This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Psalms” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 25, 1987.

Tonight our reading begins with Psalm 32, and then we will be looking at Romans 4 briefly. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groanings all day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to thee, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.”

Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found. Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach Him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou dost preserve me from trouble. Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include fit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near to you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord’s loving kindness shall surround him.” Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.”

Romans 4, beginning with verse 1 through verse 8, and a quote from Psalm 32. What, then, shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by words, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, His wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.

Let’s pray. Our Father, you have not only created us by giving us new birth. We are not simply those then who have been regenerated and therefore find our lives in you, but you are the one who establishes us, and that in the establishment of your Son and the establishment of his body, the Church. Truly, Father, You have given us then this fellowship, and we rejoice in it. We pray that we may be fed with Your Word, driven and motivated by Your Spirit. And Lord, may we in this fellowship be encouraged by Your Word and Spirit to love You and to love one another. in Jesus’ name, amen.

So far, with Psalm 32, we have noted that it is a particularly strategic song. We have said that it is the first song in which we find an unambiguous and unencumbered treatment of personal sin and a direct confession of that sin. Not that it is the first among the penitential songs. The first among the penitential songs is Psalm six, nor is it the first to mention sin directly, that is, personal sin directly.

For Psalm twenty-five has mentioned that sin and a grief for that sin already. But we have observed that in Psalm 6 and also in Psalm 25, we have whatever confession of sin there might be, an overlay. An overlay of such that because of it, we are unable then to get a clear look at sin and its character and a confession of it. That overlay is the matter and the concern for suffering, suffering at the hand of the enemy, that in a sense, if I can speak this way, clutters the matter. So it is with Psalm 32 that we, for the first time in the Psalter, have an unambiguous and unencumbered encounter with personal sin and a direct confession of it. Secondly, we have said already that Psalm 32 is an extremely important doctrinal psalm.

We have noted in reading from Romans 4 the important role it plays in Paul’s treatment of the doctrine of justification by faith. He cites this psalm in the seventh and eighth verses of that fourth chapter of Romans. By root of it is explaining God’s action in reconciling men to himself by reckoning them righteous apart from the works of the law. and picking up on the broad and apparently universal application of this psalm’s opening lines and other statements that it makes, Paul sees in this psalm, the thirty-second psalm, a bridge from the Jewish world to a Gentile audience, so that the psalm becomes universal and comprehensive in its application.

You note the force of the opening lines of the psalm. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whomever he may be, regardless of who that might be. Luther, we observed, was hit doubly by this For you see, the road to Reformation was one taken through an exposition of the Psalms by Luther, from which he graduated into a study of the Book of Romans. He was doubly hit by this psalm and by the Book of Romans on his way to the Book of Galatians and his exposition of it. He wielded then this psalm like a sword from an Old Testament arsenal in order to demonstrate that the Bible throughout teaches that doctrine which was so central to him, to his wife, to his opposition, to the church of his day, namely, justification by faith alone. without personal merit, without works of the law. Thirdly, we saw that Psalm 32 is an extremely intimate and personal psalm, and here we took stock of Augustine in his attitude toward the psalm. This was his favorite and we can well understand that fact if we know something of his own development and his own progress in faith towards God. That being by the road of confrontation with his own wickedness, his own sin, his own iniquity. But not only Does this psalm prove to be an extremely intimate and personal psalm through the testimony and through the experience of Christians, believers in subsequent ages?

But by the psalm itself and the fact that within it we have powerfully positioned personal confessions and affirmations, the first seven verses form a unit, we say. but they are developed so that a general and rather impersonal statement with which this section begins, which appears in it later on even, is capped by a confession in the most intimate of terms.

Thus, verses one and two speak about the man, that person, that person whose transgression is forgiven. while verses three through five speak in the first person, bringing into view the I, the pronoun I, that one who is speaking in terms of his personal experience. Verse six speaks again abstractly or indirectly or generally about that godly man, whomever he may be. But verse seven returns to the first person, turns to that personal confession and affirmation.

Verses eight through ten change gears a bit for us. They are formulated in tones much like the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. However, at this point as well, the personal note It is preserved in verses eight and nine, as the Lord himself in the first person delivers a promise and then a challenge on the basis of that which has preceded. Verse ten then seals the Lord’s wisdom with a general, brief statement about the truth of God’s covenant. will fall, the righteous who trust in the Lord will be maintained. It is that sentiment that is expressed again and again throughout the Psalter, and is bedrock to the confession of the psalmist.

So you see, we move in the psalm, in its progression, from those statements that are quite general to a personal affirmation, at least in the first seven verses. Then in verses eight through ten, things are a bit reversed for us, as God himself speaks in verses eight and nine, he becoming then the first person in the psalm, and in verse ten we then return to the general, the more abstract as we reflect upon the character of the covenant generally. The psalm ends, verse 11, with a marvelous personal appeal, that appeal being that we, the righteous ones, the upright in heart, are to rejoice in God’s grace, that grace which is made plain to us through the experience of forgiveness. and through the experience of our perseverance and God’s preservation of us in our faith. These are the things that we have said thus far about Psalm 32. We have before us in this the importance of the psalm and a brief overview of the psalms structure. But now, we are to delve into the psalm more in detail.

