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1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Saviour, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.18 May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar. -
Daniel 4
Introduction - begin by discussing quotes on forgiveness:
‘To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.’ CS Lewis [1898-1963]
‘Our churches are full of the nicest, kindest people who have never known the despair of guilt or the breathless wonder of forgiveness.’
P.T.Forsyth
1. Read 2 Samuel 11:1-14,27. Summarise the story. Psalm 51's setting.
David allowed himself to look on the beauty of Bathsheba (11:2) who was married to Uriah a soldier who was on duty on the battlefield. David sent for her and slept with her (11:4). She became pregnant. David orders Uriah home, hoping he will sleep withBathsheba. But Uriah refuses to enjoy this comfort while his men are in battle (11:6-13). Uriah is a man of integrity, in stark contrast to the king. David finally arranges to have Uriah slain in battle (11:14-25) by having the soldiers withdraw quickly in a battle, leaving Uriah exposed. After her time of mourning, David marries Bathsheba, and she bore him their son (11:25-27).
Nathan the prophet comes to David from the Lord (12:1-12) and, by using an illustration of a rich man and a poor man, he challenges David showing him the evil reality of what he has done. He then declares that God will expose his sin and its punishment in public for all to see (12:12).
Psalm 51 must be read against this background. David’s life had imploded. He was guilty of coveting, adultery, false witness, theft and murder. He had broken most of the second table of the Ten Commandments. His shame was great. How could he rule as king? How could he stay in a covenant with God? David was broken and in despair. So amazing is the power of repentance that he was able to be restored to life again. David had fallen as far as we could imagine falling. Yet through repentance, his life was repaired. David had been chosen not for his looks, or his bravery or his skill with a sling but for his heart. 1 Sam 16:7 ‘Man looks at t he outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.’
This is surely the greatest of all the penitential psalms. It may be the most complete and profound example of repentance in the Bible, the New Testament included. This study will follow the outline:
Psalm 51:1-2: “I ask”
Psalm 51:3-5: “I confess”
Psalm 51:6-12: “I need”
Psalm 51:13-19: “I offer and promise”
2. Read Psalm 51 - ‘I ask.’
First, he asks God for “mercy,” which means an alleviation of suffering. He is asking God to take a merciful and kind attitude toward him.
Second, he asks for this transgression to be “blotted out.” This is a particular action. It means to change the record books so that there are no moral deficits or legal liabilities.
Third, he asks God to “wash away” and “cleanse” him from sin. David is asking for God, in mercy, to deal with his sin objectively and subjectively, removing both the legal liability and the inner pollution and corruption that have been caused psychologically and spiritually. “Blot out my legal liability and cleanse my heart.”
David asks for forgiveness by appealing to two things. First, he appeals to God’s unfailing love. Hebrew word is chesedh, meaning unconditional, binding, covenant love. This love is based on God’s faithfulness and promise, not our merit.
Secondly, he appeals to God’s compassion, his inner love and kindness. David is making a respectful and humble argument on the basis of the objective (what God has said in his Word) and the subjective (who God is in himself). Kidner writes: The opening plea, have mercy, is the language of one who has no claim to the favour he begs. But steadfast love [“unfailing love,” chesedh] is a covenant word. David knows he still belongs. The prodigal’s words, “Father, . . . I am no more worthy to be called thy son.” 2
The prodigal son says, “I’m not worthy to be a son,” but calls him “father” as he says it. This is the only way for a believer in the gospel to come to God in repentance. We are unworthy and have no claim on God at all. We need to contemplate the fact that nothing but the bare will of God stands between us and condemnation.
On the other hand, we know of his unfailing commitment to us. If we are more aware of one than the other, repentance will not cleanse us. If we think more on our unworthiness than our sonship, we will plunge into despair and either punish ourselves or run from God. Neither really gets at the root of sin. We don’t learn to hate sin and it doesn’t lose its attraction over us. However, if we think more on our sonship than our unworthiness, our status as God’s children becomes a matter of indifference to us. We will feel that forgiveness is just “God’s job”; we are not amazed
3. Psalm 51 3-5: “I confess.” What things does David admit here? How does each one contribute to a full repentance?
First, in (vv. 3-4a) he takes full responsibility for his actions. “I know my transgressions”; I have “sinned and done what is evil.” By using the most blunt and ugly words (“transgression,” “evil”), he avoids blame-shifting. Not only does he call his deed “evil,” he confesses that “you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge” (v. 4c). This is the clearest indication that he is refusing to blame his upbringing, his impulses, his hormones, or his environment. He is saying, “I deserve judgment.” He does not talk about low self-esteem, “acting out,” addictions, lapses, “mistakes,” or “needs.” In the narrative of 2 Samuel, we have some hints of how David rationalized, denied, or found other ways to avoid placing the responsibility for his action squarely on himself.
Second, “Against you, you only have I sinned.”
Martin Luther ‘We never break Commandments 2-10 unless we have already decided to break the first.’ Exodus 20 ‘I am the Lord your God… you shall have no other God’s before me.’
