Blessedness

Colossians 1:4-9

COL-110

2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

1 Corinthians 2:9, "Just as it is written, 'Things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him."

1 Corinthians 2:10, "For to us God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God."

Please turn to the deep things of the Spirit of God once more in Colossians 1:9-14. Our subject is "Prayer for the Colossians," segment number 44.

A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is delivered from Satan's kingdom of spiritual darkness into the kingdom of the spiritual light of Jesus Christ by three steps. One: Jesus Christ gave Himself in death as a ransom to the justice of God the Father, to free the believer from Satan's authority, and from domination by the sin nature. That is the doctrine of redemption. Two: God the Father then separates the redeemed believer from all his moral guilt. That is the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. And three: God the Father then imputes to the forgiven believer the absolute righteousness of God as a permanent possession, and that is the doctrine of justification.

So, our transfer out of the realm of spiritual darkness, and sin, and defeat, and control of Satan is accomplished by these three steps: Redemption; forgiveness; and, justification. This divine grace provision for the believer then qualifies him to share in the eternal heavenly inheritance in the light of Bible doctrine truth which God has prepared for those who are in His family.

The suffering of Jesus for the sins of the world was enormous. It was beyond human comprehension that made all this possible. Jesus, the sinless one, suffered the agony of bearing the sins of all mankind as if they were His Own. Jesus suffered the excruciating physical pain of the abuse of the Jewish and Roman authorities because they despised Him. Jesus, the sinless God-Man, died as if He were nothing but a criminal. And he did that for all of us, in our place.

So, it is very easy for us to speak about redemption; freedom from Satan; forgiveness; and, removal of moral guilt, but at what a price that was secured. And that's why the Bible, when it speaks of these things, puts great dignity upon what Christ has done, and the person of Jesus Christ should therefore always be treated with great dignity. Spiritual things should always be treated with dignity – not the clownishness that is often associated with the things of God and the Word of God, and especially what goes under the guise of youth work that degrades and dishonors and cheapens the person of Christ, who did all this. All of us need to get a deep perspective of what a marvelous thing Jesus Christ has done for us.

If some great man were to walk in this auditorium now, someone who has been a great blessing to mankind, we would all stand in respect. If the Lord Jesus Christ were suddenly become visible to us, we would all kneel in His presence. And that fittingly is the attitude that should be of our hearts, all the time as Christians, as we deal with our Father, and with the Lord Jesus Christ, and our response to the Spirit of God.

As if this were not enough (our redemption and our forgiveness of sins), God has also given us the glorious imputation of His Own righteousness to our account, so that we stand justified in His eyes. We share the holy character of God. A Christian who comprehends these awesome acts of divine love is naturally flooded with a great sense of joy, and a great relief for his personal salvation. Because we have redemption (freed from control of Satan and our sin nature); because we have forgiveness of sins (the removal of all moral guilt so that it's not even in sight; and, because we have justification (the character of God's righteousness imputed to us), we have a personal salvation that's absolutely secure. And you notice at no point in that triple impact of salvation that made it possible, has there been any human work; has there been any human involvement; has God asked you to do one thing except to believe that He's not lying, and that He has done this for us, and all we have to do is accept it in Jesus Christ.

King David

Grace and Works are Mutually Exclusive

Romans 4:4: "Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due." For something to be a favor, or a gift therefore, it must not be earned (it must not be paid for) in any way by the recipient. If you do anything in the way of paying for it or deserving it, that's not a gift. So, Romans 4:4 states a general axiom: that a benefit cannot be received as both a gift and a wage due. It must be one or the other. They're mutually exclusive.

