The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): David knew that real joy comes only from righteousness in the Lord. Today on The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, we're studying the second half of Psalm 51, where David is deeply aware of his sinfulness and unworthiness. Rather than hiding from his sin, David asks God to cleanse him and renew his spirit. He knows that the only answer to sin is true repentance.

Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. In Psalm 51, David cries out to God for forgiveness and renewal. He knows that there is nothing good within himself, and so he asks God to completely change his heart and perform a new work within his spirit. Turn to Psalm 51, verses 10 through 19, and let's hear about this work from Dr. Boice.

Dr. James Boice: We have to study the Psalms quite a bit differently than we study other parts of the Bible, if for no other reason that being poetry they don't have the kind of reasoned statements that we associate with the teaching literature of the Bible. I mean by that you don't have a statement followed by reasons for the statement, followed by deductions drawn from the statement, summaries, and you're missing a lot of those connective words that make it easy in some cases to follow the teaching literature, words like therefore, for, but, because, in summary, and so on. Psalms just don't have that.

But it doesn't mean that the Psalms don't have reasonable progression or that they don't flow naturally, and certainly Psalm 51 that we're studying has that kind of progression. We were talking about it last time when I gave you a six-part outline for the Psalm, not a hard outline to discern. It goes like this: First of all, there's an approach to God in which David the Psalmist is asking for forgiveness. You find that in verses 1 and 2. It follows the paragraph division in the New International Version.

Then there's a confession of sin. It's what the Psalm is chiefly about. You find that in verses 3 through 6. The third section is an appeal for cleansing. That's the word that leads off in verse 7. It goes through verse 9. Verses 10 through 12 are a fourth part to the Psalm, a desire for inward renewal, the creating of a pure heart and a steadfast spirit within.

The fifth part has to do with testimony on David's part, having been cleansed and renewed. He says in verses 13 through 17 that he's going to teach other people the kind of things that he has learned. And then at the very end, part six, you have a prayer on behalf of the city of Jerusalem for the prosperity of Zion. Now, that's a very discernible outline.

If you want to trace the flow of it, it begins quite obviously with God whom the Psalmist is addressing. It proceeds to himself and his sin. He asks forgiveness from that, and then having been forgiven and renewed, he begins to think about other people. So it's easy to see how the Psalm develops. We can handle it in other ways as well. It falls also into two parts. The first three sections of that outline that I gave are in part one; the last three sections are in part two.

And those two parts correspond to two great needs that David had. What was his first need? Well, his first need was for forgiveness. The reason for that is that he had sinned in the matter of his adultery with Bathsheba and then the murder of her husband Uriah, and he needed to be forgiven for that. He had done wrong. It was a dreadful thing.

He had to be assured that he had forgiveness with God so that the broken relationship that followed between himself and God as a result of the sin might be restored. How did that happen? Well, it happens by the sacrifices, by an innocent dying in place of the guilty. That's why when we were studying it, I emphasized verse 7 which says, cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean, wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

That's a reference which is veiled to many of us because we don't understand the way the sacrifices were handled in the Jewish temple, but it was certainly known to anybody who would read the Psalm in Old Testament times. A hyssop was a little plant used as a brush to sprinkle the sacrificial blood. And so when David is saying cleanse me with hyssop, he means sprinkle me with the blood of the sacrifice.

They did that with lepers, and David I suppose is saying that's what my sin is. I need that kind of cleansing. I need forgiveness and the only way it comes is by the death of the substitute. Now, we understand very clearly today that that pointed forward to Jesus Christ. The way we find forgiveness is in him. Now, the first nine verses of the Psalm deal with that. That's the climax.

But forgiveness isn't the only need that David had. He sinned because he was a sinner, and he's aware of it. You recall he acknowledged that in his confession. He said he was sinful from the time his mother conceived him. He's not saying that there's anything sinful about sex or that anything was wrong in what his mother did or his father did. He's simply saying from the very first moment of my existence, I'm a sinner, and that's why I sin.

You see, if that is true, then you need not only forgiveness for what you do, but you need a renewed nature so you won't keep on doing it. And David, who was well aware because of his sin just how sinful his nature was and how prone he was to one sin after another, now in the second half of this Psalm prays for a renewed spirit. That's what he's talking about when he says, create in me a pure heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Pardon and purity. That's what we need. And it's not only David who needs it; you and I need it as well. We need pardon from the sins that we have done and will do, and we need purity of heart so we'll stop doing them. Anyone who knows the grace of God in providing the pardon wants the purity as well, because we don't want to go on offending against a love so great that it has sent the Lord Jesus Christ to be our savior.

