Psalm 51 with R. C. Sproul, “Tender Mercies,” 3

The Biblical Doctrine of Repentance and Psalm 51

We're continuing our study now of the biblical doctrine of repentance, and we've looked, first of all, at an overview of the concept, and we looked at the background for the production of Psalm 51 and the life of David himself, and now today we're going to turn our attention to Psalm 51.

Before I begin an exposition of it, let me remind you that what we have here in this psalm is a sample of human repentance as it is articulated under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, and that's important because we know that there is a difference between genuine repentance and a false repentance that is insincere, but this particular prayer is inspired by God the Holy Spirit so that David, as he is experiencing his repentance, is at the same time being used by God as a spokesman of revelation showing us what real repentance looks like.

Mercy, Covenant Love, and Tender Mercies

So let's then turn our attention to the text of Psalm 51, where we read in verse 1 these words, "'Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, and according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.'".

I think it's significant that we note immediately that the first step of David's expression of repentance is an appeal not to the justice of God, but to the mercy of God. That the penitent sinner throws himself upon the mercy of the court.

Again, we think of Jesus' teaching in the New Testament when He tells the story of two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other one was a publican. The Pharisee is that person who is known for righteousness, who is a pillar of the community, who is supposed to be an exemplar of integrity and virtue, whereas the publican is the chief of sinners.

And so Jesus sets forth the scenario of this radical contrast between the paragon of virtue on the one hand and this miserable publican on the other hand, and as He tells the story He says that the Pharisee lifts up his face to heaven and he says, "'I thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men.'".

He gives credit to God and acknowledges His dependence upon grace and says, "'Thank you very much, God, for helping me become as great as I am so that I'm not like that miserable publican over there in the corner.'".

And then Jesus says the publican was too humble as to even lift his face toward heaven and simply said, "'Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner.'". And Jesus asks the question, which is rhetorical, which one of these men went to his house justified?

The answer is obvious. It's the publican who receives the pardon of God because there is no mixture of pride, no mixture of arrogance in his plea, no false gratitude, but rather there is complete humility in the plea of the publican who throws himself naked, as it were, on the mercy of the court.

And so this is what David does at the very beginning. There are no excuses, no attempts at rationalization, no attempt at self-justification, but he cries out to God saying, "'God, have mercy upon me according to Your lovingkindness.'".

So that the appeal here is to the lovingkindness of God, and there's something that we could miss very easily here in the text because the word that David uses in the very first utterance of his cry of penitence is the word hesed, which is one of the richest words that we find in the Old Testament.

It's a word that is throughout the literature of the Bible of the Old Testament, and it is a word that is translated in different ways. It's translated simply at times by the word mercy. Other times I've seen it translated by the term or the phrase unfailing love, and I've also seen it translated by the phrase loyal love.

It is used in Old Testament terminology particularly with respect to the covenantal relationship that God has with Israel, that the basis for that covenant, the basis of that redemptive relationship that Yahweh enters into with Israel is God's hesed, His love, His love that manifests itself in terms of grace.

And it is a love that is steadfast. That's the other phrase that is used frequently that you'll see in the Scriptures that speaks of the steadfast love of God, the love of God that is loyal, the love of God that does not vacillate, the love of God that doesn't pass away with every infraction, but it is this love that maintains its loyalty.

Remember the basic difference between God and Israel in the Old Testament is that after God enters into this covenant with His people, the people time after time after time violate the covenant, and they become covenant breakers.

But God remains true to His promise in the covenant because God's love is immutable. God's love is steadfast. God's love is consistent. And God's love is not the kind of love that He compromises at any time.

And David understands that. And so David appeals now to the covenant. He says, God, deal with me according to hesed. Deal with me according to Your steadfast love. Deal with me according to the loyalty that You have demonstrated from generation to generation whereby You endure with patience with the sins of Your people.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to hesed, according to Your loving kindness. You remember when Micah, the prophet, gives a summary of what it means to please God and boils it all down to three things where he asks the question, what is it that the Lord requires of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Well, if we would look at those three things that God requires of His people to do what is right, to love mercy, the word there again is hesed, that God said, I want my people to treat each other according to the same standard by which I relate to them, which is this standard of steadfast love, this standard of loving kindness or of loyalty.

And so David said, what else do I have here, God, except Your promise, Your covenant, Your mercy, and so have mercy upon me according to that standard of loving kindness. And then he goes on to say, according to the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Again, this phrase according to is the rule or the standard of operation. By what means is God going to choose to respond to David's sin? He can respond to David's sin according to His justice, or He can respond to David's sin according to the standard of His mercy and the multitude of tender mercies that He has displayed over and over again.

And David, of course, pleads for the tender mercy rather than for the justice. And I love the expression here of the multitude of Thy, not just mercies, but Thy tender mercies. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth His people.

In God's grace, there is a tenderness that attaches itself to the exercise of God's grace. When God forgives us, when God does display His mercy upon us, it's not a harsh mercy. It's not a severe mercy.

It's a tender mercy. You know how sometimes we can be forgiving, and yet there can be an edge to our forgiveness where we can relate to each other and say, so almost reluctantly pardon somebody and yet remain somewhat hardened or hard-nosed about the expression of forgiveness.

But David said, if you're going to have mercy upon me, please not just that kind of mercy, but according to your tender mercy. And he pleads for the tenderness of God, and he asks something specifically.

He says, God, blot out my transgressions. Now, remember, this is the David who says elsewhere, if the Lord should mark iniquity, who can stand? And there is a reality in which God does mark iniquity. He's perfectly aware of all of our sin, of all our wickedness, and what David is asking is that book that records our sins that God would somehow blot it out, erase it, remove it from His remembrance.

