A major burden of the law was to teach the reality of sin, and to show the people how seriously God took it. Sin is on our record, and is recorded in God’s book. Time does not erase it. We foolishly think that, because the memory of sin fades in our minds, it also fades in God’s mind: that as time goes by he starts to treat it less seriously. If that were true, then why does hell continue for ever and ever, as Christ teaches? It is because what has done is before the Lord continually that he can never forget. Therefore sin is to be treated with the utmost seriousness, and how wonderful is the forgiveness of sin.
The question they should have asked was, ‘What would it take to truly remove the guilt of sin?’ This is not a question which anyone should want to deceive themselves about. What is the point of us giving ourselves a lightweight answer, and telling ourselves that we are forgiven when we have no indication that God has forgiven us? We would only be deceiving ourselves, and that deceit would cost us dearly, for eventually the day would come when we would discover that God did not agree and that we had been fooling ourselves.