The Big Cover-Up

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”

2 Samuel 12:13-14

Review

We have been considering 2 Samuel 11 and 12, a passage which deals with David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent sin of murdering Uriah so that he could marry Bathsheba and cover up his sin. David thought no one had seen what he had done, but God sees everything, and in 2 Samuel 12:13-14 we read what happened when God confronted David with his sin through Nathan the prophet: “Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord has taken away your sin, and you shall not die.'”

We have already considered the condemning crime of David. David violated the tenth, seventh and sixth commandments when he coveted another man’s wife, committed adultery with her, and murdered her husband. The fact that David committed these sins as a believer in God ought to make us tremble and take warning lest we as Christians should do equally terrible things against the mercy and grace of our God. We also considered the condemning cover-up of King David, which failed, as all cover-ups will fail Then we considered the authentic confession of David, which in the Hebrew is only two words: “I have sinned”-the first word-“against the Lord” -the second word. It is one of the shortest confessions in the Bible, and yet one of the most authentic and Spirit-wrought. We see its authenticity in David’s own words in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51.

In this study we want to consider the great cover-up of God-the holy, compassionate and gracious solution to our sin problem that will never fail.

How to Cover Up Sin

Have you ever lied? If you are honest, you would say you have. But have you ever wondered why you lie? Many times it is to cover up some sin. We are always trying to cover up our sin somehow.

Attempting to cover up sin is nothing new. Adam and Eve tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves, but they failed. Achan tried to cover his sin with dirt in his tent, but God was watching Achan and, in time, exposed him. As we just said, David tried to cover up his sins of adultery and murder, but he failed also and was brought to confess his sin by Nathan the prophet. Ananias and Sapphira tried to cover up their sin, but they also failed and were killed by God in the church. Man’s attempts to cover up sin will always fail.

In Psalm 139 David asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” We must realize that when we sin, we are sinning in the presence of an omniscient God who sees everything we do. That is why all our attempts to cover up our sin will fail. In due time the fig leaves we cover ourselves with will shrivel and the edifices of lies that we construct will crumble. Only God can provide us with a permanent cover-up for our sins. So in 2 Samuel 12:13 David confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord,” and Nathan, in behalf of God, told David, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You shall not die.” In this study we want to examine God’s way of covering our sin.

God’s Blood Covering

We find the first mention of God’s way of covering up sin in Genesis 3:21. After Adam and Eve sinned, the Bible tells us that “the Lord made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” God covered the sin of this first couple by killing an innocent substitute, an animal. This speaks of the death of Jesus Christ on our behalf. It is in view of this type of death for sin that Horatio Spafford wrote, “My sin-O the bliss of this glorious thought!-my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more; praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

The first thing, therefore, that we notice about God’s cover up is that it is a blood cover. In Psalm 51:9 David asked God, “Hide your face from my sins.” In other words, David was saying, “Just close your eyes, O God. Hide your face from my sins.” But can a just and holy God ignore sin? No. God doesn’t ignore sin, but he will cover it.

“Blessed is the man whose sins are covered,” David prays in Psalm 32:1. In the Greek the word for “blessed” is makarios, which means “Oh, the happiness” of the man. Then we find the word epekaluphthêsan, which means “to cover.” It is the opposite of apokalupsis, which means “to reveal, to unveil.” The second coming of Christ-the apocalypse-is the unveiling of Christ, the time in history when he will come again in great glory. But here we read about covering up. David had tried to cover his sin himself, but it didn’t work, so now he says, “Blessed is the man whose sins are covered,” meaning they are covered by God.

The Atonement Cover of God

We find the idea of God covering our sin illustrated by the cover of the ark of the covenant. In Exodus 25 Moses was instructed to make an ark-a gold-covered wooden chest, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide and one and a half cubits in height. It was to be kept in the Most Holy Place as a container for the Testimony which God had given to Moses.

