#2 Psalm 51 - Transgressions, Iniquities and Sins

Dr. Ron Sumners

June 28, 2009

Psalm 51:1-5

Hindsight is always 20/20, or as Pat Dye would say, “Hindsight is 50/50.” We look back at our sins and failures and beat ourselves up over minor and major failures. We torture ourselves with regret, remorse and self-punishment. We agonize over what could have been and what should have been.

Blame, guilt and sorrow hang over the aftermath of our moral failures and collapses. They are the natural companions of sin-provoked tragedy.

No doubt, David dealt with all that and more in the aftermath of his moral earthquake. But instead of wallowing in his grief, he sought relief in the mercy of the Lord.

The record of his recovery process is a great example for us. For all of us who have to make this journey through a fallen world, it is a tremendous encouragement. It enables us to get past the second-guessing, the brow-beating, and the soul-searching. It enables us to see past the ruin and the rubble we have made and get on with life with a renewed commitment to God. 

Psalm 51 offers a glimpse of David’s repentance and recovery. This psalm gives voice to our deepest longings for forgiveness and rest – whether we are alone in our prayer closet or with the congregation of the Lord.

The psalm was written after Nathan came to David and confronted him with his sin. Nathan’s message had awakened David’s hardened heart and made him see the greatness of his guilt. As a result, the man after God’s own heart returned to his long-forgotten harp and poured out this song.

David speaks specifically about three slights he had committed against the integrity of the Lord: transgressions, iniquities, and sins. He clearly differentiates between the three violations. Then he asks God to deal with those breaches in ways appropriate to each; to blot out transgressions, to wash his iniquities, and to cleanse his sins.

Psalm 51 is an example of the prayer for forgiveness. It has always been recognized as just that. Countless people through the ages have used this Psalm to offer their prayer asking forgiveness of the Lord. It expresses the universal cry for mercy in the midst of the calamity of a moral failure.

It contains a message that is both forthright and obvious; any one, no matter the severity of the sin, can come to God in true contrition, a broken spirit and heart intent on repentance and he will be heard.

David begins his journey of recovery and repentance with a heartfelt confession of sin. He appeals to the mercy of God.

Isaiah said, “The Lord’s hand is not too short that it cannot save; neither His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God…so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2, NASB)

Often, we rush into prayer with things in our heart and life that we haven’t asked God to blot out or cleanse away, and then wonder why we can’t get the ear of God; why we can’t live a victorious Christian life. 

At 6:30 every Monday morning a group of men meet here at the church for a time of prayer. I would love to see more of you here with us. The first thing we do before we petition God with anything is to ask forgiveness and that God cleanse us from our sin. Each of us, in turn, asks for God’s forgiveness.

This is the way that David begins his prayer. He recognizes that his rebellion has separated him from the Lord. He appeals for an audience before God with this plea, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1, NIV)

He didn’t appeal to God on the basis of judgment, and he certainly didn’t come on the basis of merit. He did not come to God and say, “Look at all the wonderful things I have done in the past for your sake. Let me put all those good deeds on one side of the scale and compare them to my sin. I think my goodness outweighs my sin!”

It is a dangerous thing to move off the ground of grace. God does not grade on the curve. He does not rule His kingdom by percentages and comparisons. The fact is none of us deserve anything from Him – except judgment. We are able to approach Him solely and completely because of His mercy. David appeals to the God of “unfailing love” and of “great compassion.” There is no pretense or implication of David getting what he deserves.

David initiates his prayer with a full recognition of the fact that he does not deserve forgiveness – not in the least. So, he can only appeal for mercy. There is no other ground for negotiation. Mercy is not getting what we deserve! Mercy is not getting what is fair. Mercy is altogether the gracious gift of our long-suffering, sovereign God.

David prays, “Blot out my transgressions.” The word “transgressions” appears almost a hundred times in the Old Testament. It literally means “to rebel, to revolt, or to cross over the line.” It describes a gross violation of the law, not merely a slight omission or a piddling mistake. It describes a spirit of defiant disobedience to authority; transgressions are flagrant, deliberate, premeditated breaches of a clear standard. It is not simple irresponsibility; it is rebellion!

David admits that his sin was indeed a transgression. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. David deliberately set his face against the clearly revealed will of God. He sinned. He rebelled. He knew precisely what he was doing the whole time he was doing it, and he admits it.

On that basis – without even a hint of hedging, justifying, or conditioning – David asks God to blot out those awful transgressions. The Hebrew word for “blot out” literally means, “To wipe away utterly or to completely erase.” It was used by Moses when he appealed to God for the nation of Israel. He said, “Please forgive their sin – but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written” (Exodus 32:32, NIV) Later it was used to describe a man who wipes a dish on one side and then turns it over and wipes it again (2 Kings 21:13)

All of us know firsthand the agonizing experience of stepping over the line. Each of us has deliberately, self-consciously, purposefully rebelled against God. We have no excuses. We cannot justify our actions in any way. We are left entirely to the mercy of God. And what does God do when we ask for His mercy? God blots out our transgressions. He erases them from the ledger altogether. He wipes the slate clean. It is as if they never occurred.

