What does it mean that God will not despise a broken spirit and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17)?

God did not desire sacrifice. In fact, there was no sacrifice available under law for the sin of adultery or of murder. Can we dare to think of giving up something in order to deserve the salvation of God? Mere pride may think so, but such a thing is repulsive to a God of truth and of grace. If we want to speak of sacrifices, verse 17 gives us the only instruction we need as pleasing to God, — a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart." This is just the opposite of the pride of trying to appease God by giving Him some material offering. God would absolutely despise the latter, but will not despise a contrite heart.

Now comes the disclaiming of legal sacrifices. "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt-offering." In fact, as has been already said, none could be prescribed for sin like this, a thing which limits very much therefore the absoluteness of this disclaimer. Here the "sacrifices of God" could only be "a broken spirit!" Not as if this were the true antitype of the legal offerings, a supposition of which there has been given explicit denial in the words of Christ Himself by His Spirit in the fortieth psalm: "In the volume of the book it is written of ME." Nor can a broken spirit be the justification of God's grace in salvation, though it may define the condition morally necessary to the sinner's acceptance. And this is the only possible thought here. That would not be a broken spirit which could estimate itself as having atoning value in the sight of God. It is the very confession of sin and worthlessness which makes it possible for Him to come in in mercy; and in this way indeed to come to God may have attaching to it all the certainty which the bringing of sacrifice ensured in those cases in which they were prescribed. In this comparison with the legal sacrifices, the failed creature taking his place must necessarily, with God, far outweigh the ritual service, and in fact permit God to come in in his behalf. He will act according to His heart, and we can trust His heart. The case is in His hand; and divine wisdom will be able to conserve divine righteousness in meeting so desperate a condition. Christ is the answer of wisdom as to this: and now it can indeed be said: "a broken and crushed heart" — so it literally reads — "O God, Thou wilt not despise."

And not one reproving word! Not a single reference to the past! Not even a glance at the recent heartless wickedness! Ah, no; there is never aught of this in the divine dealing with a penitent soul. The thief had said — said from the depths of a broken and contrite heart, "We indeed justly." This was enough. True, it was needful; but it was enough. "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." No; and not only will He not despise it, but He will pour into it the rich and precious consolation of His grace and pardoning love. It is the joy of God to pardon a penitent sinner; and none but a penitent sinner can truly enjoy the pardon of God.

And yet, though the law was perfectly helpless to minister comfort or peace to David's soul, he lays hold upon God, and there are the breathings of confidence, the confidence of a restored soul; but it is not on the basis of legal sacrifice. He says, The only sacrifice I can bring is a broken and a crushed heart. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." Ah, God will not despise that; it is that condition of heart which lays hold of the truth of Christ and His precious work.

Accordingly, the voice of divine mercy is not delayed: "Jehovah has also put away thy sin: thou shalt not die." For sin such as his, there was in the law no offering or sacrifice: death was the righteous penalty, which only could be remitted directly by the Throne above the throne. And this is the meaning of what he declares in his psalm of penitence: "for Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt-offering"; and then, in contrast with that, he shows what God had accepted as of more value with Him: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." (Ps. 51:16-17.)

This is not, of course, a denial of the worth and need of sacrifice, but only of such as were in his hand to bring, or the law could ordain. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin; and for sins like David's these were not spoken of at all. What really availed to prevent the extreme sentence, when nothing else could, was just the broken heart," divinely convicted, which God saw in him. This is no question of atonement: there was no atonement made with God by this conviction; the atonement — for David and for all others — was made on Calvary alone; only through this could the mercy of God prevail against judgment. The contrite heart was only, as a "sacrifice," upon the footing of the legal sacrifices, as having efficacy through the work to which they pointed; — though more efficacious than these because it testified of real faith on the part of him in whom it had produced this, and which linked him with that in which the efficacy truly was.

