'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin' - Romans 4:7-8
Some years ago a wealthy English businessman purchased a Rolls-Royce and soon afterward took his new car to France. When in the south of France, it broke down and he phoned the Rolls-Royce people in Britain. The manufacturer flew a mechanic to France and the man's car was repaired. He expected to receive a sizable bill for this unprecedented service, but as the months passed and no invoice arrived the businessman wrote to the Rolls-Royce company asking for his account to be rendered. By return mail he received a courteous note from the company assuring him that they had no record of anything having gone wrong with his car! In other words, the Rolls-Royce company refused to acknowledge any imperfection in their product. That is exactly what happened to us. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." When God forgives, He blots out the record.
Dr. Moon dramatically underlines this in the film 'Time and Eternity.' After showing the various relationships of time, Dr. Moon concludes, "All of us have looked up, on a clear night, and seen the sparkling, twinkling stars. But how many of us have realized that we cannot see the stars as they now are? Every time we look, we are looking into the past, seeing them as they were......But this works both ways. If you were on one of the stars you would, assuming an adequate telescope, see the earth as it was sometime in the past. From the star Sirius, you could see what you were doing nine years ago, because in a profoundly true scientific sense you are still doing it. Yes, everything you have ever done, you are still doing. The ghost of your past haunts the universe. But remember, we have noted that God is omnipresent. This means that, for God, every sin that you have ever committed, every evil thing you have ever done, you are still doing, and will continue to do forever, apart from God's forgiveness. Only the omnipotent, eternal God, who controls all the factors of time, space and matter, could ever remove sin. God says: 'I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins' (Isa. 43:25). When God cancels sin, He wills it out of existence; it is not only forgiven and forgotten, it is annihilated.
From Exploring Romans by John Phillips