GLEANINGS — February 2, A.D. 2014                                                                                                               "Forked Tongue?"

In two places in the God-breathed, holy Bible, namely 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18, the Spirit of God records for us a song of King David. It is a song of victory and rejoicing, very appropriate for the singing, meditation, and delight of new covenant believers who are more than conquerors in Jesus.

Were it not for the glorious truth that a perfect gift of righteousness for His people is included in the absolute conquest that Jesus gained for them, we might wonder at a portion of what David wrote, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in that song:

"The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me, and I did not put away His statutes from me. I was also blameless before Him, and I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight." 

How could those words, which we might be tempted to regard as boastful and self-righteous, be uttered by the same David who (after committing murder and adultery) wrote the following words in another song, namely his well known Psalm of repentance? 

"To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. 'Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions...for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me...Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me'." (from Psalm 51)

In other words, how was David both painfully aware of his sinful nature with the specific sinful acts that arose from it, and at the same time able to claim that he was blameless and worthy of the recompense of a righteous man with clean hands!?

It is only by that wondrous union with Christ which the old covenant Scriptures foreshadow, which the new covenant scriptures make explicit, and which believers of all ages possess that David could  pen both songs with integrity. It is only by that wondrous union with Christ that Christians can make them both the songs of their own hearts. In the Lord Jesus, both songs ring true.

Whom God calls, He justifies. That is, He DECLARES that person to be righteous, not on the basis of his or her own merit, but on the basis of Christ's perfect obedience. Jesus DID perfectly keep God's ways. He WAS blameless throughout His sinless life. Moreover, He alone of all men merited the recompense of a perfectly righteous man! The Christian is united to Jesus Christ the righteous.

At the same time, God the Father "...made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21) Fully identifying with His people, joining them to Himself, the sinless One took all their guilt and bore their sins in His own body on the tree, that they, having died to sins, might live for righteousness..." (Cf.1 Peter 2:24). Jesus Christ the pure and righteous One united Himself in loving grace to the guilty and corrupt, for their redemption.

So like David, the Christian is both sorrowful for sin but rejoices that a provision so thoroughly suited to his profound need has been made that he also can boast in the Lord as a righteous person! Yes, the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins!