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NASB | Psalm 32:1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Psalm 32:1 Blessed [fortunate, prosperous, favored by God] is he whose transgression is forgiven, And whose sin is covered. |
Bible Question: how do the ideas of psalm 32 support paul's argument in Romans 4 |
Bible Answer: M-May, Emmaus has hit the nail on the head. I'd like to expand a bit. In Rom 4:3 Paul cites Genesis 15.6, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” This “credit” occurs while Abram is a gentile, his righteousness deriving from his simple trust in what God has said. This credit also comes after many long years of Abram’s faithful perseverance under the whips and scorns of circumstance following God’s command that he up sticks and hit the trail from Ur. Perseverance in faith against all nastiness resulted in righteousness for Abraham, all this, while he was still, double-underline, a gentile—and before the Moral Law, no less. Major point. More to the point, however: “If you, Judaizer, think you get your ticket punched just cause God punched your daddy’s, think again. If you’re not imitating him, you’re not from him. It’s not by blood, but by faith. In fact (as Paul will demonstrate in Romans 9), if it’s by blood, you’re no different from the Arabs, who also descend from your father through Esau.” “Hey, wait a minute. We got the works of the law—circumcision, the feast days, the sacrifices; God said as long as we burn it, we earn it. The Arabs don’t have anything like our righteous-making technology.” Please click on Psalm 32, which is all about divine forgiveness, and which conspicuously lacks any mention of animal sacrifice in relation to same. The speaker, an abject sinner, is so shriveled by conviction of his own guilt that his body wastes away and he groans all day long. “How blessed,” he says “is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” Divine forgiveness comes to this soul-sufferer only after he acknowledges his sin to God; does not hide his iniquity, and confesses his transgression to the Lord (V.5). He has not burned a thing because, and Paul knows whereof he quotes, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17). Circumcision, the covenantal seal, is of the heart, not of the flesh — and it is directly related to our contrition. Paul has embedded “righteousness” in chapter 4 as part of his theme of salvation (a parallel theme to Psalm 32), but take a look back to V. 3:10-11: is it absolutely true that, “…none is righteous, not even one…there is none who understands…none who seeks for God” (Ch 3:10-11)? Does Paul believe that this verse applies universally? These verses, which Paul has taken from Psalm 14, are followed immediately in the Psalm by: “Do all the workers of wickedness not know, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation.” (Psalm 14:4-5). It is not the case that “none is righteous” (Simeon in Luke 2 is a prime example). Paul seems to deliberately tie contrition to forgiveness to righteousness to salvation in order to lay the groundwork for the tidal wave which will occur in Chapter 9. With these OT citations Paul evokes for the reader the real implication of Psalms 14 and 32: that God is with, and has always been with, the generation whose righteousness comes not through circumcision or observance of the Levitical laws, but though Abraham-like, obedient faith. This seems to be Paul’s purpose in specifically applying Psalm 32 here in Romans 4. Colin |