We Have Too Small a View of Sin

"Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight." (Psalm 51:4)

The following is perhaps the best analysis of sin and exposition of David's confession in Psalm 51:4 that I have read. It effectively gets deeper to the root of sin than most people usually go. Sin is so much more than just doing or thinking things I shouldn't that displease God ("sins of commission") or not doing or thinking things I should ("sins of omission"). I commend to you this excerpt of a sermon by Rick Gamache entitled "Whiter Than Snow" for your thoughtful, prayerful meditation.

I believe what David is saying in verse 4 is that all sin is a preference for the fleeting pleasures of the world and the flesh over the everlasting joy of God’s fellowship. This is why the Christian life is a life of repentance (like Martin Luther said), not because every time we sin we lose our status as God’s children and have to get saved all over again. Our status never changes. We are always God’s children, we are still declared to be holy even when we sin, we are still the heirs of his Kingdom.

But our sin affects our relationship with God. Our sin breaks our fellowship with God. David realizes that before he ever committed adultery with Bathsheba, he committed spiritual adultery against God. Why did he need her? Why was he willing to murder his own friend for her? It is because before David ever sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, he lost the joy of his salvation. That is why he asks for the joy to be restored [Psalm 51:12].

We sin because we forget God’s steadfast love and abundant mercy. When we are not ravished by him, we forget the superior pleasures that there are in God and give ourselves to the inferior pleasures of sin. And this is why David says, “Against you God, you only have I sinned.” He goes deep with his confession because he knows repentance is the way back to fellowship with God.

I think it is absolutely amazing and very telling, given what we know about the situation, that David never mentions sexual sin in Psalm 51. He’s not mainly praying that the Lord would provide him with good accountability. He’s not mainly praying that God would give him self-control and protect his eyes and his mind. Those are all good things. But David does not mention them here because his sexual sin — and every sexual sin — is the symptom of the disease not the disease. Sexual sin is a symptom of lack of fullness of joy and gladness in Jesus. It’s a symptom of a lack of being ravished by the love and kindness and mercy and goodness and beauty and excellence and majesty and glory and honor and power of God.

Are you willing to admit with me that multiple times on any given day we lose our joy in God and His salvation? We are so easily distracted and lose the "fullness of joy and gladness in Jesus" and fail to be enthralled with the greatest Treasure of the universe who should be at all times our Supreme Joy.

When we view it this way, sin becomes the hideous monster that it is. "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:24,25a)

Dear reader, when we truly see our sin for what it is and the offense that it is to a holy and loving God, we will recognize our need to become abandoned to our glorious Savior and to His Spirit-empowered Word which alone transforms our calloused hearts to embrace new and holy affections!