So God told Moses, “Make an atonement cover of pure gold . . . .” (Exodus 25:17) The Hebrew word for atonement cover is one word, kapporeth, from kaphar, which means to cover. The atonement cover was the lid of this gold-covered wooden chest, the ark, which was the most important piece of furniture in the tabernacle. In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word for atonement cover is hilastêrion. We will look at that word as it is used in the New Testament later in this study.

God instructed Moses, “Make an atonement cover of pure gold-two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover at the two ends. The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark, and put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you.” God was speaking about the two tablets he gave to Moses. The first ones had been broken, so God gave duplicates. “There above the cover, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites” (Exodus 25:17-22).

So there was an ark-a wooden chest covered by gold-and a golden slab-the lid of this chest, called the kapporeth or hilastêrion. Both Luther and Tyndale called this lid “the mercy seat,” while the translators of the New International Version call it “the atonement cover.” Both of these names refer to this lid made of pure gold. As we said before, there were cherubs on opposite ends of the cover, facing each other and spreading their wings upward and forward so that they overshadowed the cover. And in verse 22 we learn that the Lord’s presence was above the cover between the two cherubim, while the two tablets of the Law-the law broken by man -were inside. In other words, the sin and guilt of man, represented by the two tablets of the law, was before the Lord in the ark and God was looking down upon it.

The ark with its golden cover and cherubim was kept in the Most Holy Place, which was the place of terrible judgment where God was to judge humanity for violating his law. God is holy, and so instead of ignoring sin, he must judge and punish it. The Bible tells us “The wages of sin is death,” and “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” We read about this idea first in Genesis 2, where God himself told Adam and Eve, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” This is true of all people unless, of course, God himself covers their sin and hides his face from it.

God’s Way of Atonement

Since all man’s attempts to cover his sin are guaranteed to fail, God himself had to provide a way to cover them and spare us from his judgment. In Leviticus 16 we read of a way of salvation given by God for his people. Once a year, on the tenth day of the seventh month, which is called the day of atonement, the high priest, under the cover of a cloud of incense, was to enter the Most Holy Place, bringing with him the blood of a freshly killed male goat. Once inside, he was to sprinkle the blood of the goat upon the atonement cover and in front of it, as we read in Leviticus 16:15.

Where was God when this was happening? Above the cover, looking down on the ark and the two tablets which represented man’s sin and guilt. Romans 1 tells us that God is angry when he sees man’s sin. Paul writes in Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is revealed against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.” God is angry because of our sin, which is transgression of the law that was inside the ark. But once a year, on behalf of the people of God, the high priest would come and sprinkle the blood of the sin offering upon the top and in front of the lid of the ark. Then, when God looked down, what would he see? Blood. There would be blood everywhere, especially on the cover of the ark.

This was God’s way of salvation. Suppose you don’t like blood. Then you will have to come up with your own way of salvation, and many people throughout the years tried to do so. But in God’s way of salvation-the only way of salvation-sin is punished by punishing an innocent substitute, in this case a male goat. So on the day of atonement, when God looked upon the broken law, which stood for the sin of his people, he would see the sprinkled blood of an innocent victim and hide his face from their sin. When God sees the blood, he knows that his wrath has been poured out, death has occurred, and his justice has been satisfied. Only then can God hide his face from our sin and guilt.

This blood, which was poured and sprinkled by the priest upon the golden slab in the presence of God, provided a permanent and just covering for the sins of God’s people. God himself made this gracious provision, as we read in Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” This is an important verse and we must glory in it.

All of this foreshadowed the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ being shed for our sins. In Hebrews 10:4, the writer makes this point: “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins,” yet in Hebrews 9:22 we read, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” So the system of blood sacrifice and blood atonement foreshadowed the time when God himself would become incarnate as our substitute, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews speaks of this in Hebrews 9:12, “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.”

That is the big cover-up we are talking about. God himself covers our sins by the blood of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, shed on the cross.