This is surprising in the light of how he wronged Uriah! He also wronged Bathsheba, leading her into betrayal and sin. He made Joab an accomplice in evil. And he betrayed the trust of his people as their king, abusing his power. Yet David says his sin is against “you only.”
David is saying that his sin against God is so much more fundamental and serious. Without this sin, the others would not have happened. Both the motivation and the guilt of the sin against God completely overshadow all the other sins involved. Sin is primarily an exercise of “lordship.” We act as if we are lords, that we have the right to be our own saviour.
If we ‘repent over the fact that sin has broken God’s heart and dishonoured the One to whom you owe everything, you will begin to find the sin itself heinous. It will lose its power, and you will be cleansed and free.’ Tim Keller
Third, in (v. 5) David is not excusing himself; his comment has the opposite effect. He is now looking back over his life through the lens of his heart through this terrible deed. He now understands himself in ways he could not before. His “denial” is over. This is an important part of repentance. To confess looking solely for forgiveness is flawed.
‘Repentance must lead to a permanent increase in humility and dependence on God.’ Keller
4. Psalm 51:6-13: “I need.”
What are the elements of David’s new life he outlines here?
First, David asks for new integrity (v 6). He asks that he would be as committed and desirous of truth and holiness on the inside as he professes to be on the outside. He had been a hypocrite.
Second, he asks for a restoration of relationship. He asks, “hide your face from my sins” (v. 9); and for “cleans[ing] with hyssop” (v. 7) so that he will be “whiter than snow.”
Today, we understand the cross and imputed righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21) far beyond what David understood. We can be “holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Col. 1:22).
Third, he asks for a new singleness of spirit, a “steadfast” spirit (v 10) and a “willing” spirit (v 12). Real repentance, then, is the end of double-mindedness and a divided heart fully devoted to God as our only God.
Fourth, he asks for a new life of intimacy (v. 11) with God. When he asked for cleansing, David was asking to be made fit for God’s presence. Now he begs for a subjective experience of that presence through the Holy Spirit. As Kidner says, this verse is not talking theologically about whether or not a believer can “lose his salvation”: “This verse is not concerned with the bare doctrine of perseverance, but with the practice of it.” 5
5. Verses 13-19: “I offer and promise.”
What does David offer to God in response to his restoration?
In this section we see that David believes a repentance-cleansed life will have community and social consequences. First, in verses 13-14, we see that David expects his new faith to be highly winsome. He expects to attract many people to God. There is a “close connection between a joyous faith and an infectious one.” 6 Here we see that David’s new faith will be winsome because he will be filled with a new joy. “My tongue will sing of your righteousness” (v. 14). So, the result of real repentance is joy, and the test of true gospel joy is that it blends the confidence and humility that strongly attract people to us. Question: Why must real repentance always make us more joyful and attractive, not less? Remember the elements of repentance discussed in question 3. If we blameshift instead of taking full responsibility, our repentance becomes a form of anger and resentment. That, of course, will not lead to joy or attractiveness. We also said that if we only repent of our behavior under the pressure of consequences (rather than identifying the idols and God-replacements at the root of our sin), then our confession becomes either self-hatred or self-pity. Self-hatred is a continuation of works righteousness in which we try to earn our salvation by our performance. In works righteousness, moral failure cannot really be forgiven. We can only punish ourselves severely until we have somehow proven ourselves holy. It is another form of moral effort and performance. Thus works righteousness confession is always prolonged and never leads to greater joy. It leads not to humility but to inferiority. Self-pity comes when we have put some object in God’s place (or treated it as more important than God). Let’s say, for example, that we have made an idol out of romantic love and have broken God’s law in order to “catch” the person of our dreams. If we lose him or her anyway, we may become despondent and we will probably do some kind of repentance. But unless we admit that we were getting our joy and self-worth out of this person more than God, our confession will never bring us relief. Our hearts will just punish and curse us for having failed our “god.” The only God who forgives is the real Lord. Self-pity is not consolable because our hearts are stubbornly insisting that “unless we have that, we can’t be happy.” Until we repent of our idolatry and admit that we have turned away from the only God who really can satisfy us, we will never have joy. Again, we see that we have resources for joy that David did not have. When we compare our idols to Jesus, who died on the cross for us, we can easily see how foolish our hearts are to imagine that any lover would be more wonderful than he is; that any riches are more valuable than the riches of his glory and grace.
6. What has your experience been with repentance? Does it lead to joy or does it lead to increased sensitivity?
David had lost the gratitude and joy that come from knowing we have been saved (v. 12): “restore to me the joy of your salvation.” Had David had fallen into indifference and boredom regarding righteousness? Only through ongoing repentance can we keep this basic dynamic of joy in our lives.
1 Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1973), pp. 189-194.
2 Derek Kidner, p. 189.
3 Derek Kidner, pp. 190-191.
4 Derek Kidner, p. 191.
5 Derek Kidner, p. 192.
6 Derek Kidner, p. 193.