Now, that may seem like a simple thing to you, but I'll tell you right now that hell is going to be filled with people who didn't understand this verse – who did not understand that as soon as you bring works, you no longer have grace. And if you don't have grace, you can't go to heaven, because the only way God takes a person to heaven is if you let Him give it to you as a grace gift. If you deny Him the grace basis, you're going to end up in the lake of fire. I don't care how many offerings you give; how many praises you sing; how well you sing during church service; how faithful you are attendance; or, how religiously active you are, you're going to end up in the lake of fire. Vast denominations are going in lockstep into the lake of fire, because they have told their people that Christ has died for your sins, but you do not get the benefit of that until you perform a certain ritual. To the Jews, it was circumcision. Today, it's eating the Lord's Supper as a sacrament in the Roman Catholic system of works. Or it's having water baptism as the final cleansing step toward salvation. What they have done is told people to do something that will neutralize their ability to be saved. If it's something you have done to deserve, you cannot be given that as a gift.

Now in verse 5, this general principle of works and grace being mutually exclusive is applied to salvation. Romans 4:5 says, "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness." To the one who does no human doing whatsoever, but who believes in Jesus Christ, Who justifies the ungodly (Who transfers absolute righteousness to the ungodly) on the basis of what? His faith. That is what is reckoned as righteousness. Salvation by God's design can never be worked for, but only received as a gift from a loving God. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes that very clear: "For by grace are you saved; that night of yourself. It is the gift of God:" "For by grace are you saved, not of works, let any man should boast." The statement is very precise. Therefore, God does not justify a person who works for salvation in any way, but only the one who believes His promise to save by faith in Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, this faith-alone salvation is applied to the scum of humanity, not to the self-improve people – the worthy. The Mormons are always preaching about coming to the exaltation of the third heaven when they have proven themselves worthy of it. And as soon as they've said that, they've made it sure that every Mormon is going to end up in the lake of fire.

When you stop and realize how much confusion there is out there on grace salvation in great denominational groups, you understand what Jesus meant when he said that: "Few there be that find it. The gate is small, and the way is narrow to eternal life, and there are only a few who are ever going to find it." And if you have it, you should breathe a sigh of relief that you have found it. The scum of humanity is what he's taking – people who don't try to do anything to make themselves worthy, but let God do the cleaning up.

Furthermore, this salvation by works and by faith, as we have indicated is mutually exclusive. God does not accept anything in behalf of the salvation that He offers. This is made very clear indeed in Romans 11:6: "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace." Now, you should anchor that verse. Every now and then, there are verses that I want to be able to quickly remember to look back to, so I write them in the front of my Bible. And Romans 11:6 is one that you ought to be able to put your finger on (zip!), that this makes it clear. You cannot add one single thing to what Christ has done on the cross. All you can do is believe it and accept it. And if you don't do it that way, grace is no longer grace. And if grace is no longer grace, then you have the enormous problem that Ephesians 2:8-9 cannot be performed: "For by grace you have been saved, through faith and that (referring to salvation) not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast."

Therefore, God does not justify a person on any other basis than faith in Christ. And God only justifies that believer when he does not add anything in the way of ritual or depending on anything else. It's the only way you'll get absolute righteousness – as a gift from God. If you don't have absolute righteousness, you can't go to heaven. You have to be as good as God Himself to go to heaven. That's what it's all about.

Millions of people fail to understand this principle of divine justification. And eventually, they die in their sin, and they go to the lake of fire forever, thinking that they're on the road to heaven. And one of the most disastrous things is how some of you have told me about your relatives that you have who disagree with your grace salvation because they believe that they have to prove themselves worthy, and keep their salvation by behaving themselves, and they have told you that if you are right about grace salvation, then their efforts to live a good life are only going to make their salvation all the more sure. That's how Satan has blinded them. That that effort is going to make you sure that you're not going to get to heaven. You cannot add to what Christ has done.

That's the explanation for Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy Your Name? And in Your Name cast out demons? And in Your Name perform many miracles?'" And the answer to that, those three questions is: "Yes, yes, yes." "Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name?" Yes, they did. "And in Your Name cast out demons?" Yes they did. "And in Your Name perform many miracles?" Yes they did. The answer to all three are "Yes." But ~they're not born-again. This was the power of Satan that they were using and working on as unbelievers. And then Jesus says, "I'll declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" And as we shall see in a moment, lawlessness is sin."