A Propitiary Cover-Up

The second point we want to make is that this blood covering is propitiatory, not merely expiatory.

What is the difference of these two words? Certain theological liberals like C. H. Dodd and others use the word “expiation” to describe Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and we find that word used in the New English Bible and the Revised Standard Version Bible. Expiation does refer to the cancellation of sin but it has no reference to dealing with the wrath of God against sin.

The word that makes reference to the wrath of God against sin is propitiation, which in the Greek is hilaskomai. The blood sacrifice, the blood covering provided by God, is propitiatory, meaning that when the blood is shed, the wrath of God against us is turned away and God becomes propitious, or gracious, to us.

Some people abhor the idea of a wrathful God. They do not like the Old Testament because it is full of blood and God’s judgment being poured out upon all sorts of people. Such people are always quick to say how much they like the New Testament, and they speak especially well of Jesus. They do not like the idea of the cross and Christ dying and all that. They certainly do not like the idea that Jesus the Savior is also the Lord.

But the Bible tells us that the sacrifices in the Old Testament were propitiatory. As we said before, the Bible tells us that “the soul who sins is the one who will die,” and that the wrath of God is poured out on the wicked. The word “wrath” is used almost six hundred times in the Bible. We may not like it, but we cannot escape it. Only a blood sacrifice can satisfy God’s justice, and only the death of the a suitable substitute can turn away God’s wrath.

There has only been one person in the history of the world who has been an suitable substitute: Jesus Christ, God incarnate, the One who was without sin. Only he is able to become our mediator and representative. Only he can represent God to us because he is God and only he can represent us to God because he is perfect man. He became incarnate so that he could suffer and die on account of the wrath the Father pours out on sin.

This is propitiation. The blood of the suitable substitute, God/man, the Lord Jesus Christ, turns God’s just wrath away from us. Now God can be favorably disposed to us because Christ died for our sins.

The Blood of the Lamb

In Exodus 12 we find this idea of propitiatory blood sacrifice clearly taught within the context of the Passover. As we read this chapter, we must acknowledge that not only were the Egyptians sinners, but also the Israelites. All people are born sinners. That is the universality of sin, which is another doctrine people don’t like. But even though we may want everyone to think we are nice, God does not share that opinion of us. The Bible says that all have sinned, and that every inclination of every thought of man is only evil continually.

In Exodus 12 we see that even as God was about to pour out his judgment on Egypt, he provided a way of escape to the Israelites. Yes, the Israelites were sinners just like the Egyptians, but it was God’s desire to redeem the people of Israel. So God directed his people to take lambs without defect on the tenth day of the first month, keep them until the fourteenth day of the month, and then slaughter them at twilight. In verse 7 we read, “Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.” And in verse 12 God says, “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn-both men and animals-and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” The death of the firstborn was a symbol of judgment brought upon the people by God-the self-existing, self-sufficient, eternal, infinite, all-holy, all-wise Lord of the covenant, who tells us how to live.

In verse 13 God told his people, “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are,” and now comes the glorious gospel, “and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” In other words, God was saying, “Though you are sinful, you will not come under judgment. You shall not die.” Didn’t Nathan say to David, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You shall not die”? On what basis were David’s sins taken away? Because an innocent being was killed and its blood shed. That is the same situation in Exodus 12.

So God told his people, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” “In other words, “You will be safe. You shall not die. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. My judgment shall not fall upon you because you are trusting in the blood which turns my wrath away from you and makes me gracious to you.” God himself must cover our sins. That is the idea.

