Psalms 103:3–4

It is worth seeing how this connects with Christ in the Gospels. The Lord is the One who forgives and heals. This is just what the Lord does with the paralysed man. It was an example of how God governs and deals with man. He healed the paralysis, and besides, He forgave the sins. They say, "Who is this who forgives sins also?" He proved that He was the Lord who forgave them and healed their diseases.

The 103rd Psalm illustrates most beautifully Israel's coming praise. It is not only "who forgives all your iniquity," but also "who heals all your diseases." People usually read the diseases in this psalm as a picture of something spiritual, but that is incorrect. They are diseases of the body. The Son of Man did this for one paralysed man while He was here in humiliation. When He comes again, exalted, He will do it for the whole nation and for others on the earth in that coming age of glory.

The fruits of sin, whether sickness or death, could be removed, and sins forgiven. This is in harmony with Psalm 103:3, which will be sung on a coming day: "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases." Then, too, the bright forecast of the prophet about Jerusalem will come true: "And no inhabitant will say, 'I am sick'; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity" (Isaiah 33:24).

But can we say that "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases" is the way the Lord deals now with Christians? Where He forgives a person's iniquities, does He necessarily heal all their diseases? But here it is clear that the Lord had in view the cure of bodily diseases joined with the forgiveness of sins, in the same people and at the same time. When will this be? When God takes the government of the world into His own hands. When the One who was crucified is glorified — not only in heaven, but here below — the outward world, the body of man, and especially God's own people Israel, will feel the effect at once. We can take the spirit of the Psalms, so far as they apply to our condition now. But let us not forget: much in the Psalms does not apply to us.

True, He does heal now at times, but still He allows sickness to affect His people. Then the healing will not only be complete, but connected also with forgiveness. Some people think the grand thing is to have faith in God's power. He has only to speak, and the worst disease can be healed easily; but He is training us. Sometimes He sends sickness to prevent, sometimes to correct. We ought to have faith in His love as well as in His power, and in His wisdom too. Have faith in God, not simply in His power.

This is how Israel will be forgiven later on (compare Psalm 103:3). So the Lord here proves His authority to forgive, by healing the paralysed man's disease... The man was to know, in his relationship to God, that his guilt was gone. Through infinite grace, we are entitled to more than even this; for we have the righteousness of the accepted man in God's presence.

God's majesty, holiness, and truth have been upheld. Sin has been judged in the light, the conscience cleared, the heart made happy, full communion restored, and the soul established in grace. The tears may have been more bitter than myrrh, but the results are sweeter than honey.

Now at last, the nation redeemed from destruction renews its life. The righteous judgment of the Lord will end the long centuries of oppression the Jew has suffered under the rule of the Gentiles. That oppression came as the result of their rejection of their Messiah.

Divine power has another use, still future, that is also called redemption. Romans 8 uses the word of "our body," raised or changed at Christ's coming. It uses the word the same way of the possession He has bought, "our inheritance." This power of His glory rests on His work as well as on His person. The same principle governs the very frequent use of the word in the Psalms and Prophets for the future deliverance of Israel for His kingdom on earth. See Ps. 103:4, Ps. 106:10, Isa. 43:1... All of it, however, rests on His blood-shedding. The return from Babylon was an outward sample and pledge.

The word "crownest" might be rendered "encircled for protection" or "compassed about," and is given that way in Psalm 5:12 — "For You bless the righteous, O LORD; You cover him with favour as with a shield."

They have forgiveness and mercy through the tender compassions and mercy of Jehovah. As for man, he is like grass; and the people had been like grass and had withered (Isa. 40). But the mercy of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, the obedient ones. So it all comes from His goodness, and from His faithfulness too, which springs from the very nature and name of Jehovah — but it comes to the obedient ones, the godly remnant. Now Jehovah owned them with loving-kindness and tender mercies. All their sins were utterly removed from them.

This is the well-loved psalm. God's people love it for its precious and beautiful expressions. It tells out the full salvation of our Saviour Lord and the gracious compassion He shows towards His own. But we must not overlook the prophetic aspect, which few believers have recognised. It is really the hymn of praise that redeemed and restored Israel will sing... God has forgiven their iniquities, healed their diseases, redeemed their life from the pit, and crowned them with loving-kindness and tender mercies.

David had passed through the experience of Psalm 51. After that, he could praise and worship God with a joyful heart in the strains of Psalm 103... So God's majesty, holiness, and truth stood firm. Sin was judged in the light, the conscience cleared, the heart made happy, full communion restored, and the soul established in grace. The tears may have been more bitter than myrrh, but the results are sweeter than honey.