How Can I Not Remember?

"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." (Psa. 9: 17 kjv)

"I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me." (Psa 119:93)

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." (Psa 137: 5-6)

Is the new birth experience or phenomenon not "memorable"? Is it not such a drastic radical change that "old things are passed away and all things become new"? (II Cor. 5: 17)  Does not God make a "lasting impression" on the sinner's heart when he turns to the Lord in repentance and faith?

The texts above, like many others of the same nature, show that the salvation and conversion experience makes such a lasting impression upon the soul or spirit that what is learned in it is "indelibly written" upon it. "Indelibly" means "in a way that cannot be removed or forgotten"!

Does God not "write" upon the table of the heart in the new birth? And, does he not continue to write upon the heart as we live our lives as newborn children of God?

Anyone who forgets God is doomed for Hell. That is what the Psalmist said.

Said the Lord Jesus:

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (John 14: 26)

Here the Holy Spirit is viewed as being an agent in bringing to remembrance. That fact itself overthrows the reasoning of some that Paul's words imply that real Christians can forget God and what he has taught them in the new birth.

Bad Translation
(Of I Cor. 15: 2)

Consider also the fact that "keep in memory" is a bad translation. The KJV intends that "keep in memory" mean all the same as "hold firmly" yet that is not what the average English reader will understand in our day. Nearly all other English translations translate more correctly. The Greek word is κατέχετε (katechete) and means "you hold firmly."

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers says:

"If ye keep in memory what I preached unto you.—Better, if ye hold fast with what word I preached the gospel to you, unless you believed in vain."

Barnes Notes says:

"If ye keep in memory - Margin, as in the Greek, "if ye hold fast." The idea is, that they were saved by this, or would be, if they faithfully retained or held the doctrine as he delivered it; if they observed it, and still believed it, notwithstanding all the efforts of their enemies, and all the arts of false teaching to wrest it from them." 

See my entry along this line in the posting "On Perseverance" (here).

Dr. Gill wrote:

"if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you; or rather, "if ye hold fast, or retain"; that is, by faith, the doctrine preached to you, and received by you, particularly the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; for the salvation that is connected with it does not depend upon the strength of the memory, but upon the truth and steadfastness of faith: it is the man that perseveres in the faith and doctrine of Christ that shall be saved; and everyone that has truly believed in Christ, and cordially embraced his Gospel, shall hold on, and out to the end; though the faith of nominal believers may be overthrown by such men, as Hymenaeus and Philetus, who asserted, that the resurrection was past already; but so shall not the faith of real believers, because the foundation on which they are built stands sure, and the Lord has perfect knowledge of them, and will keep and save them. The other exception is,

unless ye have believed in vain: not that true faith can be in vain; for that is the faith of God's elect, the gift of his grace, the operation of his Spirit; Christ is the author and finisher of it, and will never suffer it to fail; it will certainly issue in everlasting salvation: but then as the word may be heard in vain, as it is by such who are compared to the wayside, and to the thorny and rocky ground; and as the Gospel of the grace of God may be received in vain; so a mere historical faith may be in vain; this a man may have, and not the grace of God, and so be nothing; with this he may believe for a while, and then drop it: and since each of these might possibly be the case of some in this church, the apostle puts in these exceptions, in order to awaken the attention of them all to this important doctrine he was reminding them of."  (Commentary)

Now this is the Old Baptist belief in regard to I Cor. 15: 2 and to the doctrine of perseverance.

In closing let me say that the words "ye are saved" are present tense linear and could rather be translated as "ye are being saved."