One of my favorite features of the Exodus account is the language Moses uses to describe God’s perspective on the suffering and oppression His people experienced in Egypt. It says:
“God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Ex. 2:24-25)
Notice here that God’s awareness of his people’s struggles is not merely a result of his omniscience; it is directly connected to His commitment to keep his covenant promises (c.f. Ex. 6:5). God ‘remembering’, far from Him recalling something He had forgotten, involves a divine self-deliberation and resolution to fulfill all that He has purposed to do.
In Genesis 6, God promises to establish His covenant with Noah and directs Noah to build an Ark for protection from the impending flood. After the flood, Moses employs the same language of God ‘remembering’ Noah.
“But God remembered Noah… And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.” (Gen. 8:1)
Noah, just like the people of Israel in Egypt, was waiting on God to fulfill his promises. And just as in Exodus, we’re told that God not only remembers, but he calls His people out of their bondage and into new life in the land He has promised.
“Go out from the ark… and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” (Gen. 8:16a, 17b)
The reality for us as God’s people today is that God remembers us too. As Paul puts it:
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…” (Eph. 2:4-5)
If God’s love toward us was decreed before the foundation of the world (as Eph. 1:3-5 teaches), that means our salvation is an act of God’s remembrance. Just as He remembered His covenants with Noah and the Patriarchs, God remembers His promise to save us. God provided an exodus from the Ark, from Egypt, and from our own slavery to sin. He not only frees us, but he leads us into new life that ultimately looks forward to the land of eternal glory.
God remembered us – and we should never forget that.
