Note: This is so good as an encouragement for us sinners to pray, I had to blog it, even though it does not pertain to the usual subject matter of my blog.
1. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy steadfast love; according to Thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.Martin Luther, “Psalm 51—The Psalm Miserere,” trans. J. J. Pelikan, in Luther’s Works, ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, and H. T. Lehmann, 55 vols. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 12:312–326; Vol. 12: Selected Psalms I, Psalm 51:1.
David mentions God and makes no reference to Christ. Here at the very beginning you should be reminded of something so that you do not think that David is talking about God like a Mohammedan or like some other Gentile. David is talking with the God of his fathers, with the God who promised. The people of Israel did not have a God who was viewed “absolutely,” to use the expression, the way the inexperienced monks rise into heaven with their speculations and think about God as He is in Himself. From this absolute God everyone should flee who does not want to perish, because human nature and the absolute God—for the sake of teaching we use this familiar term—are the bitterest of enemies. Human weakness cannot help being crushed by such majesty, as Scripture reminds us over and over. Let no one, therefore, interpret David as speaking with the absolute God. He is speaking with God as He is dressed and clothed in His Word and promises, so that from the name “God” we cannot exclude Christ, whom God promised to Adam and the other patriarchs. We must take hold of this God, not naked but clothed and revealed in His Word; otherwise certain despair will crush us. This distinction must always be made between the Prophets who speak with God, and the Gentiles. The Gentiles speak with God outside His Word and promises, according to the thoughts of their own hearts; but the Prophets speak with God as He is clothed and revealed in His promises and Word. This God, clothed in such a kind appearance and, so to speak, in such a pleasant mask, that is to say, dressed in His promises—this God we can grasp and look at with joy and trust. The absolute God, on the other hand, is like an iron wall, against which we cannot bump without destroying ourselves. Therefore Satan is busy day and night, making us run to the naked God so that we forget His promises and blessings shown in Christ and think about God and the judgment of God. When this happens, we perish utterly and fall into despair.
David is not speaking this way with the absolute God. He is speaking with the God of his fathers, with the God whose promises he knows and whose mercy and grace he has felt. Therefore when a Turk, a hypocrite, or a monk says, “Have mercy on me, O God,” this is as though he had said nothing. He does not take hold of the God he names as He is veiled in the sort of mask or face that is suited to us; but he takes hold of God and invades Him in His absolute power, where despair, and Lucifer’s fall from heaven into hell, must necessarily follow (Is. 14:12). This is the reason why the Prophets depended so upon God’s promises in their prayers, because the promises include Christ and make God not our judge or enemy, but a God who is kind and well disposed to us, who wants to restore to life and save the condemned.
I wanted to mention this first because of other passages in the Prophets. Now we must consider whether it is appropriate for him to say, “Have mercy on me.” If you look at the persons dealing with each other here, God and the sinner David, their great dissimilarity and an insoluble contradiction will appear. Is it not the feeling of all nature and a judgment of all men that God hates sin? As the blind man says (John 9:31), “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does His will, God listens to him.” In the Decalog it says (Ex. 20:5), “I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.” Yes, throughout Moses there is almost nothing but sheer threats against the wicked and disobedient, and the feeling of nature agrees with the Law of Moses, a feeling we cannot eradicate in any way. All men judge this way: “You are a sinner, but God is righteous. Therefore He hates you, therefore He inflicts punishments upon you, therefore He does not hear you.” Nothing in our nature can deny this conclusion. Hence almost all the holy fathers who wrote about the psalms expounded “the righteous God” to mean that He righteously avenges and punishes, not that He justifies. So it happened to me when I was a young man that I hated this name for God, and from this deep habit I still shudder today when I hear someone say, “the righteous God.” So great is the power of wicked teaching if the mind is imbued with it from childhood. Yet almost all the early theologians expound it this way. But if God is righteous in such a way that He righteously punishes according to deserts, who can stand before this righteous God? For we are all sinners and bring before God a righteous reason for Him to inflict punishment. Out of here with such a righteousness and such a righteous God! He will devour us all like a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24). Because God sent Christ as Savior, He certainly does not want to be righteous in punishing according to deserts. He wants to be righteous and to be called righteous in justifying and having mercy on those who acknowledge their sins.
