Imagine if Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did what David did and got off like that.  But I’m more interested in knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ,¹ and trying to understand Him these days, than fretting over ancient history.  Besides, I’m nobody, and though I probably deserve Nadab’s, Abihu’s and Achan’s fate more than they did, the Lord has treated me more like David (not that any prophets have come calling).  And for all his patience and kindness, what has He gotten in return from me?  Unbelief, at least lingering doubt.  That’s the essence of my perversity.

I laugh at myself when I stumble around wondering if I can really distinguish God’s kindness and patience toward me from his non-existence: “What is it, Dan?  You need Him to strike you with lightning to prove that He loves you?”  But for the most part that doubt is overcome by Bible study.  My day is sort of empty when I’m too tired to study any more.  I wake in the morning excited to get to it again.  I chafe when my “real life” impinges on my study time.  The Eric Liddell character in Chariots of Fire said something like, “When I run, I feel his pleasure.”  I’m not a runner.  But when I study the Bible I feel his pleasure.

If I am honest the real issue of doubt for me is something else now.  Being struck down by lightning is something I can live up to; been there, done that, mission accomplished!  The doubt creeps in when I consider living up to his patience and kindness.  Can I do that in a lifetime? In an eternity?  I know the answer is yes and no.  No, I can’t.  Yes, He can, by his Spirit, through his grace.  But the doubt lingers all the same.  David, however, remained faithful despite God’s forgiveness.

He wrote a song after Nathan confronted him:  Have mercy on me, O God, because I’m not such a bad guy.  No, that’s not what he wrote.   Have mercy on me, O God, because of your loyal love!  Because of your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts!  Wash away my wrongdoing!²  Somehow, in a way my perversity has forbidden me from fully embracing, David saw through all the commandments, laws, crimes and punishments to a God who is loyal love and great compassion.  And David believed that God’s loyal love and great compassion were sufficient cause to wipe away his rebellious acts and wash away his wrongdoing despite all the commandments, laws, crimes and punishments proscribed against him.

Of course, this might have been desperate emotional hyperbole:  David, the sinner in the hands of an angry God, trying to convince himself and perhaps persuade God that God’s loyal love and great compassion were good reasons to spare David’s life.  I was certainly no stranger to emotional hyperbole.  I wrote off a lot of the sayings of Jesus and most of Paul’s writings as just that—emotional hyperbole, wild exaggeration.  But the more I failed to keep my end of the contract with God, the more I sinned despite my best efforts not to, the more I turned a willing ear to Paul’s letters, to those things that are hard to understand,” as Peter described Paul’s writing (2 Peter 3:14-16 NET).

Therefore, dear friends, since you are waiting for these things, strive to be found at peace, without spot or blemish, when you come into his presence.  And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of these things in all his letters.³  Some things in these letters⁴ are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures.

Paul had written (Romans 13:8-10 NET Table):

Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.  For the commandments, “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” (and if there is any other commandment) are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love does no wrong to a neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

On this point Jesus and Paul seemed to agree.  When asked, Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?  Jesus answered (Matthew 22:36-40 NET):

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart,⁵ with all your soul,⁶ and with all your mind.”  This is the first and greatest⁷ commandment.  The second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  All the law and the prophets depend⁸ on these two commandments.

“I’ve been going about this all wrong,” I thought.  I had been attempting to do a negative.  I was trying not to sin.  What I should have been doing was trying to love.  I had missed the significance of these passages many times because I thought love was an emotion, a feeling.  I knew that no feeling would solve my sin problem.  But this time I had connected these passages with Paul’s definition of love.⁹  Love was anything and everything but an emotion according to Paul.  So I took Paul’s definition and reworked it.  It became my new law.

Love is patient, love is kind,¹⁰ Paul penned.  Thou shalt be patient, I reworked the text.  Thou shalt be kind.  Thou shalt not be envious.  Thou shalt not brag.  Thou shalt not be puffed up.  Thou shalt not be rude.  Thou shalt not be self-serving.  Thou shalt not be easily angered.  Thou shalt not be resentful.  Thou shalt not be glad about injustice.  Thou shalt rejoice in the truth.  Thou shalt bear all things.  Thou shalt believe all things.  Thou shalt hope all things.  Thou shalt endure all things.