Now, in some ways this second half, especially the fourth section of the Psalm beginning with verse 10, is the most important and most perceptive section in which David specifically prays for inner cleansing. The reason for that, of course, is that it shows that his confession in the second part of the Psalm, first half, was genuine. You see, if David had merely said forgive me for what I did but he didn't care at all about cleansing, we'd say, well, what kind of a confession is that?

He's saying to himself, well, it's true I sinned, but you know, that's the way it is with human beings. We sin, and God forgives; it's his nature to forgive. And if David had only left it at that and said, well, I'll probably sin again but it's all right because God will forgive me again, we'll say, well, that wasn't much of a confession. He really didn't feel very sorry for the sin.

But you see, in the second part here when David is beginning to pray that God will change his nature, we recognize that the sin in which he had fallen was so dreadful and the experience of it was so bad, he determined in his heart that he never wanted to get into that mess again. And yet he knew perfectly well that he would do it unless God changed him and gave him a new nature, and so that's the thing for which he prays.

Now, I said when we were studying the first half of this that the Psalm falls into sections where you have a trinitarian parallel structure; that is, you have something said in a variety of ways three times over. We've already seen that about three times in the Psalm. You find exactly the same thing here in verses 10 through 12, and it is more or less reflected in those three verses.

David is praying for three things specifically: First, create a pure heart; secondly, sustain me, don't cast me away from your presence; and finally, number three, restore the joy of my salvation. Now, let's look at that first one: Create in me a pure heart. That is a startling request. We have to take time to think about that a little bit. And the reason it's so startling is that the word that begins the verse, the word create, is the Hebrew word bara, and strictly speaking, that's a word that's only used of God, because it refers to what theologians call creation ex nihilo, that is, creation out of nothing, and God's the only one that can do that.

There's a sense in which you and I can create. We're made in the image of God, and one thing that means is that we can be creative as God is creative. But we never create out of nothing. We always create out of existing materials. If we're a sculptor, we take the stone and we chisel it to make our sculpture. And if we're painters, we take the canvas and the paints and we look at what's there and we paint our picture.

And even if our creation is in the realm of ideas, that is, if we're a writer or a poet of some sort, well, we do it with pre-existing thought forms and ideas that come to us partially from our minds, the way God has made us, and also from the culture in which we live and the experiences that we have had. None of us ever, though we create, create ex nihilo, and yet God does that.

We see that in the first chapter of Genesis. There are a number of words that are used for God's creative activity in that chapter, and it's reflected in the translation. But at three times in that chapter, at significant moments in the creative process, you have that word bara. The first is in verse 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He created it out of nothing.

And then secondly, when God created conscious life in animals, you have the word bara. And then finally, when God created man in his own image, you have the word bara again. I think that corresponds to three levels of creation: matter in the first level out of nothing, and then you have conscious life, the animals, and then finally you have life with God consciousness. In every case, the Hebrew word bara is used.

Now, that is the word that David uses here. Why is that significant? It's because he's saying what I need is what only God can do. If I could give myself a new heart, I would do it. But I can't do it. I need God to do it for me. Derek Kidner, one of the good commentators on the Psalms in that little book that he prepared for InterVarsity, says with the word create he asks for nothing less than a miracle. He desires what only God can provide.

And then there's this too: If that word really does mean to create ex nihilo out of nothing, what David is saying is that when God creates this new life within him, what he calls a pure heart or a steadfast spirit, he recognizes that God's going to have to do it without using anything to be found in David himself. In other words, he's not saying God make me over, polish me up a little bit, get rid of some of those rough edges that have got me into trouble.

He's saying, look, if you work with anything that's already in me, what's in me is going to contaminate what you do, just like deadly germs will contaminate drinking water. You don't have to have a whole lot of deadly germs, and you can have a whole lot of drinking water, and the water can be pure, but if you put the germs in them, it contaminates the whole. And David is saying that's what will happen if you do anything in me. So what I need is a new nature created from above.

And the wonderful thing, of course, is that that is exactly what God does. He promised to do it in the Old Testament times, and he does it by the power of his Holy Spirit. Want to hear the way Ezekiel talks about it? Ezekiel is quoting God as giving this great promise, Ezekiel 36, it's verse 25 and following: I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. That corresponds to what David was praying for earlier when he asked to be cleansed by hyssop.

Then this: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. What a great truth and promise that is. It's a promise to which we cling as Christians because if God has caused us to be born again by the power of his Holy Spirit, that is exactly what he's done; he's given us a new nature that aspires to holiness.