Notice Matthew 7:13-14: "Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it." This is the picture that we depict on that evangelism brochure that's by the offering box for your use. That is a very valuable little booklet that gives the straight biblical concept of salvation based on the authority of Scripture itself. And you should be using those booklets, and distributing them to people that you're concerned with, and who will give you a hearing for salvation, because this is the picture. You have a nice broad road going to the lake of fire, but to heaven, it's narrow. Why? Because it's a small gate. And Who is the door into the sheepfold? Jesus said, "I'm the door." And the road is narrow. And Who is the way? Jesus says, "I am the way." So, it is Jesus Christ Who is the focus and that is the problem.

So, if you're going to shake it down to the bottom line, John 14:6 is the issue when it comes to salvation: "Jesus said to him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me." And yet, you have groups that you must admire for the good things they do for people.

Freemasons

For example, we have the Masons. One of our members was in a bible study group and in it were some prominent figures from the city of Irving. And he was sort of the teacher. And he happened to be dealing with this subject of good works being used as a deception for going to heaven. And he said, for example, the confusion (the deception) that many Mormons have, that their character and good works is the way to heaven, when, in fact, it is keeping them out of heaven. He said, "That circle exploded. I thought that I was having a riot on my hands." And one prominent figure here in the city happened to be there and said, "You are wrong. You're dead wrong."

Well we won't have a study of the Masonic Lodge. By the way, they are connected very closely with Mormonism. Mormonism temple practices (the endowment) is the Masonic Lodge order that they are practicing that they have claimed as having cleaned up and made pure in its original form. But we're not going to get into a lesson on Masonry. However, the Masonic Lodge does teach this basic concept: a life determines a character; and, a character determines a destiny. Is that true? A life determines a character (my works – how I live determines my character). My character determines whether I go to heaven or hell (my destiny). No, that's not right. The thing that determines whether you go to heaven or hell is whether you have the character of Jesus Christ and His absolute righteousness. If you're not justified, you have nothing. And yet, in Masonry, the Lord Jesus Christ is not viewed as the God-Man. So, in case you have that question, I want to zero in on John 14:6: "Without Christ, there's no way to the Father apart from Him."

Here's something that's interesting. In one of the Masonic writings, in the royal arts degree, there are 32 degrees on the Scottish Rite side, and you get up to the 33rd degree by an honor degree. But one of the degrees is called the arch degree, in which the Scripture 2 Thessalonians 3:6-16 is read. It's part of that initiation. And everywhere where the word "Christ" is in those verses, it's taken out, because they say that Christ's name would be an offense to people who are Buddhists or Muhammadans, and all that.

In the opening ceremony of the master's degree, which is a fourth degree, 1 Peter 2:3-5 is read, and the words "by Jesus" are omitted. And Masons say, "Well, this is just a slight modification in order not to offend other people. But there is no Christianity without Jesus Christ. And any Mason who says, "I'm a Christian," and then avoids the name of Christ in the oaths that he takes, and in the belief of getting to heaven is not being true to what he believes as a Christian, if he is even a Christian. It is absolutely amazing. Jesus Christ says that He's the only Way. Acts 4:12 says, "There is no name under heaven by which we must be saved." And there are many other things that are at issue.

However, these people, who are in the Masonic Lodge, do a lot of good. Good works is their forte, because this is their entree into the presence of God. And yet here they are, actually rejecting Jesus Christ and everything that makes it possible for a person to go to heaven.

The reason they do this is that the Masonic Lodge does not believe that people have a flawed character. They believe that people are not, by nature, evil, and that therefore, they can provide the means to which they can achieve entrance into God's presence. And that's why they go through these steps in the Masonic lodge – in order to secure this kind of blessing.

Here's what one writer says. Christian Hefner says, "Within their Lodges, Freemasons are not concerned with salvation and conversion, but with taking men as they are, and pointing them in the direction of brotherhood and moral improvement." Another prominent writer, Robert McCoy says, "Nor does Masonry teach that human nature is a depraved thing, like the ruin of a once-proud building. Many think that man was once a perfect being, but that through some unimaginable moral catastrophe, he became corrupt into the last moral fiber of his being, so that, without some kind of supernatural or miraculous help from outside him, he can never, of himself, do, or say, or think, or be ought, but that which is deformed, vile, and hideous." What is that talking about? It is talking about that very concept that man can make it on his own works.

