Friends: King David cried out to God in Psalm 51 for a salvation Christ would eventually provide. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #954

February 25, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Restoration Project

By Bob Walters

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” – King David, Psalms 51:12

We read in Psalms 51 the burden of King David for his sins with Bathsheba, his commission of a heinous transgression against her husband Uriah, and experience David’s howling self-conviction following the prophecy of Nathan.

You can read all about it in 2 Samuel 11 and 12: King David impregnates lovely Bathsheba who is married to military commander Uriah.  When David’s plan to cover up his affair with Bathsheba fails, David arranges to have Uriah killed in battle.

David’s secret is safe from everyone … except God.

God then plants in Nathan’s heart a prophecy that mirror’s David’s sin.  Nathan shares the prophecy with David, which David understands only as treachery of another, not his own sin.  When Nathan tells David he, David, is the sinner, David’s great lament to God becomes Psalm 51, and especially this well-known passage in verses 10-12:

“10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

“11 Do not cast me from your presence, or take your Holy Spirit from me.

“12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”

We routinely think of the Old Testament as God alone dealing with humanity and then his chosen people Israel. We see God as a monolith, purveying the Law from heaven and both protecting and punishing this nation God has chosen as his own.

But God is not a monolith; God the Trinity is an eternal relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit. We see the Trinity boldly declared in this surprising Old Testament passage.

In verse 10, David knowingly or not is invoking of God the pure heart of Jesus Christ, and David pleas for his own spirit to be steadfastly renewed in the Spirit of God.

Verse 11 has David praying to remain in God’s company in this life, the gift of the company we ultimately have in Jesus Christ.  David begs God not to withdraw the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, the mechanism by which we know God’s truth.

Verse 12 is where we see one of the most surprising active revelations of the Old Testament … humanity’s coming salvation in Christ.  Salvation is not typically an Old Testament idea. The Law of Israel demands obedience and works, but the salvation a Jew imagined in God is vastly different from the salvation we are promised in Christ.

In John 11:24, as Jesus is about to revive dead Lazarus, his sister Martha tells Jesus she knows of “resurrection at the last day.”  For the Jews, the eternal afterlife with God was not understood as “part of the deal.” Many Jews believed death to be the catastrophic, final end of life. Israel’s “last day” resurrection was a hope, not a promise.

In Christ, our heavenly eternal life is one of restored relationship with God thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus.  Jesus’s forgiving gift of salvation for all humanity – mentioned by various Old Testament prophets, especially Isaiah – was not a salvation David could have imagined.  Yet, here he is in Psalm 51 calling on such forgiveness as well as a restored and sustaining strength of grace from the Holy Spirit. It is God’s eternal truth.

I memorized this passage years ago not because I needed to match the lament of King David, but as a reminder of the eternal Father, Son, and Spirit, present always.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recognizes the promises of Jesus … praise God.