Luther on the Remnants and Blotting out of Sin, Psalm 51:9

[GHansen]

I understand this verse to be speaking of the increase of that peace and righteousness which conquers the feeling of God’s wrath and of sin. Although the righteous truly have the forgiveness of sins, because they have trust in mercy and are in grace for Christ’s sake, still the pangs of conscience and the remnants of sin that infest them do not stop. Hence it is a great power of the Holy Spirit to trust the grace of God and to hope that God is gracious and favorably disposed. Nor can this confidence be preserved without the most bitter struggles, aroused in our flesh by our daily occasions for trouble and sadness as well as by our inborn weakness and distrust.

Even though today I may be of happy heart because of this hearing of joy, still something happens tomorrow to trouble me, when I remember that I did what I should have avoided or failed to do what I should have done. These storms and fluctuations never stop in the mind. Satan also keeps watch. When he notices that our hearts are not well fortified with the promises of God, he arouses other specters of wrath and trouble in us that melt our hearts like salt when it is thrown into the water. Therefore this prayer is necessary: “Turn away Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” “All,” he says, “whether past or present or future, for I sin daily. Blot out all of them, all, lest I fall into despair or forget Thy mercy.” Here again you see that the forgiveness of sins is not in what I do but in the fact that by mercy God blots out, as Paul says about “the bond which is against us” (Col. 2:14).

Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 12: Selected Psalms I. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 12, p. 376). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.