The Case of the Missing Story

1 Chronicles 20:1

Chronicles is a retelling of the story of Israel and Judah. Most of what you read in these two books is first found in the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings. The stories are not in chronological order in every case and the Chronicles gives more details in many areas.

This is why 1 Chronicles 20:1 is so odd. It is first told in 2 Samuel 11:1. As a matter of fact, the wording in both books is close to identical, with Samuel’s version ending with “David tarried still at Jerusalem”, which Chronicles tells you as well. However, in Chronicles, the next sentence has Joab smiting Rabbah and destroying it, with verse 2 telling us that David took the crown off of the king’s head and put it on his own. In Samuel, these events do not happen until 2 Samuel 12:26, nearly two chapters later! Why the big gap? What happens in chapter 11 and 12 that the Holy Spirit does not deem necessary to repeat in the retelling of Chronicles?

The 11th chapter of 2 Samuel is one of the saddest in the Bible. It records the lust filled David, taking Bathsheba as his own and then conspiring to murder her husband. He then goes nearly a year with this cover-up unknown to anyone but the two of them, before God sends the prophet Nathan to show him his sin. David appeals to God in Psalm 51, asking for forgiveness and mercy without sacrifice. Nothing but faith in a coming redeemer could have taught David that someday salvation would be available by faith alone, without lambs dying. David seeks God’s grace, nearly 1000 years before the cross and God gives it, telling David, “Thou shalt not die” (2 Samuel 12:13).

David writes of this kind of grace in Psalm 32, when he makes a statement that Paul would quote in his great epistle to Romans: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:7, 8).

Then Paul writes this: “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Because of the finished work of Calvary, God does not impute sin to us anymore! We are guilty of our own version of David and Bathsheba. We have done things that we are not proud of and that we hope will never be found out nor repeated. Praise God that in the retelling of your life’s story, God will remove all of those moments, and make the story sound as if they never happened. We are “justified by faith” (Romans 5:1), which means that it is just as if we’d never sinned. Our sins are not counted against us, and there are many “missing stories” in all of our lives.

Thank God for Jesus and His glorious finished work at Calvary. Because He died I have been reconciled to God, with all of my old stories vanishing from the retelling. Because He lives, I now live also. Today let Him live that life through you. Go in grace.

Happy is the Man that Knows He is Forgiven!

Psalms 32:1, 2

If the first couple of verses of Psalms 32 look familiar that is because Paul quotes these verses in his letter to the Romans, preceded by this phrase, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5), and then, “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man…” (Verse 6). Paul is connecting David’s prayer with his own revelation of righteousness without the keeping of the law. Let’s look closer at this connection that Paul is making.

Paul does not assume that David is talking about himself, which is how some Bible teachers explain this verse, attempting to say that we do not have this promise, but that only David had it. If David were talking only of himself, then Paul would not have made the connection as being relevant for his own readers in Rome. He also would not have said, “The blessedness of the man” (verse 6), but rather, “the blessedness of David”.

“Blessed” is better translated “happy” from the Greek. The man who knows that his iniquities are forgiven and his sins are covered is happy. There is a joy unspeakable connected to the knowledge that you are forgiven of all of your failures and that your sins are gone in Jesus. With an improper knowledge of this forgiveness, your Christian walk is one of misery and discouragement because you will attempt to please a God that is already well pleased.

The next “blessed” is especially exciting, “Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Psalms 32:2). When Paul quotes this verse in Romans 4:8, he drops the last part, “in whose spirit there is no guile” because as a New Covenant teacher he knows that there can be no guile, or hypocrisy in the spirit man of a believer. There may be hypocrisy in their thoughts and their actions, but their spirit man is as Christ in this world (1 John 4:17).

Having exposed only the front half of the verse, Paul furthers us deeper into the power of this phrase by using an emphatic Greek phrase for “will not”. It means “never, ever”, which shows us that “Happy is the man to whom the Lord will never, ever impute sin”. What a glorious thought!

Opponents of this interpretation say that David is referring to the man who lives right. They say that if you do right then God cannot impute sin to you. First of all, “impute” means “to count”, thus if sins are imputed then they are counted against you. If they are not imputed then they are not counted against you. Think about it for a moment; why would someone who does the right thing be excited that their sin is not going to be imputed against them? They haven’t done anything wrong! The only one who would be “happy” about sins not counting against them is the one who has done something wrong.

This message is often neglected because people are afraid that this knowledge will lead to sinful lifestyles among believers. Actually, the opposite is true! The knowledge that you are not condemned never leads you to want to sin more, but rather it is the one thing that helps you to go and “sin no more”.

Be happy today with the knowledge that your sins are not imputed against you because they have already been imputed to Jesus at the cross and He has paid your penalty. Hallelujah!

