Confession, Forgiveness, Relief, and Joy -- a study of Psalm 32
- mww
- Jul 30
- 14 min read
Repentance is wise; stubborn unrepentance is foolish. And painful.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Psalm 32
This week's psalm is unlike the other penitential psalms in that it focuses on the "after" of repentance -- experiencing the joy of God's forgiveness. David describes his life before and after his repentance, and he calls on all of his people not to put off repenting of their sin but instead confessing and enjoying forgiveness. That's still true of Christians today.
How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! (32:1)
This Week's Psalm: The "Other Side of Repentance"
This week's psalm is generally classified as a "Penitential Psalm" like last week's (Psalm 38), but there's a big difference -- Psalm 32 focuses on "life after repentance" (i.e., receiving God's forgiveness).
So, anything you didn't get to last week, it would probably be completely appropriate to cover this week. Just make sure that between last week and this week that your group understands both repentance and forgiveness.
Here are some basic truths:
God's forgiveness is only found in Jesus.
God's forgiveness is always found in Jesus.
Those who have been forgiven must forgive others.
There is a difference between earthly forgiveness and reconciliation.
And here are some other Bible studies we've done on this topic (if you need a refresher).
What is repentance?
God's sovereignty and Joseph's man-up moment
Forgiveness vs. reconciliation vs. restoration
Jesus can forgive on God's behalf
A beautiful example of repentance
Getting Started: Things to Think About
Stubbornness
This is the gift that keeps on giving. Come with a story about your own stubbornness. (It's easy to talk about other people's stubbornness, but it would be more fun and appropriate to talk about yourself.) If you need to, you can start with stories about your pets. I have never owned an animal that wasn't capable of being unbelievably stubborn. (This is just a royalty-free image; that's not anyone we know.)
Depending on how comfortable your group is with each other, you could then escalate into a deeper question: what's a time your stubbornness got you into real trouble? Be sensitive about this -- this can be a very sore subject in some households. And that would be David's point in the psalm: why are people so stubborn about things that are good for them (like repentance)? But that doesn't make it any easier to talk about.
If people in your group come away from your time together with "I need to be less stubborn about such-and-such", then great. Just be circumspect with how you get there.
Your Favorite Experience of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is one of the great topics we can talk about. I have never met a person who did not desire or appreciate forgiveness. (That is not to say that such people don't exist -- the murderer in Idaho certainly put up a facade of not caring about forgiveness -- I just haven't talked to them.)
What's a time somebody forgave you that really shook you up?
Without going into details, I can think of a time (or two) (or three) I made the wrong decision because I hadn't gotten all of the facts. An extremely poor decision. When the person hurt by my decision forgave me was like sunshine in my soul. Sometimes it was quick to get there (and really humbling), and sometimes it took a lot of humble pie on my part (which I deserved), but the experience of receiving forgiveness is always indescribable.
Of course, one of our big topics this week will be God's forgiveness for us in Jesus Christ. But for this topic, the emphasis would be on human forgiveness between one another.
Relief!
Relief comes in many circumstances. What is a relief you experienced recently? Or, what is something you find extremely relieving?
Obviously, "relief from the heat" comes to mind right now. Whether that's entering air conditioning, drinking cold water, or taking a cold shower, relief from the heat is something I look forward to.
Maybe it's relief from pain or discomfort -- getting a shot, seeing your chiropractor, stretching, getting a massage. Maybe it's relief from stress -- completing a project, coming back from a work trip, or eating some ice cream after a long day. Whatever it is, what do you consider "relief"?
In this week's passage, we are going to be reminded about the incredible relief that comes with being forgiven.
Psalm 32
I've already mentioned that the psalm is called a penitential psalm. You can read more about that in last week's lesson if you want --
The other penitential psalms are about the process of repentance, about getting to the point of repenting for the sin that has ruined your life. But Psalm 32 is about the "after" -- after the psalmist repented, the psalmist enjoyed forgiveness.