Though such things are difficult to measure, I think it is fair to say that I did incrementally better at not sinning by trying to love like this rather than trying not to sin.  But “incrementally better” was a long way from anything anyone would mistake for righteousness.  Meanwhile, I kept reading Paul with my ears slightly more open.  It occurred to me that Paul didn’t think his definition of love was just a list of rules he made for me to obey.  Paul thought he was describing love as Jesus himself loved.  The idea was staggering.

I began to use my commandments, “Thou shalt not be puffed up, rude, or self-serving” to force myself to hear Jesus in a new way.  No matter what I thought or felt about how puffed-up, self-serving and rude Jesus was, I told myself he was not puffed-up, self-serving or rude, because that would be contrary to the law of his own love.  There had to be other explanations.

Also, I began to wonder, if 1 Corinthians actually was a definition of Jesus’ love, of God’s love, could I make myself righteous—love like Jesus—by turning the definition into a law and striving to obey it?  As I considered that, it seemed that Paul was shouting at me:  crazy things, hopeful things, alarming-could-they-possibly-be-true-I’ve-never-heard-anything-like-these-things-in-my-life things.  So I went searching through the Old Testament, looking for any precedent for these wonderful, frightening things.  And in that state of mind David’s confession did not seem like emotional hyperbole to me.  In fact, there are two David’s revealed in the Scripture.

Nathan went home.  The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and the child became very ill.¹¹  David fasted and prayed and wept.  He spent the night lying on the ground.  He wouldn’t eat and he refused to listen to those who pleaded with him to take better care of himself.  A week later the child died.  The people around David were afraid to tell him.

While the child was still alive he would not listen to us, they said.  How can we tell him that the child is dead?¹²  David was so distraught they thought he would hurt or possibly kill himself.  He noticed them whispering to one another.  Is the child dead? David asked.  Yes,¹³ they replied.

So David got up from the ground, bathed, put on oil, and changed his clothes. He went to the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then, when he entered his palace, he requested that food be brought to him, and he ate.¹⁴

David’s people didn’t know what to make of this.  While the child was still alive, you fasted and wept, they exclaimed.  Once the child was dead you got up and ate food!   David explained, While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, “Perhaps the Lord will show pity and the child will live.”  But now he is dead.  Why should I fast?  Am I able to bring him back?  I will go to him, but he cannot return to me!”¹⁵

So the former David expressed what I’ll call an experimental faith: Let’s see what God will do if I do this.  The latter David displayed what I can only call a super-rational faith accompanied by a profound peace.  There was nothing cold about it.  On the contrary, David was the same man whose first concern was not for his own welfare but rather how he might change God’s mind and if possible spare the cursed child.

This latter David, I believe, was the one who penned the song I am considering:  Have mercy on me, O God, because of your loyal love!  Because of your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts!  Wash away my wrongdoing!  David was neither emotionally distraught nor particularly concerned for his own welfare when he wrote those words.  For Psalm 51 was written sometime after Nathan informed David:  Yes, and the Lord has forgiven your sin.  You are not going to die.¹⁶

Addendum: October 4, 2019
A table of English translations of the Deuteronomy 6:5 from the Masoretic text and the Septuagint follows:

A table comparing the Greek of Matthew 22:37 with that of Deuteronomy 6:5 follows:

A table of English translations of the Leviticus 19:18 from the Masoretic text and the Septuagint follows:

A table comparing the Greek of Matthew 22:39 with that of Leviticus 19:18 follows:

Tables comparing Psalm 51:1; 51:2; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18; 2 Samuel 12:15; 12:18; 12:19; 12:20; 12:21; 12:22 and 12:23 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and tables comparing Psalm 51:1 (50:1-3); 51:2 (50:4); Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18; 2 Samuel (Kings, Reigns) 12:15; 12:18; 12:19; 12:20; 12:21; 12:22 and 12:23 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor) follow.  Following those are tables comparing 2 Peter 3:16; Matthew 22:37, 38 and 22:40 in the NET and KJV.