When Iniquities Prevail Against Me

The hope of the Christian gospel

“When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.” (Psalm 65:3)

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This psalm, taken as a whole, celebrates God’s kind and providential care over every facet of creation. Thus God is, as verse 5 says, the “hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.” He is the one who established the mountains, the one who visits the earth with water to “greatly enrich it” (v. 9). He is the one who waters the furrows of grain and blesses its growth (v. 10), who crowns each year with bounty so that pastures overflow, hills rejoice, and all creation shouts and sings together for joy.

In other words, God is the King of all the earth. And His care and His blessing and His kindness extend to the farthest reaches of nature itself.

But God’s kindness doesn’t end with fields and valleys and harvests. David looks out at these and sees the goodness of God in them — He sees God’s kindness on display — but the place where these qualities are supremely visible for David is in the temple, in the courts of God, where atonement for sin is made: “When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions” (v. 3).

Thus, of all the ways God cares for His creatures, this is the most precious and the most significant. That He takes our iniquities — iniquities that have “prevailed against us” — and He covers over them with the blood of atonement. He provides for us what we could never provide for ourselves, and He forgives us and clothes us and welcomes us into His courts to be satisfied with the goodness of His house (v. 4).

That is the nature of the God of all mercies, and, through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the hope of the Christian gospel.