Therefore when David the sinner says, “Have mercy on me, O God,” it sounds as though he were speaking against the whole Decalog, in which God commands you not to be a sinner and threatens sinners with punishment. What harmony can there be between a sinner and God, who is righteous and truthful, the enemy and foe of sinners, who by His very nature cannot stand sins? Yet David, who later says (v. 3), “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me,” this David, I say, calls on God and says, “Have mercy on me.” This is really what they call the conjunction of two things that are incompatible. So at the very beginning David shows an art and a wisdom that is above the wisdom of the Decalog, a truly heavenly wisdom, which is neither taught by the Law nor imagined or understood by reason without the Holy Spirit.
Nature always thinks this way, and it says to itself: “I dare not lift my eyes to heaven; I am afraid of the sight of God. I know both that I am a sinner and that God hates sins. So what shall I pray?” Here a very hard battle begins. Either the mind is confused within itself by the consciousness of sin and believes that it should delay praying until it finds some worthiness within itself, so to speak; or it looks around at human counsels and sophistic consolations so that it first thinks about satisfactions that will enable it to come before God with some confidence in its own worthiness and say, “Have mercy on me, O God.” This is the constant belief of our nature, but it is highly dangerous. It encourages our minds to trust in our own righteousness and to think we can please God with our own works. This is a blasphemous presumption of our own merits against the merit of Christ. Since we are born in sins, it follows that we shall never pray unless we pray before we feel that we are pure of all sins.
Therefore we must drive away this blasphemous notion. In the very midst of our sins, or to put it more meaningfully, in the very sea of our sins, we must use the means David uses here, so that we do not put off praying. What does the word “have mercy” accomplish if those who pray are pure and do not need mercy? As I have said, this is a very bitter battle, that in the very feeling of sin a mind can be aroused to cry to God, “Have mercy on me.” From my own example I have sometimes learned that prayer is the most difficult of almost all works, I who teach and command others! Therefore I do not profess to be a master of this work, but rather confess that in great danger I have often repeated the words very coldly, “Have mercy on me, O God,” because I was offended by my unworthiness. Still the Holy Spirit won out by telling me: “Whatever you may be, surely you must pray! God wants you to pray and to be heard because of His mercy, not because of your worthiness.”
For a proper understanding of the fact that God hates sinners and loves the righteous, we must distinguish between the sinner who feels his sins and the sinner who does not feel his sins. God does not want the prayer of a sinner who does not feel his sins, because he neither understands nor wants what he is praying for. Thus a monk living in superstition often sings and mumbles, “Have mercy on me, O God.” But because he lives with trust in his own righteousness and does not feel the uncleanness of his own heart, he is merely reciting syllables and neither understands nor wants the thing itself. Besides, he adds things that contradict his prayer. He prays for forgiveness, he prays for mercy; meanwhile, by this means or that he is looking for expiation of his sin and for satisfaction. Is not this really an open mockery of God? It is just as though a beggar were constantly crying out for alms and when someone offered him some, he would begin to brag about his riches, that is, his poverty, and thus clearly show that he does not need the alms.
Thus the enemies of the Gospel count words. Not only do they fail to understand this, but they do things that contradict it, when they undertake various acts of worship, when they look for the forgiveness of sins by wicked Masses, pilgrimages, invocation of the saints, and the like. Such sinners, who are sinners but do not feel that they are sinners, who go along with stubborn brow and justify themselves, who persecute the Word of God—such people, I say, should be kept far away from all mercy. Before them you should set sayings of wrath, in which God does not offer mercy but eternal punishments, as in the First Commandment (Ex. 20:5): “I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.” To them you should set forth examples of divine wrath, the destruction of Sodom, the coming of the Flood over all flesh, the scattering of the holy people, and whatever other fearful spectacles of the judgment and wrath of God there may be in the Scriptures. Thus the callous and impenitent sinners will be brought to a knowledge of themselves, and they will begin a serious plea for mercy. These are the ones of whom it is said, “God hates the sinners; God does not hear the sinners.”
