It Is FinishedExemplo

“Innocence”

Psalm 26 is a gorgeous poem, but it rings a little hollow for me. Lines such as “Vindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life” (v. 1) and “I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites” (v. 4) and “I wash my hands in innocence” (v. 6) just seem like lines no human being could ever have written. Is there really someone so righteous that these lines wouldn’t seem like the height of self-delusion? Was this poem written by Jesus Christ Himself?

Well, that’s an interesting question.

Psalm 26 was written by David—the same David who murdered Uriah in order to take Bathsheba as his wife. So what happened? How can this man write these things about himself?

The answer can be found in a single sentence spoken to David when his crime and sin became public. The prophet Nathan reveals David’s sin to him, causing David to say, simply, “I have sinned against the Lord.” It’s the sentence that Nathan then speaks over David that allows him to proclaim his innocence in Psalm 26 despite being anything but: “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die” (2 Sam. 12:13).

For us, it is at the cross of Christ, in the blood of the Savior spilled for us, that we are washed clean and declared innocent. David was told that God would not hold his sins against him. We are told, through Christ and the cross, that we are made innocent, through the innocence of Him who died for us. And so we remember the One who came to die, the One who came to trade His righteousness, His innocence, for our sin, for our guilt. Looking to the cross, we can say with David and Psalm 26, “Do not take away my soul along with sinners” (v. 9), and know that, in Christ, it is finished, and we, therefore, are innocent before God.