In many ways, Psalm 32 functions as a wisdom psalm. Now that David has personally experienced God's forgiveness, he takes on the role of the "wise teacher" who now encourages others to repent and experience forgiveness. It is called a "maskil", which is a Hebrew word for "understanding" or "intelligence". That could be a slam-dunk case for calling this a wisdom psalm, but people far smarter than me argue that it refers to the type of composition -- Psalm 32 is a skillful, artistic poem. In other words, a maskil could be a wisdom psalm, or it could be a "well-written" psalm.
Whatever "maskil" means, the psalm was recorded to teach the rest of us the value of repentance.
This Week's Big Idea: Forgiveness
What else could it be? All of those posts linked at the top also have sections devoted to the meaning of forgiveness, so I don't feel the need to go into great detail. Here is a summary of the Holman Bible Dictionary entry on forgiveness.
The two primary Old Testament images of forgiveness are
pardon for an offense, and
excuse from a debt owed.
The two main Hebrew words translated "forgiveness" are
nasa (to take away) and
salach (to pardon).
God "does not allow the guilty to go unpunished, yet He is a God of forgiveness." The physical representation of what that looks like is the sacrificial system (particularly Leviticus 4 and 5) -- sin demands a punishment (God's perfect justice must be satisfied), but God will accept a suitable substitute. And the only suitable substitute is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who willingly paid the price for all human sin on the cross. According to Paul (particularly Romans 3), the old Jewish sacrificial system pointed to Jesus, and those who trusted God's purpose in that system also found their true forgiveness in the future sacrifice of Jesus.
Consider these verses:
Mark 1:4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Matt 26:28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
But Jesus strongly connected God's forgiveness with human forgiveness:
Matt 6:9 Therefore, you should pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
14 For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. 15 But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.
Catch that. The very next verse in the Bible after the Lord's Prayer is about human forgiveness. How important must that be! (Btw, I used the "ACTS" model for prayer last week; this week would be a wonderful time to use Jesus' Model Prayer. Jesus explicitly highlights human forgiveness in His prayer.) (And if you aren't convinced how important human forgiveness was to Jesus, read the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matt 18:21-35.)
From a theological perspective, the teaching is simple:
Anyone who would claim to follow Jesus should forgive as Jesus forgave.
Anyone who has experienced God's forgiveness should forgive freely.
Jesus did not forgive us for us to be stingy with our own forgiveness.
In Paul's letters, Paul also points out that forgiveness is vital to a healthy church. (See in particular 2 Corinthians 2.) If church members cannot forgive each other, what hope does that church have? What witness does that church have?
This is not to say that forgiveness is easy! And this is not to say that forgiveness must lead to reconciliation or restoration (although those outcomes are noble). Read my other posts linked above if you aren't sure what I mean by this.
**Long story short: if we repent of our sin, God will forgive us. If we have experienced God's forgiveness, we should forgive all others. And finally, we should leave justice in God's hands; if that person deserves punishment, we should trust God to handle it.
**For our part in this week's lesson, the primary emphasis is on us and our relationship with God. If we have sinned (and we have), that sin has damaged our relationship with God and we should repent. When we repent (truly), we will experience God's forgiveness and a restoration of our relationship with Him.
Emphasis: Human Forgiveness
This will require some humble soul searching on everyone's part. And if you don't remember the difference between forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration, I encourage you to skim the posts I linked at the top.
I would expect this sort of question to come up during your discussion: Why can it be so hard to ask for someone else's forgiveness? Why can it be so hard to give forgiveness?
These are as real-life as questions get. What's the answer? It's certainly not something we can avoid. Not when Jesus says this in the Sermon on the Mount:
Matt 5:23 So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.
When you need to ask for forgiveness, you shouldn't delay.
