Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
—Romans 4:7-8
One of the great truths of salvation is that you and I can forget the guilt of the past, close the book on the stained pages of yesterday, and begin life anew. And in today’s verse, one of the towering figures of human history, King David, tells us what that joy feels like.
David knew this joy firsthand. Here was a man who plunged deeply into sin. Most scholars believe he wrote these words, quoted here from Psalm 32, after his terrible failure with Bathsheba and his part in the death of her husband. If anyone understood the weight of guilt, it was David. And yet in his great sin he found a greater forgiveness, and he could call the forgiven man “blessed.”
Notice the banking language again, “the Lord will not count his sin.” Paul has been using a word that means to reckon, to credit to an account. We usually call it imputation. When you make a deposit at the bank, an imputation takes place; a credit is registered to your account. And that is precisely what God does for us and to us when we come to Jesus Christ.
Here is the wonder of it from two directions. On the one hand, God does not count our sin against us, the debt is not entered in the ledger. “Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” On the other hand, the righteousness of Christ is credited to our account in its place. Our sin is not reckoned to us; His righteousness is. That is the great exchange.
Think about how complete this is. David doesn’t say his sins were excused, or explained away, or overlooked because he was a good king on balance. He says they were forgiven and covered, blotted out, hidden from the eyes of a holy God by grace.
And if God could do that for a man who fell as far as David fell, He can do it for you. Your past does not put you beyond His reach. The blood of Christ runs deeper than the worst chapter of your life.
So, here’s the freedom this offers: you do not have to drag yesterday into today. You do not have to carry a debt that God has refused to count. The same grace that covered an adulterer and reckoned him righteous is the grace held out to you.
Today, thank God that all your sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven, covered, and not counted against you, because of the imputation He has made to your account in Christ. And then live like a forgiven person. Begin again.
GOD DOES NOT COUNT YOUR SIN AGAINST YOU, HE CREDITS CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS IN ITS PLACE. BEGIN ANEW.