The other sinners are those who feel their sins and the wrath of God and who are afraid before the face of God. These people apply to themselves the threats set forth in the Word of God, and the fearful examples of divine wrath so depress them that they are afraid of the very same punishments because of their sins. When, amid these terrors, the mind has thus been crushed by the hammer of the Law and the judgment of God, this is really the place, time, and occasion to grasp this divine wisdom. Then the heart consoles itself and is sure that when God is wrathful against sinners, He is wrathful only against those who are hard and callous. About those who feel the burden of their sins, it is said (Ps. 147:11): “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him.” Then the Law has done enough, the lightning flashes of the wrathful God should stop, and in their place should shine the lights of mercy set forth in the Word of God: that the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him; that God does not despise a contrite and humble heart (Ps. 51:17); that His ears are open (Ps. 10:17) and His eyes attentive to the needy to lift him from the ash heap (Ps. 113:7); that He helps the bruised reed and restores the dimly burning wick (Is. 42:3). Such people are “the most tender little worm”—as Jerome’s translation says of David in 2 Samuel 23:8, though it is not in the Hebrew—and the tender flower, which is moved and shaken by even the slightest breeze of divine threatening. The others, the callous, meanwhile stand unmoved by any preaching of repentance, like iron mountains in a great storm. Amid these terrors of conscience, therefore, you must see to it that these terrified minds do not judge according to their nature and sense, since this would plunge them into despair. Just as sicknesses that are different in nature have different remedies, so those who are terrified should be strengthened with words of grace, while those who are hard should be smashed with a rod of iron. In such dangers of conscience the pope with his theologians cannot give sound advice, as I experienced for myself. They all judge according to nature, which says, “I am a sinner, but God is righteous; therefore the same punishment awaits me as awaits other sinners.” Here nature shrinks back and cannot see the rays of mercy in the clouds of divine wrath. But here comes our true theology and teaches that when minds are terrified this way, then one part of theology is finished, the part that uses the Law and its threats. Thus the sinner begins to know himself and casts out the smugness in which we all naturally live before this revelation of wrath. We must not stop here, but go on to the knowledge of the other part of theology, the part that fulfills the whole of theological knowledge: that God gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). Those threats and horrible examples apply to the hardened and smug sinners; to them God is jealous and a devouring fire (Deut. 4:24). The contrite and fearful are the people of grace, whose wounds the good Shepherd wants to bind up and heal, the Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep (John 10:11). Such people should not give in to the thoughts of their hearts, which persuade them that because of their sins they ought not to pray or hope for grace. With David they should cry out, “Have mercy on me, O God,” for such people are well pleasing to God. The theology of this psalm is unknown to the schools of the papists. Look at David here. With his mouth open he breaks out in the words “Have mercy on me, O God.” Thus he combines things that by nature are dissimilar, God and himself the sinner, the Righteous and the unrighteous. That gigantic mountain of divine wrath that so separates God and David, he crosses by trust in mercy and joins himself to God. This is really what our theology adds to the Law. To call on God and to say, “Have mercy,” is not a great deal of work. But to add the particle “on me”—this is really what the Gospel inculcates so earnestly, and yet we experience how hard it is for us to do it. This “on me” hinders almost all our prayers, when it ought to be the only reason and highest occasion for praying.
Therefore we must first study David’s example so that we may rightly look at the pronoun “on me” and be sure that it means a sinner, as he clearly points out later when he says (v. 5), “I was conceived in sin.” There he confesses that this “me” is the greatest of sinners. Let us also learn this so that the crowd of thoughts that seek to hinder us might rather urge us on even more to cry out to God, as we read of the blind man in the Gospel that when he was rebuked, “he cried out all the more” (Mark 10:48). In ourselves we experience this crowd of thoughts upbraiding us: “Why do you want to pray? Do you not know what you are and what God is?” This crowd of thoughts is very burdensome for the spirit, and it hinders very many. We must despise it and pray for the very reason that seems to call us away from prayer, so that somehow we break through that crowd to Christ and ask for mercy. Those who do this pray rightly, but a truly great struggle of spirit is necessary. I have learned from my own experience that these thoughts often drove prayer away from me. Nevertheless, by the grace of God I came to the knowledge that I must not surrender to Satan as he attacked me with his arrows, but tearing them from him by the power of the Spirit I turned the weapons against the enemy himself and said: “You frighten me away from prayer because I am a sinner. But I see that I must pray most of all because of this one reason, that I am a very great sinner and have need of mercy.”
