feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying. . . leading. (Isaiah 40:11)

Dear family,

I have been deeply moved by some responses received from Sunday, referencing very specific things that were ministered to by the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that David asked God to be present with him. Over the last two messages in the PSALM PSERIES, I have focused on Psalm 51, the fourth in a group of psalms that have been the historic reading of the church during the period of Lent (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) that are described as “the penitential psalms”. These form a genre within a genre, the primary categorization being “laments”. Psalm 51 is arguably the most well-known and influential, and one of the most definitive presentations of repentance in scripture.

What began as David’s darkest moment of self-knowledge ends up becoming one of the most profound biblical examples of repentance that brings restoration. There are many liberal commentators who describe this psalm as lacking “homogenous construction.” Clearly, I suggested the exact opposite: that there is an extraordinary spiritual logic in the way David recounts his journey to recovered wholeness, in six distinctive identifiable steps, or movements, as he seeks a way forward to resolution. We worked our way through this process that gives us the crucial constituent elements of repentance: in a way the psalm is an anatomy of repentance and therefore of forgiveness also, which becomes a tutor to our own souls, and an example for our own practice of confession. It is our familiarity with it that perhaps robs it of its amazing spiritual power, but if we can get back in touch with its raw truth, then we will find that most presently recited liturgical confessions are pale by comparison.

We noted the following main points about the content of this confession. 1. An appeal to God. 2. An acknowledgement of his rebellion but also of God’s righteousness. 3. An awareness of the depth of his sin but also the depth of his salvation. 4. An agonizing and asking for forgiveness. 5. An aching for spiritual renewal. 6. An anticipation of being used again by God. Please get the CD or download if you want to revisit the teaching on each of these points. This story of David illustrates a complete process: Confrontation, Conviction, Contrition, Confession and Consecration.

And everyone lived happily ever after! Or did they? I said that it would leave a wrong impression if I’d chosen to finish there, though it is easier and more palatable, and less problematic to do so. It is important, having finished reading Psalm 51, to go back to the story (Read 2 Sam. 12: 10-20). True, David’s sentence of death for his sin was commuted by the grace of God but there were two consequences of the sin that need to be mentioned:

The baby died. David fasted and prayed but it was to no avail. There is that poignant picture of him getting off the ground where he had spent seven days and nights pleading with God, and going into the house of the Lord where it simply says he “worshiped” (2 Sam. 12:20). As challenging as this is, this is actually a word of hope and encouragement for any who are bearing the consequences of sin, or living with a seemingly unchangeable impasse, or irreconciliation post-sin, post-forgiveness. The power of the grace that forgave you and delivered you is the same saving grace that will keep you and minister to you and give you the grace to bear with an anointed face, the consequences that are not necessarily removed by virtue of that confession and repentance given, and that forgiveness received. These consequences cannot cast a shadow on what God has done, they cannot mute your worship, they cannot accuse you before God. Though they may remind you of the past from time to time, what God has forgiven is already in the sea of his forgetfulness.
The things that were prophesied by Nathan came true. (2 Sam. 16:22) From this point on, whatever it was that David had opened up through his sin, his family became the great burden of his soul: the rebellion of his son Absalom, the rape of a daughter. And someone can think that David got away with it?

What is so profound and overwhelming is what we read in 2 Samuel 12: 24-25. Bathsheba gets pregnant again, has a son and they name him Solomon. The text says, “The Lord loved him, and sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.” What do you think David’s first thought or feeling was when he was told after this birth that there was a message from Nathan. Did that bring back all the bad memories of the last message from the prophet after the last birth? Could there be a more poignant message of the grace and love of God, of an affirmation of a restoration and a new beginning. And this would be the son who would be able to complete what David most longed to do, build a dwelling place for the Lord. Wow! Mercy triumphs over judgment. As Moody used to put it, where sin was loud, grace and forgiveness shouted even louder!

Many commentators argue that the last section of this psalm was added after the exile when the collection was put together, because it doesn’t seem to fit. I don’t hold this to be so. The sin of David the King had uncovered the city and the kingdom, in the way that the sin of a husband can uncover his wife, or the sin of a mother can uncover her children, or the sin of a leader can uncover those he leads. Sin breaches the walls of our relationships. Sin undoes the mortar of the bricks of covenant and leaves gaps for bad things to come in, and colonize. Our repentance, gives us every ground, like David’s, to ask for the walls that have been breached to be rebuilt and restored, and for a return of a united sacrificial response to God as a marriage, as a family, as a team, as a friendship, as a city, as a nation. It is always the forgiving intervention of God in our lives that makes us intercessors and interveners on behalf of others.

The nature of all of this, of David’s healing and deliverance is the more extraordinary, given the way it points to Jesus and the consummation of his work to make us those who have a new heart. It is the cross, that David did not know, though more than once he prophetically foresaw it, that convinces us of both the depth of our sin and the depth of our salvation. John Stott has written "If we interpret sin as a lapse instead of a rebellion, and God as indulgent instead of indignant, then naturally the cross appears superfluous." Our understanding of the cross is absolutely related to the depth of our sin. As the old hymn puts it, "O tell me what it meaneth, Help me to take it in, What it meant to thee the holy one, To take away my sin." The cross is the place where there is an equal demonstration of God's justice and his love. The judgment against sin that his holiness demanded is operative with his love that pardons the unjust offender. The depth of sin is seen in the depth of suffering, the depth of separation and alienation from God, the depth of violence. The presentation of the cross as a "propitiation" (Roms.3:24-25; I Jhn.2:1-2;4:10) once again draws attention to the depth of wrath against such depth of sin, that had to be appeased. For those of us who live this side of the cross, the sense of the depth of our sin is affirmed when we realize the nature of the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. The depth of sin is great but the reach of God's grace and mercy and delivering power is greater. Where sin abounded, grace abounded more. In the NT, when the depth of sin is exposed with the tragic corruption of a life without Christ, we are immediately shown, not just more of who we were or who we are, but who Christ intends us to become. The NT emphasis is on Christ not sin. Where the realities of the first Adam are mentioned, the glories of the second Adam are exegeted and exalted. Paul refers to, or alludes to many OT scriptures pertaining to the origin and nature of the depths of our sin, but his emphasis is always the difference that the crucified, risen, ascended, glorified Christ makes. Where Adam is mentioned, Paul's Christology soars. As one commentator has put it, the image of the dusty one pales in the light of the image of the heavenly one. The NT emphasis does not skirt the depth of our sin, but acknowledging it, goes on to extol the deliverance from sin that has been wrought through the finished work of Christ.

When we deal with the truth of the depth of our sin, we are confronted not only with the gruesome thing that our sin did to Christ, but with the glorious thing that Christ's salvation did for us.

When we were far away…we were brought near (Ephs. 2:17) We were unrighteous…we have become the righteousness of God (2 Cors. 5:21) We were unholy…we are now God’s holy and beloved (Cols. 3:12) We were broken…we are complete with the fullness of Christ (Cols. 2:10) We were once darkness…now we are light in the Lord (Ephs. 5:8) We were once guilty…now we are blameless in his sight without blemish and free from accusation (Cols. 1;22) We were once no people…now we are the people of God (1 Pet. 2:9-12) We had once not received mercy…now we have received mercy (1 Pet. 2-10) We were once dead in our sins… now we have been made alive with Christ (Ephs2:1-5).

In the words of another old hymn:

There's a way back to God

From the dark paths of sin

There's a door that is open

And all may go in

At Calvary's cross is where you begin

When you come as a sinner to Jesus.

Pastorally yours,

Stuart