Verses one and two. These verses come at us like an Old Testament, an extraordinary Old Testament beatitude. You remember the beatitudes of Jesus again and again. There at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Blessed, blessed, blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for instance. are the meek, for instance. Here we have an opening that is like that which we find upon the lips of Christ, it being in an Old Testament setting, an Old Testament beatitude, if you will. There are many such Old Testament beatitudes. You think of the opening of the Psalter, the very first verse of the first Psalm. that too being an Old Testament beatitude, expressive of blessing upon those described.

But here, in this psalm, the beatitude is somewhat extraordinary, for the form is heightened It is heightened almost to the stature of an exclamation, an exclamation of joy so glorious that it is difficult to imagine a greater exclamation. Not just blessed, but as the New American Standard Version has it, how blessed! Almost as if, with those first two words, you could put a series of exclamation points after them. How blessed! Such an exclamation of joy, so glorious that it is difficult to imagine a greater exclamation.

Now, the language here, as we have already pointed out, is quite general, and deliberately It is in the third-person pronoun, not in the first. Yet behind these words, opening the psalm, is the personal note borne by the personal experience of the psalmist himself. He is one whose transgression is forgiven, therefore his exuberance an exuberance which issues out of the fact that he has known that forgiveness intimately. He is no stranger to it. It is the expression of his heart, it characterizes his life, it marks the way in which now he expresses himself and cannot help but expressed himself. It is like a volcano within him.

I have known the Lord’s forgiveness. How blessed that man whose sin is forgiven. Well, in thinking it through, it’s almost as if you could take verses three through five, which speak so personally about the psalmist and his sin, and his grief and distress under that sin, and then his liberation. you could take those verses and place them before verses one and two, so that the experience of forgiveness precedes this effusive beatitude concerning all who know what the psalmist himself knows. And what is it, specifically, that that one forgiven knows? What is it, specifically, which the psalmist, in concert with anyone, experienced in the Lord’s forgiveness, knows? He knows a forgiveness adequate to the offense. He knows a forgiveness more than adequate to the offense. See how comprehensively he describes the offense? He speaks of it not just once, not even twice, but three times.

He calls it, first of all, transgression. By that word he is placing before us the fact that sin is concrete act, concrete action, concrete deeds that are in direct conflict with the boundary of God’s law, his will. As John says in his first letter, all sin is lawlessness. Transgression brings before us the concrete actions that set us beyond the boundaries of God’s law, beyond the boundary of his will. But he not only calls attention to the transgression character of the offense, our offense. The psalmist also calls this offense sin.

That incredible three-letter word, by which he means a wandering away, even a deliberate wandering away from the path the path upon which God would have us walk, so that now, as a consequence, we have lost sight of the destination the Lord had in mind. By sin you miss the mark. By sin you fall short of glory. By sin you go astray and fail to arrive at the appointed destination.

But sin is not the final description of the offense, for he has one more for us. in the third line of the psalm. He calls it past transgression, past sin iniquity. That is, if you can comprehend it, an inner working an inner working of perversity that twists what was straight into the service of crooked depravity. Why there is no more thorough analysis of the offense than that given here at the opening of the thirty-second song. how devastating it is. Will you consider the transgression character of the offense, the sin character of the offense, the iniquity character of the offense, that beyond the boundaries of God’s law you find yourself, that apart from the path, straying willfully, you find yourself that within yourself you find the twisted crookedness of perversity at work.

The psalmist no more. God himself will not go easy on his analysis of our condition, his analysis of the offense, our sin, our guilt. We sometimes get the impression in modern preaching that sin is a breach of etiquette. We sometimes get the impression in modern teaching from Scripture by those called to preach that sin is just simply a violation of social norms. It’s much more serious than that. Well, you know the depth of the offense and you yourself are no stranger to it.

But this is a joyful song. This is a joyful song. So as thorough as his description of the offense and its offensiveness is now his description of the forgiveness. We are told in a marvelous mixing of images, thoughts, words, We are told that transgression is forgiven. He crosses the boundaries in his language. For the transgression is understood as that concrete act by which we go beyond the boundary of God’s rule, beyond the boundary of His law. But now that which He applies to the transgression is something that carries us into the depths of the forgiveness in view. The transgression, he tells us, is forgiven. How blessed is that one whose transgression is forgiven?

By which he means, how blessed is that one who knows the lifting or the carrying away of the burden that comes to set upon him in violating the boundary of God’s law and his will. That burden is removed. Can you now enter into the jubilation? Can you understand the psalmist’s exuberance, his joy? The burden of my transgression, of the transgression of those who seek the Lord’s face, the burden is removed. That is the declaration of the Word. It is removed. You carry it no longer. He moves on from there.