The same must be done in the very heat of temptation, when the mind is tempted with thoughts of lust or vengeance. If someone is urged to pray under these circumstances, the mind immediately protests that it is impure, as though among these dirty thoughts there could be no room for prayer. Here you should insist on the contrary that we must not expect temptation to end or thoughts of lust or other vice to disappear completely from the mind. In the very moment in which you feel that the temptation is strongest and that you are least prepared for prayer, go off into a solitary place (Matt. 6:6), and pray the Lord’s Prayer or whatever you can say against Satan and his temptation. Then you will feel the temptation subsiding and Satan turning tail. If anyone thinks that prayer should be put off until the mind is clean of impure thoughts, he is doing nothing but using his wisdom and strength to help Satan, who is already more than strong enough. This is really heathen and sophistic religion, the very teaching of Satan. Against it we must maintain the example and teaching of this psalm, where we see that David, viewing his total impurity and his special sin of the flesh, does not flee from God, the way Peter foolishly said in the ship (Luke 5:8), “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” But with trust in mercy he breaks out in prayer and says, “Lord, if I am a sinner, just as I am, have mercy on me.” Just because our hearts really feel sin, we ought to come to God through prayer all the more. Formerly we had to flee and be afraid of God, when there was danger that we might fall into sin. Since the Fall we ought to hope for forgiveness and ask for it instead of remaining in thoughts of wrath and fear. Now Satan is trying to turn that order around, so that in committing sins we are smug and without the fear of God, and after they have been committed, we remain in fear, without hope or trust in mercy.
Look at David, as I said, clearly taking refuge in mercy and saying, “Have mercy on me, O God.” It is as though he were saying: “I know that I am evil and a sinner, and that Thou art righteous. That I arise and dare to pray, all this I do with trust in Thy Word and promises. I know that Thou art not the god of the Mohammedans or the monks, but the God of our fathers, who hast promised that Thou wilt redeem sinners—not simply sinners but such sinners as know and feel that they are sinners.” Therefore let us also dare to say: “Have mercy on me, O God. I am a sinner, tempted by flesh and blood, anger and hate. But my hope is in Thy mercy and goodness, which Thou hast promised to those who thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6).” This cannot be adequately expressed in words, but our own experience is necessary in addition. This teaches what hard work it is to climb over the mountain of our own unworthiness and sins standing between God and us as we are about to pray. Although it is here that we feel the weakness of faith most, still we ought to hold to the consolation that we are not alone in saying, “Have mercy on me, O God.” The Spirit is saying and praying the same thing with us in our hearts, “with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). As we do not see or fully understand these sighs, so God, who is also a spirit, sees them most clearly and understands them most fully. Struggling in the midst of conflict or of temptation, therefore, we ought to resist Satan with trust in this Intercessor and say: “If I am a sinner, so what? God is merciful. If I am unfit for prayer because of my sins, well and good. I do not want to become more fit. For, alas to God, I am more than fit for prayer, because I am an exceedingly great sinner.”
It is the teaching of this passage that conscious sinners—I call them this for instruction’s sake—should have courage, and that God the Righteous and man the sinner should be reconciled, so that in our sins we are not afraid of God but sing with David, “Have mercy.” To keep the pronoun “on me” and the name “God” from hindering us, let us put between them the verb “have mercy,” by which God and man the sinner are reconciled. Unless this happens, we shall not only be unable to sing this psalm properly, but we shall also be unable to pray the Lord’s Prayer correctly, because in this life it will never happen that we are pure of all sins. Even though “actual sins,” as they are called, may be absent—and this is very rare—still original sin will not be absent. Since we are continually in sin, we must also continually pray, as the reverent hearts of Christians pray every moment, because every moment they see their unworthiness and want it forgiven. These constant sighs of the Christian heart are disturbed and covered by thoughts, and sometimes by duties, so that we do not always see them. Therefore it is really a theological virtue to cover our sin with prayer this way, and when we feel our weakness, to take refuge in this song: “Have mercy on me, O God.”
But after we have said how God the Righteous and man the sinner are to be reconciled, we must also remember to look properly at the word “Have mercy.” If we considered it more carefully, we should have to declare that our whole life is enclosed and established in the bosom of the mercy of God. Since we are all the “me” here, that is, sinners, the conclusion follows clearly and necessarily that whatever we are and live is all by sheer grace, not by our righteousness or merit. “What then,” you say, “ought not the Ten Commandments to be kept? And if they are kept, is not that righteousness?” I answer: We want to keep and observe the Ten Commandments, but with a large, that is, truly evangelical dispensation or distinction. We have received only the first fruits of the Spirit (Rom. 8:23), and the sighs of the Spirit remain in our hearts. Our flesh with its lusts and desires remains, too, the whole tree with its fruits. This is the reason why the Ten Commandments can never be kept fully. Otherwise, if the Ten Commandments could be kept in their entirety, what need would there be of the righteousness for which David prays in the word “Have mercy”? What need would there be of imputation? Now, since even in the saints there are still remnants of sin that have not yet been completely mortified, two things happen: Through the Spirit dwelling in us we resist sin and obey the Ten Commandments; and yet, driven to sin by flesh and Satan, we hope for the forgiveness of sins.
