Why did David ask God to "create in me a clean heart" in Psalm 51:10?

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." Have you got thus far, in the judgment of yourself, as to say, That is where the evil comes from? Do not shelter yourself behind this, "I am on Christian ground, and it would not be an intelligent thing to say." David says, "It comes from my heart; not from the beauty of the woman I gazed upon, not from the effort to sustain the tarnished reputation of the king, but from the king's own heart." It is the heart, the unclean heart, I find; and that is why I cry, "Create in me," not "Change in me," but "Create in me a clean heart." Is this the ground on which you have been in your soul with God?

Let us look for a moment at experience. If you have not had that experience, may God help you to get it! It is the reality of having to do with Him. Here is a man, honest‑hearted before God, owning that the root of iniquity is in himself. Thus he says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God … and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." - Take not from me that which brings home to heart and conscience the sense of evil before God; the exercises of a troubled soul; the exercise of heart before Him. That is what it is. We could not, it is true, as Christians, say, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me;" for, thank God, the Holy Spirit will remain with us to the end. But there is the sense in David that he has forfeited everything all right and title and claim - and that God's mercies and loving‑kindnesses are the sole ground on which God maintains everything He had given him. Thus he says, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me;" "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation;" "Uphold me with Thy free Spirit."

As light breaks upon David's soul, he discovers that God is not indifferent to him, He does not abandon him to misery and despair; He has desires and designs in regard to him. When he has come to the end of himself and made a full confession as to what he is, he can say, "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom." "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). And David's desire has been brought into full accord with God's, he wants truth and wisdom to be in him, the chief characteristics of a nature that he did not possess by natural birth. But in regard to this he also casts himself upon God and prays: Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. A humbling process this purging with hyssop, but as he goes through it his confidence in God grows. God can accomplish this miracle of cleansing, in which a new nature supersedes the old, and from the truth and wisdom in his hidden parts resulting from this renewal, joy and gladness would surely spring forth. Creative power, possessed only by God, could bring it about, hence he pleads, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." The New Testament speaks of "the pure heart, " and we know well that this can only be by the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost and obedience to the truth.

But we have got beyond our psalm. The psalmist realizes at least, as has been said, that God's face — God Himself — is his one necessity; and that one sin discerned by the holy Eye would be impossible for Him to go on with. Does he not realize something of what the ashes of the sin-offering mean, by which just now he has been in reality asking to be purged? We, at least, know this well. But along with the need of sacrifice, there is need of an initial work also; which none but God can effect; — which needs nothing less than the power of the Creator: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast spirit within me." And we have learned that we are "created in Christ Jesus unto good works; which God hath before prepared, that we should walk in them" (Eph. 10). He does not speak formally of the new birth; nor was this clearly known until New Testament times; but he despairs of any effectual change by any effort of his own; he; like the apostle; with a groan of anguish turns from an impractical "body of death," to find a Deliverer outside himself altogether. To possess a "clean heart," for such as he has discovered himself to be; God must "create a creation;" and for the psalmist as for us, the light of heaven must be made to break out in self-revealing, God-revealing power; over the yeasty confusion of the barren and restless deep. O blessed and beauteous Light of heaven; though Thou showest us but the fury of the untamed swell of passion and unrest! Even so communion has begun, if fitfully, with God. The soul begins to side with Him, even against itself; and there, I suppose, a "clean heart" has begun. But a "steadfast [or fixed] spirit" goes beyond this, just in the removal of that fitfulness: the heart being at rest for communion as the calm lake mirrors heaven. But we miss here the Christian how of this: the need is felt, but the manner of accomplishment is not known.

101 Thus far it has been more the intrinsic preciousness of being clean, clean for God - what is necessary for God and what the heart delights in. Now, gladness is looked for, but from God; as all is seen, the humiliation and chastisement, as the rest, from God's hand - joy, gladness, God's face can be rightly looked for now, not before. That would have been selfish comfort, though natural enough; but God does not give it till the heart is right. The heart must be real, truly purified in accord with God, to enjoy here favour and joy. Nor, while looking to God to hide His face from its sins and blot out its iniquities, is this separate from the desire after cleanliness of heart; only now it is looked at, God's goodness being in view, not as the requirement of His holiness, to which the heart assents, but the work of His grace, something from Him. "Create in me a clean heart, O God." Give it me, and renew (not a right, but) a fixed, settled, spirit within me - one that calmly, settledly thinks on God, the heart's only object, and peacefully counts and waits on Him. The soul thus taught cannot do without the presence of God. its dread is to be cast out of it. It is not yet intelligent in grace and the sureness of God's favour, but cannot do without His presence. To be removed from it would be everlasting misery, as indeed it would, and felt the more, the more the eye is opened upon Him. It craves therefore this above all, not to be cast out from His presence; known in truth, desire, and the necessity of the soul; if not, no joy.