[Important note about Jesus' words about reconciliation for those of you who won't read my earlier posts -- reconciliation happens when forgiveness has been requested and offered and accepted. It takes both parties for forgiveness to become reconciliation. As Christians, we must always offer forgiveness, whether or not it's been asked for. But for reconciliation, I think it's only possible (or wise) when both parties are truly party to the forgiveness.]
Part 1: The Blessing of Forgiveness (Psalm 32:1-2)
1 How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! 2 How joyful is a person whom the Lord does not charge with iniquity and in whose spirit is no deceit!
I really hope you immediately thought of Psalm 1:
1 How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers!
Yes, the Hebrew word is the same for "joyful" as for "happy", so everything you talked about in Psalm 1 applies here. David (the psalmist) isn't talking about an emotion -- he's talking about something deep inside of him.
Based on my topics above, you might have guessed that I like the word "relief" here. This is the kind of joy that is felt at the moment of true, soul-settling relief.
Remember that this is poetry, so the semantic difference between "transgression" and "sin" is not David's concern -- this is poetic parallelism. David's "offence against God", however you want to label it, has been dealt with.
Likewise, the results are also poetic -- forgiven, covered, not charged, no deceit -- but I think it's worth pointing out how they address to full range of God's response to repentance.
God has erased David's "debt of sin" and
covered that sin so it is no longer visible and
erased the charge of sin against David and
now David no longer has to hide from God.
In other words, David has experienced complete, full, and utter forgiveness. Whatever we think that term means, God has given it to David in entirety.
[About "no deceit". This is a great phrase. It's not suggesting that David is no longer deceptive or doesn't sin anymore. David is just saying that in his repentance, he acknowledged that his life is an "open book" before God, so there's nothing he can hide. Accepting that gave him the incredible relief of no longer trying to hide from God. God sees his sin, and God still forgives him.]
[About Jesus. Let's always remember that God's forgiveness comes at a terrible price -- the death of Jesus. Jesus paid that cost willingly, in love for us, so we should rejoice as David rejoiced. But, listening to Paul, we should also take our forgiveness very seriously and desire to live a life reflecting that forgiveness.]
In other words, the state of being forgiven is an incredible blessing. Is that true? Where would you "rank" God's forgiveness on a list of blessings?
Part 2: The Reality of Forgiveness (Psalm 32:3-5)
3 When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was drained as in the summer’s heat. Selah 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not conceal my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
This obviously is very reminiscent of what we studied last week in Psalm 38. David's sin, and the guilt from that sin, had so thoroughly wrecked David that it had killed his mental and physical health.
[Remember that I find this language to be poetic -- this didn't necessarily happen in summer any more than the Lord was physically pressing on David's body. David's experience of this time was as if he was doing heavy labor in the summer's heat without water or rest. Whether God was directly doing that to him or supercharging his conscience to do it to himself, the point was that David's sin had directly caused his circumstances and put up a barrier between himself and the best ally he could have.]
And then there's the "selah." We don't know what it means or how it was used. Sorry. In verse 4, it obviously creates a break between the horrors David experienced in verse 4 and the relief he experienced in verse 5.
We don't know how long David went between committing the sin and confessing the sin, but we know it was long enough to be ruinous to him.
In my personal experience, the longer I go between sin and confessing, the worse things get. I'm sure it is true of you because it only makes sense. Part of the reason for that is how we can become desensitized to our own sin (and even the consequences thereof). Live in a sin long enough, and even the most tender-hearted Christian can begin to justify it, excuse it, or ignore it. Thus, God "ratchets up" the accountability to break through the growing layers of callous. We see this throughout the Old Testament, where God repeatedly allows His own people to be conquered and even exiled because they had grown so unmindful of their own sin.
And of course, the longer we go before confessing our sin, the harder it becomes to confess it. Why is that? Is it about shame? Is it something we think is probably better left alone after a certain gap of time?
Those answers might be true of a sin against another person, but they are never true with respect to God. God sees, God knows, God does not forget, and God cannot be avoided.