Thus sacrifice was a form of obedience under the Law, and yet the prophet says (v. 16): “Thou hast not wanted sacrifice and burnt offering.” They were sacrifices, but in the sense that they did not do away with mercy. In the same way we keep the Law through the Holy Spirit, and yet the word “Have mercy” remains; that is, we remain sinners and have need of the free forgiveness of sins through the merit of Christ. Thus mercy is our whole life even until death; yet Christians yield obedience to the Law, but imperfect obedience because of the sin dwelling in us. For this reason let us learn to extend the word “Have mercy” not only to our actual sins but to all the blessings of God as well: that we are righteous by the merit of another; that we have God as our Father; that God the Father loves sinners who feel their sins—in short, that all our life is by mercy because all our life is sin and cannot be set against the judgment and wrath of God.
Therefore David does not merely say, “Have mercy on me, O God,” but he adds, “according to Thy steadfast love,” and he simply keeps quiet about any merit or any righteousness of works. He does not say, as did that man in the Gospel (Luke 18:12), “I fast twice a week.” He does not say, “Have mercy on me according to the merit of condignity or congruity.” What do these things have to do with mercy? It is for the monks, not for David, to brag about merit and other things. The story is told that in the hour of death the brother of a certain king said to God, “Grant me what Thou hast promised, for I have given Thee what Thou hast commanded.” I would not want this to be my voice in the hour of death! We must speak differently (Ps. 143:2): “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant”; and again (Ps. 51:9): “Blot out my iniquity.” Of what merit can we boast that deserved even this seemingly minor blessing, that God has preserved our eyesight? David is silent about his own righteousness and merit; he wants God to deal according to His great mercy. In this way he disentangles himself not only from his own righteousness but also from the wrath of God, and he holds no picture before his eyes but that of the merciful, rejoicing, and laughing God. For he declares that God has great mercy, because of which He neither wants nor thinks anything but forgiveness and blessing.
This picture of a gracious and merciful God is a picture that gives life. By it he shields the pronoun “on me,” throws wrath into the corner, and says, “God is gracious.” This is not the theology of reason, which counsels despair in the midst of sin. David feels sin and the wrath of God, and yet he says, “Have mercy on me, O God.” Reason does not know this teaching, but the Holy Scriptures teach it, as you see in the first verse of this psalm. The individual words are purely and chastely placed, but they are the words of the Spirit which have life. From them spiritual men learn to distinguish between sinner and sinner, between God and God, and learn to reconcile the wrath of God or the wrathful God with man the sinner.
You will say, “It does not happen this way, that I am taught by your word and thus learn to think the same for myself.” We must assert that as you believe, so it will happen to you, because this faith is not taken from your judgment but drawn from the Word of God. Therefore if you can grasp this and believe that God is well pleased with those who fear Him (Ps. 147:11), then it will happen this way to you. If you do not grasp it, you are not under His pleasure but under His wrath, according to Christ’s saying (Matt. 8:13), “As you have believed, so be it done for you.” The thought of God’s wrath is false even of itself, because God promises mercy; yet this false thought becomes true because you believe it to be true. However, the other thought, that God is gracious to sinners who feel their sins, is simply true and remains so. You should not suppose that it will be this way because you believe this way. Rather be assured that a thing which is sure and true of itself becomes more sure and true when you believe it. On the other hand, if you believe that God is wrathful, you will certainly have Him wrathful and hostile to you. But this will be a demonic, idolatrous, and perverse thought, because God is served if you fear Him and grasp Christ as the object of mercy.
This is true theology about the true God and the true worship of God. It is false theology that God is wrathful to those who acknowledge their sins. Such a God is not in heaven or anywhere else, but is the idol of a perverse heart. The true God says (Ezek. 33:11): “I do not want the death of the sinner, but that he might turn from his way and live.” This is proved also by the present example of David and his prayer. At the outset we reminded you that we should not only look at the example of David here, but should change the psalm into a general teaching that applies to all men without exception. Thus the Epistle to the Romans (3:4) quotes as a general statement the words (Ps. 116:11) that all men are liars, and also says (Rom. 11:32): “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that He may have mercy upon all.” In the same way we said about David that he includes the death and life of the whole human race, not merely his own sin. Therefore God is the same sort of God to all men that He was to David, namely, one who forgives sins and has mercy upon all who ask for mercy and acknowledge their sins.
