I Have Sinned :: Psalm 41:4
David prayed in Psalm 41, As for me, I said, ‘O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against You.
In these midweek sermons, I am emphasizing two things for you: (1) that the Psalms speak about Jesus (Jn 5:39), and (2) that because the Psalms speak about Jesus, they therefore speak also about you. In Baptism, you were joined to the Lord, as the Scriptures say in 1 Corinthians 6 [vv 16–17]. You and Jesus have now become one, as the Scriptures say in Ephesians 5 [vv 29–32], just as He and His Father are one (Jn 10:30). What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate (Mt 19:6).
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Your permanent and eternal connection to Christ is an essential tool for reading the Psalms. If it is true that the Psalms speak about Jesus, then the Psalms sometimes say strange, unbecoming, and seemingly untrue things about Him. Psalm 41 is an example, especially where it is written, O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against You. Those words speak strangely about Jesus ... because Jesus did NOT sin against the Lord God. Jesus is sinless. The Book of Hebrews famously and beautifully states that Jesus, our High Priest, was indeed tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin (4:15).
Human thinking would make the disastrous suggestion that those words from the Book of Hebrews ... yet without sin ... might indicate that Jesus was not actually like us in every way. He took up our human body, frame and likeness: incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, according to the Nicene Creed. ... He fully submitted to all the challenges of our human development and growth, including our need for family endurance. Thus, it is written, He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them (Lk 2:51). ... He also experienced the full range of human emotion, weeping at the grave of Lazarus (Jn 11:35), getting angry at the moneychangers in the temple (Jn 2:15), and being sorrowful, even to death while sweating blood in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:38; Lk 22:44). ... He further experienced the full range of physical pain, according to this sorrowful account: Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him. ... He delivered Him over to them to be crucified (Jn 19:1, 16).
But wait a minute, says human thinking: Jesus in every respect has been tempted as we are (Hb 4:15), EXCEPT for the fact that he had no sin. Surely that must have been some sort of advantage for Him!
No. Do NOT allow human thinking to deceive and mislead you! Jesus of Nazareth ... born of the Virgin Mary ... truly made Himself exactly like us IN EVERY WAY, including sin.
To be sure, your Lord Jesus Christ truly had, and still has, absolutely no sin of His own. It is written, In Him there is no sin (1 Jn 3:5), and He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth (1 Pt 2:22). Again, it is written, He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth” (Is 53:9).
Just because Jesus committed no sin ... that does not mean he had no sin!
Where the Scriptures say in the Book of Hebrews, yet without sin (4:15), they only mean, yet without sin OF HIS OWN. Where the Scriptures again say, IN Him there is no sin (1 Jn 3:5), they do NOT mean that there was no sin ON Him. John the Baptist was faithful and true when He said concerning Jesus, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away ... who picks up ... who shoulders upon Himself, and who carries off ... the sin of the world! (Jn 1:29).
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Where did the sin come from ... that which was given to Jesus? It came from you!
The Lord has laid on Him, Isaiah said, the iniquity of us all (53:6). As you heard in last week’s sermon ... sinless Jesus was made to be the sinner for our sake. God the Father laid onto his perfect Son every corrupt thing about us (Is 53:6). Jesus held himself personally responsible for our guilt; Jesus made himself to be the guilty one so that we could be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish (Pp 2:15). That is why the Scriptures say God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).
Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther preached a similar thing, except in a far more able and compelling way:
When the merciful Father saw that we were being oppressed through the Law, that we were being held under a curse, and that we could not be liberated from it by anything, He sent His Son into the world, heaped all the sins of men upon Him, and said to Him: Be Peter the denier; Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, and assaulter; David the adulterer; the sinner who ate the apple in Paradise; the thief on the cross. In short, be the person of all men, the one who has committed the sins of all men. And see to it that You pay and make satisfaction for them. (“Lectures on Galatians [3:13],” AE 26:280)
Our Lord’s personal carrying of all our guilt is the reason why the sinless Jesus could say in Psalm 41, I have sinned.
David prayed in Psalm 41, As for me, I said, ‘O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against You.’ The Lord heard his prayer and laid all of David’s sin upon his Son, his Christ, his Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (Jn 1:29).
You can pray the same prayer that David prayed, and every word of that prayer will be true:
O LORD, BE GRACIOUS TO ME; HEAL ME, FOR I HAVE SINNED AGAINST YOU
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As the Lord did for David, so he has done for you: the Lord has heard your prayer and listened to your plea for grace. God the heavenly Father has laid all your sin upon his Son, your Lord, right next to David’s sin. It would NOT be wrong for you to think of your Lord Jesus as saying to you at your Baptism, From now on, I am going to be you, and you are going to be Me. Switch with Me so that you may take My place while I have yours.
Because the Psalms are about Jesus, Psalm 41 also gives voice to the prayer of our Lord: O Lord, be gracious to Me; heal Me, for I have sinned against You. Because of the load that our Lord shouldered for our salvation, the divine Law could look at Jesus, Jesus only (Mt 17:8), and say concerning Him, in the words of Martin Luther: “I find Him a sinner, who takes upon Himself the sins of all men. I do not see any other sins than those in Him. Therefore let Him die on the cross!” And so it attacks Him and kills Him. By this deed the whole world is purged and expiated [released] from all sins, and thus it is set free from death and from every evil. (AE 26:280)
In Psalm 41, Jesus appealed to His Father for your sake, carrying your burden and being your sin (2 Cor 5:21). His Father heard Him because of the reverence with which He submitted His plea (Hb 5:7) and because of His obedience unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Pp 2:8–11).