And one of the metaphors that the Bible uses with respect to God's forgiveness is the idea that God forgets our sin or remembers it no more. And, again, that's metaphorical language because it's not as if God, after He is aware of our sins, suddenly has amnesia, and He has a senior moment where He can no longer remember what had actually happened in time.

When the Bible says that God no longer remembers our sin, it's not that He is forgetful. It's that He no longer remembers them against us. He doesn't bring them up and dredge them up again and again to say, here's what you did back then, and so on.

So that once He forgives a sin, He treats it as if it had never happened. He removes it from the record. He blots out the transgression. Remember Lady Macbeth in that poignant moment after the murder, and she has the blood on her hands, and she tries everything she can to remove the stains, which stains remind her of the severity of her crime.

She finally cries out, out, out, damned spot, because she can't find anything that will remove the stain of her blood guiltiness. And this is what she was looking for in the drama, was something that would blot out her transgression.

And so David said, please God, I can't stand to look at it, and I know that You are too holy as to behold evil, and if You are going to look at me, please first blot out my transgression. And then he goes on in verse 2, and he says, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

Now this is in poetic form, and it's a synonymous parallelism, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin, where both lines are saying basically the same thing. Now again, this metaphor of cleansing or of washing is used throughout the Bible, even into the New Testament where John tells us if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and what?

To cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do you remember Isaiah, under the inspiration of God, says to the people of God, thus saith the Lord, come let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

Though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool. And it's interesting to me that there in the expression of the prophet Isaiah, the blot or the stain is the color of blood, and it is a stain that mars the perfect whiteness that represents purity, and God said, you come into my presence with blood guiltiness on your hands.

You are stained, you are marred, but let me talk, let's reason together. Even if your sins are like scarlet, I will make you as white as the snow. If they're crimson, I will make them as pure wool. This is the idea of God's Spirit coming to His marred and stained people and as a cleansing agent that gets out the stain.

I've often laughed about the advertisements that we find in the American soap opera industry where I can remember when I was a kid, Tide soap was on the market, and every year they'd have new and improved Tide.

And I can't think of all of the improvements that Tide has gone through over the last fifty some years, and if they've improved each year significantly, imagine how poor they were fifty years ago. But the ultimate advertisement with respect to that is the one that says that now it brings your clothes out whiter than white.

First it was white, then it was snow white, then pure white, and now it's whiter than white. And I just wonder what white looks like that is whiter than white. But again, this is what the Scripture is saying, is that when God takes the stain out, the stain is totally removed.

There's not the slightest trace, there's not the slightest hint. You can see when I erased this blot on the blackboard, if you look closely, you can still see the path of the eraser. You can still see the hint of what remains of the problem that we had there before.

Until I really wash this whole blackboard, you can still see evidence of the blemish. But when God forgives a sin, and when God cleanses us from that sin, all traces of it are removed, and we are made as white as snow.

That's why David says, wash me thoroughly. Not just a quick once over, but wash me thoroughly, O God, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. So, again, I think it's significant that when there is real repentance, there is a desire here not only to receive the mercy of God, but with that mercy there is a desire and a plea for forgiveness.

That God not only is merciful, but what He does in His mercy is that He pardons us. He forgives us for the sin. But not only does He forgive us of that sin, but He cleanses our soul from the ongoing stain and blemish that the sin brings to us.

You know, I'll never forget my conversion. In fact, I was thinking about it yesterday. I was thinking about my experience of it and my memory of it, and I remembered being on my knees in my bedroom all by myself, and it was pitch dark in the room, and my knees were on that hard floor, and I sort of buried my head into the mattress of the bed and cried out to God for mercy and had this experience of being flooded with a sense of forgiveness.

And I just stayed there with my face on the thing, not saying anything, but knowing as I was on my knees that my sins were forgiven. And then I remember getting up from that posture and knowing that I was a Christian.

And it's incredible because I was thinking about this yesterday, and as I was thinking about it, I was thinking about how vivid in my mind was the memory. It was as if it had happened not just the night before, but like moments before.

So acute and intense was my recollection of it, and because it was the decisive moment of my entire life, and that my whole experience of conversion to Christianity was one that was rooted in repentance, but more importantly rooted in the experience of the reality of the divine pardon.

I mean, I knew when I got up off my knees that day that God had accepted me and that I was forgiven. And talk about a burden rolling off your back and being able to face the next day, because this is what David is saying here, which I'll take more time in our next lecture to expound, but he says in verse 3,.

Confession, Guilt, and the Haunting Memory of Sin

For I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is always before me. God is called at times the Hound of Heaven, and when the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, He won't let us forget it, because we try to repress it.

We try to bury it. We try to dodge the arrows of conscience that would assault our peace of mind. But David's sin was right in front of him. He says, it's ever before me. That's why I need to have it blotted out.

That's why I need to have it erased. I need to have it cleansed from my soul, because it's driving me crazy. I acknowledge my transgression. That's part of repentance, is acknowledging the reality of guilt, coming clean, as it were, with God.

God, I did it. I am guilty. And not only am I aware of my guilt, but I can't get rid of my guilt, because everywhere I turn, I see my sin in front of me. I can't look in a mirror without being reminded of my guilt and of my transgression against Thee.

So again, that's why David is pleading with God, not only to forgive him, but to blot it out, get rid of this haunting guilt that relentlessly assaults his soul. That's what happens when a person is really repentant.

When a person is truly repentant, they come to grips with the reality of their guilt, and they flee to the chesed, the loving kindness of God.