The ability to remember, to recall events of the past, to reflect on knowledge and information assimilated previously, is a wonderful gift from God. Like all our faculties, it should be used in a way that enables us to serve God more faithfully. The problem for most of us is that we forget the things we should remember and remember things best forgotten. Scriptural knowledge implanted in our memories and reflected on is the way our characters are moulded closer to the example of our Lord and Master. Remembering the past helps us in the present and prepares us for the future. An illustration from the lives of Christ’s disciples, recorded in John’s Gospel, demonstrates this:
“And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up” (Jno. 2:17);
“When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the words which Jesus had said” (v. 22).
In the first quotation a knowledge of Scripture helped the disciples understand a current action of Christ. In the second quotation the disciples reflected on the words of Jesus, again in relation to a current event (the resurrection), and their memories enabled them to have faith in the Scriptures and the teaching ofJesus. The common link in both incidents is that it was Scriptural knowledge and the words of Jesus that formed the foundation for remembrance. It is essential for the mind to blot out human thinking and philosophy, and to replace such things with the mind of God Himself as found in the Spirit Word.
Written for our admonition
The Apostle Paul wrote to the ecclesia at Corinth and told them that the incidents recorded in Scripture concerning Israel’s wilderness journey were ” ensamples” : “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11). The word ‘admonition’ carries with it today the meaning of reproof, rebuke, disciplining. Now while there is an element of this in the usage in Scripture, the root meaning of the word is ‘putting into mind’; and Paul is using the word to demonstrate that our memories, our faculty to remember, will be most profitably used when we reflect on God’s dealing with man as recorded in Scripture, and take heed in our own lives to such lessons. This is borne out in several other instances where Paul, by the Spirit, uses the same word. In Ephesians 6:4 we read that our children should be brought up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord”, and in Colossians 3:16 Paul says we should allow the word of Christ to dwell in us, and that we should be “teaching and admonishing one another”. It is not a case of autocratically reproving and rebuking, but rather we should encourage reflection on Scripture, encourage our brethren and sisters to remember that what God has caused to be written should be changing our lives. Even when dealing with a heretic we are not to act in our strength or authority. Titus 3:10 shows us that we must endeavour to put into mind the words of Scripture before parting from such a person. It is not us, but their rejection of Scripture, their refusal to bring their mind into subjection to the Word, which condemns them.
Remember all the commandments
The responsibility that we have for one another to cause each other to remember those things that will help us in our discipleship is illustrated in an incident recorded in the Old Testament. In Numbers 15 we have the incident of the man who gathered sticks on the sabbath, a presumptuous wilful sin as the context shows (Num. 15:22-36). The man died for challenging God in the way he did. The words that follow this, though, are very illuminating ( vv. 37-41). The children of Israel were instructed to put fringes and a ribbon of blue on their garments, for the express purpose of causing remembrance of God’s commandments and of Yahweh’s sovereignty:
“it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them. . . that ye may remember, and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God” (vv. 39,40).
Remembrance was to be activated by the sight of the fringe and ribbon. The question is asked: remembrance by whom? By the person wearing or the person observing the fringe and ribbon? Whilst we can say ‘both’ in answer to the question, the powerful lesson for us is that once one had carried out the alterations to one’s clothing and put the ribbon and fringe in place, once one was wearing the clothing, it was more noticeable to other people. After all, people rarely walk along looking down at their own hemline; they would soon fall over! It is quite clear that, following the presumptuous sin of the man who gathered sticks, God was giving the nation a clear lesson in their responsibilities to cause each other to remember the ways of God. The fringes and ribbons would cause that generation to remember the wilful attitude of the man who gathered sticks; subsequent generations would ask why this custom was continued, and would be told, so bringing their remembrance into force. We must ask ourselves: What in my life causes others to remember and reflect on the commands of God, the call to holiness, and His great sovereignty?
When we look at Israel, though, we can see that their remembrance was easily distorted. It is also recorded in Numbers that they had short memories:
“Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: but now our soul is dried away. . ” (Num. 11:4-6).
From their memories came a description of life in Egypt which made it sound like a gastronomic extravagance. Forgotten were the whips, the slavery, the brickmaking quotas, the persecution of families, the attempted extermination of all male babies. How true is this of human nature! and what a lesson for us! We also have been delivered from a bondage; do we look back with regret at leaving?