The sin. We have spoken about the sin as a wandering from the path, but now he invokes imagery in his discussion that brings before us the language of the sacrifices in God’s house. Blessed is that one whose sin is covered. It is as if now the sin takes on a new characteristic. It is seen here as a blemish, as an incurable blemish, as a cancer eating away at the flesh of those who have embraced it. But we are told that that blemish, that cancer is blotted out, it is covered, it becomes now, grasp it if you will, it becomes invisible, not to you so much as to God, it becomes invisible to God as if it never happened.

As if it never occurred. The burden is lifted. The blemish is blotted out. God looks at it no longer. It is difficult to imagine anything more remarkable or magnificent. For yourself, place yourself in the Son. Think of yourself As described here, one whose burden has been lifted, one whose blemishes have been covered, so that God sees them no more, it being as if they never occurred.

Do you remember the marvelous language of Jeremiah? in the thirty-first chapter describing the benefits of the New Covenant. He tells us there, and you may want to check it, Jeremiah thirty-one, thirty-four, “…and they shall not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” And they shall not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. Now, do you have a sense that the psalmist is talking about you? but still further.

The Lord in forgiving the Lord in covering also refuses to impute our iniquity to us. The words here are suggestive of the activity of an accountant who keeps a ledger of debts owed. Our sins are more than burdens. They were more than offensive blemishes. They are And I might say their reckoning up provides us then with an incalculable list of debts at that. But God’s gracious forgiveness operates in such a way that the iniquities, the debts, those things that prove us twisted and perverse, are not entered into the ledger. They are not numbered or reckoned. It is as if the slate is wiped clean and we are viewed as veterans.

That’s the significance of the meaning of imputation. Our offensiveness has been viewed in the language used here by the psalmist in its thoroughness, but so also adequate, more than adequate to it, the forgiveness that is extended, the grace that the Lord extends. There are two more matters, however. in these verses that we should take note of. As marvelous as the considerations are so far, we go on.

We must take into account the last line of the second verse, the conclusion of that verse, and in whose spirit there is no guile or as the new American standard has it, in whose spirit there is no deceit. Now, you might be thinking that the words here contradict the thoughts expressed in what has proceeded.

If this person, after all, has no guile, if he is free of deceit, then in what sense is he a sinner at all? And why is it necessary for him to seek forgiveness? You might be well asking the same question about verse six. When the psalmist says, therefore, let everyone who is godly, why, if he’s godly, then what Sense does it make to speak about his sinfulness? Or what about verse 11? Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones. Shout for joy, all of you who are upright in heart.

Well, if they are the righteous ones and they are the upright in heart, what need is there for them to confess? What do they have to confess? Are they not the godly ones, the righteous ones? Are they not those in whom there is found no deceit? Now, you see, you need to be educated in the language of Scripture.

The godly, the righteous, those who are without guile, are not those who are without sin. Rather, they are those who in sincerity confess their sin, and they are the ones forgiven, and consequently thus described. That they have no guile means that they are utterly sincere in their quest of God. Sincere before Him, sincere in their desire to be free of their sin. They are the ones, and only they are the ones, whose transgressions are forgiven. whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity.

Now, one last matter. The complicated one which is this, that in this psalm, like so many other portions of the Old Testament, to deal so directly with confession and contrition and forgiveness. This psalm, like those other portions, seems almost ignorant of The sacrificial system which was in place to provide means for forgiveness, expiation, a covenant. To be sure, the language about covering of sin is there in the second part of the first verse. We can see in this something of an allusion to the sacrificial system, but the system itself is not in view.

What we have here, therefore, is the effects of the system without the system. So that the approach of the sinner in search of forgiveness is direct. He comes to God directly. All that the system endeavored to teach informs him as he comes in his approach. But now, without that system, he finds the benefits suggested by it. Not in the sacrifices themselves, but in God himself. Not in the system, but in that confession. and that direct intertwining of heart and soul with God himself.

The power of it registers upon the apostle Paul like a thunderbolt. For in reading this psalm now, he sees at work the principle of justification by faith without the system, without the works of the law. Blessed is that man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from the works of the law through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The psalm becomes prophecy. The psalmist becomes a prophet.

So that laid within the lines is that one who carries us beyond the sacrifices in the tabernacle and temple. Laid within the lines is Jesus Christ. that one through whom we are justified, faith in whom grants us forgiveness, a covering, and a clean slate, even more marvelously than what the psalmist himself could comprehend in his time. Now you know my habit to move from the lesser to the greater. If this man could so express himself in this way while living in the shadow, how ought you to express yourself while living in the light? How blessed. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. Your burden lifted. Your blemish cut. Your ledger wiped clean. There’s nothing more wonderful. Absolutely nothing more wonderful than that.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.