Salvation for Sinners Only

In Luke 18 we find the short confession and prayer of the publican, a man who understood this concept of propitiation. Oh, first we are told about the Pharisee, who boldly came on to the center stage and began praying to himself, telling God how righteous he was. But the publican crawled into a corner somewhere to pray to God and, rather than lifting up his head toward the heavens, he began to strike his own breasts and pray a short prayer given to him by the Holy Spirit: “Ho Theos hilasthêti moi tô hamartôlô,” meaning “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

We must study this simple prayer of the publican so that we can further appreciate the propitiatory work of Christ. “Ho Theos” means God. This publican, this sinner, understood that God is holy, the one who must judge every sin against him. But then the publican continued, “Hilasthêti moi tô hamartôlô,” meaning “Have mercy upon me, the sinner.” Not only did this man see God as who he is, but he saw himself as the chief of sinners, as the top sinner in the world. Everyone who understands the true God and his or her own sinfulness will vie with the publican for that title the sinner, the chief of sinners.

Not only did the publican understand that there is a holy, righteous God and that he was the chief of sinners, but between these two words there is another phrase, “hilasthêti moi,” which means “cover me up.” It comes from the word for the atonement cover. In other words, the publican was praying, “O God, propitiate me. Cover me up!” This man understood the purpose of the sprinkled blood on the cover of the ark. So the publican prayed, “I am the sinner; you are a holy God; and I trust in the sprinkled blood. Have mercy upon me, a sinner!”

Let me tell you, when you are truly regenerated by the mighty Holy Spirit, you will pray that prayer. (PGM) You will see God as holy, righteous, infinite God, and yourself as chief of all sinners in the universe. You will trust in the propitiatory blood of a substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. You will trust in it and cling to it, knowing that Christ gave himself for you.

The Basis for the Gospel

Next, we want to ask how Nathan could tell David, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You shall not die”? Why doesn’t this statement sound right? It is because we see no justice demonstrated.

What is the basis of the gospel proclamation? Paul explains it in Romans 3:21, saying, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law the Prophets testify.” Paul says, “A righteousness from God. . .” In other words, we can never save ourselves. It has to be God doing it. Then Paul says, “apart from the law. . .” That means this righteousness is without works of the law and without any merit from us. In reality, we have no merit because we are sinners and whatever we do is sinful. Then Paul says this righteousness “has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” The entire Old Testament speaks about the gospel.

In verses 22-24 Paul continues, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement. . . .” Here we must pause and notice that the word used in the Greek is hilastêrion, the same word that was used for mercy seat. People try to translate it in various ways–as “atonement” or as “a sacrifice of atonement,” which is the way it is translated here. But Paul uses hilastêrion, which is the same as the Hebrew word, kapporeth, meaning the mercy seat. The idea here is that God has given us a covering for sin: the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the mercy seat upon which his own blood is spilled. When God the Father looks upon the lid, he sees the blood of his own Son covering our sins.

And so justice is meted out because a death has occurred. Our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, God/man died as a representative of his people, and now God is appeased. God’s wrath is turned away, having been poured in its entirety upon his own Son, and now God can look upon us with favor. That is why we read that “God presented him,” as the hilastêrion, the mercy seat.

Christ the Mercy Seat

In the tabernacle and the temple, the mercy seat was hidden in the Most Holy Place and only the high priest could go in only once a year. But now God has brought the mercy seat all the way out of the temple in the person of his Son, presenting him publicly on Calvary’s hill. Now all who look upon him and call upon his name shall be saved. Jesus Christ is our big cover-up, our God-authored cover-up, our holy, just, and permanant cover-up. And because God punished his Son, he will never punish us. The sacrifice of Christ once for all offered satisfied the law’s demands. That is why Mr. Spafford could write, “My sin-O the bliss of this glorious thought!-my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more; praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

So we read in Romans 3:25-26, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,” as the mercy seat by which our sin has been atoned, “through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

We find this idea of Christ’s sacrifice of atonement also in Hebrews 2:17, where we read this about Jesus Christ: “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” In 1 John 2:2 we read, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world,” and in 1 John 4:10 we read, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for or sins.”