Another writer says, "The perfection is already within. All that is required is to remove the roughness . . ., divesting our heart and consciences of all vices and super fluidities of life to show forth the perfect man and Mason within."

One more: "Man also contains within him a life force – "a vital and immortal principle," as Masonry calls it, which has not yet expanded to full development in him, and, indeed, in many men, is not active at all. Man too has that in him, enabling him to evolve from the stage of the mortal animal to being immortal, superhuman, and godlike. Human evolution can be accelerated, if not at present, in the mass of humanity, yet in suitable individuals. Human nature is perfectible by an intensive process of purification and initiation."

Now, these are the men themselves that we're quoting. We're not saying anything. But you match that up against Scripture. This is the great deception. And here, our poor brother, who was right on track, who certainly needed the circle of angels around him, said something that was so true that somebody should have said, "Maybe I should look into this." Instead, everybody jumped on him because he said, "Here's a system that removes Christ, and if Christ is removed, you have nothing."

Now, that's the thing that the apostle Paul is making clear. He has illustrated this principle – that without a grace work of God, there is no hope for any of us. Now Paul has illustrated this principle in the first part of Romans 4 by the experience of Abraham. That's who he's been talking about. Now, coming into Psalms 32:6, he switches to King David. This is his second historical example of justification by faith. And that's what we're talking about. If you don't have justification, you have nothing. That is the crucial thing.

Blessing

Here's the testimony of David in Psalms 32:6: "Just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from His works." David is in the royal line of the Messiah. He is declared in Scripture to be "a man after God's own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). This was a man that had the mind of God. In the Jews' estimate, to this day, David is second only to Abraham. David was saved under the Mosaic system by faith in the future Messiah Savior. David wrote part of the Old Testament Scriptures under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when David speaks on justification in the Old Testament, he knows what he is talking about. He is quoting the mind of God.

In Romans 4:7, Paul is about to quote something that David said, and what David said was in Psalm 32:1-2. Let me just read those to you for a moment. This is the frame of reference of what Paul is talking about: "How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose Spirit there is no deceit."

So, Psalms 32:6 says, "Just as David." And that "just as" is referring back here to what he has just talked about of salvation in the case of Abraham, which is by faith, and he speaks about these things in Psalm 32. David, the greatest ancestor of Jesus Christ also speaks in Romans 4:6 (Paul says), as David also speaks about what he calls "a blessing." This word for "blessing" is the Greek word "makarismos" (mak-ar-is-mos'). And it means a declaration of blessedness – calling somebody "blessed." What this refers to is a certain type of person, and what it means is spiritual wellbeing. So, David speaks of the spiritual wellbeing upon a certain type of person.

Martin Luther did not know spiritual wellbeing, with all the things that he did in obedience of the Roman Catholic Church plan of salvation. He was a man well-versed in Scripture, but who never caught hold until later, when God made it clear to him that salvation was by faith in Christ alone. When he got that, he was instantly saved. Up to that time, the man did not have spiritual wellbeing. He was in great agony. He was afraid to die. This blessing upon the man is a condition of spiritual wellbeing, and it's not from something the person does, but it is something which God has done for him.

Happiness

This word does not simply mean happiness. Sometimes the word "blessing" is simply translated, and connotes happiness. And you have the beatitudes (blessed is this man, and blessed is that man), and we say that it means happiness. But it means more than happiness. It is spiritual wellbeing. A person can be blessed and still not be happy. The Christian does not find sorrow or crises in his life a happy thing. But nevertheless, he can have spiritual wellbeing in the midst of this crisis. Happiness depends on what happens to us externally. That's what happiness means. It's a happenstance. But blessedness (spiritual prosperity) depends on Who and What God is as He resides in the believer – his relationship to God the Holy Spirit, and his temporal fellowship. That's what determines our spiritual wellbeing.

