It is certainly no coincidence that Numbers 15 and Psalm 51 are both in today’s reading. For they both deal with “high-handed sin” (Numbers 15:22-31 and the entirety of Psalm 51).
From what I read in Numbers 15:30-31 and the rest of the Law, there is no specific sacrifice to atone for sin committed “with a high hand.” The “iniquity remains on him.” High-handed sin seems to be that committed with one’s hand not “under the table” but out in the open, in the full light of day, without passion, with full knowledge of its guilt. Our own law comprehends this. In many states, we treat “first degree” murder as that which is done with a “high hand” and therefore worthy of execution.
Which is surely what David was guilty of. We might call his initial adultery with Bathsheba a “crime of passion,” but not his premeditated and callous murder of her husband, the loyal soldier Uriah. This was the very definition of high-handed sin, which he thought he got away with.
But the guilt was too heavy. Guilt and shame always register their presence in the body: “. . . the bones that You have broken . . .” (Psalm 51:8). We are body and soul, and the two constantly interface and interact with the other.
Yet David knows that there is no sacrifice he could offer to make things right in the eyes of God:
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. (Psalm 51:16)
So what shall he do?
First, we must note what God forced him to do, through the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12): to bring his sin public, before God and at least another person.
Secondly, David allowed Nathan’s conviction to do its work and sit on his own heart. Thus David has a truly “broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17).
Thirdly, this broken and contrite heart becomes the only thing that he may bring before God - which he does. He does not turn away from God, but cries out to Him, in desperate need. Perhaps Jesus was thinking about David’s heart when he told his parable about the proud, self-justified Pharisee and the humbled, guilt-ridden tax collector who both went up to the temple, in Luke 18:9-14. The tax collector could not even look up to God, but could only cry out to God as a miserable sinner. Yet on that day only he went home, Jesus says, “justified” - standing righteous before God.
How? For both David and the tax collector are the worst kinds of betrayers of their people - both worthy of execution, even according to our modern, progressive law. The answer is that they were both looking forward to the New Covenant in desperate faith.
As I said, in the Old Covenant, there was no provision made for high-handed sin. But in the New Covenant, well, things get both worse and better. It was worse, in that, since the Law has come, all sin now exiles us from God. Whether it be premeditated murder (Romans 1:30) or run-of-the-mill disobedience to parents (Romans 1:31), all sin is treated as “high-handed” and utterly cuts us off from God.
Thus at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. He was treated as if he had broken every one of God’s commandments and in a high-handed manner. Thus he was “utterly cut off.” Thus all the sins of his people - even the “high-handed” sins - “shall be on him.”
“His people” not being those who are self-justified and just need a little self-improvement, but those who share the faith of David and the tax collector: who know they have iniquity that utterly cuts them off from God, and who know the only thing they can contribute to their deliverance is their need of it.
Share this post