For all of us, our forgetfulness has caused division and separation in our experience of knowing God. This is why we are called to remember His law, obey It, and meditate on it day and night. Because when we remember it, it re-members us to Him. 

You shall have no other gods before Me. – Exodus 20:3

The Law to a Forgetful People

The entire purpose of Biblical law is that God entered into a relationship with forgetful people. The law of God does not exist because human minds are perfectly fixated on the triune God in purity to know Him. If they were, a law would be unnecessary. The law also does not exist because we naturally submit ourselves to systems of morality that flow directly from His character and holiness. We are not adept at living out any code of ethics with consistency, much less something as beautiful and holy as the law of God. No. The law exists to prop up forgetful people who exist in perpetual forgetfulness. We forget who God is. We forget how we are to live in light of who He is. And we need the law of God as a tutor to point us to Christ.

This is why God repeatedly admonishes the people of Israel to remember the law, remember His statutes, remember His precepts, remember His promises. Why? Because if we are not actively being reminded to remember them we will inevitably forget them. That is simply who we are in our character and nature. This is as true to the human condition as a goldfish needing to be submerged in water to breathe or birds needing wings to fly. Without the commandment to remember the law of God, we would always forget His precepts. But it goes even deeper than that.

Forgetfulness and Dismembering

When we forget who God is or what His law says, we are not only having a lapse of the mind but we are being dismembered from the true knowledge of God. If “re”-” membering” is about us being “membered” back again, restored to a former station, then forgetting is akin to kind of “dis”-” membering”.

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