Also pertinent here is his use of repetition or rather amplification, when he adds: “According to Thy abundant mercy blot out my transgression.” He asked previously that God in mercy should turn His eyes away from his sins; in this phrase he does the same, but with greater agitation and spirit. He takes hold of God the Promiser and turns the whole vision of his heart upon His mercy. He could not do this if he had not taken hold of God the Promiser with the help of the Spirit and known that in God there remained a hope of forgiveness for sinners, as he says in another psalm (Ps. 130:4), “There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.” He is not looking for satisfaction, nor for a corner where he can prepare for grace, but by a direct course he steers for the countenance of God and His mercy. This he knows not from his own heart nor from the dictates of right reason—for in sin, reason flees from God, and the conscience cannot raise itself to the light by which it believes that God has mercy, grace, and favor left for sinners—but from the promises which he sees broadcast everywhere, even in the Law and the Decalog. Even though God threatens sinners here, He still keeps the name “a God merciful” (Ex. 34:6). The promises to Adam, to Abraham, and to others testify to the same thing. In our temptations we must do likewise. Whenever we are stung and vexed in our conscience because of sins, let us simply turn our attention from sin and wrap ourselves in the bosom of the God who is called Grace and Mercy, not doubting at all that He wants to show grace and mercy to miserable and afflicted sinners, just as He wants to show wrath and judgment to hardened sinners. This is true theology, which this verse of the psalm also manifests when it says, “According to Thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”
The word רַב is used for a set and continuous quantity, as in German we also say grosz gelt for much money and for money in great quantity. The word חֶסֶד is also familiar. Paul often renders it with blessing or εὐεργεσία, as in 1 Timothy 6:2, where he says to slaves that they should honor their masters, and then gives the reason: “Because,” he says, “they are partakers of the benefit” of the Gospel. Sometimes he also translates it as “love.” The Greek translator made it “steadfast love,” as in that passage in Hosea 6:6: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,” that is, that you should love one another and bless others. So he translates here: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy steadfast love.” The other word, רֶחֶם, means to have clemency, not to want to look at the sin of another, but to forget and overlook it, as in the passage (Ex. 33:19): “I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,” that is, I will forget and forgive his sins. From this there comes the noun רַחֲמִים, which our translator renders with “abundant mercy.” This is Hebrew grammar, and those who do not know it should be urged to learn it.
Now look how beautifully David combines these two things: first, that God is merciful, that is, that He freely blesses us undeserving ones; second, that He gives us the forgiveness of sins, which we accept by faith through the Holy Spirit and His promises. If God did not freely forgive, we should have no satisfaction and no remedy left. Not by our fasting nor by other works, not by angels nor by any other creature, is there salvation. Our only salvation is if we flee to the mercy of God and seek blessing and forgiveness from God, asking Him not to look at our sins and transgressions, but to close His eyes and to deal with us according to His steadfast love and abundant mercy. Unless God does this, we are not worthy of being granted one hour of life or one morsel of bread.
Here, too, we experience that it is a great and difficult art to combine these two things and to fix our eyes only on the steadfast love of God and His abundant mercy. For these words are not born in our house, but are brought down from heaven by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, these thorns are born in our hearts: “I am a sinner, and God is righteous and angry at me the sinner.” The conscience cannot pluck out these thorns; it cannot put the sinner before a gracious and forgiving God. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit, not of our free will or strength. When men are without the Spirit of God, either their hearts are hardened in sins or they despair; but both are contrary to the will of God. Therefore by the Holy Spirit David navigates between this satanic Scylla and Charybdis and throws himself securely on the abundant and endless mercy of God, saying: “Many and great are Thy abundant mercies, O Lord. But I am a sinner. I have lived badly, I am living badly, and I shall live badly as long as I live. If I want to come before Thee, I must bring other thoughts than those which my heart grants me. Therefore I confess my sins before Thee, for they are many (as he says in Psalm 32:5). But I confess my sin in such a way that at the same time I confess Thy steadfast love and Thy abundant mercies, immensely greater than my sin; as well as Thy righteousness, by which Thou dost justify sinners, infinitely more abundant than that I should despair over it.” Hence he says “abundant mercy.” By saying that the mercies are abundant, he simply denies and rejects any holiness, whether his own or other people’s. What connection could there be between abundant mercy and human holiness? If mercy is this abundant, then there is no holiness in us. Then it is a fictitious expression to speak of a “holy man,” just as it is a fictitious expression to speak of God’s falling into sin; for by the nature of things, this cannot be.
