The disposition of many to misinterpret the moral government of God arises from one remarkable characteristic of it, to which our attention is drawn in this passage. Men misunderstand and misinterpret the majestic silence of God. "I kept silence." This has been the rule in God's dealings with men, and it is upon this rule that men presume.
I. Why does God keep silence and show Himself patient as well as strong, although He be provoked every day? The answer is, not because He is indifferent to sin, and not because He does not intend to punish it, but because He has ordained certain conditions for our probation here, and He is not so inconsistent as to reverse them. Man was created by God in His own image, in this respect above all others, that he possessed from the first a power of independent volition, a capacity of freewill, by the right and dutiful exercise of which he was to be raised to his proper destiny and fitted to share the glories of the Divine Being. If God broke silence and inflicted penalty every time that we transgressed against Him, it might become our will not to transgress against Him; but surely our will would only be free in a very limited sense of the word.
II. A further explanation of God's silence lies in His forbearing compassion. "He is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish." This is no sign of weakness; but it is a sign of patient, persevering, though ill-requited love, and it is evident that such an exhibition of forbearance on God's part makes our sin all the greater when we do sin against it.
III. Besides the occasional warnings which come within the experience of most of us, God has broken silence thrice at least in human history and spoken in a way that must needs appeal to our hearts if we reflect at all. There are three stupendous facts in human history in which we may say God has broken silence. They are (1) the curse which fell upon the world in consequence of a single sin; (2) the Flood; (3) the judgment upon the Sin-bearer at Calvary.
IV. God does even more than this. He has sent His Holy Spirit into the world especially to carry on the work of reproof, and to anticipate that judgment from which there is no escape and no appeal, by setting in order before us the things which we have done. The Holy Spirit is seeking to convict us of sin. Let us listen to His voice, and plead guilty to those charges which He brings against us. We may be sure that His friendly accusations are true.
W. Hay Aitken, Around the Cross,p. 17.
References: Psalms 50:23. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1495; S. Cox, Expositions,3rd series, p. 152.Psalms 51:1. G. Forbes, The Voice of God in the Psalms,p. 173.