614. From these points it can be seen that being forgiven for our sins is not a matter of their being completely washed away or eliminated from us, but of their being relocated and sequestered within us. It is also clear that every evil that we have actively made our own stays with us.

Because "forgiveness of sins" means that they are relocated and sequestered within us, it follows that we are withheld from our evil by the Lord and held in goodness. This is the benefit that regeneration gives us.

On one occasion I heard someone in the lowest heaven saying that he was free of sin because his sins had been washed away; he added that this had been done by the blood of Christ. Because he was in heaven and had that mistaken belief through ignorance, he was plunged back into his sins. As they returned upon him, he owned up to them. As a result, he adopted a new belief, which was that every human being and every angel is held back by the Lord from what is evil inside them and kept in what is good.

[2] This experience also makes it clear that our sins are not instantly forgiven; they are forgiven in accordance with our regeneration and our progress in it.

The laying aside of our sins, which is called forgiveness of sins, can be compared with the dumping of waste from the camp of the children of Israel in the surrounding desert (their camp represented heaven; the desert represented hell).

It can also be compared with the separation of the nations from the children of Israel in the land of Canaan, and of the Jebusites in Jerusalem [Joshua 15:63]; they were not cast out, they were just kept apart.

It can also be compared with Dagon, the god of the Philistines. When the ark was brought in, Dagon first lay on its face on the ground, and afterward lay with its head and its hands broken off on the threshold [1 Samuel 5:3-4]. It was not cast out; it was just moved to a different place.

[3] It can also be compared with the demons that the Lord sent into the pigs, who then plunged into the sea [Matthew 8:31-32]. The sea here and elsewhere in the Word means hell.

It can also be compared with the dragon's gang, which was separated from heaven. It first invaded the earth and was then cast down to hell [Revelation 12:9; 20:2, 10].

It can also be compared with a forest full of predatory animals. Once the forest is cut down, the animals retreat into the surrounding bushes, and the land in the middle is leveled and cultivated as a field.