PSALM 51:1–2 – Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

THEME OF THE DAY. THE TOTALITY OF OUR DEPRAVITY. Today’s scripture is the Psalm of Repentance written by David in his heart-wrenching sorrow over his sin with Bathsheba. It is transparent, detailed, and models for us what a heart broken over sin looks like. It also reveals the character of God in His mercy and grace.

As one reads Psalm 51, we get an accurate description of just how depraved the human heart truly is. Friends, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden, it did not bring about a slightly broken human condition. Nor was it a “mistake.” Our first parents didn’t become spiritually impaired. They became spiritually dead. And that deadness was passed to every human born to include us. The Apostle Paul described our condition with these words, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-4). Pay attention to how Paul describes every person outside of Christ; spiritually dead and children under God’s wrath. Both describe for us that we are a people with no spiritual ability and no spiritual goodness. We must not think for a second there is any goodness in us or any ability to respond to spiritual truth apart from being enabled by the life-giving power found in God’s grace. And to help us understand the totality of our depravity, David uses three words to describe our condition.

First, we are a people who commit transgressions against God – “According to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” The word “transgress” means to “cross a forbidden boundary.” The 18th century English pastor, Alexander MacLaren wrote, “It is not merely that we go against some abstract propriety, or break some impersonal law of nature when we do wrong, but that we rebel against a rightful Sovereign.” Transgressions are acts of us taking God’s law and saying, “I don’t care about Your authority. I will do what I want.” And this defines all human acts that break God’s laws freely.

Next, David describes, not what we do, but who we are with the words – “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.” The word “iniquity” means “perversion, depravity, guilt” and refers to a “state of being” or condition. David would really drive this home in verse 5 – “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). We don’t become sinners because we sin. We sin because we are already sinners and that from birth. Our sinful nature permeates everything we do and think. God told us this was the reason why He judged and destroyed the world by the Genesis flood – “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). This truth is what establishes the need to be born again and affirms that no can or will seek God on their own (Romans 3:9-18). Why? Our depraved nature; being born in iniquity.

Finally, the depraved human condition is summarized with the word “sin” – “cleanse me from my sin.” Sin is defined as “falling short, missing the mark.” James Boice explains, “We miss God’s high mark of perfection, falling short of it in the same way an arrow might fall short of a target.” And because of our willful transgressions and our nature of iniquity, sin is what we are and do. We always fall short of God’s perfection mark of obedience.

But now comes the good news. Once we really know how bad we are, in rushes the power of Gospel. It is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus believed and relied upon that forgives transgressions, gives us a new nature, and deals forever a death blow to our sin.

PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for grace that is greater than all my depravity”

QUOTE: “The Gospel of Jesus Christ overcomes all sin, iniquity, and transgressions”