Psalm 51
This psalm is David’s recorded confession and prayer for forgiveness of his personal sin. This experience came after Nathan the prophet went to him because of David’s grievous sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, the faithful military officer.
Verse 5 is a clear statement of the kind of human nature inherited by David at conception. He inherited tendencies through the ancestral line of Judah and beyond, reaching back to Jacob and to Abraham. Jacob was a deceiver. Judah was deceitful, and a man of licentious conduct whose children were born of a woman who had been his daughter-in-law and who played the part of a harlot to get him to fulfill a former promise to her after her first husband died. From the beginning of David’s ancestral line, the tendency to immorality was cultivated and strengthened in succeeding generations.
For several years, while under grace, David was kept from giving in to ancestral hereditary weaknesses. However, successes both politically and militarily contributed to elevating himself in his thinking. No worldly empire could stand before him. His armies were always victorious in war. A few battles were lost, but never a war. As he departed from total dependence on God’s grace, he felt he was strong enough to resist temptations that came both from without and from within his fallen human nature. This was the fatal flaw in his thinking. His hereditary nature, like quicksand, sucked him into the quagmire of sin.
David was no match for the infirmities of his fallen flesh.
With greater force than the suction of a modern jet engine, which is able to pull a person into its chamber of death, David was pulled into sin by the power of inherited tendencies to sin because he turned from God’s grace.
Then, under the conviction of his sin and consequently in the depths of despair and despondency, David prayed for forgiveness, for restoration and peace with God (Psalm 51:1-9). His prayer for renewal is recorded in verses 10-13. Here is David’s struggle to gain inward assurance that his sin was forgiven as announced to him by Nathan the prophet, and after repenting of his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. His vow of spiritual sacrifice is given in verses 14-17. He ends with intercessory prayer for Jerusalem, verses 18, 19.
Although David wrote this psalm because of his personal sin with Bathsheba against Uriah and God, yet it is of general use for all repentant persons as is the case with most all other psalms. It is penitential in context, expressing the deep desires of all repentant hearts. Nevertheless, this is a record of David’s repentance for his personal sin. And it was to be sung in the public service of the congregation.
David sinned against several people, including his family, and against the people of God, as well as against Uriah and Bathsheba. But none of these were sinned against as much as was God. David realized the gravity of the situation, and so his repentance was deep and heart-felt.
Repentance and confession give honor to God.
God is justified in His threats against sin. Heartfelt repentance and confession clear God when He is judged and when He executes His judgments. David recorded this confession that when he should come into trouble, none could blame God, or that He had done David any wrong. All who are truly repentant justify God by condemning themselves and asking for God’s forgiveness (Psalm 51:1-4).
In verse 5 David writes about his origin. He confesses the undoneness of his fallen human nature. Had David considered this before, he would not have given in to the temptation, nor have ventured upon enchanted ground. His sin might have been prevented had he seriously considered his inherited weaknesses.
His tendencies led him into sin against Bathsheba, Uriah, his family, and God. Once he allowed the desires of the flesh to control him, thus separating from grace, he could not help himself. Not only was David guilty of adultery and murder, he had an adulterous and murderous nature which he inherited from his ancestors.
Tendencies to sin are twisted in with human nature as it passes from one generation to the next through the genes, by the law of heredity. David’s mother and father came into the world with sinful fallen human nature. From conception David had the snares of sin within the flesh. Inherited fallen nature is a burden to all believers and the ruin of all unbelievers.
The call of God to the fallen race is a call to repentance and to faith.
God desires to remove from us the offenses we have committed and to give us new hearts. Not only does He command and invite us to repent, He gives us the very words by which we may return to Him: “Take words with you, and return to the Lord. Say to Him, ‘Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips’” (Hosea 14:2).
David’s sin is not an exception to the human family. His sin is rampant in the world today. If ever he needed saving from sin, we today need it in a hundred-fold degree more. Both young and old need the help of an outside power. We desperately need a Savior who understands our weaknesses and who will come nigh to us. Is there such a One? Yes. He is the “Seed of David.” It is to Him we now turn.
An echo of Psalm 40:6 is found in Psalm 51:16: “You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; you do not delight in burnt offering.” This thought is repeated in Hebrews 10:5, 6 in reference to Christ: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.” In Psalm 51:17 we find the acceptable offering: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.” This was the sacrifice Christ offered.
Christ, the second Adam, the “Man of Sorrows,” became “acquainted with grief” in order to represent us. Christ for us was Christ as us and with us. “Numbered with the transgressors,” “He poured out his soul” in repentance “unto death” (Isaiah 53:3,12).
