Agabus (mark adams)

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
Don’t let them control me.
Then I will be free of guilt
and innocent of great sin. — Psalm 19:12-13

The psalmist speaks of “hidden faults,” acknowledging there are unknown sins lurking in his heart. These are not external faults, but his actual self. He is not a basically good person who occasionally does bad things, but an evil person who works evil continuously in his heart. To what extent he is sinful, he is unaware, but he is not ignorant. He knows his heart.

Thus, he confesses.

The purpose of confession is not self-deprecation. Man does not glorify God by admitting sin; in other words, he does not make God more holy by making himself less holy (he cannot elevate God). He confesses because God is holy. This knowledge, divinely revealed, empowers a man to confess, for he is no longer ignorant of God’s will.

He “to whom God counts righteousness apart from works” is he who seeks forgiveness from from Him who is gracious (Rom. 4:6). A man cannot confess without acknowledging God’s forgiveness, for then that man would be denying God’s will, which to forgive. That is the holiness of God. It is the acknowledgement that sin is so utterly sinful that no remedy exists except absolute pardon, pardon entirely apart from works.

Absent forgiveness, confession is meaningless.

John Newton, who wrote “Amazing Grace,” declared, “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things; that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.” This is the sum of salvation. Man is sinful, God is forgiving. No part exists separately. Thus David writes: “I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

This is the mystery that Paul touches upon in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Romans. “To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). This is the word which is able to save souls, which is able to justify sinners. This is the word to which the world is called.

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© 2010, Mark Adams. All rights reserved. For inquiries press here.

Originally posted 2010-01-27 19:32:21.

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