Reckon

So, David is speaking about the spiritual wellbeing of a person who is destitute of all merit before God, and yet whom God has justified – has given absolute righteousness. Blessed (spiritual wellbeing) is upon the man. This is the Greek word "anthropos" which is really "person:" "Upon the person to whom God reckons. This is the Greek word "logizomai" (log-id'-zom-ahee), L O G I Z O M A I. "Logizomai" means "to set to your account." This is a terrific word – the word "reckon." Here, God places something to your account.

In the ancient writings, the papyri writings, this word "logizomai" is often found. And it is a word that indicates, in the business world, that something has been credited to your account. That's all it means: "credited to your account." Here God has credited something to the person's account. This person has received righteousness. This doesn't mean that the person is actually absolutely righteous – sinless himself. Justification does not make a person inherently righteous or morally pure. This is a positional truth – that the person, in God's sight, is absolutely righteous. When he enters the presence of God, he will be absolutely righteous in his performance – in his conduct entirely.

Imputation does not suggest that faith in God is viewed by Him as some kind of good work. Faith is not a work. Faith is simply positive acceptance of the truth of what God is saying.

Graced Out

Now what do we get? We get righteousness – that absolute perfection. And how do we get it? Apart from works, meaning totally separated from any human effort. This represents the epitome of God's gracious treatment of a sinner. And that's why we speak of this as being "graced out." What better word is there than to be graced out by God, from one end to the other.

If God were to judge us on our works, relative to going to heaven, we would get a fair trial. But the fairer of the trial, the more certain would be our condemnation, because all that comes from the sin nature, even our human good, is evil. So, the more human good you have, the more evil there is on your record. There's a no-win situation when you try to do it by your works. My sin nature taints everything I do – the best of my compassion. And yet, the more I create of that, the greater will be my judgment in eternity. And remember that people who have greater evil will suffer greater punishment in the lake of fire. People who have greater knowledge will suffer greater punishment.

So, here's the summary of Romans 4:6, based upon Psalm 32:6. Please remember that David wrote Psalm 32 after he had a great moral breakdown. That gives you perspective as to what he's saying, and why the relief is so great. This was following the incident with Bathsheba. There, David was guilty of adultery, and of murder of her husband. David, because of these two acts, was now under the penalty of death under the Mosaic Law. There was no hope for him. There was no sacrifice provided for the forgiveness of willful sin. The sacrifices were only provided for those which were not willful sinning. They were the unintentional sinning. But here are two major moral violations. The Mosaic code called for the death of David. David, therefore, in this condition, knows that he has no hope. He cries out to God in desperation, because that is the only thing he can do. If you want to go read through that agonizing cry, read Psalm 51:1-17.

God's response to that cry was to grace-out David with grace treatment, which was announced to him in 2 Samuel 12:13: "Then David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord' (Nathan the prophet). And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has taken away your sin. You shall not die.'" What a sense of relief. The death penalty is on him. There's no way to make a sacrifice to cover these two moral breakdowns. And yet, what is said to him? "You shall not die."

David's response to the grace of God is the beginning of Psalm 32:1: "Oh, the blessedness of the person whose sins are not placed on his account." Psalm 32:6 is a declaration of David's awe at being declared absolutely righteous by God in spite of two capital crimes. He was clearly saved apart from his works of evil.

In Psalm 32:7-8, he now proceeds to Psalm 32:1: "Blessed." Here again is that word which is used in terms of meaning spiritual prosperity. Here is a prosperity apart from one's own circumstance or one's own efforts. It is based upon relationship to God as a result of His grace. There is a satisfaction in being spiritually healthy. And that's what David is saying: "Oh, how great it is to be spiritually healthy." Blessedness means spiritual wellbeing, not happiness. Believers who mourn are not happy in their grief (Matthew 5:4). Believers who are persecuted are not hilarious about it (Matthew 5:10). Those who are evil spoken of may not find it a joyous experience, but they are "blessed" (Matthew 5:11). There you have it right in the beatitudes – spiritual wellbeing, but not necessarily joyfulness. You are evil spoken of, but you have spiritual wellbeing.