A way of escape from judgment thus offered to the undeserving, we next read of that which is absolutely needful, if that salvation is to be known — viz. confession of sin after grievous failure (Ps. 51). Of this David is the example. Of murder and adultery had he been guilty — grievous crimes in the eyes of men. What, indeed, were they in the eyes of God? What, then, was his resource? On what could he count? For himself he could say nothing, but acknowledge his guilt and the taint of corruption derived from his progenitor, Adam (2-5). On God's mercy, however, he could cast himself, the unfailing resource for all who in truthfulness of heart resort to it. "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions" (1). He could do nothing but this. He could offer nothing to meet his case, for the law did not provide a sacrifice for one who had sinned presumptuously, as he had. Death was its only award (Num. 15:30-31); and the only sacrifice which God could accept, under such circumstances, for David was that of a broken spirit. But a broken and contrite heart God does not, He will not, despise. Further, if He can act in grace toward an individual sinner amongst His people, He will not forget Jerusalem, with whose fortunes and restoration the hopes of His people are inseparably connected. So with this the Psalm ends, "Do good in Thy good pleasure to Zion, build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering, and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar" (18, 19). Not till the Lord comes out of heaven will the godly remnant of His people know the forgiveness of their sins. Hence forgiveness to be enjoyed by them is, and must ever be, associated with the commencement of their time of millennial blessedness. One understands, then, why the rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem will be connected in their minds with Jehovah's ways in grace towards them. We need to understand dispensational actings in order to be able to trace the connection of their thoughts. Much there is of deep interest in this Psalm (51), but the limits of our present inquiry forbid us to dwell on it. We must pass on to trace the connection with the Psalms which follow.

(vv. 16-17) The soul, having profited by the witness of God in Psalm 50, now disclaims all confidence in legal sacrifices. It is realized that if the soul looks to the grace of God for cleansing, the only right condition for being cleansed, is “a broken spirit” and “a contrite heart.” Such, God will not despise.

In verses 14-19 we find a third and final condition of heart, a condition which from the time of his fall and restoration until the end of his career would characterize David. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (v. 17). What breaks David's heart is to find himself confronted with “bloodguiltiness” (v. 14), to realize that he had shed the blood of righteous Urijah. This is a prophetic picture of the blood of Christ shed by Israel that remains upon this people and their descendants until that time when the remnant will return to Him, broken-hearted and humbled. We will return to this subject later. But let us remember that God disciplines us in order by degrees to lead us from the condition of a true and cleansed heart to that of a broken heart: the only condition becoming to us in the presence of the cross, the only sacrifice that God accepts with the sacrifice of praise (v. 15), and the only state of heart that does not expose us to fresh falls.

No doubt human sentiments were mixed with all this mourning; this is why David needed to have a broken heart. While it is much, a broken spirit (Ps. 51:17) is not enough. With a broken spirit, self-will cannot be active. Before he had a broken spirit David had followed his own will which had led him into adultery and to Uriah's murder. A broken spirit gives up its own will in order to depend on God (2 Sam. 15:25-26; 2 Sam. 16:10-12; 2 Sam. 18:4). There was no need for Jesus' spirit to be broken. Did He not say, when He came into the world: “Lo, I come to do, O God, Thy will”?

In the seven closing verses of this chapter (Isaiah 57) we have a beautiful presentation of grace. God speaks of Himself as "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell," says He, "in the high and holy place," but He adds, "with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." What is evident here is, that God's dwelling is in harmony with His own nature. He is high and holy, and He dwells in the high and holy place. But He dwells also with him "that is of a contrite and humble spirit," for He finds there that which is suited to Himself. The highest place in heaven is dignified by the presence of Him who yet condescends to make the lowly heart His throne. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." (Psalm 51:17.) The God whom the highest heavens cannot contain is the God whom we may make our Guest, but only by ourselves getting down into the lowest and lowliest place. Thus, if we have never met Him, it is because we have never got down so low as that level of self-judgment on which He is found in grace. But when He takes up His abode in the humble and the contrite, it is in the sweetness of His love, and the tenderness of His mercy, that He may revive the spirit of His humble ones, and revive the heart of His contrite ones. How blessed to be thus humble before Him - lowly enough for the lofty One to dwell with us, contrite (or rubbed down) enough for the Holy One to revive us! The really humble are those who can never be humbled; such, in His own peerless perfection, was the Master Himself.