Forgetting What Lies Behind

On leaving the past in the past

Photo by Mizanur Rahman on Unsplash

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the Apostle Paul and to utter the words, “forgetting what lies behind” as he does in Philippians 3:13.

In Acts 26:10, Paul confesses to King Agrippa that “not only” did he “lock up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.” In other words, Paul was complicit in the suffering and murder of many Christians. So, when he talked about “forgetting what lies behind” he must have had some of these images come to mind of dragging early Christians to court, to jail, to their deaths. And yet he found it within himself to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). That’s incredible to me. How did he ever move on from that past? Didn’t it just haunt him?

What I expect Paul to do once he is converted on the road to Damascus is to go to every Christian he ever harmed, every family of every Christian he ever voted to put to death, and make amends. Maybe he did some of that. I don’t know. The Scriptures don’t record a Reconciliation Tour. I guess it’s possible that he used some funds from his tentmaking to donate to widows whose husbands he voted to put to death. But what if he didn’t? What if he just repented to the ones he met on his missionary journeys but focused on the mission God had given him to spread the gospel?

What does that say about our ability to deal with past sins that seem insurmountable in their consequences?