exaleiphein

There is a Greek word: exaleiphein. Literally, it means "to wipe out" or "to obliterate."

It occurs only five times in the New Testament Bible, but at least one of its uses is unusual.

In colloquial Greek, it means 'to wash over' like whitewashing the exterior wall of a house; wiping out a memory; annulling a law; canceling a debt.

In New Testament times, documents were written with an ink made of soot, mixed with gum and diluted with water on papyrus. The ink had no acid so didn't bite into the paper. It would last a long time unless a wet sponge was passed over it soon after was written. In that case, the writing disappeared completely as if the words had been had been written on slate.

At the time, a more common word for canceling a debt was chiazein which means to write the Greek letter chi which was the same shape as a capital X right across the document.

Here's the thing:

Paul does not say that Christ "crossed out" (chiazein) the record of our debt. He says He "wiped it out" (exaleiphein). If you cross something out -- write a big X over it -- what's written underneath is still clearly visible. If you WIPE it out, the record is gone, erased from memory.

Humans can forgive but can't really forget. For humans, it is impossible. But God, according to the Greek exaleiphein, not only forgives but wipes out the very memory of our sin as if it had never occurred.

There is a kind of forgiveness that forgives but still remembers--what humans do. God's forgiveness is that supreme forgiveness which forgives and forgets.