The Case of the Missing Story

1 Chronicles 20:1

Chronicles is a retelling of the story of Israel and Judah. Most of what you read in these two books is first found in the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings. The stories are not in chronological order in every case and the Chronicles gives more details in many areas.

This is why 1 Chronicles 20:1 is so odd. It is first told in 2 Samuel 11:1. As a matter of fact, the wording in both books is close to identical, with Samuel’s version ending with “David tarried still at Jerusalem”, which Chronicles tells you as well. However, in Chronicles, the next sentence has Joab smiting Rabbah and destroying it, with verse 2 telling us that David took the crown off of the king’s head and put it on his own. In Samuel, these events do not happen until 2 Samuel 12:26, nearly two chapters later! Why the big gap? What happens in chapter 11 and 12 that the Holy Spirit does not deem necessary to repeat in the retelling of Chronicles?

The 11th chapter of 2 Samuel is one of the saddest in the Bible. It records the lust filled David, taking Bathsheba as his own and then conspiring to murder her husband. He then goes nearly a year with this cover-up unknown to anyone but the two of them, before God sends the prophet Nathan to show him his sin. David appeals to God in Psalm 51, asking for forgiveness and mercy without sacrifice. Nothing but faith in a coming redeemer could have taught David that someday salvation would be available by faith alone, without lambs dying. David seeks God’s grace, nearly 1000 years before the cross and God gives it, telling David, “Thou shalt not die” (2 Samuel 12:13).

David writes of this kind of grace in Psalm 32, when he makes a statement that Paul would quote in his great epistle to Romans: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:7, 8).

Then Paul writes this: “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Because of the finished work of Calvary, God does not impute sin to us anymore! We are guilty of our own version of David and Bathsheba. We have done things that we are not proud of and that we hope will never be found out nor repeated. Praise God that in the retelling of your life’s story, God will remove all of those moments, and make the story sound as if they never happened. We are “justified by faith” (Romans 5:1), which means that it is just as if we’d never sinned. Our sins are not counted against us, and there are many “missing stories” in all of our lives.

Thank God for Jesus and His glorious finished work at Calvary. Because He died I have been reconciled to God, with all of my old stories vanishing from the retelling. Because He lives, I now live also. Today let Him live that life through you. Go in grace.

Happy is the Man that Knows He is Forgiven!

Psalms 32:1, 2

If the first couple of verses of Psalms 32 look familiar that is because Paul quotes these verses in his letter to the Romans, preceded by this phrase, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5), and then, “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man…” (Verse 6). Paul is connecting David’s prayer with his own revelation of righteousness without the keeping of the law. Let’s look closer at this connection that Paul is making.

Paul does not assume that David is talking about himself, which is how some Bible teachers explain this verse, attempting to say that we do not have this promise, but that only David had it. If David were talking only of himself, then Paul would not have made the connection as being relevant for his own readers in Rome. He also would not have said, “The blessedness of the man” (verse 6), but rather, “the blessedness of David”.

“Blessed” is better translated “happy” from the Greek. The man who knows that his iniquities are forgiven and his sins are covered is happy. There is a joy unspeakable connected the knowledge that you are forgiven of all of your failures and that your sins are gone in Jesus. With an improper knowledge of this forgiveness, your Christian walk is one of misery and discouragement because you will attempt to please a God that is already well pleased.

The next “blessed” is especially exciting, “Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Psalms 32:2). When Paul quotes this verse in Romans 4:8, he drops the last part, “in whose spirit there is no guile” because as a New Covenant teacher he knows that there can be no guile, or hypocrisy in the spirit man of a believer. There may be hypocrisy in their thoughts and their actions, but their spirit man is as Christ in this world (1 John 4:17).

Having exposed only the front half of the verse, Paul furthers us deeper into the power of this phrase by using an emphatic Greek phrase for “will not”. It means “never, ever”, which shows us that “Happy is the man to whom the Lord will never, ever impute sin”. What a glorious thought!

Opponents of this interpretation say that David is referring to the man who lives right. They say that if you do right then God cannot impute sin to you. First of all, “impute” means “to count”, thus if sins are imputed then they are counted against you. If they are not imputed then they are not counted against you. Think about it for a moment; why would someone who does the right thing be excited that their sin is not going to be imputed against them? They haven’t done anything wrong! The only one who would be “happy” about sins not counting against them is the one who has done something wrong.

This message is often neglected because people are afraid that this knowledge will lead to sinful lifestyles among believers. Actually, the opposite is true! The knowledge that you are not condemned never leads you to want to sin more, but rather it is the one thing that helps you to go and “sin no more”.

Be happy today with the knowledge that your sins are not imputed against you because they have already been imputed to Jesus at the cross and He has paid your penalty. Hallelujah!