Psalm 51 A Psalm of
David with Comments by Dennis Edwards
51:1-3 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness:
according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I
acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
The first
prerequisite for forgiveness is to honestly confess our sins, to acknowledge
our transgressions. Both the Old and the New Testament teach the
importance of confession.
1 John 1:8-10 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not
sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
James 5:16 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another,
that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails
much.”
2
Chronicles 7:14 “If My people, who are
called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and
turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive
their sin, and will heal their land.”
Proverbs
28:13 “He that covers his sin
shall not prosper: but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.”
Isaiah
55:6-7 “Seek the Lord while He may
be found, call upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his ways, and
the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will
have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
When we do
confess and repent or change, God casts our sins into the depths of the sea and
remembers them no longer against us.
Micah
7:18-19 “Who is a God like unto You,
that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His
heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He
will turn again; He will subdue our iniquities; and You will cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea.”
We find a
similar idea elsewhere.
Psalm
103:13 “As far as the east is from
the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
Isaiah
38:17bc “But You have in love to my
soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for You have cast all my sins
behind Your back.”
Because of
the finished work of Jesus, we have an advocate before the Father and we shall not
fall into condemnation.
1 John2:1b-2a “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins.”
It is Jesus
the Messiah who has died for the sins of the world. He lives to make
intercession for us. He is our legal advocate before the throne of God on our
behalf, that we fall not into condemnation of the Devil. His death on the cross
is “the propitiation for our sins,” or what satisfies the legal punishment we
are due because of them. Christ bore our iniquities on the cross, by the which
He has justified those that come unto God by Him.
Hebrews
7:25 “Wherefore He is able also
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives
to make intercession for them.”
Hebrews
8:12 “For I will be merciful to
their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no
more.”
Psalm 51:4 Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your
sight: that You might be justified when You speak, and be clear when You judge.
Ultimately,
when we sin, we are sinning against God. It may affect other people, but the
greatest cause is our rebellion against God and His precepts. The first and
greatest commandment is not to love our neighbour as ourselves. The first and
greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and
with your whole soul, and with your whole mind, Matthew 22:37. Loving
your neighbour stems or grows out of your love for God.
Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother
conceive me.
The
psalmist may be hinting at the fact that when man and wife produce a child, it
is a result of fulfilling their sexual desires. The fact that David is writing
the psalm, and his sin was a result of yielding to his carnal sexual desires,
may have affected how he looked on sexual relations. His sex drive had led him
into the sin of adultery. His pride and self-righteousness had led him to try
to hide his sin, and as a result, he committed murder.
Psalm 51:6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden
part You shall make me to know wisdom.
God is
involved in winning our hearts to Him. He wants us to follow love and truth.
Truth is important part of the character of God. Jesus, in fact, said, “I am
the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me,” John
14:6. “For the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ,” John 1:17.
The Proverbs
tell us, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord
men depart from evil,” Proverbs 16:6. Jesus is the grace or mercy and
truth of God. By His mercy and His truth, He cleanses us. He is the word which
washes us new. “Now are you clean by the word which I have spoken unto you,” John
15:3. “Sanctify them through Your truth: Your word is truth, John 17:17.
Psalm 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall
be whiter than snow.
Hyssop was used to apply the
blood of the lamb to the door of the posts on the evening of the first Passover,
Exodus 12:22. Hyssop was also used in the sacrificial cleansing ceremony
of the leper found healed of his leprosy, Leviticus 14:6.
David realizes that his sin
is like leprosy, and his heart needs a deep cleaning, a deep purging. How can
we approach unto God when our hands are full of innocent blood? In Isaiah
we read,
“When you spread forth your
hands, I will hide my eyes from you: Yes, when you make many prayers, I will
not hear: your hands are full of blood,” Isaiah 1:15.
David’s hands were full of
the blood of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband. We today in the West are full of the
blood of the poor innocents killed in abortions in our own countries and in the
poor third world countries where we have exported our aberration.
We are full of the blood of
the innocents killed in the wars we have fought for Israel’s security in the
Middle East. We are full of the blood of the poor innocents killed in Ukraine
as a result of our military and political policies that encroached upon
Russia’s security. We are full of the blood of the poor innocents killed in
Eastern Asia during the Vietnam War period.
The Lord continues,
“Wash you, make you clean;
put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes; cease to do evil; learn
to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead
for the widow,” Isaiah 1:16-17.
Finally, God says,
“Come now, and let us reason
together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white
as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,” Isaiah
1:18.
No matter how far we have
strayed from the straight and narrow path that leads to salvation, God has made
a way of escape from judgment, if we repent and move from our wicked ways, and
humble ourselves before Him. Our accepting Jesus as the Saviour is the door God
has made for our salvation to eternal life.
The election of Trump may be
a sign of America’s repentance of her many sins. Trump’s election could
possibly cause a delay in God’s judgments on America.
Though the country of Israel temporarily
repented of the sins of Manasseh, who had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood,
God would not altogether pardon them nor turn from the fierceness of His great
wrath. The nation repented under Josiah, Manasseh’s son, however, on Josiah’s
death, they turned back to their evil ways. God said that the provocations
under Manasseh’s reign were so great, that they merited His judgment.
2 Kings 23:26 “Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of His
great wrath, wherewith His anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the
provocations that Manasseh had provoked Him withal.”
2 Kings 24:3-4 “Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this (the destruction
of Judah and Jerusalem) upon Judah, to remove them out of His sight, for the
sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did. And also, for the innocent
blood that he had shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the
Lord would not pardon.”
We will look at Manasseh and Josiah’s
reigns in a future class and see what we can learn from them.
End of Part 1 (To go to Part 2)
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