Out of every page that my bible holds, the page that contains Psalm 51 is the most worn down and the one that is most frequently visited. Every believer (throughout church history I would safely guess) has prayed this psalm more than he or she would probably like to admit. The cry for mercy and reconciliation is a prayer that every believer should pray often in my opinion simply for the sad reality that we are all so sinful before a holy God. I approach this Psalm with great reverence and humility as I have used it as a guild many times during my confessions to God.
Of all the theology that this psalm presents, (which we will get to later) this is a Psalm of repentance first and foremost. I do not want any of us to miss this. David has committed terrible crimes against God and is crying out for mercy. You will recall that David is writing this Psalm in the context of committing adultery with Bathsheba and trying to cover his tracks by sending Uriah the Hittite to the front lines of battle and telling the other men to “back off” so he would be left alone to be killed by the Ammonites (2 Sam. 11). King David, the man after God’s own heart did all of this! It’s really incredible how sin affects us isn’t it? So David is pleading with God for mercy. The lesion that we should learn from this is that no matter what sin we have committed, we should always confess that sin to God and plead with him for mercy. Just a BIG side note here however, we confess our sins a little differently today than David did. Or maybe I should say that we pray in a more specific sense than David could because he did not have a name for the Messiah like we do. Whenever we confess today we MUST go through Jesus Christ. He is our mediator and we must appeal to His sacrifice for the remission of our sins. Never go to God on your own. Always take Christ with you. I could write more about this because its so huge so if you have any questions about this please ask Glenn because he could shed more light on this topic than I could.
Lets talk theology now. There is a bunch of it in this Psalm so I will keep my commentary short.
- David appeals to God’s attributes not his merit to obtain forgiveness from God.
He says, “have mercy on me according to Your steadfast love, according to Your abundant mercy. The appeal for forgiveness should be with God and never within our genuineness of repentance. The reason is, we are so sinful that sometimes we trick ourselves to thinking that we are in right standing with God based upon some merit that we have. That being said, I don’t want to underestimate the attitude of our hearts when we come to God in prayer either because David says, “for you do not delight in sacrifice or I would give it… the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, these, O God, You will not despise (vs. 16-17).” So it’s a tricky balance isn’t it? We must have our theology AND our hearts right before God.
- Sin’s main offense is against God
David says, “against You, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight (vs. 4).” Didn’t David’s sins extend beyond God? What about Bathsheba or Uriah? Weren’t they sinned against as well? Well yes, they were, but remember that the psalms teach us great theology. Sin is ultimately an offense against God. Because of this, we go to God for restoration, not man. The reason is, is because only God is holy. When we lie to someone, our relationship with God is more affected than our relationship with the person we lied too. Why? Because God is holy and the person is not.
- No one (excluding Christ) was ever born neutral. We were born in sin.
David says, “behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me (vs. 5).” We are not a sinner because we sin. We sin because we are a sinner. In other words, we sin because we were born sinners and therefore had no choice but to sin. We were not born neutral. We are born guilty because of Adam (see Romans 5).
- If we deny our sinful nature, we deny the truth
David says, “behold You delight in truth in the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart (vs. 6).” This seemed a little ambiguous to me at first. What does this mean? After thinking about it I came up with this interpretation. If you disagree we will fight, no just kidding but tell me and we will talk about it because it is tricky. This is what I think he means. God desires truth in our hearts means what I think John says in much simpler terms in 1 John 1: 8 which says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and the truth is not in us.” Well-said John.
I could go on but I’m afraid this might turn into a theology paper that I submit to Dr. Mohler so I’ll stop. But I want to end with a question that I have never understood that will do two things. One it will generate discussion and too it will show who actually read this and who did not. I’m just curious to know who is keeping up with this. So here it is. At the end of this Psalm David understands that sacrifices mean nothing to God but then he says he will offer burnt offerings and bulls to God? How can we make sense of this? I love you all. God bless.
3 comments:
This is in response to Matt's question at the end, which really made me think more deeply about the psalm than I would have otherwise. I don't really completely understand it, but here is my best attempt. The animal sacrifices that were being made, as noted in verse 16, were often just a ritual they would do. They were just going through the motions and it had no real meaning. Obviously God was not pleased with that. At the end of the psalm David says he will offer burnt offerings and bulls to God, which seems to contradict what he said in verse 16. However the context is different for those two seemingly contradictory statements. Look at the verse in between the two references to sacrifices which is Verse 18 and it says "In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem." The first word in verse 19 is "then". This indicates that after verse 18 has taken place, "Then there will be righteous sacrifices; whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar." God must make Zion prosper before there will be righteous sacrifices. I think psalm 51:16-19 can be better explained by looking at its parallelism with the book of Malachi. Reading Malachi chapters 1 and 2 reveals the people were offering blemished sacrifices and God was not pleased with that. Another big point is that they were offering sacrifices and yet they kept on sinning. Read Malachi 2:13-14 and you'll see that even though they were offering sacrifices, they were not being faithful to God and they essentially broke their marriage covenant with God. This type of sacrificing in Malachi is parallel to verse 16 in psalm 51. In Malachi 3:1-4, it speaks of the coming of Christ which will purify and refine our hearts. This is parallel to verse 18 of psalm 51 in that as God will build up the walls of Jerusalem, he will also build up the walls the our hearts to truly love God and be faithful to him through Christ. Malachi 3:3-4 "...Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years." This is parallel to verse 19 of Psalm 51. It reveals that because of Christ's sacrifice for us we will be righteous before God through Christ. Our once broken faith and marriage covenant with God has been restored through Christ. Now because of this we may now offer sacrifices that are truly pleasing to God. We may truly worship God because of his purification of our hearts. Well I know this ending up being a little long, but those are my thoughts on the question.
Bryan
It's the difference between legalism and heart felt obedience.
Verse 17 explains David's meaning: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." So a burnt offering without this attitude is worthless.
This is very much like Psalm 40:6-8: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, 'Here I am, I have come-it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God, your law is within my heart." This is quoted in Hebrews 10 as pertaining to Christ's perfect obedience.
Christ offered a literal sacrifice to God, himself. But it was only acceptable because of his heartfelt obedience.
The same is true for us.
Glenn
I think they pretty well covered that question. I just wanted to say that I tend to forget that I don't really have a right to go before God on my own. That's always a good reminder for us, one of these times it might actually sink in.
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