If we're not aspiring to holiness, we don't have it. And if we do have the new nature within, that's what we're doing, and it's a wonderful thing. It is that which will keep us from sin. The second thing he prays for in this section that deals with the creation of a new heart is that God will not cast him away. You see, what he's thinking of here is this: even if God should recreate him, well, it would be possible, he thinks, that he might nevertheless fall into sin.

And so he says that he wants God to sustain him and to keep him and never cast him away from his presence. You'll notice here in these verses that that idea of a sustaining work of God is repeated in a variety of ways. You find it in verse 10, a steadfast spirit; you find it in verse 12, a willing spirit to sustain me; and then especially you find it in verse 11 in the negative: Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Now, that verse 11 has been a problem with commentators. There's no question where it comes from. David's predecessor as King of Israel was King Saul. And Saul had the blessing of God, and because he disobeyed God in a story that's told in 1 Samuel 16, the blessing of God was removed. Certainly David is remembering that. He lived through that; he understood that God had removed his blessing from his predecessor, and he doesn't want that to happen to him, even though he's sinned. He's thinking that it would be a possibility. Don't let that happen, he says.

But the question that that has provoked in the minds of commentators is this: When David prayed for God not to take his Holy Spirit from him, did that mean that he was praying that God would not take away eternal life? In other words, he had been born again but now was he going to lose his new birth and somehow was he going to perish? Is he thinking here in terms of eternal security and the possible loss of it? Or is he merely reflecting to God's favor and blessing? But if he's only reflecting to God's favor and blessing, then why does he speak about removing the Holy Spirit?

That's the question that's troubled commentators. I'm going to tell you how they deal with them. I don't think the problem's all that difficult, but here's the way it's been handled. John Calvin believed in eternal security. That will come as no surprise to Calvinists. So when he came to this verse, here's the way he handled it. He argued that David's prayer to God that he not take away his Holy Spirit was proof that God had not taken it away.

You don't say don't take it away if God has already taken it away. You have the Holy Spirit, so you pray don't take it away. He concludes from that that this teaches the doctrine of eternal security because David had sinned greatly in the matter of adultery and murder and yet God had not taken the Holy Spirit away from David. So therefore the conclusion would be that when David prayed, don't take your Holy Spirit from me, it was understandable that he prayed that way, but he didn't need to because God would certainly not do it.

Now, here's the way Calvin actually says it: It's natural that the saints when they have fallen into sin and have thus done what they could to expel the grace of God should feel an anxiety upon this point. In other words, he well understands how David would pray that way. But he says it is their duty to hold fast the truth that grace is the incorruptible seed of God which can never perish in any heart where it has been deposited.

So as I say, the bottom line of that is that David didn't have to pray the way he did. It's understandable, but he didn't have to do it. Now, the second approach to this is by the fundamentalists of a few years ago, most of whom were greatly influenced by dispensational thinking that makes a big distinction between the dispensations and particularly between the Old Testament and the New Testament. They argued that where the Holy Spirit is concerned, you have a different kind of operation of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament than you do in the New.

In the Old Testament time, it was said according to this teaching, the Holy Spirit would come upon a person but didn't dwell within a person. And now in the New Testament period, since Pentecost, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. The Holy Spirit comes upon you, the Holy Spirit can be taken from you; but if the Holy Spirit is within you, the Holy Spirit is there to stay. Now, here's somebody who writes that way. Arno C. Gaebelein was one of the editors of the famous Scofield Reference Bible.

He's saying in other words that David prayed rightly, but none of us would ever have to pray that way. The prayer of the 11th verse needs not to be prayed by the saint in the New Testament, for he is accepted in the beloved one. He's saved and safe in him. He may grieve the Holy Spirit, but he is nevertheless the abiding Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed unto the day of redemption. What that means, if I understand it correctly, is that the Old Testament saints could lose their salvation but the New Testament saints cannot.

Now, I think that's wrong for a variety of reasons. But at any rate, that's the second way this has been approached. Now, today I think most commentators probably of a variety of schools would recognize that in this verse David isn't talking about eternal security at all. He's not talking about the fear of losing his salvation. He's not afraid of that. He's praying to God. He knows that he has forgiveness through the shed blood. What he's worried is that he's going to be unable to live a holy life without God.

He needs God's help if he's going to do that, and he says don't take that help away from me. I need the power of your Holy Spirit working in me day by day and moment by moment if I'm going to live a holy life. Now, what I would say is that that's no different from you and me. We don't lose our salvation when we fall into sin. We don't fall from grace into a state of condemnation; we fall into grace when we sin. We find God gracious.

