There is something to touch in seeing a soul open out to God without yet enjoying deliverance. It knows well that he who waits on God shall not be confounded; but peace is not there though seen from afar. We must remark the manner in which God receives this opening of heart. He takes cognizance of all that passes in the soul: fear, hope, sins, deliverance. God would have us understand that He occupies Himself with it all.
The Psalms, because of their prophetic character, are the expression of the Holy Spirit's operation in the soul before it finds peace. They do not give the definitive answer of the love of God. There is in our hearts a depth of hardness, of insensibility, of levity such that it is needful God should take; sins with them to fix them and bring them down to the feeling of their incapacity. God fixes the soul by the sense of its wants. We are so miserable that the only means of giving us the ides of God's love is by fixing the heart through its wants on the contemplation of what God is; so that where the sense of want fails the love of God is totally unknown, as if it did not exist.
In verses 7-11 There is a deep principle. It is only when we are thoroughly convinced that our iniquity is “great” that we feel the need we have of God and of His pardon. One might think of a little iniquity, that one had just to remedy oneself, or that God might pass it over. The heart of man upsets everything. He puts the uprightness of Jehovah before His grace, His truth before His mercy, and thinks that, if a man walk as he ought, God will be good toward him. That is just the contrary of what is said here. “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O Lord. Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.” (Vers. 7-11.) Jehovah who is “upright” loves uprightness; but before all He would have the wretched sinner know Him as “good.” The ill-enlightened soul that knows its faults up to a certain point desires to arrive at enjoying the goodness of God by its own uprightness. It is the proof of a state of heart which knows not God and which hardens itself against all the history He has given of man's heart, as well as of Himself, in the word. Hardness of boast rises against the grace of God, and nothing more hinders grace from acting than the thought that, if one is Upright, God will be good; and this, because the heart is neither lowly nor softened, and pride is not, yet destroyed therein.
Man wishes that one should not speak to him of his sins. The action of the Holy Spirit on the contrary makes one own and confess sin in detail. We can speak of sin in general, or yet more of the sins of which we are not guilty, but otherwise a man does not speak of his own sins. Did not Peter say to the Jews, “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just,” although he had done so himself in a manner still more shameful? Why did he speak of that sin without blushing? The Holy Spirit alone could give him to do so through Him who came by water and blood. Paul when converted and in peace speaks freely to the Lord Jesus of the sins he had done against His name and saints. An unconverted man can speak of evil or of other sins than his own, having no confidence in God's grace for eternal life or remission. A thief may blame a drunkard; but no one naturally speaks of his Own sins, because the conscience avoids being upright before God. Men would hide their sins and show their good qualities; they would pass as honest good sort of people, and get rid of God. In that case one has no need of the goodness of God. People will try to meet the goodness of God by a certain uprightness; but there is no true confidence in God, and every hope of rendering worship to God in this state of things is a fraud. God begins with what we are; He takes us such as we are; and man will not have it so.
God presents to us in the Bible the most extraordinary things. He lays out all His counsels and all His resources on the evil state in which man is found. We see then all the efforts and the pains God has taken to put Himself in relation with the heart of Matt. It is the greatest hardness of heart to see, without being thereby touched, all that which God has done, and the action of His Spirit in those who are saved. One sees hearts with God's goodness out before them, yet abiding far from Him, such as they are. The hard heart sees all that and goes its own way. The heart that is thus has not yet received the least seed of life.
But one may also be convinced of sin and seek to recover before God the place one has lost. This soul believes that there is some means other than pure pardon. It has not yet true relations with God. It cannot any longer seek the world; it observes the Lord's day; attends meetings, and rests on the like. But then the soul is not convinced that God is love, any more than it is in the presence of God with a true knowledge of itself. Not being humbled, it chooses itself a way to arrive at God, and cannot say, “I wait on thee,” as in verses 5, 21. It is when we are convinced that it is no question of getting to God, but that we are in His presence and lost, that we can say, “For thy name's sake, O Jehovah, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.” There is no more thought of bettering the conduct in order to get to God; there is no more a way to pave. We no longer desire then to avoid God, but we see ourselves before Him such as we are. If God is revealed, we have to understand that which He is Himself, and then comes the knowledge of His grace. It is a question of knowing what God is in respect to the sinner who is always in His presence. God is always” good,” and He will not sanction the wickedness of man in leaving him quiet though hardened. Instead of reproaching with the sin, God brings to the conviction of sin in making felt that He has seen the sin, that He has thought of it, and that He has found a means of pardoning and of teaching sinners the way they should follow.
“For thy goodness' sake,” “for thy name's sake:” there is ground on which the soul founds its confidence. Impossible that God should fail His own name. (John 17:66I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. (John 17:6).) He is “good and upright.” What does the goodness of God to a trembling and miserable sinner? It does not cast up to him his misery, but takes cognizance of it to inspire him with full confidence and give him courage. God would deny Himself if He failed in His goodness in this case. God cannot do otherwise; He sees to His own name, His glory, His truth, His grace, in a word to all that He is, as we see in the father of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:20-2520And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 23And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: 24For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. 25Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. (Luke 15:20‑25).)