Christ had cause to rebuke the Pharisees who had taken the tradition introduced in the wilderness and made it a cause for boasting:
“But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments” (Mt. 23:5).
Their borders were bigger, their fringes more beautifully sewn, their ribbons a brighter blue—and all so that men might praise them. The purpose of the fringe and ribbon was to direct men and women to God and His ways, not to draw attention to oneself. Our remembrance, our way of life, should not be that we might be thought well of by others, but rather that they might fall down and worship God, and say surely that this is truth (1 Cor. 14:25).
Make your calling and election sureExhortationa
Our Lord emphasised to those who would be his disciples that the commitment must be one hundred per cent. Recorded in Luke 9 are three instances of those who approached him and sought to be his disciples. In the last of the incidents Jesus points out that, having started on the way to the Kingdom, we should not allow the memory of what we have rejected to influence us:
“No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (v. 62).
As with the incident of Lot’s wife, the expression “looking back” implies half-hearted acceptance of God’s way; it speaks of one who cannot plough a straight furrow because he is constantly looking back to things left behind.
The Apostle Peter, who probably heard these words of Jesus, brings out the need for remembrance when writing to his brethren and sisters. He points out that the believer who does not strive to show the characteristics of faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love fails because “he. . . hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” (2 Pet. 1:9). Memories play tricks on us. The things that we turned our backs on, the sins that we so gladly washed away by the answer of a good conscience, can creep back into our lives and be justified by us in what appears to be a very rational way. So Peter develops the antidote to blindness and forgetfulness in this chapter. Three times he emphasises remembrance (vv. 12,13,15), and each time in the original language a different word is used for remembrance, giving a different emphasis. In verse 12 he says that he “will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance (hupomimnesko) of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth”. Here we see the need to ’cause one another to remember constantly’, which is what the word means. It matters not that we have started to believe these things, nor that we have heard our faith expressed many times. The weakness of human nature means that constantly we must direct each other to the lessons and principles in Scripture, or we shall forget.
In verse 13 the apostle then turns the spotlight on each individual, when he says that he will “stir you up by putting you in remembrance (hupomne.sis)”. Here the meaning is one of ‘personal recollection’. We cannot expect always to go along to meetings to be stirred up by others, leaving the work of finding the lessons and principles to others. We must also encourage each other to remember for ourselves, to do our own study and thinking, and recall for ourselves the examples God has put on record.
“To stir you up” is translated in some versions as “to excite you”. Bible study should excite us. How often, when we discover some gem, are we excited and consequently wish to share it with others? This leads us to the third word. In verse 15 Peter says that even when he is no longer with them it is of vital importance that they “have these things always in remembrance (mneme)”. The great and precious promises (v. 4), the purging from sin (v. 9), an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom ( v. 11), are matters that should have made an impression, a mark that can be seen because the teaching is from the inspired infallible Word of God (vv. 16-21) and, unlike those things put forward by false teachers (2 Pet. 2), can be relied on to bring salvation. We will therefore be so moved by these things that we will ‘make mention’ of them, which is what this word mneme means. Our remembrance of these things will cause us to want to share with others these great and precious promises. Remembrance is therefore a collective discipline, an individual exercise, and the motivation to preach to others.
In remembrance of me
It was a direct command of Christ that bread and wine be taken in the manner of the Last Supper as a way of remembering him. The words used by Paul when he recounts this in 1 Corinthians 11:24,25 continue the same lesson as we have seen in Peter’s letter. For here the word ‘remembrance’ carries a meaning of ‘awakening the mind’. At the emblems week by week our minds, which are made dead by the things of this life, are once again brought to life as we remember Christ, his life, death and resurrection, as we remember forgiveness of sin through him, as the exhorting brother draws from Scripture lessons for us, as the Word is read, as hymns are sung and prayers are offered. Our memories are forced back to those things of long ago so that our lives in this present time might be a time of preparation for the future. The Scriptures teach us that God will blot out our sins, He will not remember them. We must strive in turn to remember all that He has done for us, and act accordingly. For as well as blotting our sins from His memory, God will indeed remember us, as the words of the prophet Malachi show:
“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be Mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him” (Mal. 3:16,17).
Being Compassionate