For this reason we must reject those very ancient and deep-rooted errors by which in monastic fashion we speak of Jerome or Paul as “holy.” In themselves they are sinners, and only God is holy, as the church sings [A quotation from the Gloria in Excelsis of the Mass; not, as the Weimar edition has it, from Is. 6:3]. Those whom we call “holy” are made holy by an alien holiness, through Christ, by the holiness of free mercy. In this holiness the whole church of the faithful is the same, there is no difference. As Peter is holy, so I am holy. As I am holy, so the thief on Christ’s right hand is holy. It does not matter that Peter and Paul did greater things than you or I. On both sides we are sinners by nature, and we have need of steadfast love and abundant mercy. Although the Apostles had fewer outward sins, still in their hearts they often felt presumption, loathing, thoughts of despair, denial of God, and similar defects of human weakness. So you see nothing holy, nothing good in man, as the psalm says (Ps. 53:2, 3), “God looks down from heaven upon the sons of men … There is none that does good, no, not one.” If there are not good people among the sons of men, where else could they be? Therefore let us keep quiet about holiness and holy people. We know that those have been made holy who have become conscious sinners instead of unconscious sinners. They do not presume to have any righteousness of their own—for it is nonexistent—but begin to have an enlightened heart. Thus they know themselves and God. They know that everything that is ours is evil before God and is forgiven by the free forgiveness of mercy. We and all “saints” must take refuge in this bosom, or we must be damned. God sent His Son to reveal these abundant mercies to the world and to make known this teaching, which the human heart and reason do not know. David presents it to us here when he confesses his sins and yet confesses that mercy is greater. Let all men sing this verse with David and acknowledge that they are sinners but that God is righteous, that is, merciful. This confession is a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God, and David invites us to it. He wants this to be a teaching for the whole world. When the devil or our conscience accuses us because of our sins, we can freely confess that our sins are many and great, but not despair because of them. For though our sins are many and great, nevertheless we are taught here that the mercies of God are also many and great. With this argument all the saints have defended themselves against Satan, that though they were sinners, yet they are made holy by this knowledge, according to Isaiah 53:11: “The knowledge of Christ will justify many.”
When we have once heard this, we suppose that it is easy and can be learned quickly, but it takes effort and work to hold on to this in temptation. This is no quibble about trifles [Horace, Epistolae, I, 18, 18]. The danger of eternal death is involved, and we are struggling over the salvation of our souls. We also experience not only our conscience crying out, but Satan inspiring thoughts of death because of the sins of which we are conscious. Therefore it is completely a divine power to be able to say that I am a sinner and yet not to despair. We do not come to it, as do our adversaries, by minimizing sin. Rather we should do it this way: As by its nature sin is very great and serious, so we believe that grace or mercy, is immense and inexhaustible. Thus David confesses here with a loud voice, “According to Thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” This is also the import of the word “blot out,” which the prophet uses here. Paul speaks in Colossians 2:14 of Christ as “having canceled the bond which stood against us”; and Peter says in Acts 3:19: “Repent and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out.” The word “blot out” means that sins are written in our conscience with the pen of the Law. The prophet wants the memory of sin to be abolished in his heart and in the eyes of God, the way writing is erased from a tablet. Yet this should not happen in such a way that grace or gratitude disappears because guilt is thus forgiven, or that we forget grace, as Peter says (2 Peter 1:9) about those who forget the forgiveness of their old sins and by their unfaithfulness and ingratitude pile up new sins. So also today we see that the world is full of contempt for the Gospel and all sorts of licentiousness. In such people sin is not forgiven, but buried even deeper. Therefore David includes both, that sin be abolished and that the Holy Spirit be given, through whom he can resist sin. Because he asks only for the “blotting out,” it is clear how we become righteous, namely, by the mere imputation of righteousness, when sins are blotted out by grace and we are accepted into grace for Christ’s sake. But if you compare this with the dreams of the sophists and scholastics, you will see how awkwardly they taught about the forgiveness of sins and righteousness.
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