Psalm 51 with R. C. Sproul, “A Contrite Repentance”, 7

Psalm 51, David’s Guilt of Bloodshed, and the Need for Contrite Repentance

As we continue now with our study in repentance in Psalm 51, I have to remind you that we're airing these programs as part of Renewing Your Mind on our radio broadcast, but also at the same time we are videotaping this series for use in churches and in private homes.

And those of you who are watching on video maybe are able to discern that something's different today. In fact, the studio audience wondered if R .C. didn't make it today, and they said he sounds like R .C., he walks like R .C., he gestures like R .C., but he certainly doesn't look like R .C.

And so R .C. asked me to come today and explain something about this to you. The last time I changed my hairdo, I created a small crisis in Christendom and it made me existentially aware of how people respond, not so much to what you say, but how you wear your hair or what tie you have on.

So let's get that behind us before we continue. For those of you who are listening on radio and wondering what this is all about, I got my haircut, changed my hairstyle, and when I walked into the studio this morning, I was subjected to derision and mockery from all my friends.

And those that are watching it on TV, let me ask you, please, don't write me any letters about this, just if you want to enjoy it, enjoy it on your own. But let's now turn our attention to more serious matters to the content of Psalm 51 as we've been examining it.

Deliver Me from the Guilt of Bloodshed

Today we pick it up at verse 14 where David says to the Lord in prayer, Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. David is repenting here, not only for his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, but also for the contrived conspiracy he entered into with his general Joab to place Bathsheba's husband Uriah at the front line of battle to ensure Uriah's death that David may possess Bathsheba for himself.

And so he is here expressing his guilt of bloodshed. Just yesterday I happened to be flipping through the TV channels, and there I saw to my amazement a rerun of a film that's almost 50 years old starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward, which was called David and Bathsheba.

And I only saw a small segment of the film, but the segment focused on David's meeting with Uriah and Uriah's expression of loyalty to David and David's complex machinations to make sure that Uriah was placed at the front and killed.

And after having accomplished this, now David says, O God, deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. Here, David promises to use his voice, which is obviously accomplished as he was a musician, to praise the mercy and the love of God, and to praise God for being the God of his salvation and the God who would deliver him from his guilt.

And then he says, O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise. And in this series he speaks about his tongue, his lips, and his mouth. And so often we see that point of focus in the biblical concern for sin.

As I've already mentioned, when Isaiah beheld the glory of God in the temple, he cried out in his own dismay, Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips. We look at Romans chapter 3 where the Apostle Paul speaks about the nature of our human corruption.

He talks about our lips and our tongue and our throats and our mouths and how the poison of asps, deadly poison of poisonous snakes, is under our lips. James devotes almost an entire chapter in his epistle to talk about the power of the tongue to wreak havoc with its destructive capacity by way we use our tongue to violate other people with our lies, with our slanders, with our gossiping, and so on.

And so David here is asking that God will cure his mouth so that in his expression and experience of forgiveness he will be able to use that organ to sing aloud the joy of his salvation. And he said, Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise.

And he's asking God to open his lips. Give me the possibility to speak and my speech and my song will be about your greatness. And then he goes on to say, For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it.

You do not delight in burnt offering, but the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Now, notice that here David makes a direct reference to the provision for guilt and atonement and forgiveness that is established in the old covenant ceremonies, where on the day of atonement the animal was slain and placed upon the altar after the sins of the people were transferred to it by imputation.

And the whole ritual in the Old Testament was designed to offer a sacrifice to God to satisfy the wrath of God and the justice of God. And this is what every penitent person runs up against is the justice of God.

Remember I said earlier that David's most revealing comment was when he acknowledges that God in His righteousness has every right to judge him. And when we become acutely aware of our sin before God, our problem is His righteousness.

And how can the demands of His law, how can the demand of His righteousness, His justice be satisfied? And we remember that when the church articulates her doctrine of the atonement of Christ, that that doctrine of atonement is articulated in terms of two critical concepts, substitution and satisfaction, that the justice or the righteousness of God is satisfied by our substitute who offers himself as a sacrifice once and for all before God.

And on the cross Christ, our High Priest, is lifting Himself up, He's offering Himself before the Father just as the priests in the Old Testament offered the animals on the altar of sacrifice. And the point that is made by the author of Hebrews in the New Testament is that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.

That the blood offerings that were given in the Old Testament on the altar of sacrifice were given to satisfy the demands of God's justice, but they in themselves were completely impotent to do the job.

The significance of those animal sacrifices and of that ceremony that was elaborately worked through in the Old Testament was to be a sign or a shadow, a type of that which would come in the future when the meritorious perfect sacrifice would be offered by the great High Priest that didn't have to be repeated year after year after year, but was offered once and for all.

And so David already understands that there's no inherent power in those sacrifices in the Old Testament. And he realizes that what God wants from the soul of a person who is humbling themselves before Him and who is genuinely repentant is not the blood sacrifice of an animal.

And so he says, thou desirest not sacrifices or else I would give it. I would offer whatever sacrifice you wanted right now, God. But I understand that that can't do it. Any sacrifice that I offer, any animal that I put forth cannot pay for my crime against you.

Now again, David is not disparaging the significance of the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. He's looking beyond it to the full meaning of it that will not come until David's greater son who actually is the one who makes it possible for David to be forgiven in the first place, his son who is also his Lord.

But he said, you do not delight in burnt offering, but the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, these, O God, you will not despise. In other words, the only sacrifice that David has to offer to God at this time is his broken spirit, his contrite heart.