But nevertheless, we know that if we're going to continue in righteousness, it's going to have to be by the power of the Holy Spirit, and for that reason we have to stay close to God. You see, different ways of talking about it perhaps in the Old Testament and in the New, but nevertheless the same thing because the experience of the people of God with God has always been the same. Perowne, whom I've often quoted, explains it like this: He says this is the cry of one who knows as he never knew before the weakness of his own nature and the strength of temptation and the need of divine help.

So that's the second thing for which David prays. The third thing is this: He says in verse 12, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Now, it's important to note that he's not praying for God to restore his salvation. He hasn't lost his salvation. He's not talking about that at all. He's talking about the joy of his salvation. He lost that when he fell into sin, and you and I certainly will lose it as well when we fall into sin. His fellowship with God was broken and ours will be as well.

But he says I want that joy back, and so I want you to sustain me in this right relationship, obeying your law, living in righteousness, in order that the joy of your salvation, what you have given to me, might be full. I suppose there are few things in this Psalm that are more relevant to people today than that. Here in our day, we have people who suppose that the way to have a good time and use the word joy, the way to be joyful, is to sin, because according to television and the books we read and the magazines that come into our houses, it's the sinning people who have fun.

And we look at those who are godly and we say, well, what kind of fun is there in that? Of course it's significant that we use the word fun rather than the word joy, but nevertheless that's the way we're thinking. Now, exactly the opposite is the case. Real joy comes from righteousness. It comes from being like God, and the closer we are to God and the more righteous we live, the more godly our lives are, the more true joy we're going to have regardless of outward circumstances.

By contrast, if we choose the way of sin, sin if it's allowed to continue is going to remove every joy from our lives. Sin will take away joy and health and wealth and at last it will even take away life itself. Many people have found that to their great sorrow and their loss. What'll restore these things? Only righteousness, nothing else. One commentator writing about this says wisely, the fact that the Psalmist prays for so many things in these verses indicates how many things he knew he had lost when he plunged into sin.

And yet there are other lessons. We've looked at four parts of this six-part outline. Parts five and six now move from David's own personal experience of forgiveness and cleansing and renewal to his relationship to other people. What he says in section five is that he wants to be able to testify to the ways of God and his righteousness, and what he says in the final section is that he's concerned about the city of Jerusalem in which he lives and for which in a large measure he's responsible.

In other words, he's saying he knows he has a duty to those about him. I pointed out in our study of the first half of this Psalm that the 32nd Psalm, which is the first of the penitential Psalms in the Psalter, is probably a fulfillment of the vow that he takes in verse 13 here. What he says in verse 13 is, then, that is when God restores the joy of his salvation, then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will turn back to you. Psalm 32 is less intense than this one; it seems to have been written later, and it probably is the fulfillment of that vow.

Now, let's ask this question. What he says he's going to teach them here is the ways of God, verse 13, and later he's going to sing of God's righteousness. What do those words mean? Well, usually in the Bible, when you read about the ways of God, it means the ways that we are to live that are set down in the law of God. So to walk in the Lord's way is to walk in righteousness; it's to obey the Ten Commandments and the other laws.

And usually when we come across the word righteousness, it's an attribute of God, it's a characteristic of him; it has to do with his holiness. Now, I want to suggest that's probably not what the words mean here because in the context, what the word way or ways of God should mean is the ways of God with sinners. David had experienced that. What are the ways of God with sinners? Well, when sinners are sinning, the ways of God are such that he lays a heavy hand upon them because he doesn't allow us to continue in joy in our sin. Sin has its consequences, and God guarantees that, especially for his people.

And then when we come by his grace to the point of confessing the sin and finding forgiveness through the work of Christ and renewal within, then we discover that the way he does that is by Jesus Christ and by the power of God creating in us that which we cannot do ourselves. Those are the ways of God with sinners. I think that's what David is talking about here. He certainly does that in the Psalm itself, and he does it even more so in Psalm 32, which I mentioned a moment ago. There he describes what it was like when he was far from God. He said your hand was heavy upon me day and night and my bones waxed old with my groaning. It was a miserable experience.

But he said I found forgiveness and these are the words that the Apostle Paul chooses out of all the things that David wrote, all of the various Psalms that David wrote, all the wonderful expressions. When he came to the book of Romans to explain that David understood the way of salvation which is justification through faith, and so he quotes Psalm 32:1 and 2: Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Those are the ways of God with sinners, and that's what gospel preaching is all about. That's why any real sermon that focuses anywhere at all upon the heart of what God is teaching in the Bible always has something to say about that. The ways of God with sinners are these: that he forgives us when we come to him through Jesus Christ; he's made the way of salvation through what Jesus Christ has done. That's why even when we're talking about sin, if we talk about it in the right way, it's a joyful message because the gospel by very definition is good news.

