2 Samuel 12:13

"David said, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die." Then Nathan went to his house."

"I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13). This little paragraph is the glory of David. He offered no excuses; unlike Adam, he did not blame his wife; he pleaded no extenuating circumstances. He simply said, "I have sinned against the Lord."

"The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die" (2 Samuel 12:13). This statement from the prophet Nathan relates to one of the great questions regarding the nature of the forgiveness of sins that was available to worthies of the O.T. One of the greatest scholars of our times, John T. Willis, declared that, "Here and elsewhere the O.T. teaches that God forgave sins in O.T. times (Leviticus 4:26,31,35; 5:10,13,16; Numbers 14:18; Psalms 103:3,10,12; 130:3-4)."[9] Furthermore, it is a fact that the word "forgiveness" is used in all of those references. However, there are insurmountable objections to that view.

FORGIVENESS OF SINS UNDER THE OLD COVENANT

(1) The only true basis for the forgiveness of any man's sin is lodged irrevocably and eternally in the Atoning death of Christ on Calvary, an event still future by a full millennium when David sinned. For this reason, those references cited by Willis do not state that the sinner's sins had been forgiven but that, "THEY SHALL BE FORGIVEN" (Leviticus 4:26.31,35, etc.), which is a reference to what God would do upon Calvary.

(2) Furthermore, for one to affirm that the worshippers mentioned in Leviticus 4 and Leviticus 5 were actually forgiven of their sins would indicate that the "blood of bulls, goats, pigeons and heifers can take away sins," a proposition that is flatly denied in Hebrews 10:4.

(3) That still leaves the remarkable statement here that, "God has put away thy sin." That is past tense and means that whatever was done had already been done when Nathan spoke. But was it forgiveness? It was not. Henry Preserved Smith warned us that, "It is misleading to translate this "God ... has forgiven."[10] It is this writer's opinion that in each place where the word forgiveness appears in the O.T. it is a misleading translation. Such translations are true only when the O.T. "forgiveness of sins" is understood to have been limited and conditional, the great condition being the ultimate achievement of the Son of God upon the Cross.

(4) The light from the N.T. (without which nobody, but nobody, ever understood the O.T.) reveals exactly what God did to sins in the times of the O.T. "This (the crucifixion of Christ) was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance HE HAD PASSED OVER FORMER SINS."(Romans 3:25). Well, there you have the truth! Did God forgive sins in O.T. times? No! HE PASSED OVER THEM.

(5) The prophet Jeremiah made the forgiveness of sins an identifying feature of the New Covenant, which could not have been true if forgiveness of sins had already been available to the Israelites under the Old Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-35).

(6) If sins were actually forgiven in O.T. times, what was the use of the First Advent of Christ? Why was Jesus Christ, in any sense, necessary if Adam's rebellious descendants already were able to receive the forgiveness of their sins?

(7) Since most of our versions actually speak of "forgiveness" in the O.T. period, what, actually, was it? The N.T. gives valuable light upon this question also. All forgiveness under the Old Covenant was accommodative, provisional and typical of that ultimate atonement and forgiveness that came through Christ alone. Any notion that animal sacrifices could remove sins is untenable (Hebrews 10:4). Certainly no mere confession of guilt could remove it. Nevertheless, there was a definite release of guilt for those who honored God's commandments by obeying them. That type of "forgiveness" (if we may call it that) was not final and complete. There was no promise of God regarding their sins that he would "remember them no more" as in the forgiveness promised in the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-35). As a matter of fact, the inspired author of Hebrews stressed the fact that under the Old Covenant there was, "A remembrance made of sins year by year" (Hebrews 10:3); and that was not a reference merely to new sins committed in the intervening time, but to all of the old sins as well. (See the full discussion of this in Vol. 10 of my N.T. series (Hebrews), pp. 193-197.)

"You shall not die" (2 Samuel 12:13). Some scholars refer this promise to the death which David had proposed for the rich man in the parable, which of course by his own admission he himself fully deserved; and others apply it to "eternal death."[11] DeHoff applied it to the death due to an adulterer (Leviticus 20:10).[12] It very likely applies to both. As Smith noted, "God took away the penalty of death that David did not die; but the sin rested upon him and it wrought the death of the child."[13] Thus, sin has a double effect, separating a man from God, and producing a chain of evil deeds in the world.