So, David had to "steel himself" to make his confession. Whatever fear you have had in making a confession, David felt that!
But when David "worked up the courage" to confess, he confessed. He didn't hem and haw. He didn't make excuses. He didn't downplay anything. He just jumped in and confessed everything.
And God forgave him.
The Lifeway material mentions my very favorite example of this experience in Luke 7:
40 Jesus replied to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” He said, “Say it, teacher.” 41 “A creditor had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one he forgave more.” “You have judged correctly,” he told him. 44 Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she, with her tears, has washed my feet and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet since I came in. 46 You didn’t anoint my head with olive oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. 47 Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
This is the heart of why Jesus came. God's beloved creation, wandering aimlessly with a burden of guilt they could not carry, wasting away in their sin. All they needed to do was confess their sin to God and He would forgive, but they couldn't see (or they didn't believe). On the cross, Jesus both made a way for our forgiveness and also gave us a tangible (unforgettable) image reminding us of the proof of God's love and forgiveness.
I am going to assume that David offered a sacrifice according to Leviticus 4:22-26 “When a leader sins and unintentionally violates any of the commands of the Lord his God by doing what is prohibited, and incurs guilt, 23 or someone informs him about the sin he has committed, he is to bring an unblemished male goat as his offering. ... 26 In this way the priest will make atonement on his behalf for that person’s sin, and he will be forgiven." But David had a deep assurance of that forgiveness. He had some sort of spiritual encounter with God in which David knew God had accepted his repentance.
And that leads to a valuable question for us -- how do we know God has forgiven our sins?
Aside on Repentance
Real quick -- what are the elements of repentance? Verbal confession is not necessarily sufficient! You have to acknowledge your sin -- acknowledge that you are responsible for that behavior and that it violates God's law. Then, you confess that sin directly to God (as David did in our psalm). And then you commit to turning away from that sinful behavior and turning toward God's perfect plan for living. In other words, the words "I'm sorry for my sin" aren't necessarily true repentance.
When David talks about "confession" here, I think he's clearly talking about the entire process of what we call "repentance".
Part 3: The Wisdom of Repentance (Psalm 32:6-11)
6 Therefore let everyone who is faithful pray to you immediately. When great floodwaters come, they will not reach him. 7 You are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with joyful shouts of deliverance. Selah
8 I will instruct you and show you the way to go; with my eye on you, I will give counsel. 9 Do not be like a horse or mule, without understanding, that must be controlled with bit and bridle or else it will not come near you.
10 Many pains come to the wicked, but the one who trusts in the Lord will have faithful love surrounding him. 11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones; shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
This is where the psalm turns into a "wisdom psalm". Repentance is wise, therefore all of God's people should do it.
This makes me think of one of our lessons from Proverbs (back in 2020!); you might recognize one of the photos in the post:
"Discipline" is certainly not the same as punishment or accountability for sin, but our response to both should be consistent. God disciplines us and holds us accountable for our actions for our own good, and thus for the good of our community.
10:17 The one who follows instruction is on the path to life, but the one who rejects correction goes astray.
The wise man listens to correction. The foolish man rejects it.
In David's experience, this is just as true of sin as it is of "rule-breaking". (What is sin but rule-breaking of God's rules. What is guilt but the discipline from sin.)
"Stubbornness" is associated with "foolishness", and David wants us not to be foolish or stubborn. But instead, the person whose relationship with God is right is both wise and humble, and his life is full of rejoicing.
Do you want a life of rejoicing, or of self-inflicted pain?
To David, having lived on both sides of that question, it's not a question. It's a call to action. He never again wants to live so far from God in unrepentance, and he wants us to make the same decision.
What sin do you need to confess and repent of? Do you need help accepting (or believing) God's forgiveness? People in your Bible study are here to help you, and the Holy Spirit is already at work within you.
Comments