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Psalm 51:14
Excerpted from: Psalm 51 (Part Four): Psalm 51:13-19Now on to verse 14, "Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness." David, I think, goes to this idea of blood guiltiness because what he had just written here and thinking about his own experience and how he could help others reminded him of just how bad he was once again, that he was guilty of blood. He was guilty of at least the blood of Uriah the Hittite. We could probably throw the death of his son in there, and as we have seen recently, God also because of this ended up allowing Amnon and Absalom to die. And Adonijah died as well later on. There was a lot of death that came from this problem, this horrible sin that David had committed. And doing stuff for others based on his own experience made him think about just how far he had devolved into evil, an evil person.
The guilt was just oppressive to him, weighed very heavily on his mind, and he probably thought, "I just asked God to help me help people and I'm not worthy. I've got all this blood guilt stacked against me" and only God can forgive that. But he still felt the guilt in himself even though God had cleared him. I mean, Nathan was very plain when he said God has forgiven you. When he admitted that he was the man. But it still was like a canker on his soul, if you will. He probably thought, "How could I be so evil to have done that so blithely? How could I be so contemptuous of their lives? Why would I throw away a good man like Uriah? Why would I endanger that innocent baby?" But he had done it.
And so it kind of shows us that even a great man like David, even though he knew he was forgiven, still had these feelings afterward, still had these feelings of worthlessness and guilt that he had to work through. I mean, it is not just God waving a magic wand and somehow everything goes away. He still had to deal with this. And one of the best results of this hanging on to one's soul, to one's heart, is that if it is dealt with properly, it should produce humility. That we are worthless and that any help we can give to others is just an obligation that we have because we have been through this experience and only by the grace of God go I.
I just want to mention offhandedly here that this blood guiltiness, if we look at it at a bit of a higher level, could be his guilt for Christ's death. He knew that a Savior had to die for him. He knew that only blood covers sin. Only a life given, the blood shed would actually cover his sin. So only the Redeemer, the Savior, the life of the Savior could cover a man's sin. So I think this is at least on two levels here, that is, his blood guiltiness over the death of those physical men that died, but also ultimately the death of the Savior.
Sometimes that word righteousness could also be translated as justice. Even though God was going to bring down on him and his family the penalties of his blood guiltiness, God would still require justice. He had slain a man cruelly. He admits that God had been just in his case. He admits without saying so, that God cannot do wrong. And so because of that, David deserved punishment for his despicable sins. He admits the reality. Because God does not promise us that we are not going to feel any consequences of our sins. He clears us of the guilt. He forgives us. But we still have to pay some consequences of our actions.
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