(Vv. 7-13). Truth in the heart has borne its fruit: a second condition of heart is the consequence: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (v. 10). How could this clean heart be produced? “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (v. 7). He speaks of hyssop which was used to sprinkle blood on the leper, and then he refers to washing with water. Under the law at each sin the sprinkling of blood was to be renewed; for us the sacrifice has been offered once for all. But in addition to this the soul of the believer needs the washing of water by the Word continually, applied by our High Priest to the defilement we contract as we walk: “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” - But in order to have a clean heart something other than our personal purification is needed: “Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities” (v. 9); it is essential that God Himself remember them no more. This was not yet an accomplished fact for a saint in the Old Testament, nor should we believers express ourselves in the same way as verse 9 does. But when our hearts have been cleansed from all iniquities we can present ourselves before God with a consciousness that He remembers them no more. The result of this is that the joy of our salvation returns and we are sustained in the spirit of liberty.

Following the judgment of the person comes the reference to his actions, — sins and iniquities, which David desired hidden and blotted out, which only God in pure grace can do (v. 9). For this section brings us into the sanctuary, the presence of God, where it is required that one be totally sanctified. Thus, God's creatorial work is necessary to make a difference in the individual, renewing in him a steadfast spirit (v. 10). When this is true, there is no possibility of one being banished from His presence, or of his losing the gift of the Holy Spirit (v. 11). It is clear that David did have God's Spirit as enabling him for his duties as king, and David realized that his sin was such that he deserved to have the Spirit taken from him. But he could still count on the grace of God to maintain him in spite of his guilt. Blessed grace indeed!

David asks that God will restore to him the joy of God's salvation, — not salvation itself, for he had not lost this in spite of his shameful failure. But one away from God cannot be enjoying God's salvation, and this joy required restoration. He asks also to be upheld by a willing spirit, which seems to be the correct translation of this last phase of verse 12, that is, that Word would work in him a spirit of willingness to obey Him. How much better is this than a selfish spirit of wanting our own way!

In Psalm 51 you will find the deep need of a soul that has found itself ruined and vile, utterly without power in the hour of temptation. How deep the sense of guilt and sin; and yet the cry for mercy according to what God is! "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash, me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit." These are the earnest desires of a sin-burdened soul — the groans of a broken heart that longs for holiness and purity. For cleansing and purging: "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And much more: "Create in me a clean heart, O God." Guilty, guilty, oh, wash me whiter than snow! Here is full unreserved confession to God and faith looks only to Him. Here is man's need — your need and mine, as God sees it — our very condition by nature.

(vv. 9-13) Furthermore, there is the desire, not only that the repentant sinner may be cleansed, but that God Himself will no longer see his sins, and further, that the cleansing may not only be outward, but inward, so that he may have “a clean heart” and a right spirit. Thus suited for God's presence, and filled with the Spirit, he would be led again into the joy of salvation. Sustained by a “willing spirit” (JND), in contrast to his past sin in defiance of God, the repentant sinner, now restored, would be able to teach others in the ways of God so that sinners would be turned to God.

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit'.

These are the earnest desires of a sin-burdened soul - the groans of a broken heart that longs for holiness and purity, for cleansing and purging: 'Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow'. And much more: 'Create in me a clean heart, O God'.

What follows is truly touching, as David gets before the Lord in the deepest exercise, and contrition of soul. The feelings of his heart, the writhings of his conscience, and his soul's agonised experiences are given to us in the pathetic, and touching language of the 51st Psalm, where, in the presence of the Lord, he makes a clean breast of all his transgressions, and sins, and lays them down by the side of the multitude of the Lord's tender mercies, with which the Psalm opens. "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." Then in the tenth verse he says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." I do not doubt he feared as he remembered Saul. Trembling, as he recollected what had been the fate of the king who had preceded him — for well he knew that God's Spirit had been upon Saul — he now prays, in the deepest earnestness possible, "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit" (Ps. 51:10-11).