David writes Psalm 51 after he sinned with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, Uriah. One of the verses we like to quote is verse 10, where David pleads with God to create in him a clean heart. We can identify with this desire because we all want to rid ourselves of the guilt and soil of sin. We know we do not have the power within us to make our hearts clean, but the blood of Jesus can wash us whiter than snow.
But in verse 4, David makes a bold proclamation concerning his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband when he speaks this to God:
“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” (Psalm 51:4 ESV).
To many, this declaration seems clinical and perhaps even inaccurate. Was it really only against God whom David sinned when he committed these acts of adultery and murder?
Well, he certainly did sin against God. The sixth commandment says,
“You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13 ESV).
And the seventh commandment says,
“You shall not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14 ESV).
Even the tenth commandment, with all that we are not to covet, says,
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17 ESV).
And if you really wanted to get into the law, he probably violated a few other commandments in this act as well. Trying to cover up one sin led him down the spiral path of sinning to cover up other sins. Have we ever found ourselves there before? Perhaps not with murder, but lying, stealing, falsely accusing, etc… just to try to hide the sins we commit?
This is where David found himself. But was it really against God, and God alone whom he sinned? Let’s look at what the prophet tells us.
We know the story. During the season of war, David stayed home while his army, including Uriah, was fighting his battles for him. From the roof of his palace one evening, he sees Bathsheba bathing and sends for her.
“And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.” (2 Samuel 11:3-4 ESV).
From the beginning, David brazenly involves innocent servants in his evil causing these messengers to facilitate his sin. Have we ever been guilty of involving people to help us facilitate our sins?
After he commits adultery, he gets Bathseba pregnant. Of course, it takes two to tango. But he is the King and should have been Bathsheba’s shepherd. Instead, this king uses his power and influence to lead her into sin.
“And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.” (2 Samuel 11:5 ESV).
But it’s not just Bathsheba. It’s also Uriah her husband, who David sins against. But this man of God hatches a plan to cover his sin from the husband he caused the wife to cheat on.
“So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.” (2 Samuel 11:6 ESV).
The trail of sins keeps getting worse and worse for David. He involves Joab in his scheme to murder Uriah, and he sins against his advisor, Ahithophel, Bathsheba’s grandfather (is it any wonder Ahithophel sided with Absolam in the rebellion against David?) He also causes the death of innocent soldiers as he carries out the murder of Uriah and, of course, the baby dies because of his sins. He even sins against the people by bringing this sin into the land.
So, could David really say in Psalm 51, “Against You Only Have I Sinned?”
I think the story Nathan told him which convicted his heart was ample evidence that David knew his sin was against others. “You are the man!” Nathan said with an accusatory finger pointed at him. Uriah was the poor man who had the little ewe lamb he loved.
When David came to terms with his sin, he stopped compartmentalizing his sins. We often do that when we want to sanitize our sins, don’t we?
We say things like, “I’m not sinning against God. I’m just fudging on my taxes against the IRS. I mean, the government is not the bastion of morality anyway.”
Or, “Hey, I’m just doing what he did to me.”
Or we say things like, “Everyone’s doing it. It’s just the way things are.”
We compartmentalize sins so we don’t have to feel the moral weight of sinning against God. But in the end, every sin is against God, aren’t they? I think this is what David is coming to grips with. As King, he could have had Bathsheba. No one could have stopped him. But it still would have been a sin against God.
Centuries later, Jesus would say this before He took His place on David’s throne as his eternally reigning descendent:
“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV).
Jesus would say that everything hangs on the two greatest commandments: Love God and love neighbor. In his sin against Bathsheba, David broke both of these great commandments and in breaking them, they were a direct sin against God Who gave both commands.
If we are to get to the point where our sins cause godly sorrow to move us to repentance, then we must see all of our sins as sins against God. We must fight the urge to compartmentalize our sins.
When David sinned against all the people we looked at, they were, at their core, sins against God. David knew that. He owned that. David realized that taking the poor man’s little ewe lamb he loved was ultimately a sin against God. Until he could see that, there would be hiding, scheming, and denying.
When we sin against others, we need the bony finger of accusation pointed at us. When it is, we need to see our sins as sins against God. Sure, we may be sinning against our neighbor, but at the end of the day, when we do not love God or our neighbor, we are sinning against God.
We too, ultimately sin against God, and God alone.
In my daily Bible reading, I read about the tender heart of King Asa who sought the Lord and put his trust in Him. Here is what the prophet said to the king:
“and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” (2 Chronicles 15:2 ESV).
Our God is a God who desires to be sought. But He is also a God who desires to be found. He does not make it difficult for us to find Him.
If we seek Him, He will make Himself be found. In fact, God later says to Asa,
“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9c ESV).
If our eyes are seeking the Lord, His eyes also seek us. What great joy when, in us seeking God and God’s seeking us, we both find each other!
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).
If we set our hearts to serve the Lord above all things,
There may come a time in our lives when we will have to make a choice
Between following what we learn from the Word about what Jesus, our King desires from us
Or whether we will follow our family, friends, doctrine, or teachers.
Between hanging on to the things we treasure upon the earth
Or letting everything go to grasp the heavenly treasures where true, lasting value resides.
The men and women who followed Jesus in the days when God walked upon the earth had to choose whether to embrace the Lord
Or hang on to the traditions they were taught.
If that day comes for us,
Will we forsake all to follow Him?
“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33 ESV).
Manasseh was an evil King. Very evil. He set up foreign gods and enticed Judah to worship them. He sacrificed his sons to false gods.
Yet this man was the son of the righteous king Hezekiah. But the goodness of his father did not help him at all in the eyes of the Lord.
God finally brought judgment upon Manasseh and caused the Assyrians to lead him away in hooks.
Finally, this evil king repented and humbled himself in the eyes of God.
“He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.” (2 Chronicles 33:13 ESV).
What a great God we serve that we are never too evil, have done too much, or have never gone too far in His eyes to receive His gracious salvation.
Just as God was tender toward the heart of an evil man who repented before Him, so is He tender toward our hearts as we turn from sin and humble ourselves in His eyes today.
I am listening to a debate with an atheist. He makes a common accusation against believers called “The God of the Gaps.”
He said that we attribute it to God when we don’t understand something. But then science explains it, and we understand it wasn’t the power of God but simply a natural explanation.
The charge against Christians is that everything has natural explanations and we just have to wait until science can explain it.
But it made me think that the truth works the other way as well. God truly is the God of the Gaps for the atheists too.
When they can’t understand how God can do something, they fill in their gaps with natural theories (evolution, the age of the universe, etc...).
But as soon as science disproves their theories, instead of acknowledging God, they revise their theories.
In the end, they are guilty of the same thing they accuse Christians of being guilty of.
In my daily Bible reading, Ezra is in sorrow over the sins that the people had committed in the presence of God. Listen to the way he puts it in Chapter 9:
“And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this,” (Ezra 9:13 ESV).
Ezra calls their sins evil and places guilt upon themselves. Then, Ezra praises God for His disposition toward the people calling out the Lord’s grace:
“Seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved.”
Isn’t this God’s disposition toward us today? Doesn’t God punish us less than our iniquities deserve?
The more I read the Old Testament, the more I see that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is a God full of grace and quick to give that grace to His created image bearers.
The ultimate expression of God’s grace is seen when He sent His Son who willingly laid down His life upon the cross so we could be punished far less than we deserve.
In fact, His grace is shown toward us to such a degree that the punishment we deserve is fully taken away from us. How can we not embrace and appreciate this matchless grace?
I think Ezra truly understood some measure of God’s great grace.
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 ESV).