Forgiveness: A Key to Happiness

From The Forum Magazine, Spring 2014 - view the full issue here

In one of Charles Schultze’s Peanuts comic strips, Lucy walks up to Snoopy, pats him on the head, gives him a big hug, and walks away dapperly, saying: “Happiness is a warm puppy.” Lucy’s heartwarming words triggered an avalanche of happiness greeting cards and posters. Eventually, they even became the title of a book with “Happiness is…” messages.

The biblical equivalent of the “Happiness is…” declaration is the exclamation “Oh the happiness of the one. . . .” This is the way Psalm 32 begins: “Oh the happiness of the one who has had his transgression removed.” The fact that this expression occurs 46 times in the OT suggests that people pursued happiness in biblical times just as they do now.

According to the US Declaration of Independence, the pursuit of happiness is one of three inalienable rights. Indeed, the American dream for many is the autonomous pursuit of happiness. Paradoxically, however, this autonomous pursuit of happiness results in sadness and disappointment with life. The refrain in Sheryl Crow’s song, If It Makes You Happy (1996), captures this paradox well:

If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?

Over against this ultimately disappointing and unsuccessful autonomous pursuit of happiness, Psalm 32 makes a daring counter-cultural claim that challenges the dominant culture.

Happiness is...forgiveness

Psalm 32 is a song of individual thanksgiving. The purpose of a psalm of thanksgiving is to teach the worshipping community a lesson based on the psalmist’s experience of crying out to God and receiving deliverance. The first lesson that the psalmist wants to teach us in Psalm 32 is that, as strange as it may seem to a contemporary audience, the key to happiness is to have our sins forgiven. The second lesson is that to have our sins forgiven, we must acknowledge our sins to God.

To bring the first lesson home, the psalmist begins his poem with two beatitudes (vv. 1–2). Each of these starts with an exclamation that consists of a plural noun in Hebrew: “Oh the happinesses of…” which I understand to mean, “Oh the genuine happiness of.” If we want genuine happiness, then we must have our transgressions removed. We must have our sins covered up. If we want to be genuinely happy, we must make sure that the Lord doesn’t count our sins against us. We must open up to God with a heart in which there is no deceit because deceit (v. 2) is the heart of sin. In fact, according to 1 John 1:8, the greatest act of self-deception is to deny our sins. In this verse we read, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” And what is worse, we make God out to be a liar.

A basic assumption of Psalm 32 is that sin is all-pervasive—even the righteous struggle with sin. Christians, even baptized Christians, struggle with sin. Therefore, if we want to be genuinely happy, we must not deceive ourselves and deny our sin. We must acknowledge it to God.

The Specifics of Forgiveness

Four features of the opening double beatitude of Psalm 32 call for special attention. Consider first its contrast with Psalm 1. Psalm 1 begins with the exclamation “Oh the happiness of…” It then goes on to describe something that a happy person does: “Oh the happiness of the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.” It describes the happiness of the law-keeper. Psalm 32, however, begins with a double beatitude that concerns the law-breaker. Such a person, according to Psalm 32:1–2, is on the receiving end of God’s gracious activity. Happy is the person who has his transgression taken away. Happy is the person who has his sin covered. As v.2 shows, the Lord is the implied subject of these passive verbal forms. The Lord is the one who takes away rebellion; the Lord is the one who covers up sin. Genuine happiness therefore is a gracious gift from God.

A second striking feature of Psalm 32:1–2 is its use of three important Hebrew words for sin: 1) pesha‘ “rebellion” (v. 1a), which refers to a serious breach of relationship; 2) khata’ah “sin” (v. 1b), which means to miss the mark and denotes a serious breakdown in a personal relationship; and 3) ‘awon “iniquity” (v. 2), which refers to a deliberate perversion or twisting. Together these terms describe the full gamut of sin and provide a powerful insight into its corruptive nature.

