This begins with a joyous beatitude: Blessed are the forgiven. And then the author gives another one in verse 2: Blessed is the man whom God restores to a state of blamelessness and favor. Now I paraphrased those, but that is essentially what they mean. This is markedly different in tone from Psalm 6 and from Psalm 38, which is a lot like Psalm 6. Because this psalm, Psalm 32, is upbeat and joyous, especially at the beginning here, as it is a celebration of being forgiven and restored by God.
This is kind of like stepping right from the end of Psalm 6 and going into Psalm 32 and David is saying, "Oh, what a blessed thing it is to be forgiven!" So it is a penitential psalm, but you can see how some people would think it was a thanksgiving psalm because of the way it begins.
Verses 1 and 2 are the beatitudes, and I will not go into what blessed means and all that. We have had enough sermons and articles and such about the beatitudes and what they mean. Essentially, it is this is the idea of that one is happy, one is blessed, one is prosperous.
And let me just add here that the Hebrew word evokes blessing from a superior to an inferior. So this is what happens when the one who is for you—the one who is your master—gives you something good, and what the something good is here is forgiveness. So David's mind is contented and happy. He is joyful that God has forgiven him, whatever the transgression was, and He has restored him to guiltlessness. He has been cleared by God, and now David has a clear slate, a clean slate. And what is even more amazing is that God treats him—this sinner, a former sinner—as righteous. And they can work together.
Let us go on to verses 3 through 5. This is very interesting. He is describing what it was like as a kind of a flashback when he was still sinful, before God had forgiven him, and we know this because it starts out with "When I kept silent." And what this means is before I prayed to God, before I made my confession, before I asked for forgiveness, I was in a horrible shape. I felt, David says, sick, lethargic, old, lifeless, and as I mentioned before, dry." Because that is how sin is; sin is a drag, physically and spiritually. It corrupts; it destroys; it does not make one feel better.
But then he determined that he would own up to his sin and expose his sinfulness to God. He would confess his sinfulness to Him. And then the end of verse 5, it reads like, "I resolved to confess my sin to God, and just like that, He forgave me." I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin." It was that simple.
Of course God wanted to see how sorrowful he was and what he was determined to do once he was forgiven, but that is all it takes. God's forgiveness was instantaneous upon that, and he was able then to go forward.
Verses 6 and 7 is a concluding statement. It begins with,
The gist of it is that because God forgives sin, those who are in a covenant relationship with Him can have true happiness. They can have true blessedness. We can trust; we can have faith that God will forgive us when we fail Him because that is His nature, that is the covenant that we have signed on to. One of the parts of the covenant that He says He will do is forgive our sins. That is part of His role.
And so when we come before Him and ask Him for forgiveness in the right attitude and the right spirit, He is going to do it. So all those who are godly, meaning those who are in the covenant, shall pray to You in a time when You may be found, meaning in their day of salvation, in their opportunity for salvation. And You will hear.
Now this ends with, "surely in a flood of great waters they shall not come near him." He switches that quick to those who are iniquitous, to the wicked. It does not seem like there is a switch, but actually this flood of great waters is the Flood of Noah he is talking about. He is talking about all those sinful people before the Flood in … . . .
