Gospel

David's Unrelenting Logic

by Terry Barlow
01/10/17
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In the 51st psalm where David the psalmist repents of his blatant sin of adultery with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, there is a relentless line of logic evident in David’s part.  The sin had metastasized like a cancer to include the killing of Uriah, who had in fact been one of David’s elite and trusted mighty men.  The psalmist begins by crying out for mercy, he seeks the cleansing of forgiveness from God.  But David doesn’t stop there, his progressively unfolding line of logic carries him further to ask that the sin not only be forgiven but blotted from memory. (verses 1, 9)  He longs for all the sin involved in this ugly episode to be forever forgotten and expunged from his record.  For what good is forgiveness, he may have reasoned,  if the sin is brought regularly to mind afterward.  Then David is just getting warmed up so to speak, as he proceeds from there to seek from God the blessed renewal of a clean heart and a steadfast spirit. (verse 10) Without this new creation of himself he would be inclined and even likely to repeat the sin over and over again.  He yearns to be a different person from this point onward, a person with better and more noble desires and inclinations.  But even all this is not yet enough: to have his forgiven and forgotten, and to be a new person altogether with a new beginning.  There is still a culmination to his logic.  All of the aforementioned benefits,  great as they are, are not to be ends in themselves, they are to serve as means to bring him back into relationship and back onto speaking terms (reconciled) with God and others.  “My tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness ——my mouth shall show forth your praise.”  (v 14-15)  His life would henceforth be given to exalting God and teaching others God’s ways, being better able to empathize with those who were also as vulnerable to sin as he was.   He would seize the opportunities to see other transgressors forever changed as he had been and would continue to be.

In this David reminds us of the Son of David, Jesus, the Messiah who is able to empathize with us in all our trials and temptations, “having been tempted in every way that we are tempted, yet without sin,” (Hebrews 4 v.15) thus qualifying to be our sacrificial Lamb, slain once for all from the foundation of the world.  (Revelation 13 v.8)