Bible Study Psalms C51 V3-4

True Confession (Psalm 51:3-4)
Psalm 51 is a classic model of true repentance, which begins with a revelation of God’s love, which gives us the confidence to cast ourselves on God’s mercy (v1a), and ask Him to forgive (blot out) all our sins and fully cleanse us from them (v1b-2), knowing that we cannot earn or deserve our forgiveness. Only those who know His love and believe in His mercy can be honest with God and acknowledge and take responsibility for our sins, rather than concealing them: “MY transgressions… MY iniquity… MY sin” (v2). By using all 3 words for sin, David does not deny, excuse or minimise his sin, but describes it in its full horror, and owns up to it. In the next pair of verses (v3-4), he makes his confession of sin explicit: “FOR I acknowledge MY TRANSGRESSIONS, and MY SIN is always before me” (v3). Part of true repentance is to acknowledge (confess) our sins to God and bring them to the light (1John 1:9). David did not just grieve over the consequences, but the sin itself. By calling it ‘my sin’ he takes responsibility, and also, he does not add excuses. He does not minimise sin, but describes it as evil (v4, iniquity) and deliberate (transgression). His sin being ‘always before’ him, first speaks of the fact that he had been under continual conviction of his sins, during the year of covering his sin. He tried to bury and deny his sins, but he could not escape his guilty conscience (his sin was an inescapable reality creating tension), so he became depressed before making confession unto forgiveness and restoration of joy (Psalm 32:3-5). Secondly (2) it describes the process of repentance, when he deliberately kept his sin before his eyes, to see it in its full horror, rather than minimising it, so that he would be fully contrite, and hate it and turn fully from it. Once we have turned from our sin, we are no longer to keep it before our eyes, but rather keep the Lord before our eyes. Although the only ground for His forgiveness is the mercy of God (v1-2), by starting v3 with ‘FOR’, he also points to his confession of sins as fulfilling a vital requirement for God to forgive him, for God is only free to show mercy to those who repent and confess their sins (1John 1:9, Prov 28:13), for those who don’t confess their sins are saying they do not need or want His mercy, and He respects their free will and won’t force His grace on them (only when we confess our sins are we asking for mercy). We see the direct connection between confession and forgiveness in the parallel Psalm 32: “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said: “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin” (v5).
He continues his focus on his sin by seeing it from God’s viewpoint: “Against YOU, You only, have I SINNED, and DONE this EVIL in Your sight” (v4a). He has not just hurt Bathsheba, Uriah and the nation, but he has sinned against the most holy God. By definition, SIN is a GOD-word. Sin is what you do against God. All sin is primarily against God, transgressing His Law (1John 3:4) and despising His Person. This (v4a) is exactly what Nathan pointed out to David: “Why have you despised the Commandment of the LORD, to DO EVIL in His sight?” (2Sam 12:9), and v4a also reflects David’s response: “So David said to Nathan: “I have sinned against the Lord” (2Sam 12:13). Without a concept of God, you might harm people or commit a crime, but when you include God, it becomes magnified as SIN against an infinitely holy God, which carries far greater consequences (unbelievers don’t use the word ‘sin’, for they live as if there was no God), for it is infinite. That is why ‘only God can forgive sin’ (Mark 2:7). Any wrong done against people is a sin against God (Matt 25:41-45). That is why sins against people are inconsistent with true worship of God (Jer 7). Only God can make it right by forgiving us, so we must acknowledge our sin as being against God Himself. So, in true repentance we must hate the sin (not just the consequences), seeing it as EVIL in itself, and acknowledge it is an offense AGAINST GOD Himself. To sin is to turn away from God, so to fully repent we must hate that sin (acknowledge it as evil), and turn back to God and ask for His forgiveness. By seeing his sin as it actually was in God’s sight, an offense against His Law, he realises it has put him under God’s righteous Judgment, and made him deserving of condemnation and punishment. His true repentance and submission to God (his broken pride) is now shown in his declaration that whatever verdict God renders is just, and thus he has no grounds to object to it: “that You may be found JUST when You speak (or: ‘in Your words’), and BLAMELESS when You JUDGE” (v4b). This is a vindication of God’s righteousness and justice. Knowing this is why he cast himself on God’s mercy (v1). The ‘that’ denotes consequence not purpose – as a consequence of his sin (v4a)....

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