You say, well then, what about the word righteousness? Does that refer to the righteousness of God as he is in himself, his characteristic? Well, in part perhaps. But I think probably in this context it also has to do with salvation, that is his righteous act in justifying the ungodly through the work of Jesus Christ. You see, it's a way of saying that when God saves a person, he does it righteously. He doesn't just overlook the sin as if he doesn't care about it and although he is the just God of the universe, he just doesn't bother to judge it. Oh no, he judges it, but he judges it in Jesus Christ so justice is done.

That incidentally is exactly what John says in his first letter, 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You see, it's exactly the same doctrine. Faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That word just in Greek is exactly the same root word as the word righteousness, although we translate it differently. So we could say translating it this way: If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Why is he just? Because he does it on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. Why is he faithful? Because he's faithful to his promises that if you come confessing your sin, that's exactly what he'll do. Isn't that a marvelous message? You don't have to worry when you come to God if you come through Jesus Christ. You don't have to say to yourself, perhaps he will receive me, maybe he will receive me, I hope he will receive me. He says he will receive you if you come through Christ. How can he turn aside the work of his son, the perfect son of God?

David had understood that; he came to see it in fresh ways through his sin and now he says that's what I want to make known to other people. He also says here that he wants to praise God for it. He wants to sing and declare the praise of God for such a glorious thing. In other words, he's not just going to talk about this in a kind of passive way. He's going to proclaim it wholeheartedly and with joy because there's no greater thing in the world.

He does say here that he knows God doesn't delight in sacrifice. Does that mean he's contradicting himself, that earlier in verse 7 he was cleansed on the basis of sacrifice? Here he says God doesn't need a sacrifice; later on when it talks about Zion, it's going to talk about people doing sacrifices in the city. Is that what he's saying? No, he's not saying that at all. He's not saying that there's no value in the sacrifices.

He's simply saying the sacrifices have no value if they don't proceed from a renewed heart. The rites and rituals of religion don't save anybody. What saves is the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. And one who has come to God that way can offer up all kinds of sacrifices, above all sacrifices of praise, which is what David wants to do.

Well, the very last section talks about Zion. A number of the commentators have found this to be a problem. They say look, this means that David couldn't have written it, and if he didn't write those verses, then maybe he didn't even write the Psalm. The argument is that the walls were not down in David's day; it must refer to a time after the exile when the Jews were concerned about the broken-down walls of Jerusalem and wanted to build them up. Well, that's a possibility, of course. It's possible that these last verses were put on later to give a liturgical cast to something that David had written earlier, but it's not necessary to think that way.

What about the walls? David could have been thinking about them in two ways. The walls were symbols of protection, so he can be speaking metaphorically. He can be acknowledging that his sin greatly damaged the stability of the city and that because of his sin, the city would be in great danger. He wants God to build up those moral walls again. It could be he's talking that way. It could also mean that he's thinking literally about the walls because we read in 1 Kings that they were not completed entirely until the time of Solomon, 1 Kings 3:1.

It says in that verse that the walls, buildings, and temple were not completed until Solomon's days. And if that's the case, what David is saying is this: We're in the midst of a great work here; we're building up the walls of Jerusalem, we're establishing it as the city of God. I recognize that my sin is a flaw in that and might actually hinder that work and cause it to be forgotten or laid aside. I don't want that to happen.

Now, you see, his last prayer is that his sin might not hinder what God is doing. You and I need to be very sensitive to that. We sometimes hear today, well, it's all right if I do it as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. Listen, if it's sin, it always hurts somebody, somebody else, sometimes many people and undoubtedly more people than we ever imagine. Sin does hurt, but righteousness helps.

Those who confess their sin will find forgiveness and renewal. They'll be able to teach others the ways of God and where that is done, the blessing of God will follow upon an individual life, a home, a church, a community, or a nation. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this great Psalm, one of the most profound pieces of literature concerning the relationship of an individual to yourself that has ever been written in all the long history of the world, that recognizes our sin and the need not only for forgiveness and cleansing but also for renewal in order that as redeemed and renewed people we might be witnesses to your ways and to your grace and help other people. Our Father, grant that we might do that. We thank you for the opportunities we have to do it here. Bless our efforts, and above all, give us holy lives, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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