Having dealt with his transgressions, David now focuses on a different aspect of his sin. Not only had he stepped over the line and transgressed, he had also defiled and soiled himself with iniquity. So, he prayed, “Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:2, NIV).

In the original Hebrew text, the word translated “iniquity” literally means “to bend, twist to distort.” David confesses that he has not only transgressed the perfect standards of God, he has twisted and distorted his calling and destiny in life. He has gone by the wayside. He has perverted and polluted his purpose in life. Though all the damage cannot be undone, and all his squandered benefits cannot be fully reinstated, he knows that something has to be done.

So, David asks God to wash him thoroughly. The Hebrew “wash” is almost always used to describe the cleaning of clothes or the removal of stains. David asks God to wash him like a dirty shirt. Remember that the means of washing a garment in that time was to pound it on a rock! David was dead serious about becoming clean. He said in essence, “Wash me Lord, and pound me on the rocks until I am clean!”

David moves from transgression to iniquities to sins. Not only had he stepped over the line and transgressed, not only had he defiled and twisted his calling and purpose with iniquity, but he had fallen short of the mark. He had sinned! David said, “Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from sin” (Psalm 51:2).

The word that David chooses to express the idea of “sin” is used almost three hundred times in the Old Testament. The first mention of it is in the story of Cain and Abel. There we read, “If you do not do well, sin lies at the door” (Genesis 4:7). This Hebrew word is much like the New Testament equivalent, harmatia, which means “missing the mark.” It illustrates an arrow that misses the bull’s eye. David admits that he has missed the mark of the calling of God!

Notice that his transgressions were plural – all the times that he had stepped across the line. But all of his transgressions had a common root which is called, sin. We are born into sin and the disease manifests itself in sinful acts and behavior.

David takes full blame for his transgressions, iniquities, and sins. He calls them my transgressions, my iniquities, and my sins. There is no one to blame except himself. There is no psychoanalysis, no probing into his past; no discussion of all the pressure he had been under all his life. Saul had once thrown a javelin at him! David refuses to play the blame game. He knows that it wasn’t the devil that made him do it. It was not his circumstances. He knows that the responsibility is all his and he accepts it. 

Obviously, this reality is inescapable for David. He says, “My sin is always before me” (Psalm 51:3). David acknowledges that he had crossed the line that God had drawn. He states, “Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:4).

It is tragic how so few people really get to this place. Some of us do a pretty good job of acknowledging sin – as long as it is not our own sin that we are acknowledging! It is easy to confess the sins of others, and we are good at acknowledging the sins of the church. We are certainly opinionated and acknowledge the sins of our nation. Yet, many of us have trouble saying, “I am the one. I did it. I am guilty.”

One of the most debilitating things about unconfused sin is that it hounds us. David had lived nearly a year with his sin hounding him. He must have spent every day looking over his shoulder, wondering if he was going to be found out, telling one lie to cover another. His sin had come to dominate every waking moment. 

When confession finally came it was a dam burst as he cried, “Against you God, and You only that I have sinned.” We might say that David had sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, the people of Israel and even the innocent baby that died. While that is certainly true; his first confession was to God because it was God’s law that he had transgressed.

David realized that what he did was an assault on God’s integrity. The thought that haunted him most was that his sin was an affront to God. He certainly had sinned against many people, but most of all, he had sinned against God, because he had violated God’s standards.

This is the real tragedy of transgression. This is the great tragedy of twisting the truth, of going the crooked way, and of missing the mark. Our sin breaks our fellowship with God.

Did you realize, young people, that when you talk back to your parents or defy authority, it is a sin against God? Business men, do you realize that when you enter false information on your IRS form, it is a sin? You have not only cheated the United States Government; you have sinned against God!

Like the prodigal son in the Book of Luke, David confesses, “I have sinned against heaven, and before Thee, and am no longer worthy to be called thy son” (Luke 15:18-19). Nevertheless, he repented; and like the prodigal son, he was able to return home – not as a servant or a second-class citizen, He was able to return as an honored son.

That is the way that God takes us back. We don’t have to live being hounded and haunted by our transgressions. We can go home – and there find forgiveness and rest.

David was genuinely sorrowful. He was grieved over his transgressions, iniquities and sins. He did not try to justify them. He was not just sorry that he had been caught; he was sorry for what he had done against God.

What about you? I don’t know about the sin in your life. I do know about mine and I know that there is a need to repent every day. So, do you! We are all sinners, saved only by the grace of God. Isaiah tells us, “We all, like sheep have gone astray, each have gone his own way; and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

Jesus has born the penalty for your sin on Calvary’s cross. If there is unconfessed sin in your life, today is the moment to confess it and have it covered by the blood of Jesus! David confessed to God and his relationship to his creator was restored.