Psalm 51:5-6

Now, one commentator that I checked said that he felt that verse 5 may be the most misinterpreted verse in the Psalms. I do not know if that is true, but in his estimation it was. Many Catholics and Protestants point to verse 5 as proof of the doctrine of original sin. And that they usually couple with Romans 5:12 through the end of the chapter about Adam versus Christ, and Adam brought sin and Christ brought life, but that is not here.

The doctrine of original sin basically states that our depraved nature is inborn in humans due to Adam's sin in Eden. In a way, they are saying that it is part of our DNA. It is just a permanent part of human nature and it just gets passed on from each person to their children and then the grandchildren and it is all throughout the world.

But in context, that is, in the context of verses 3 and 4 where he is saying that he acknowledges his transgression and understands that he has only sinned before God, David is expressing just how pervasive sin is in him. This is personal to him. He is not talking about the rest of the world. He is talking about his personal sin, his life, the things that have happened to him from the time of his conception. He says, "I've been surrounded by sin all my life. My mother was a sinner. And, hey, I sinned just as soon as possible."

All human beings are prone to sin. It is part of our fleshly nature. We are not necessarily neutral when we come out into this world because we have flesh. Our flesh is inherently selfish because it has these drives for self-preservation and those sorts of things. So we are going to get for ourselves. Rather, we will get for ourselves before we give to others. We are always going to take care of number one and so we have that slight bent toward ourselves. And selfishness is not the way of God. He is a giver. He looks on other people first. And so we have this natural bent towards sin, but it is not inborn. And I guess personality plays a little bit of a part in all this, but deep down, basically everybody is selfish.

So, human beings are prone to sin, and David was no different. This is what he is actually saying here. His sin goes back to the roots of his existence. Not that it is in his DNA, but just personally and socially he can say that he has always been surrounded by sin. It is the human condition, as I said. What he is describing here is what we can just basically say is man's way. Man's way is a way of sin. It is the way of humanity.

Now, verse 6 describes the opposite. It is God's way. "Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom." So what is he saying here? He desires truth in the inner man and so he asks God to teach his heart wisdom. Now, He uses the word "truth" here. We encountered this word last time in Exodus 34:6. It is emet there and here it is truth. But it can also mean faithfulness, trustworthiness, constancy, and truth in the sense of being reliable. You can count on the truth. It is not going to lead you astray. So the truth is something that we need so we know the right way to go and we can count on it. The instruction, the truth is sure. It is not going to bring us out in a different place. If we do end up going in a different place than where truth points, it is our fault because the truth is true, it is reliable.

So he is asking God to give him the reliable instruction that he needs to get where God wants him to go. He is asking God for reliable instruction in the right way to live, which he knows comes from God's trustworthy Word. That comes by revelation. All this book that we have in front of us comes by revelation. It was revealed bit by bit over a period of a couple thousand years, to various men who wrote it down, and this has come down to us, it has been transmitted, but it has been kept pure in its revelation.

And then along with the revelation is the application. The application is made possible by God's Spirit. This is why … . . .