Well, now wait a minute. If you are blessed when people are speaking evil of you, then don't complain when people speak evil of you. How can you complain about somebody saying evil things about you that are not true maybe if you are blessed? If you have spiritual wellbeing, then what do you have to fret about? David had a terrible condition. He was facing physical execution. And what was it that relieved him? It was that he had spiritual wellbeing? He had a lot of problems. People were saying a lot of things about him because of these crimes, and he had a lot of grief personally because of these crimes, but he had spiritual wellbeing.

Finally, you see in Psalm 51, he hung back for a year and said, "I'm not going to admit this. I'm not going to confess it to God." Then, because the punishment became so intense, he finally broke down. He went to the Lord, and he says, "I did this. I admit it. I confess." And immediately, the adulterer and the murderer – all that was forgotten, never to be mentioned again, and he was brought back into fellowship with God. He had physical agonies, but he had spiritual wellbeing.

Immature believers always have their eyes and their ears toward people. They're not looking and listening to the Lord. So, don't worry about what somebody has to say. If you have spiritual wellbeing, that's the thing that counts. People are going to come and go, and what they say is going to be long forgotten and done with. What people say about us, in fact, is none of your business. What people say about us is none of our business. And if you are a mature Christian, learn that lesson. If you have spiritual wellbeing, you have blessedness. And what people say about us is none of your business. That's their business, and God's business is to exercise His vengeance upon them. If you try to do it, you're going to botch it up.

What is your business? Your business is your mission. Your business is to do that for which you were born. Your business is to exercise your spiritual gifts. Joseph was blessed. He had spiritual wellbeing when he was being horribly misrepresented and mistreated, because he knew that God turns evil to good (Genesis 50:20, Romans 8:28).

So, a Christian who has a mature spiritual maturity structure built in his soul (that five-sided pentagon) – he knows that God is sovereign, and he gets on with his life. He leaves the arrogant self-pity and indignity of the five-and-dime-store type Christians. But he does not descend to their level.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven. The word "lawless deeds" refers in the Greek to the word "anomia" (an-om-ee'-ah). This is a very descriptive word, A N O M I A. "Nomia" is law. "Anomia" means "~no law" ("lawlessness"). What the word means is deliberate defiance of the known will of God. It is the deliberate suppression of truth. The Bible defines sin as lawlessness in 1 John 3:4: "I know what is right, but I'm not going to do it." Lawless deeds: "I know the rules of God, but I'm going to rebel against them. I'm going to thumb my nose. Oh yeah, I've sat in church, and I've heard all these moral rules, and I've heard all these things about right and wrong, but everybody around me is doing it, and it's so much fun. I'll thumb my nose at God." God says that's "anomia." That's "lawlessness." And what does God do with it? "Spiritual wellbeing for those who thumb their nose at Me because those acts have been forgiven." And there's our Greek word "forgiveness" again. And as we've already learned, that means "to send away." The idea is to send away (or pardon) sin, rather than laying it upon the sinner.

This sending away of sin, I pointed out to you before, was like the Old Testament two-goat ceremony on the Day of Atonement. You read about that in Leviticus 16:20-22, where they had two perfect male goats. One was executed (killed), and its blood was shed for the people, for their sins for the year. The other was taken out into the wilderness and turned loose. And he wandered off out of sight, after the priest had put all the sins of the people on the head of the goat. Now he's gone. Forgiveness was demonstrated visually to the people. God has paid for my sins. I am separated from my sin completely. It can't be held against me. And that's why I have spiritual wellbeing. I can live like a dog. Yes, I'm a Christian. I'm thumbing my nose at God. Here's a moral law. But I say, "Nuts to you God. This is the way I want to do it." And God will bring discipline, and bring the consequences. They will be there. We will live with them with varying degrees. But once they're forgiven, as in the case of David, what were the best years of David's life? The 25 finest years of his life. Where did they come? After his great moral breakdown. Once he confessed, God forgot about it. There were consequences, but he was blessed. He had spiritual wellbeing.

