Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 51:6
We are never more in danger of forgetting that we are sinners than when contemplating the sufferings and death of Him who died to save us from our sins. Like the first tearful spectators of His sufferings, while we weep for Him we forget to weep for ourselves. We listen to the mysterious cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and think not that our iniquities are among those which at that moment hide from Him His Father's face. If any portion of God's word can teach us what sin is, and how it should be looked upon by us, it is this fifty-first Psalm of David, the deepest and most heartfelt confession ever poured forth from the heart of a saint of God in the first bitterness of his sorrow for his greatest sin. On examining this confession of sin, we find that it is twofold. There are two things present to David's mind to be confessed and mourned over. The first is the sin he has just been guilty of; the second is the sinfulness of his nature. This declaration, "I was shapen in iniquity," implies two things guilt and corruption. It means that every human being is born into the world with the wrath of God abiding onhim, and the corruption of sin abiding inhim.
I. We inherit from Adam guilt; he stood before God the representative of all humanity, their federal head, in whom they entered into covenant with their Maker; in him we all once stood upright; in him we were tried; in him we fell; in him we were judged and condemned. (1) St. Paul adduces, in evidence of this doctrine, one fact familiar to us all; it is the fact that men die. Death is the wages of sin; whoever dies therefore has earned death by sin. The death of those to whom no actual sin could be charged is a clear proof that they were held guilty of the original sin of Adam, their federal head. (2) This fact, that death has passed upon all alike, not only proves the doctrine of original sin, but supplies to a certain extent an answer to the objections made to that doctrine on the score of justice. For the injustice of imparting to us Adam's guilt is certainly no greater than that of inflicting upon us Adam's punishment. There is no greater difficulty in admitting that we inherit from him a guilty soul than there is in admitting that we inherit from him a diseased and dying body. (3) Though, from the history of the Fall itself, we can thus clearly vindicate the imputation of Adam's sin from the charge of injustice, yet it is from the history of our redemption that we draw our fullest and most triumphant proof of its justice. Imputation is to be seen in our salvation as well as in our condemnation. If we are accounted to have fallen in the first Adam, we are accounted to have risen in the second Adam. If "God has concluded all under sin," we see that it is that "He may have mercy upon all."
II. Fallen man inherits not only a guilty, but a corrupt, nature. Original righteousness consisted in three things knowledge in the understanding, righteousness in the will, holiness in the affections. Original sin must then consist in the loss of each of these qualities. Original sin is (1) darkness in the understanding, (2) disobedience in the will, and (3) lawlessness in the affections. When we are tempted to plead the sinfulness of our nature in excuse for our sins, let us think that the one offends the holiness as much as the other offends the justice of God, and both alike require His pardoning mercy and His sanctifying grace; both equally need to be confessed and mourned over.
Bishop Magee, Sermons at the Octagon Chapel, Bath,p. 1.
References: Psalms 51:5. Expository Sermons and Outlines on the Old Testament,p. 224.Psalms 51:5. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 117.
Life is a journey, and the training of the soul by the toils and changes of its pilgrimage is expressed by the law that the character undergoes a gradual preparation, and that thaipreparation is subject to an apparently sudden close.
I. What is the hindrance in the human soul to a right application of this fundamental law? The answer broadly is this: The poison of character. Pride and sensuality are the chief evils that poison character.
II. To counteract this, we need to establish the undisputed authority of truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth. The Church is the unfolding of Jesus Christ, and He is the Revealer of the Father. It is by the illumination of grace that the harmony of truth is seen, and only so; it is by the co-operation of will, assisted by the grace of God, that man can see and use what he sees.
III. To direct the soul in the path of preparation, it is needful then that that soul should be struggling to be true. This desire is cramped, is injured, by the Fall. And one of the blessed gifts of the regenerate is a more earnest revival of such desire. There are at least three forms of conspiracy against truth observable in human character: (1) hypocrisy; (2) "cant;" (3) insincerity. Truth of heart is that heavenly principle whereby each soul is guided to a blessed result, under the action of the law of life in subjection to which we prepare to meet our Redeemer and our Judge. God is truth, and God is reigning. They who " willto do His will shall know." Seek, above all, to be true, for truth is like Him; and truth is therefore the first condition of a soul's perfection.
J. Knox-Little, Manchester Sermons,p. 125.
References: Psalms 51:6. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 28; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses,p. 168; W. Hay Aitken, Newness of Life,p. 50; F. W. Farrar, In the Days of thy Youth,p. 358; F. D. Maurice, Sermons in Country Churches,p. 190. Psalms 51:7. C. J. Evans, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 357; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxii., No. 1937; E. J. Hardy, Faint yet Pursuing, p. 123.Psalms 51:7. R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness,p. 391.