The Book of Psalms takes in the whole of Christ’s life as our Representative, the Son of Man on earth. The ending of His life by way of the cross is found in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken heart—these, O God, You will not despise.” The marginal reading of the NIV gives it in the first person: “My sacrifice, O God, is” a broken spirit. Christ’s contrite and broken heart God did not despise. The bruising of the heel of the promised Seed of Genesis 3:15 involved the breaking of Christ’s heart in unspeakable anguish. Hodgkin wrote that Christ is the prophetic subject in Psalm 51:17:
“By wicked hands He was crucified and slain. By the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God He was delivered to death. By His own will He laid down His life. These three statements are all true in the mystery of that great sacrifice for sin.
“Surely we have in Psalm li. not merely the cry of the sinner, but a prophecy of this great sacrifice in the words: ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise’ (li. 17). This is ‘the plural of majesty.’ In Hebrew the plural is often put where the word great is to be understood.
“‘The great sacrifice of God is a broken heart.’ This was the sacrifice that our Saviour offered for us. He clothed Himself in a human body that He might have it to offer (Heb. x. 5, 9, 10). He became possessed of a human heart that it might be broken. The way into the holiest is opened up for us through the broken heart of our Saviour.
“This is the gospel for us sinners. It is this that humbles us and brings us to know the power of the cross of Christ to break the power of sin and set us free to serve Him” (A.M. Hodgkin, Christ in All the Scriptures, Pickering & Inglis, London, Eighth Edition, 1936, p. 119).
Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” reveals the fallenness of human nature into which David was born. This Scripture, by extension is testifying beforehand of the sufferings of Christ. Throughout the psalms there is plainly stated for us the kind of human nature Christ took when He was conceived in the womb of His mother Mary.
This penitential psalm was indited by the Spirit of God.
Every repentant human being has uttered the sentiments, if not the words, of this inspired prayer, including Jesus. Christ was the Son of David. He was the “Seed of David.” He was the promised “fruit” of David. This truth is the gospel of God. … “[T]he gospel of God … [is] concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:1-3). “From this man’s [David’s] seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus” (Acts 13:23; see also Acts 2:30). This was in fulfillment of God’s promise to David that the Messiah would be the fruit of his body (see Psalm 132:11).
Modern science has discovered that along with physical attributes such as skin, hair and eye color, there are also tendencies to sin that are transmitted from parents to child. In conception, attributes of both father and mother are focused in the zygote formed by the union of male and female gametes. Through genetic coding, ancestral nature passes from generation to generation. Not all the weaknesses of the flesh of ancestors are manifested in every person born. Nevertheless, every person is a carrier of unseen tendencies.
These tendencies may not be manifested in one generation, but may and do crop up after several generations to plague an individual or a family in various ways as they are given in to, as for example, in the case of David.
Weakened tendencies to sin, received and cultivated by David’s forefathers, were passed on by him and were inherited by Jesus. That is the significance of the phrase about Jesus in that He was “the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). However, unlike David, Jesus did not succumb to the infirmities of His inherited fallen human nature. Deeply touched by them, yes, but He “condemned” them where they reside and ruled in the flesh (Romans 8:3). The Savior of the world chose to enter into the hereditary line of David—the line that was the most degraded and corrupted of the twelve tribes of Israel. And He conquered all the corruptions of the flesh. He overthrew the enemy’s stronghold entirely. He invaded enemy-held territory and was completely victorious.
Christ was born holy, lived a holy life, and returned to heaven as spotless as when from there He came. But that holiness was lived in fallen human nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. He depended solely and totally upon that power. Christ was righteous by faith, not by human nature. His sinlessness was in character and in life, while living in fallen flesh. There is no evidence that Christ had holy human flesh.
Stephen Haskell, writing at the turn of the last century, combated a doctrine that emerged within several Christian groups. He dealt with it in one of those groups. The end result of that false doctrine was this: the only way a person could overcome sin was to have a change from inherited fallen human nature to a holy nature like that possessed by Adam before he fell. This experience was based on the hypothesis that Christ took Adam’s sinless human nature and so by-passed the law of heredity and the consequent struggles of the rest of the fallen race. The advocates of the so-called “holy flesh” doctrine claimed that Christ was exempt from the working of the great law of heredity. Overcoming, to some of those advocates of one hundred years ago, meant receiving so-called “holy flesh.” Haskell addressed this issue with one group of people involved in what was called “The Holy Flesh Movement.”