God's forgiveness means the removal of the whole loathsome mass of our sins. In Micah 7:19, God "puts it in the deepest sea." In Psalm 103:12, He puts it behind his back, out of sight – forgets it.

In society, when someone commits a crime, that person is sent away to punishment in prison. But what does God do? He doesn't send us away to punishment in the prison of the lake of fire. He gives us a chance to have the punishment sent away. And that's something. God sends away the punishment instead of sending us to the consequences of our punishment in prison. That is grace. The sin is dismissed, and God is just in doing that because Christ has paid the penalty of death for that sin. So, that pardon is such a relief, and that's what David is saying: "Oh what spiritual wellbeing for those whose deliberate, knowingly breaking of the laws of God have been separated. The consequences of all that is separated from that person. He has been forgiven. And what has been forgiven? It's his sins – his missing the mark of God's standard.

Then, Romans 4:7 says, "And whose sins have been covered." That means covered completely. In the Greek language the word is "epikalupto" (ep-ee-kal-oop'-to). This word is in the passive tense, which means that you can't cover it. It was covered for you by an act of God. And this is a once for all action. It's the aorist tense, which means it's once for all. God is satisfied. The sin has been covered. It's out of sight. Once you have accepted it, that blessedness is yours. And this again you see is illustrated by the two-goat ceremony.

So, what David rejoices here is in his state as a sinner, who, by God's grace, has had his sins both dismissed from his record (off his record), and then forgotten forever.

Then Romans 4:6: "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account." Here again is "Blessed," in the sense of spiritually well off, is the person who the Lord will not take into account; that is, reckoned to his account, that He will not put to that man's account. Blessed is the man. . . .

We have to look at the Greek in detail here: You may say to your beloved one, "Will you marry me?" And she says, "Hmm, me." She's saying no, but she wants you to coax her. You need to work it a little bit. She's saying, "I'm not really closing the door." But if she says, "Ou," shove off and find yourself another prospect. That is very clear.

Now, what happens, if in the Greek language, you do this: "Ou me" (oo may)? That is the most absolute powerful "No" known to human mankind, to the human race, in linguistics. And that's what you have here: "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account." And you have to really have less than half a brain not to understand how absolutely perfect is the work of God in salvation. And David understood this because he was a doctrinally oriented man in spite of his weaknesses. And he understood the spiritual wellbeing that flooded his soul as he realized that there was no way that God was going to take into account; that is, to place on his record, the moral guilt that was his.

This is the aorist tense: "will not take into account" – "will not reckon." That means that God will, at no point, ever do this. It's in the middle voice. It's active. God Himself will not do this. And it's in the subjunctive mood, which is a potential action. And God will just not do this. He absolutely will never put this to our account. What it is that He will not take into account is our sin – that condition of violating the absolute righteousness of God. He will not impute it under any condition.

So, let's summarize. David, in this passage, uses three terms for sins. He says: "Lawless deeds; sins; and, sin." And then he uses three terms of divine dealing. To remove these three things. He uses the word "forgiven" (covered – not take into account). Wow, Are we graced out or what? He says, "Sins forgiven (sin covered)." He says, "Lawless deeds, forgiven; sins covered; sin, not taken into account:" "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account – will not reckon to him."

How does this apply to Colossians 1:14? As we complete this section, it means that we have been given redemption. We are freed from Satan and the sin nature. We have had our sins forgiven. We have had the negative side of salvation. We have been separated from every moral guilt. It's not on our account. And as a consequence, Paul quotes David to say, "The result of this is that God gives us justification (absolute righteousness), so that we are now fully qualified for heaven, and we can never be unqualified.

Now, if you don't think that's a blessedness (a great state of wellbeing), so that nothing comes into your life that can be anything but trivial! When God has done all this for us, what else could be a problem?

Our Father, we want to thank You for this, Your Word, and for this, Your truth. Seal it to our understanding. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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