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