Finding Restoration Through Jesus After We Sin -Part 3

3. Atonement: Restoration Requires Faith In Jesus’s Atoning sacrifice.

• David asked God to atone for his guilt. Knowing that an apology was not enough, David asked God to atone for him and purify him of his guilt under the law. Praying Psalm 51:7-8 as above. Psalm 51:9-10:

David looked for God to do a work of spiritual and moral cleansing, and to do it in connection with the atoning sacrifice of a substitute Hyssop was used to apply the blood of the Passover Lamb (Exodus 12:22). Hyssop was also used to sprinkle the priest’s purifying water (Numbers 19:19). In the Levitical law it was the priests who used the hyssop to sprinkle the purifying water…David didn’t think for a moment that he could cleanse himself. He needed God to cleanse him, and to don’t through the blood of the perfect sacrifice anticipated by animal sacrifices…David knew that God’s cleansing was effective. His sin was a deep stain but purity could be restored. There is a sense that David spoke with the voice of faith, it can be difficult for the convicted sinner to believe in such complete cleansing. It’s takes faith to believe in God despite the doubt and difficulty. (Psalm 51).

• David’s many crimes carried multiple death sentences. Saying that he was sorry would not free him from his punishment under God’s law. The penalty for adultery was death: “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, the one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer, and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10). “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the women, this you shall purge the evil from Israel. (Deuteronomy 22:22).

The punishment for David’s intentional murder was also death: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6). “He who strikes a man so a man he does shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 21:12). “If a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 24:17). “If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death…” (Nahum 35:30).

Nathan also accused David of “despising” God’s Word (2 Samuel 12:9). His actions blasphemed God’s Holy Name. “Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel and say to them, thus says the Lord God, yet in this, your fathers have blasphemed Me by acting treacherously against Me” (Ezekiel 20:27). “For the name of God is blasphemy among the gentiles because of you, just as it was written” (Romans 2:24). For someone who blasphemed God’s name through his conduct as David did, the penalty for this was also death: “Because he has despised the Word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off, his guilt will be on him” (Nahum 15:31).

David could not appreciate his need for God’s mercy and grace until he recognized the penalty for his sins. Not could he atone for his sins on his own.

• Faith in Jesus brings atonement for sins. There can be no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22). Jesus was the lamb without defect who fulfilled all the sin offerings for us (Isa 53:7, John 1:29, Heb 10:12-24, 1 Pet 1:18-19). If God accepted the blood of animals “how much more will the blood of Christ (Jesus), who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14). “But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). All that is needed is our faith in Him as both our Lord and Savior” ( John 3:16, 3:18, 3:36, 6:40, 11:25).
• Jesus will blot out your sin. David asked for God to purify, cleanse, and then wipe out his guilty deeds (Psalm 51:2m 7, 9). Through faith in Jesus’s atonement, God promises to do these things: “I have wiped out your wrongdoings like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22). If God could make David as if he never sinned at all what can He do for us?
• “Such is the power of the cleansing work of God upon the heart that He can restore innocence to us, and make us as if we had never been stained with transgression at all“ (Spurgeon on Psalm 51).