Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom
God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless
deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against
whom the Lord will not count his sin.” (Romans 4:6-8 (ESV)
Paul quotes a couple Psalms to make his point that what he
preaches is something that the OT already teaches. It isn’t anything new. God
justifies the ungodly. God forgives sins. God does not hold our sins against
us. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven.
The question I suppose one has here is, who are “those?” You
are those. It is your lawless deeds that God forgives. We automatically though,
run into a catch 22. Our sinful natures want our lawless deeds to be forgiven,
we want their lawless deeds to be punished. In this world lawless deeds are
punished. Even your lawless deeds find punishment and earthly retribution more
often than not. The old saying that what comes around goes around is for the
most part true. Sometimes we escape direct retribution but then we find things
happening to us for no apparent reason, and sometimes you wonder if it isn’t
somehow retribution for whatever it was that you did and kept hidden since you
were 12 or whatever. This isn’t talking about earthly consequences for our
actions. It is talking about something far more severe, the eternal
consequences of our actions. And what we deserve is what they deserve, and none
of us would wish that on our worst enemy’s dog as the saying goes. God doesn’t
wish it on you either. For this reason he sent his Son to die for you, that you
would be blessed and being blessed be forgiven.
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