Attrition and Contrition

Now one of the most important things that we need to learn about repentance is the nature of true repentance as distinguished from false or inauthentic forms of repentance. And the distinction we make in theology is the distinction between attrition and contrition.

If we want to look at attrition, we could look at an example found in the Old Testament of Esau who sold his birthright to his brother Jacob because he was hungry. For a bowl of porridge, or a mess of pottage it's called, he gives up his entire birthright to his brother.

And after he had consumed this foodstuff and his belly was satisfied and he realized the severity of the price he had paid to gain this soup, then he was sorry that he had done it. And he, according to the book of Hebrews, repented with many tears.

But the repentance of Esau is seen as attrition, not contrition. And here's what attrition is. It is a repentance motivated by either a fear of punishment or a subsequent loss due to the consequences of the action.

It's not a genuine remorse because somebody has done something evil or has offended another person or supremely having offended God. But rather it's a sorrow motivated by some kind of personal loss. Attrition is the kind of repentance that you see in little children when you catch them with their hands in the cookie jar.

And they look at you and they say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't spank me. That their sorrow is not motivated by a stricken conscience. But it is motivated by that fear of punishment.

And there are those who would repent to seek a ticket out of hell itself if they could, but again have no sincerity of heart of having offended God. And the other alternative is the type, as I mentioned, of Esau who repents because he's lost something that he didn't want to lose.

We're sorry if we, because of our actions we lose our job or we lose possessions or we lose our status in the community, and we're sorry that we were caught. We're sorry that we have to face the consequences of our sin.

That is attrition. But contrition comes out of a genuine sorrow for having offended God, for having done what we know is sinful. And that is what David says that he is experiencing. God, my heart is broken.

My spirit has been smashed because you have awakened me to the dreadful reality of my sin. We see throughout the Scriptures when people are broken by an encounter with God that there is an experience of humility that is genuine.

Love, Pride, and the Spirit of Narcissism

I mentioned that I've been in the process of writing a book on the love of God and as I've been working through 1 Corinthians 13, for example, I noted that one of the phrases in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul describes what love is and what it isn't, he says that love does not parade itself and is not puffed up.

And I immediately thought of the arrogance and the pride of the Pharisees who paraded themselves and their status in front of the people. They loved the front seats in the synagogue, and they displayed the phylacteries of their garments to show their elegance before the people.

And I thought of the expression that we have in English, proud as a peacock, because we see the peacock, the male peacock with its beautiful tail feathers, spreading out the tail feathers, fanning them out in display, and then beginning to strut around the barnyard so that everybody can see the beauty.

I like to go into the woods during the spring turkey season because there are few sights that you will see in nature that can compare to the male turkey during the mating season. That the male turkey, when he is trying to lure the hen to himself, he goes into this elaborate ceremony or ritual, a mating ritual, where the first thing he does is spread out, fan out his tail feathers, and then he literally puffs himself up.

So that his chest gets real big, and then he goes into his dance where he prances. To see that in the woods is unbelievable because it's a rare thing that human beings get to see, but I wonder if that's what Paul has in mind when he speaks of those who are vaunted in their pride and are puffed up.

It is just the extreme opposite to the experience that people have when they encounter the holiness of God. We see again Job. When God speaks to Job, just as David is saying here, Job says, Behold, I am vile, and I repent in dust and ashes, and I will place my hand upon my mouth and speak no more against thee.

Or other saints of the Old Testament will say, I am a worm and no man. Now that flies in the face of the whole mentality of narcissism that characterizes the culture in which we live, where we believe that self-esteem is one of the most important ingredients that people can have, and God forbid that we should ever make people feel guilty for their wickedness and take from them their vaunted self-esteem.

Now, I believe that the dignity of human beings is important, and that there is a place that we should be protective of the fragile confidence of human beings and not crush people's spirits. I certainly believe in that, but we can't go so far with this concern for self-esteem that we create people who are hardened to being broken by the spirit of holiness that drives us to our knees, just as David experiences here when he experiences contrition, where he says, Behold, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken spirit and broken and contrite heart, these, O God, you will not despise.

God's face is against the proud, but He hears the cry of the humble. God has never despised a person who comes before Him in contrition with a broken heart, whose heart is broken because of an awareness of one's sinfulness.

When Jesus gives the Beatitudes in the New Testament, He says in one of the Gospels, the very first Beatitude, our blessed are the poor in spirit, and then blessed are those who mourn. And the idea that is communicated there that the poor in spirit are those who have been brought low, those who are humble, those who approach God in the same spirit that David is speaking about here, and who are mourning not simply for the loss of loved ones to death, but they are mourning their sin.

Again, it was customary for the people in the Old Testament to wear, to rend their garments and to put on sackcloth and ashes. If we saw somebody doing that today, we would send the little guys in the white coats in the paddy wagon to pick them up because we would say that's so extreme.

But this is the reaction of the outward reaction to what the inward wrenching of the soul is that these people are experiencing in their encounter with God. And the point that David understands is, God, You will never despise that spirit, so that anybody who comes before God in the spirit of penance, in the spirit of contrition, has no fear of being cast away from His presence.

Zion, Jerusalem, and the Joy of Forgiveness

And finally, David ends the psalm with these words, Do good in your good pleasure to Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem. So now David is saying, Don't punish the nation and the holy city because of me.

You have made me king over Israel, and because of my sin the whole land mourns. But, O God, please do good in your good pleasure to Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering, and then they shall offer bulls upon your altar.

And here the psalm ends, but we have one more session left, and even though we are finishing Psalm 51 today, in our next session we're going to look at Psalm 32, where David pens what I believe is the sequel to this psalm, his expression of the joy of forgiveness.