There is one characteristic which is so evident when we look at the psalm. Emphatic character, that's by the way evidence to the whole way of speaking. The accumulation of terms to express the greatness and manifoldness of God's grace and love for us. then to express the depth and all the various shades of human sin, and then also to celebrate the liberation and the new man, which rises out of this crisis of repentance and of restoration.

[01:20]

So we have divided the psalm in those various little paragraphs. First, the emphatic invocation, . By the way, the three of those various shades and nuances of God's love for us and then the emphatic cry for forgiveness Dele iniquitate mea. Destroy my apostasy. It's really apostasy. That is the strongest word. Why do I? They are chosen. My apostasy. Iniquitate mea. Then amplius lava mea.

[02:23]

Iniquitate mea. That means completely wash me. Amplius lava mea. Iniquitate mea. Iniquitata there is more the, in other Hebrew expressions, more the, it says, the German one would say die Krümmel, meaning the fail, the external offense, the offense, the going off the track, going off the track. by peccatum mea peccatum mea unda meas, then the internal disorder, internal uncleanness before God. Forneam iniquitate meam ego connosco. Again, you know, in fact, because I solemnly, I acknowledge my sin. I would say acknowledge this sin as mine.

[03:24]

E peccatum meum conta me est semper. See, always one emphasis after the other. And my sin stands up against me all the time. Semper. Then again emphasis. Ti mi soli peccati. My sin is in last analysis a crime against you. Ti mi soli peccati, against you. You I have offended. Before you I have gone wrong. Right away when he sees that, which is, say, the climax, you know, of his recognition that he has sinned against God, Then right away thereto it dawns on him that naturally human sin and the offense against God is permitted only for the manifestation of God's glory.

[04:45]

That the justice of God will stand out more gloriously against the sin of man. So the confession goes on. And in Picardy's conception, I am conceived, I am conceived in sin. That means sin is not only for me, is not only the actual deed, but is a deeply rooted inner inclination. Our whole being is affected by it. Sin, therefore, is not only a case, but it is a situation, a habit, so to speak.

[05:48]

So this constant, more and more and deeper one can say appropriation of sin. Whatever I do good, it's you who does it in me. Whatever I do bad, it's me, as we say, also in the rule. This is of course important because that is then the condition under which later on The appeal is made, , create in me a clean heart. So this is the acknowledgment, the identification of man, the soul of the water place, with sin, with his sin. Exceinem veritatim vil existi in certa de culta sapientiae tue manifestasti.

[06:52]

Still in this depth of acknowledgement of sin, there then also dawns, just as before, in some way an anticipation of that beautiful word of St. John, If your heart accuses you, God is greater than your heart and knows everything. In this deep identification, depth of this acknowledgement of sin, still the human heart is deeper. still never can it get away completely from, as it were, the grips of God.

[07:54]

God always has it still in his grip. Out of that, of this deep recognition of one's own sin, not despair for this, not despair, but the recognition of the Sapientia Divina, of that Concilium Salutis, of that eternal love with which God has decided to turn His face, the face of His grace, to man in his sin. While we were sinners, you have sent your Son to die for us. That is, of course, the depth of God's wisdom. As St. Paul, I quoted that last time, I think, to you, in the 11th chapter of the Romans, you have sealed or shut up everything under sin, that you may also have mercy on all.

[09:07]

So the depth of God's wisdom is what we call God's great mysterio, the mystery of salvation. And then mystery of salvation manifests itself just in the depth of our self-accusation. If it is the right self-accusation, we accuse ourselves in the light of God's love for us. and not in the devil's light. You know, we have spoken about that so often. One can approach oneself with the eyes of the skeptic and with the devil's eye, and one can say, now let us see, is there really, do I really and truly love God? And already in that question, somehow the answer is already contained. The devil whispers into my ear, you are the victim of a self-illusion.

