Psalms 103:12

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.

Plenary absolution

The doctrine of forgiving love is one of those necessaries of daily life, of which we may say that however frequently it be set before you, you would not tire of it. Therefore, in the simplest manner, we would speak of the great Gospel truth of the forgiveness of sins. Now, in our text which tells of it, notice--

I. The word of peculiarity. It is not all men who can say, “As far as. .. from us.” They are a specific people who can say this: they have felt the chidings of God in their conscience,--hence they say, “He will not always chide.” And they have been humbled into contrition, repentance and confession; hence they say, “Neither will He keep His anger for ever.” But they have tasted of God’s surprising mercy which baffles all human thought, and excites the adoring wonder of all who receive it, and hence come the words of our text. Can we all say them?

II. The word of positiveness. The psalmist does not indulge in vague hopes or fond wishes, but he declares that God “hath removed” our transgressions from us. He is quite sure about it. It is an actual fact. Now, there are many who think that we never can know in this world that we are forgiven. They are taught to go on asking for pardon as if they had never received it. But we are forgiven. Pardon is a fact, and there is nothing more sure to believers than this. It is far more presumptuous to pay respect to our own misgivings than to believe what God has so plainly said. How wretched it must be not to know: how can a man do anything whilst he is in doubt about whether he is forgiven? And we can be sure, for we have the plain word of God. Not the evidence of sense, for that may often deceive: and still more may feeling. But we have the evidence of God’s word. If I have trusted my soul with Jesus, then I am forgiven, and our text is true of me. And over and above the written word, God gives to believers the inward witness in the deep peace they feel in their souls. They may not be able to fix the date when they were forgiven, but whenever they look to the Cross and see the incarnate God bleeding thereon, they get a renewed assurance of complete absolution. Some love always to gaze upon their crucified Lord, as if they had never before looked upon Him. They stand and kiss those bleeding feet and look up to that dear face bedewed with drops of grief and that dear brow crowned with thorns, and say, “Thou art my Saviour! Dear lover of my soul, I rest in Thee.” Happy are they who can thus stand at the Cross.

III. Note the comprehensiveness of our text. I do not find any list of sins here. Only these two words, “our transgressions.” I am not skilful in matters of common law, but I remember hearing a lawyer make this remark about a man’s will, that if he were about to leave all his property to some one person, it would be better not to make a recapitulation of all that he had, but merely to state that he bequeathed all to his legatee, without giving a list of the goods and chattels, because in so doing he would be sure to leave some of them out. In one instance, a farmer who desired his wife to have all, recounted, as he thought, all his property; but he actually omitted to mention his largest farm and the very house in which they lived. Thus his attempt to be very particular failed, and his wife lost a large part of the property. Let us be thankful, then, that in our text God speaks in this broad way which takes in the whole compass of enumeration. “Our transgressions”--that sweeps them away all at once. Like as the Israelites saw with joy all their enemies dead upon the sea-shore. Not one of them left. Well might Miriam dance and sing.

IV. The perfection, the absolute perfection of the pardon. “As far as the east is from the west.” Who can tell how far that is? Not any distance measurable on this earth, or in our solar system. It is just infinite distance. That is how far God hath removed from us our sins. Some think that after men are pardoned they may yet go to hell. It does not seem to me worthy of a God or even a man. Poor is that pardon which may be followed by eternal torment. I have heard of the Duke of Alva pardoning a man, and then hanging him; but to think that God should do this! And God means by our text that He has forgotten our sins, so far has He put them away. “Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Note--

V. The ray of divinity, full of hope for us, in our text. It is God that thus forgives. God is the great remover of sin. No priest can do this, God alone.

VI. Its touch of personality. Our sins are removed not only from Himself, but “from us.” I sometimes see believers troubling themselves as if all their sins were laid up in an iron safe in some part of the Lord’s house. It is not so. They are all gone. See Zechariah’s vision of Joshua the priest. We moan and fret ourselves about what does not exist. I saw two men yesterday handcuffed to be taken off to prison. But suppose I had walked behind them, with my wrists close together, and had never opened my hands, nor stirred them, and said, “Alas! I committed, years ago, some wrong, and had handcuffs put upon me.” You would naturally says, “Well, but are they not taken off?” And I reply, “Yes, I have heard they are, but somehow, through habit, I go about as if I had them on.” Would not every one say, “The man’s insane”? But this is what we too often do as to our sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The believer separated from his sins

I. In what respects? He is separated from his sins as regards--

1. The sentence they procured--the sentence of death. What this sentence implies. How was it removed?

2. The power they wielded--that is, their reigning power. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.”

3. The alienation they caused. From God, hence from His favour, family, fellowship, kingdom.

4. The prospect they commanded. Of wrath to come, of exclusion from heaven, of endless destruction.

II. To what distance? “As far as the east is from the west”--one side of infinite space from the other--infinity intervenes.

1. An infinity of merit intervenes--the atoning merit of Christ’s sacrifice intervenes. What? How?

2. An infinity of rectitude intervenes--the rectitude of the Divine nature.

3. An infinity of faithfulness intervenes--God’s faithfulness to His word, covenant, purpose.

4. An infinity of love intervenes--God’s love, which is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, sovereign. All these infinities must be exhausted and cease to exist before his sins can be reunited to the believer. Learn--

(1) That separation from sin is necessary to admission into heaven. “There shall in nowise,” etc.

(2) That the separation here described is the work of God--of His grace, righteousness, word, spirit.

(3) That separation from sin requires active exertion on our part. “Work out,” etc.

(4) That the separation we have been considering is the privilege of only true believers. (N. Macdonald.)

No Eastern or Western poles

The distance from north to south is measurable. In every sphere there are north and south poles--both fixed points; and on the earth the distance between them is about twelve thousand miles. So that had the psalmist said, “As far as the north is from the south,” our conceptions would have been thus limited. It is otherwise with the east and the west. There are no eastern and western poles. From every point alike in the circuit of the world, the east extends in one direction, the west in the other. Thus, the traveller westward, for example, might be said to be for ever chasing the west without coming nearer to it. The psalmist himself might not have known this astronomical fact; yet, regarding his words as dictated by the Spirit of God, we are surely permitted to read them in the light of modern science, and so to discern in them the most forcible illustration that can be imagined of the illimitable distance to which God has removed the iniquities of His people. (Cyclop. of Nature Teachings.)

Forgiveness a delightful remembrance

Like some black rock that heaves itself above the surface of a sun-lit sea, and the wave runs dashing over it; and the spray, as it falls down its sides, is all rainbowed and lightened; and there comes beauty into the mighty grimness of the black thing; so a man’s transgressions rear themselves up, and God’s great love, coming sweeping itself against them and over them, makes out of the sin an occasion for the flashing more brightly of the beauty of His mercy, and turns the life of the pardoned penitent into a life of which even the sin is not pain to remember. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)