A third feature to notice in Psalm 32:1–2 is that each of the three terms for sin discussed above find their counterpart in three Hebrew verbs that denote forgiveness: 1) nasa’ “forgive, “carry away” (v. 1a); 2) kasah “cover” (v. 1b); and 3) khashab “credit, assign” (v. 2). Together with the three terms for sin in vv. 1–2, the Hebrew verb nasa’ recalls Leviticus 16:21–22. This passage describes an essential part of the rituals of the Day of Atonement. Once the high priest finished making the atonement, then, according to Lev.16:21, he had to put his hands on the head of the living goat and confess Israel’s iniquity, rebellion and sin. Then, according to Lev.16:22, the goat would carry away (nasa’) all of Israel’s iniquities to an inaccessible land.

According to 2 Corinthians 5:18, this vitally important OT ritual finds its fulfillment in Christ’s atoning sacrifice promised in Isaiah 53:4–5. Like the living goat in Leviticus 16, Christ carries away the burden of our sins.

A fourth significant feature of Psalm 32:1–2 is that even before the psalmist talks about rebellion, sin, and iniquity, he first mentions God’s actions. The verbal forms meaning “carry away,” “cover” and “credit, assign” precede the key terms for sin. This ordering of words emphasizes the fact that the forgiveness of sin is always the result of God’s gracious initiative.

Attaining Happiness

But how can we attain the genuine happiness described in the double beatitude of Psalm 32:1–2? The psalmist provides the answer to this important question in vv. 3–5, in which he retells his painful experience to God. These verses constitute the basis for the psalmist’s claim that genuine happiness is to have one’s sins forgiven.

In his powerful testimony, the psalmist first recounts that he had bottled up his sins in grace-denying silence. As a result, he suffered psychosomatic consequences—all day long his bones wasted away (v. 3), his body paying for the guilt of sin. He recognizes in this the heavy hand of the Lord pressing down on him (v. 4).

Then, in a sharp dramatic turn (v. 5), the psalmist reports that he only broke through his pain by acknowledging his sin, by not covering up his iniquity, and by resolving to confess his rebellion to God. When the psalmist finally acknowledged his iniquity, God covered up the psalmist’s sins (v. 2). One could say that the forgiveness of sins is God’s big cover up.

Only open confession can liberate us from the deadly consequences of sin. Grace-denying silence about sin is like cholesterol and high blood pressure— both are silent killers. They creep up on us before we know it. The same is true with the awful burden of guilt unacknowledged to God.

Remarkably, in v. 5 we encounter once more the same three terms for sin that we saw in vv. 1–2. Significantly, together with the verb “carry away,” these terms for sin also occur in Exodus 34:6–7, which speaks of a merciful God. We read in those verses that God is so merciful that he carries away iniquity, rebellion, and sin (Exod. 34:7). According to the psalmist, that is exactly what God did for him. As soon as he broke his grace-denying silence and confessed his sin, God graciously liberated him from the burden of sin.

Therefore, based on his dramatic experience of God’s forgiveness, in v.6 the psalmist implicitly urges everyone to pray to the Lord and confess their sins. If we really want to be happy, we must follow the psalmist’s example— we too, must come clean and acknowledge our sin to God. When we do, like the psalmist, we will also have our sins forgiven.

Sin and Our Culture

We live in a culture in which the word “sin” has become uncomfortable to us. Even in the liturgies of many Protestant churches there is no longer any room for confession of sin and forgiveness. In corporate worship many Protestants prefer only to praise the Lord. To be sure, Psalm 32:11 does invite us to “rejoice in the Lord and be glad.” However, according to the psalmist, there is only one way to move from the awful pain of unconfessed sin to exuberant joy, and that is to confess our sins. As the repetition of the declarations (“I acknowledged … I did not hide … I said … I will confess to the Lord”) in v.5 shows, we must openly confess our sins to the only One who can remove the immobilizing burden of unacknowledged sin. 

Sin has been compared to garbage. If we do not take out our garbage regularly, it eventually starts to reek. To avoid this, we must take out the garbage on a regular basis. Similarly, we should also dump our spiritual garbage regularly in corporate worship through confession of sin. Only by acknowledging our sin will we receive God’s forgiveness. When we allow God to take away our garbage, then we will experience God’s liberating forgiveness and the genuine happiness that follows.

(Carl Bosma, Professor of Old Testament, emeritus)