He wrote an editorial entitled, “Christ in Holy Flesh, or a Holy Christ in Sinful Flesh.” His employment of alternate propositions marked the specific stage when rival doctrines about Christ’s human nature were being advanced for consideration. The entire article was devoted to “A Holy Christ in Sinful Flesh.” The alternate hypothesis was, as stated above, that Christ was sinless because He took “holy flesh,” the sinless nature of Adam in his pre-fall state. That which especially caught my attention in the editorial was when Haskell quoted Psalm 51:5 and then commented, “It was Christ through David who said: ‘Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.’ This states plainly the nature of the humanity in which Christ was conceived.” Stephen Haskell, The Review and Herald, October 2, 1900. And it was in this nature that Christ condemned and overcame sin. It is this that gives us hope.
Christ, though innocent of any personal sin, took His place before the throne of grace as a penitent. Psalm 51 does not speak about the dignity of His birth, as descended from the prince of the tribe of Judah. It deals with hereditary tendencies to sin, along with the committed sins of the world that were laid upon Jesus.
Christ had such a deep sense of sin that He continually thought of it with sorrow of heart and shame. He was mortified and humbled by it. He “learned obedience by the things that He suffered.” Christ submitted to the discipline of a penitent. There is but one law of repentance for the fallen race, and Christ came under that law. His confession is specific. His conscience smote Him. Not for any personal sin of His own, mind you, but for your sins and mine.
Christ laments in this passage.
Sin was committed against God. God was wronged. Sin denies this truth. It was God’s command that was disobeyed, His manner of life that was despised, His name dishonored, His promise distrusted. God is treated deceitfully and disingenuously by sin. And Christ bore it and felt it all as though He had committed the sins of the whole world.
Christ, as Representative of the fallen race, walked in the way of righteousness. That way is the way of repentance, faith and obedience. He fulfilled all righteousness.
Christ’s repentance was unto death. When we repent, we die to sin. When Christ repented, He died because of our sin. He was made to be sin itself for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Treated as the number one sinner, treated as fallen Adam deserved to be treated, treated as the fallen race merits, Christ suffered the full consequences of the fall. He died the death of the damned.
Nearly the whole of Psalm 51 deals with the awfulness of sin, repentance and confession from which Christ was not exempt. Over-shadowed by the Holy Spirit, Mary conceived and gave birth to that holy Child Jesus (Luke 1:30-35). Christ was born holy. He lived a holy life by faith, and died holy, wholly in faith. Upon His ascension to heaven He was as holy as when He descended in condescension to His lowly birth in the stable. But He was conceived in fallen flesh. Mary, fallen by human nature, could only pass on that same nature to Jesus. It was impossible for her to give to Him a higher, holier, sinless nature than she had.
The Spirit of Christ moved upon David to write concerning Himself, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). Some may counter this concept with the fact that David was writing about his own inherited human nature, which he received from his mother. And that is true. It is likewise true of all the rest of the human family. And Jesus shared with us in our common lot. He entered into His own creation through the law of heredity. His was a miraculous conception. But miracles do not ignore or destroy God’s natural laws. A miracle is never an exemption or a transgression. If a law is valid, there is no need for an exemption. An exemption is wrong. If an exemption is needed, the law is wrong.
Christ came to us where we are.
He is not afar off, but nigh unto us. He became “us.” And He became “us” in the same way that we became—through conception and birth through the genetic working of the great law of heredity. Jesus was the seed of David. Paul wrote that this is the good news, the glad tidings, the gospel (Romans 1:1-3). Christ was the fruit of David’s body (Psalm 132:10, 11).
It is written, “From this man’s [David’s] seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus” (Acts 13:23). The good news of the gospel is that Christ, the Savior of the world, was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. Carried through the genes is the DNA coding that transmits fallen nature from one generation to the next. Jesus, the second Adam came through David and Abraham all the way back to the first Adam. Christ was born “according to the flesh.” There has been only one kind of human flesh born and that is fallen. The fallen flesh or nature of Adam reached all the way to the flesh of Jesus. It reached Him through the family line of David.
Christ came with such a heredity that enters into and shares our sorrows and temptations. The results of the working of the law of heredity of the humanity of Christ are revealed to us in the names of His ancestors as recorded in Matthew 1.
Satan, knowing that Christ must come through this royal line, especially targeted it. He corrupted it. Christ coming in the flesh came into the flesh in the weakest of families. This reveals Christ’s willingness to be the Savior of the world. No one needs to think that Christ does not understand him because of heredity or environmental limitations. He is touched with the feelings of our weaknesses. He is a complete Savior, both from the temptations from without and those from within our fallen nature.