MY SINS ARE BLOTTED OUT, I KNOW!

Words and Music by Merrill Dunlop, 1905–2002

I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

Forgiveness—when God buries our sins and does not mark the grave.
— Louis Paul Lehman

Many Christians have suffered great emotional, mental, and even physical disorders throughout life because they could never accept the fact that God has totally forgiven them. How important it is to realize that when God offers us His forgiveness, it is never a partial but always a total forgiveness—the slate is forever clean. In God’s family there are only forgiven children. Then, if we are forgiven by God, we are to accept with gratitude His cleansing provision and, by His help, blot out from our memories all hurting reminders of the past. We should also become a more forgiving person with others, free of the resentments and prejudices that will shackle our spiritual lives. Someone has made this humorous but wise observation: “Christians should keep a cemetery in which to bury the faults and failures of their fellow believers.”

The author and composer of this popular gospel hymn, Merrill Dunlop, gives this account of its origin:

It was written in a very few minutes, although only after much deliberation, while I was crossing the Atlantic in 1927 on a liner, The Leviathan, and meditating upon the verses in Micah 7:18, 19 and upon the great dimensions of the sea—the breadth and depth and what the Bible says about our sins—buried in those depths—removed—blotted out! Then, making it personal, I said: “My sins are blotted out, I know!” The melody came almost simultaneously with the words. I jotted the chorus down aboard the ship, as I walked the deck. Later, in Ireland, I added the words and music to the stanzas. It took hold immediately and quickly spread across America and across the seas.

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What a wondrous message in God’s Word! My sins are blotted out, I know! If I trust in His redeeming blood, my sins are blotted out, I know!

Once my heart was black, but now what joy; my sins are blotted out, I know! I have peace that nothing can destroy; my sins are blotted out, I know!

I shall stand some day before my King; my sins are blotted out, I know! With the ransomed host I then shall sing: “My sins are blotted out, I know!”

Chorus: My sins are blotted out, I know! My sins are blotted out, I know! They are buried in the depths of the deepest sea: My sins are blotted out, I know!

For Today: Psalm 103:1, 3, 11, 12; Isaiah 1:18; 43:25; Micah 7:18, 19

Live in the assurance of God’s complete forgiveness. Then determine to forgive and forget the wrongs that others may have done to you. Let your heart be glad as you rejoice in this musical truth—

Osbeck, K. W.

• BLESS the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Psalm 103:1
• Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Psalm 103:3
• For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:11-12
• Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18
• I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah 43:25
• Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. Micah 7:18-19