The new covenant that God has made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah includes the forgetting of our iniquities but is directed primarily toward the writing of God's laws in our mind and heart. This means that righteous and holy conduct, which can be obtained only as the presence of sin is overcome and removed from us, is the object of the new covenant.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (Hebrews 8:10)

We understand that the Lord Jesus Christ through His death on the cross of Calvary has appeased the wrath of God concerning our sins and also the sins of the whole world.

And he is the propitiation [appeasement] for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (I John 2:2)

We understand also that through the Lord Jesus the presence of sin will be removed from us and from the whole world. The removing of the presence of sin from us and from the whole world is associated with the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

For two thousand years the forgiveness aspect of redemption has been taught and experienced by multitudes of believers. Those who through faith have received the atonement made by the Lord Jesus on the cross have obtained the forgiveness of their sins.

The second aspect of redemption, the removal of the presence of sin from us, has not been in evidence to the same extent that has been true of the forgiveness of our sins, although the removal of the presence of sin from the believer is taught in the New Testament Scriptures and is the distinguishing aspect of the new covenant.

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. (Hebrews 10:4)

A study of the context of the above two passages will reveal that the writer of Hebrews is pointing out that the new covenant is superior to the old covenant in that the new covenant does away with the presence of sin, whereas the old covenant was limited to the forgiveness of sin.

It appears that God will remove sin from us in two stages: first, as we are faithful in putting to death the deeds of our body through the Holy Spirit; second, as Christ comes in the last days, in a period known as the "Day of Vengeance," to destroy the power of the devil and to finally remove him and all his works from the presence of God and His saints.

To be continued.