Never!
Romans 4:1–8
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. Romans 4:8 (NIV)
There is a word in Paul’s citation of David’s testimony that deserves special consideration. It is the word never: “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (NIV).
Never means never, and it must be taken at full value here, even though the opposite is almost always the case in human relationships. We all know the kind of forgiveness in which a person reluctantly accepts our apology and says that he will forgive us. But we know, as he says this, that he is not forgetting what happened, that our offense will linger in his mind and will probably be brought out against us in the future.
This text tells us that God is not like that. It tells us that, once he has forgiven us for our sin through the work of Christ, he will never, never bring it up to us again. He will not bring it up in this life, never remind us of something in the past. He will always begin with us precisely where we are in the present. And he will never bring it up at the day of judgment. Why? Because it is truly forgiven. It will never be remembered anymore.
That is real “blessedness,” which is the terminology David uses. And my concluding question is this: Why trade away that blessedness for the false blessings offered by this world?
The world does offer its blessings, of course. It is how it holds its victims. It offers material things chiefly, but it also offers intangibles, such as a good reputation, success, happiness, and such. Let me remind you that you can have all these things and more and still be miserable—if the burden of your sin is not lifted. David is an example. He was the king of a most favored nation. He had wealth and reputation. But the very psalm from which our key verse is taken describes what he was like before his sin was forgiven. He wrote that, when he kept silent about his sin, trying to hush it up, “my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (Ps. 32:3–4). But because David found forgiveness with God, the burden of his sin rolled away, his strength was restored, and he could write: “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
I commend that very great blessing to you.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.