"he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more."
"remember that on this, the Lord’s day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High"
This is the second post in a row in which recourse to Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary features helpfully. This time, the 200 year semantic drift worth investigating occurs on the word remember. Webster distinguishes 15 separate senses of the term, 10 of which he illustrates with Biblical citations, and 8 of which are variations on the theme of "bearing in mind" with X or Y adverbial phrase of manner qualifying them. While nearly all of the 15 meanings are still extant, or at least available in modern usage, the core meaning has shifted toward Webster's first definition--the passive one in which, with no effort, some idea spontaneously surfaces that was already in one's mind previously. We modern folks "remember" the answers when we recall them for a test, and if an idea doesn't present itself for recall, we say we "can't remember" it. Our machine metaphors have become reified--we even think of our brain like a hard drive, a place of storage where thoughts and feelings are archived for future access by querying a given neural location. It's as if remembering is only ever imposed either from the outside when a clue springs a memory back to mind, or by deterministic forces from the inside, like subconscious stimuli to which our conscious minds can only respond.
The scriptural language, well beyond the examples attested in Webster's slew of senses, defines remember much more actively, by contrast. It's much more like the active verb commemorate, and implies taking effort to maintain a brightness of memory despite challenges which would seek to otherwise dim its object or distract from its importance. Whether always remembering the Savior implies keeping Him constantly "in the back of one's mind", or "in the forefront" of one's decision-making process, the sacramental covenant by which we renew baptismal relationship vows requires this active conception.
Similarly, among other teachings on what Sabbath keeping entails, the above passage from Section 59 seems to call on us not merely to not forget what to do on the Lord's day--oblations and sacraments--but rather to go beyond the mere holding of an idea in memory and actually actively create, enact, and perform sacred spaces and actions into efficaciousness. Remembering the Sabbath isn't just a spiritual battery recharge to compensate for week-day depletion, but rather a consecrated day that allows all other days to be infused with eternal purpose. We choose actively, by the covenant renewal of the bread and water, that we are combining our will with His. And this is demonstrated not merely in the symbolism of their integration into our digestive system to become building blocks for our bodies, but also in the choices we make throughout the week in service to Him and to others.
Why, then, should we assume the passive sense is the one the Lord means in Section 58, when the Lord talks about sin? Don't get me wrong: I get an extra sense of wonder thinking about an omniscient God choosing to let one of His memory cells dump its contents because of love and mercy for my sincere repentance. But maybe that's not what He actually means, or what 1830s saints in Missouri understood Him to mean. Maybe, to match the other scriptural senses of the term, remembering our sins no more doesn't mean the log doesn't contain them, but rather means something more like choosing not to hold them against us, choosing to ignore their importance, choosing to impute them and their effects to Himself, rather than to us. He who was slain for those sins chose to retain marks of nails in His immortalized and perfected body in an act of most radical remembrance of our sin. But the reminder isn't what we've done or how badly the sins have damaged us, but rather it's a reminder that He paid their price, and overcame their consequences for us. They are no longer marks of pain, but of love. They are no longer stigmata of our shame, but signs by which we can recognize Him and His love as they affect us.
May our hearts always retain remembrance of Him, so we may be found in His book of remembrance.
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