Innocent and Guilty--Simultaneously (by Daniel Mann)

We are sinners who need a Savior. This truth isn’t merely central to the New Testament, it’s also central to the Hebrew Scriptures that our best performance is “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6; 1:18) before the righteousness of God:

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? Psalm 130:3

Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. (Psalm 143:2)

If this is our status before our God—and it is—how then can we explain those verses that talk about our innocence? For instance, in Psalm 44, the Psalmist proclaims the innocence of the people:

All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness. If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. (Psalm 44:17-22)

How can the Psalmist plead Israel’s innocence when it’s patently obvious that “no one living is righteous before You?” To make matters worse, Paul applied the message of verse 22 to the persecution that the Church was enduring (Romans 8:36), suggesting that the Church too had been innocent.

I think that there is a simple solution for this dilemma. We find the clue in Psalm 143:2 (and in many other verses): “for no one living is righteous before you.” While none are innocent before God, Scripture clearly does make a strong distinction between the guilty and the innocent, at least before the courts and society. Therefore, murderers are guilty for having shed “innocent” blood (Deut 21:6-8).

Because Scripture makes a sharp distinction between innocence and guilt, we must do the same. It therefore would be foolish for a Christian judge to tell a complainant, “You shouldn’t bring a charge against this poor sinner for beating you. After all, we’re all sinners who deserve to die. So he is no more deserving of punishment than are you!” Such a response confuses innocence “before You [God]” and a relative innocence before a court of the law.

However, there is also an innocence before God. Returning to Psalm 44: “we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant” (verse 17). The Psalmist is claiming that, at one point at least, Israel had been innocent before God, at least in this matter. Rather than understanding Israel’s innocence in terms of their perfect conformity to God’s covenant, it makes more sense to understand this as a “reckoned” innocence (Genesis 15:6) which accompanies a true confession of sin (1 John 1:9) along with a sincere determination to follow God.

In a similar vein, it is impossible to be pure before God. Our hearts are so desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). However, He consistently distinguishes between the pure in heart and those who aren’t (Psalm 18:26; Titus 1:15), but on the basis of what, since we aren’t pure? David points to His mercy:

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103:10)

However, we are “pure” when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9). We see the same mercy regarding “righteous Lot” (2 Peter 2:7) who had been living a compromised life in Sodom. As He ascribed righteousness to Lot, He also ascribed “faith” to rebellious Israel (Hebrew 11:29)! Even more importantly, if He ascribes faith and righteousness to them, He also ascribes it to us!

Daniel Mann
http://www.mannsword.blogspot.com/