God is just because he punished our sin, and God is the justifier because he is gracious to us. The problem of reconciling God as holy and God as love is taken care of through the death of Christ. God is holy; therefore, he must punish sin, yet God is love; therefore, he will not punish sin. God himself took care of this dilemma once and for all by punishing his own Son and forgiving us all our sins on the basis of the blood of Christ.

How Can We Be Covered?

We have said that God’s great cover up is both a blood cover and a propitiatory cover. Now we must ask how we can get under this cover. How can we have all our sins forgiven on the basis of the blood of Christ?

The answer is very simple: we are saved by faith. Remember how the people were saved during the first Passover? On the tenth day each family was to take a lamb, making sure it had no defect, and on the fourteenth day at twilight they were to kill the lamb, apply its blood to the doorframes and the lintel, close the door, and wait inside. The Lord of the covenant said he would pass by at midnight, but he also promised, “When I see the blood, I’ll pass over you.” It took faith to believe this promise of God, but those who did so were saved.

In Romans 3:22 we read, “This righteousness from God comes through faith.” Saving faith means total commitment to the gospel and to Jesus Christ. That means we do not have to work for this salvation. In fact, if we want to work for it, we shall be damned. The righteousness that God gives us is apart from the law and we must come to receive it completely by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In Romans 3:25 we read, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Faith is the instrumental agency of our salvation. We lift up our hands–the hands of beggars-and receive it. We also confess that we are the sinners. That is what David did when he said, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

In Romans 3:26 we read, “[God] did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” Saving faith is not simply mental assent to the gospel. It is complete entrustment of ourselves to Jesus Christ that we may rest in his saving work and serve him, love him, and worship him now and forevermore. Don’t we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? The idea is that we surrender to God that his will may be done in our lives.

God’s Way of Salvation

How can we cover up our sins? God himself has provided a cover up. In this study we have learned it is a blood cover and a propitiatory cover. We have learned that there is a way to get under this cover, and that everyone who gets under this cover will be saved and safe. Yes, we know that sin must be punished, but it has been punished in a substitute. That is why Isaiah could say, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

In the death of Jesus Christ God has been propitiated and he is no longer angry with us; rather, he is favorably disposed to us. The wrath of God has been turned away from the sinner and placed on the Son, and so now God is gracious to us in his Son. He forgives us all our sins and, more than that, clothes us with Christ’s righteousness. Not only has he forgiven us, but he loves us in his Son.

The only covering for our sins is the God-provided covering, the blood covering of God’s Son. We must throw away all lies-the lies of our own philosophies-and all other human cover-ups, so that we may come under God’s great cover, the cover of the cross. Only when God sees us through his crucified Son will we be blessed. Then we can say with David, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” Oh, the joy and the celebration of that person whose sins are forgiven and covered with the blood Christ.

This is why when David said, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan could respond, “The Lord has taken away your sins. You shall not die.”

Oh, the happiness of, the blessedness of, the joy of, the celebration of him whose sin is forgiven! In Luke 18 we read that the publican went home justified, meaning he was clean, with no remaining spots. I suppose someone saw him going home, skipping and singing and praising and worshiping. And when they came to the temple and reported, “I saw somebody going home rejoicing. Who is this person?” they would be told, “Oh, he is the person who said, ‘Ho Theos hilasthêti moi tô hamartôlô.’” He was that sinner who cried out to God, “O God, have mercy upon me. I trust in the blood.” Oh, there is power in the blood-not of bulls and goats, but the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ shed once for all on the cross. Look unto him and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Old and young, educated and uneducated, rich or poor, male, female-it doesn’t make any difference. Look unto him, and you shall be saved.

May God have mercy upon us, especially those who are arrogant, proud, and self-sufficient. May he grant revelation to us that we may know that we are sinners, under divine wrath, and that the only way of escape is to come under this cover of the blood of Jesus Christ. No man ever loved us as he loves us. Enable us to trust in Christ and be saved so that the guilt may be rolled off of our conscience and we may experience the joy of the Lord. Amen.