Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation

‘Deliver me from blood- guiltiness, 0 God, Thou God of my salvation.’ — Ver. 14.

TA.VID has made a great promise: he is to teach transgressors God’s ways, And he has at the same time uttered a high expectation: by his teaching sinners shall be converted. The words, however, are scarcely out of his lips when he feels again how deeply sinful he is, and how it can only be in the experience of supernatural grace that such a happy result shall ever be achieved. He feels that the blood of Uriah still adheres to him, and has defiled him in the presence of God and man; and that it can only be if God bestows upon him the perfect and living assurance that he is fully acquitted from his sins, that he shah ever be able to praise God in truth.

I find here again confirmed the important lesson I have already taught, namely, that the living personal experience of grace is a certain power in work for others. The soul must be steadfast in the enjoyment of its own redemption. There must not merely be the remembrance of forgiveness and grace, experienced at an earlier stage: this is not enough. There must be every day anew the divine assurance that we ourselves are redeemed by God. There must be a living consciousness of redemption as a present fact, a continually renewed, an ever fresh exercise of fellowship with the God of redemption. The soul that does not thus know God cannot make Him known with power to others. David felt this. The murderer of Uriah, stained with the guilt of blood, how should he be able to bring life to others whilst he is still bound to give an account of the blood of Uriah?

And thus it is impossible for me rightly to teach ethers, if I do not know God aright myself. And that man does not know God aright who does not know Him as the God of forgiveness. Moreover, this knowledge cannot be living and real, if it is not continually renewed from heaven by the Holy Spirit. Every time that, in accordance with my purpose of teaching transgressors, and my hope that sinners shall be converted, I am prepared to give my testimony, it must be with the prayer, ever expressed anew: ‘Deliver me, O God, Thou God of my salvation. Then shall my tongue sing aloud of Thy righteousness.5

When one considers the words of this petition closely, these thoughts will be found to be still more fully confirmed. Let us reflect on the word that is here used in this prayer: Deliver me from blood-guiltiness. This is a term that we have not as yet met with in this Psalm. It is commonly used, not so much of setting free from sin, as of deliverance from enemies that pursue and oppress us. It is thus, for example, in the prayer: ‘Deliver us from the Evil One’; and it is from this point of view that David now contemplates his sins. That God has forgiven them to him, he believes. That he has also been washed from them, he is also assured. But, lo! there sometimes come occasions in the life of the believer when sins that have long since been forgiven, as it were, rise up again and pursue and overtake the soul. God has forgiven them; but he that committed them cannot, however, forget them, and stands in dread of a new outbreak of their violence. The great enemy of souls then makes use of these times of oppression and of these sins to cast down the soul utterly to the dust. In that case there is but one remedy. God alone can then deliver us from the heavy sense of guilt. But He can do it. He can give us such a view of the completeness of His forgiveness and grace, that we shall stand thoroughly delivered out of the hand of our enemies, and know assuredly that sin shall have no more dominion over us. He can make us understand the full significance of the glorious words of the New Testament: ‘He was manifested to take away sins,’ in order that we may have ‘no more conscience of sins’ (1 John iii. 5; Heb. x. 2). Through the Holy Spirit, God grants to us to know the redemption of the Lord Jesus so fully, that we have in it the full answer to the petition: 6 Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, 0 God, Thou God of my salvation.’ And then the enjoyment of such a complete deliverance becomes the urgent impulse to sing aloud of His righteousness. O soul, who dost not yet know if thou canst celebrate God’s praise, come and experience this blessing. Let it by the Holy Spirit become a matter of living knowledge in your heart, how glorious it is to be delivered by God; and your mouth will then open of itself to celebrate the praise of this God.

The same idea is found in the very name by which David here designates God: ‘O God, Thou God of my salvation.’ It is because he is the God of my salvation that I feel the joyful impulse to praise Him. The personal relation or connection betwixt God and men, the living assurance and experience of it, are indispensable for this end; but they are at the same time all sufficient to stir me up to make Him known. And if any one would know how he is to succeed in calling God by this name, let him learn it from David. In the beginning of the Psalm, he was not yet prepared to use the appropriating word. He has several times addressed the Lord as 6 God,’ but not yet as ’ my God.’ Under the power of continued prayer, however, as well as the constantly renewed entreaty for grace, his faith is strengthened, and the Spirit of God has given him courage thus to cleave closely to God: ‘Thou art the God of my salvation,’

So shall it be with you also. If with every sin, old or new, you cast yourself before Him with entreaty for experience of the fullness of His grace — forgiveness, renewal, and complete redemption — courage will be given in the midst of such prayer to say with all the spiritual freedom of faith: ‘The God of my salvation? May many that are looking for assurance of faith come to a right sense of this fact. It is not a matter for argumentation, but it is learned in prayer. He who would know from God whether he may truly say to Him: ‘Thou art my God, the God of my salvation, must obtain the privilege in prayer.

And when the soul has thus once learned to use this language of faith towards God, it will not be so difficult for it to use it towards men. It is impossible to use a twofold style of speech, such as that of freedom before God and that of hesitancy before men. As we speak to God in secret, must we confess Him in public. And the principal theme and chief characteristic of the announcement of glad tidings to others, as well as its special power, is the confession: He is the God of my salvation. What He has done for me, He can do also for you. As a witness I speak from experience: what the word says, I confirm with all the certitude of personal knowledge: the God who has redeemed me will also redeem you.