April 10, 2025 - Psalm 25:11 - "Pardon For Sin"

Psalm 25:11

"For thy name's sake, O LORD, Pardon mine iniquity; for it is great."

David cried, “For Thy name’s sake, O LORD, PARDON MINE INIQUITY: for it is great” (Psalm 25:11). So great is our sin that none can bear the weight of its guilt and so great that none but God can forgive it. If God should mark iniquity and insist on satisfaction for it from us, there would be no standing before Him, "If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand" (Psalm 130:3)? Yet, there is forgiveness with Him: "But there is forgiveness with thee, That thou mayest be feared" (Psalm 130:4).  How?   

    Psalm 85:2 says, “Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin.”  In this, the psalmist looks by Faith to the death of the LORD Jesus. The blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin but served as a provisional covering for the sins of God’s elect until the LORD Jesus came and shed His blood unto death: "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:12-14)? 

The blood of the LORD Jesus Christ was shed for the actual pardon for sin on behalf of that select number of sinners that God the Father chose and gave to His Son to save by His righteous obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, "and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8). They were chosen, not because He saw that they would believe on Him, for none would believe, except the Father by His Spirit draws them, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:44).  He chose them out of His own free and sovereign Grace because He loved His Son and He would honor His Son with a people to save by His Grace “...in the fulness of the time” (Galatians 4:4).

At the moment that our LORD cried, “It is finished,” and commended His Spirit to the Father on the cross, the entire work of the pardon of the sin of His people was completed (John 19:30). Then and there the Bible declares that God the Father redeemed, justified and sanctified each one of the elect, "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11).  

God does not wait for redeemed sinners to believe to forgive their sins and justify them. Rather, He has already forgiven them for Christ’s sake by His shed blood unto death on the cross, "Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath though Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation" (Romans 5:9-11).

Faith then believes the Record that God has given of His Son about the forgiveness of sins and righteousness that He fully accomplished in His perfect life and effectual death on the cross, "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11).  

Here is encouragement for the elect, redeemed, and justified sinners to hope in Him for Salvation (Psalm 130:3-7). As the publican in the temple cried, “God, be merciful to me, [the] sinner" (Luke 18:13)! The cry for Mercy was literally for God to look upon the Mercy Seat (a type of Christ and His shed blood). It is there and only there that God has put away the sin of His people and there they find the Just God already satisfied and His holy law already fulfilled and magnified by Christ on their behalf, "The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify the law, and make it honourable" (Isaiah 42:21).