The Gospel According to Amos

Consider these words from Amos 8:7-10:

The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: "Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?" "And on that day," declares the Lord GOD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

Jeremiah 31:34, in an exposition of the New Covenant, states directly that God “will forgive their iniquity, and [He] will remember their sin no more." So how is it that Jeremiah can say that God will forget the people’s sin while Amos says he will “never forget.” Is this an irreconcilable problem?

Absolutely not. The passage above in Amos is a beautiful presentation of the Gospel.¹ More specifically, the crucifixion. Verse eight alludes to the earthquake which occurred at the death of Jesus. Consider when darkness covered the earth; the sixth hour as the Gospel writers record, which is noon. The most amazing prophecy in Amos is verse 10 when he says it will be like morning for an only son. Perhaps maybe the only Son of God?

Amos is pointing to one thing, the propitiation of God’s wrath against sin. God did not forget sin, instead he brought judgment of sin down. Onto the cross. Unto the only son. Of God. In our place. Is this not the Gospel?

So Amos is correct in saying God will never forget. But so is Jeremiah because through Christ the judgment has been executed. God remembers sin’s penalty being paid through having his wrath poured out on Christ. Then, when God looks at us, he sees Christ’s imputed righteousness and therefore “forgets” our sin.

Truly a beautiful testimony of the Gospel.

 

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¹Special thanks to my friend Joe Helt for sharing this insight with me.