Memory as the Treasurer of the Soul's Salvation

By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you.—1 Corinthians 15:2

Salvation hinges upon memory. The Apostle Paul identifies five essential components: man's utmost happiness (salvation itself), the means to attain it (the gospel), the grace required (believing), the faculty necessary (memory), and the relationship binding them together.

Memory is that faculty of the soul wherein are reserved the things we know. Its threefold office comprises reception—like soft wax prepared to receive impressions; retention—whereby the memory serves as the great treasurer in the kingdom of the soul, alongside the will as viceroy, understanding as privy council, and conscience as judge; and recovery—recalling what has departed from present thought.

The excellence of this faculty astonishes: memory possesses power to make absent and past things present again. Consider those deprived of its use—they remember neither companion nor question asked moments before. All a man's past life dissolves if memory fails; likewise, the soul's comforts vanish so far as they are forgotten.

Yet corruption afflicts this faculty through remembering what we should forget. We retain unprofitable things, hurtful injuries, and sinful accounts—a depraved memory resembles a sieve that lets good grain fall through while reserving only chaff. Themistocles told Simonides: "Rather teach me the art of forgetfulness, for the things which I would not, I remember."

Salvation requires we retain the gospel's truth and forget what hinders faith.