said (Matthew 12:36) is recorded there with a grade (from “A” to “F”). God has a file on every person (the books of Revelation 20:12).
But-and this is the important point-the sins and shortcomings of believers will be revealed in the judgment as forgiven sins, whose guilt has been totally covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.” So what about the last judgment? Will our sins be remembered? Will they be revealed? Anthony Hoekema puts it wisely like this: “The failures and shortcomings of … believers … will enter into the picture on the Day of Judgment. But if there is an occasion when he knows it would be good for us and for the glory of his grace, then he will bring our sins before us for a season. That is, he will never bring them up before us or others if it diminishes our love for him or delight in his grace or our zeal for the glory of God. Similarly God promises to forget our sins. But the norm is “forgetting the past” lest it drag us down. If remembering can cause a deeper dependence on grace and a deeper love for Christ and a greater trust in his power, then let there be periodic remembering of the hopeless past. I think what Paul means is that the sins and lostness of the past should be forgotten in the sense that we should never bring them to mind in a way that hinders growth and obedience. But what about Ephesians 2:12? Here Paul says that Christians should remember the terrible past: “Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ … having no hope and without God in the world.” Paul says, “Forgetting what lies behind…I press toward the goal.” Paul chose not to remember his past. What does it mean for an infinite all-knowing God to choose not to remember something? Philippians 3:13-14 points to an answer. What about the New Covenant promise that God will not remember the sins of his people? Will they be remembered at the judgment day? Hebrews 10:16-17 says, “This is the covenant that I will make with them … their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
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