Blessed is the one
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD
counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.[i]
The
text says: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven”; that is to say:
Blessed are they who by grace are freed from the burden of iniquity, namely of
the actual sins which they have committed.
That, however, is not sufficient, unless also their “sins are covered,”
that is, unless the radical evil which is in them, (original sin), is not charged to them as sin. That is, covered when, though still existing,
it is not regarded, considered and imputed by God; as we read” “Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”[ii]
Take this text to heart! There is a difference between believing in
God and believing God. Luther tells us
that, “To believe in God means to trust Him always and everywhere.” There are
those who think that everyone else is always to blame and not themselves, and
those who feel that when things go wrong they themselves are probably the
cause. The former want you to live in
guilt for their own relief; the latter spend too much time poking their own guilt
with the stick of self-accusation. Of
course many sway between these two opposite poles. When we are freed from the burden of iniquity
two things happen. First, our actual
sins are washed away. Second, our
propensity to sin, our perpetual bentness is covered and no longer reckoned
against us.
The awakened Christian soul increasingly spends less
and less time in projecting blame and guilt on others, but runs the danger of
proceeding from necessary self-condemnation and legitimate guilt to a morbid
state of unrelieved guilt. Martin
Luther, prior to his discovery of justification by faith had that problem. Luther attempted to confess to Von Staupitz
every sinful thing he may have done. It
took six hours. Von Staupitz is reported to have written later, "I was
myself more than once driven to the very depths of despair so that I wished I
had never been created. Love God? I hated him.” As I remember it his confessor
Staupitz finally said something like “For Pete’s sake, Martin, grow a thick
skin!”[iii]
Now, that may be apocryphal, but the point
isn’t. It isn’t possible to confess all
your sins, real and imagined, because the human soul, trapped in original sin,
is a bottomless pit of iniquity. Confession is both necessary and helpful as
John says:
If we say we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a
liar, and his word is not in us. [iv]
Making a good confession is a response to saving
grace, not a means of salvation, and you can’t save your “self” by making a
perfect confession very simply because you are not perfect, and it is necessary
for that old sinful self to die to itself in order that it might be
reborn. That is why it is both
spiritually and psychologically necessary for us to be saved by grace through
faith. There is no other way that will
either work or satisfy the soul.
With all of that said, it is necessary once more to
go back to the source of forgiveness.
Surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God,
and afflicted. But he was wounded for
our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the
chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of
us all.[v]
We must always go back there and look on Christ
crucified. The wise advice of one of my
fellow Scots was this, “"For every look at self, take ten looks at
Christ."[vi]
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