Deep Forgiveness

4 MARCH

If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments... Psalm 89: 30-31

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 2 Samuel 12:1-14

The psalmist does not speak of total apostasy here, implying the total absence of godliness in people who forsake God’s law and do not walk in His judgments. But sometimes the faithful cast off the yoke of God and break forth into sin in such a way that the fear of God seems to be extinguished in them. Therefore it is necessary for God to promise the pardon even of heinous sins, so that those who commit them are not overwhelmed with despair.

David, who seems by outward appearances to be wholly deprived of the Spirit of God, thus prays to be restored to Him. God provides hope of pardon even for those who commit detestable and deadly transgressions so that the enormity of their sins may not keep them back or hinder them from seeking reconciliation with Him.

From this we may condemn the undue severity of the fathers whose scruples did not allow them to receive those who repented from falling for the second of third time. Due care must be taken lest by too great a forbearance we give loose reins to people to commit iniquity. But there is no less danger in exercising an extreme degree of rigor. We should note that when God declares that He will show Himself merciful toward sinners who have violated His law and broken His commandments, He purposely employs those odious terms to excite our hatred and detestation of sin, not to entice us to commit it.

Although the faithful may not always act in manner worthy of the grace of God and may therefore deserve to be rejected by Him, yet He will be merciful to them because the remissions of sins is an essential article promised in God’s covenant with us.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: What a comfort it is to know that God’s forgiveness is deep enough to cover all sin and terrible times of backsliding! Praise God for this forgiveness and for its purpose: to make sin more repulsive and Christ more attractive. How does its depth motivate us toward holiness rather than sinfulness?

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

Teaching Sinners in the Way

13 FEBRUARY

Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will He teach sinners in the way. Psalm 25:8

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 71

Pausing briefly from prayer, David takes time to meditate upon the goodness of God so that he may return with renewed ardor to prayer. 

Likewise the faithful feel their hearts will soon languish in prayer unless they stir themselves up with new incitements. It is difficult to steadfastly and unweariedly persevere in prayer. Indeed, as fuel must frequently be added to preserve a fire, so prayer requires helps so that it will not anguish and at length be extinguished.

Desirous to encourage himself to persevere in prayer, David affirms that God is good and upright. Gathering new strength by meditating on this truth, he will return with more alacrity to prayer.

but let us also observe this consequence; that in being good and upright, God stretches forth His hand to sinners to bring them back in the way.

To attribute to God an uprightness that exercises only toward the worthy and the meritorious is a cold view of His character and of little advantage to sinners, yet the world commonly believes that God is good to no one but believers. How can scarcely one in a hundred apply for the mercy of God, if not because so many limit it to those who are worthy of it? 

On the contrary, David says God gives proof of His uprightness when He shows transgressors the way, which means the same thing as calling them to repentance and teaching them to live uprightly. Indeed, if the goodness of God did not penetrate even to hell, no one would ever partake of His goodness.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: Isn't it wonderful that God teaches sinners the way? If it were not for this, how many of us would be saved and be on the way of holiness? Not one. David uses truths like this to help him pray. Try reflecting on the mercy of God before you pray.

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

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John Calvin's words in his commentary on Psalm 25:8 are : "To attribute to God an uprightness which He may exercise only towards the worthy and the meritorious, is a cold view of His character, and of little advantage to sinners, and yet the world commonly apprehends that God is good in no other sense...And, indeed, if the goodness of God did not penetrate even to hell, no man would ever become a partaker of it... " I agree with Calvin here and not with the edited version of Joel R .Beeke: "To attribute to God an uprightness that exercises only toward the worthy and the meritorious is a cold view of His character and of little advantage to sinners, yet the world commonly believes that God is good to no one but BELIEVERS.." That is much different. Moving on, Calvin writes: "Let the Papists then boast as they please of their imaginary preparations, but let us regard this as a sure and certain doctrine, that if God do not prevent men by His grace, they shall all utterly perish. David, therefore, here commends this preventing grace, as it is called, which is manifested either when God in calling us at first renews, by the Spirit of regeneration, our corrupt nature, or when He brings us back again into the right way, after we have gone astray from Him by our sins. For since even those whom God receives for His disciples are here called sinners, it follows that He renews them by His Holy Spirit, that they may become docile and obedient."

Confessing God's Good Pleasure

12 FEBRUARY

Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to Thy mercy remember Thou me for Thy goodness' sake, O LORD. Psalm 25:7

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 103

When David mentions the sins he committed in his youth, he does not imply that he does not remember the sins he committed in later years. Rather, he means to show that he considers himself worthy of much greater condemnation for past and present sin.

In the first place, as David considered that he has not only lately committed in but for a long time has heaped up sin upon sin, he bows under the accumulated load. Second, he intimates that if God should deal with him according to the rigor of law, not only the sins of yesterday or of a few days will come into judgment against him. All the offenses he has committed, even from his infancy, might now with justice be laid to his charge.

Accordingly, as God terrifies us by His judgments and tokens of His wrath, let us remember not only the sins that we have lately committed, but also the transgressions of the past. That will offer us ground for renewed shame and lamentation before God as we plead for mercy.

In his supplication for pardon, David pleads upon the ground of God's mere good pleasure. He says, According to Thy mercy remember me for Thy goodness' sake. When God casts our sins into oblivion, He beholds us with fatherly regard. David can find no other cause to account for this paternal regard of God but that God is good. Hence it follows that there is nothing to induce God to receive us into His favor but His own good pleasure.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: If we step back from our daily grind and survey the mountain of sin we have been heaping up over a lifetime, how can we possibly arrive at any conclusion but the one David suggests? God's mercy to us flows from no other source than His good pleasure. How should this change our way of thinking and our actions today?

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

Mercy to a Thousand Generations

13 January

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow thy self to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love ME, and keep My commandments. Exodus 20:4- 6

SUGGESTED FOR FURTHER READING: Micah 7:14-20

God is characterizes here as a husband who will tolerate no rival. He will assert His rights as a husband, since His rivalry is nothing more than retaining what is His own. He will exclude all rivals of His honor. Considering God's sacred covenant with the Jews, Moses seems to be alluding here to the violation of this spiritual marriage. But though He begins with a threat, God, who far prefers mercy to severity, gently allures His own to Himself rather than compels them to allegiance. He declares that He will be merciful to a thousand generations, as the original Hebrew says in verse 6, while He only denounces punishment on the third and fourth generations.
To encourage worshipers to earnest piety, God declares that He will be kind not only to them but to their posterity, even for a thousand generations. This is proof of His inestimable kindness, even indulgence, for He designs to bind Himself to His servants, to whom He owes nothing, and to acknowledge His favor toward them and their seed.
It is wrong to infer merit from the promised reward, however, because God does not say that He will be faithful or just toward the keepers of His law. Rather, He only promises to be merciful. Let the most perfect then come forward, for they can require nothing better of God than His favor to them on the grounds of His gratuitous liberality.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: The implications and consequences of our present actions extend to the next generation and beyond. Seeing that our conduct has such consequences, should we not flee from sin and seek to be more like Christ? Are there specific ways to do this today?


365 Days With Calvin
Compiled by Ewald M. Plass