[10:15]

Your faith is only an escape from yourself. You project your pious wishes into a reality, you call it God, you call it your divine image. But all that are illusion. Your reality, your reality is different. You don't really and truly love God. It's true if we look at ourselves with the eyes of the one who hates us, with the eyes of Satan. Just as I also can get, you know, stuck in somebody else whom I look at with the eyes of the accuser, the eyes of Satan. I pick up all the signs which show a devil's image in this man. And in that way, I destroy him in my judgment interior. But this psalm, of course, started with the acclamation, Miserere, have mercy on me, for Lord, according to your grace, according to your love, according to your motherly compassion.

[11:36]

So with that emphatic acclamation, the whole psalm starts. Let's never, never lose sight of it. But you see, though, that's the important thing, that we don't get that mixed up. That the acknowledgement, the solemn acknowledgement of God's love does not gloss over our human sinfulness. See, that is the whole distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God's grace and human philanthropy. Soon as I look at things in the eyes of human philanthropy, I say, first of all, there cannot be any God who would, you know, in any way condemn anybody, and hell doesn't exist. And at the same time, then, there's also the same idea, you know, that, oh, no human being is so bad, you know, to say ever to deserve hell or anything like that.

[12:43]

See, that are these false idols, these false distorted images, humanization really of God's love. But in the true fullness of the revealed faith, those two things go together as it were. Fullness of God's supernatural love and grace and the recognition of the true depth of our sin. Grace on God's side, mercy and redemption And the acknowledgement of our lostness and our helplessness, those two things are the two abysses which call upon one another. Abysses, abyssal meek. The abyss of God's grace and the abyss of human guilt. And that is the beauty also, the beginning of the song, that both these things are there.

[13:51]

And that is what we call confessio, confession. A confession which is the confession of God's glory and the confession of our sinfulness. The sick man who prays the doctor, the more confidence he has in his skin. So that wisdom is the divine mystery in which the divine counsel of redemption, the Father decides, has decided from all eternity, to send his Son to die for our sins. That is the, let's say, the truth in the human sense. Aspergism, then all of that rises, then the cry, that's the next thing, you see, for the prayer for forgiveness.

[14:58]

Aspergism, that one day I will sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be made clean. Lavavism, you will wash me. Again, you know, always that heaping of expression and the intensification of it. the climactic character always. Asperges, lavabo, lavabus. Asperges, you will spring from this and I will be made clean. Now in a verse like that, because the reader, the Jewish reader would be, the reader was familiar with the ceremonial of the old law. Because he thinks immediately of that great strange law of the, what is it, in Numbers, the fourth book of Moses, we call the law of the red heifer.

[16:01]

or the red heifer. The red heifer, the orta puna. The red heifer, you know, who is very special or beautiful. I mean, all those things are... are tremendous if one follows them up. It's a field which is as good as unknown to Christians. Unfortunately, you know, we always call and keep the old law as a part of divine revelation. But we don't do a thing about it, you know. We don't know it, you know. It all falls under that general condemnation. It's ceremonial laws, and all ceremonial laws have been abolished by the sacrifice of Christ, period. that dispenses us from even looking at them. I think it's a tremendous loss to divine revelation, to insight, to a loss of really tremendous opportunity to penetrate more deeply into God's thoughts and devices, so to speak.

[17:18]

Now, that is then because that is what it refers to, you know, the aspergillus munisopo. Hyssop is that little, the most, say, crummy little plant, you know, that exists. It's just the opposite to the cedar. By the way, when the red heifer is... you know, then a piece of a cedar and a piece of hyssop is burnt. The cedar is the biggest tree, the hyssop is the smallest one of all. worm-like, its whole thing, its structure. So the Asperger's mousse soap was sprinkling me with this soap. And that sprinkling refers to the water. That water is that water, what we call the water of, of, what is it, Entzündungswasser. Water of, you know, of clean, you know, of cleansing.

[18:22]

The water of cleansing, lustration I would say. Lustration water. Lustration water. Then lustration water, as you know, is made of the ashes of the red heifer. and of water, mixture of water and the ashes of the red heifer. They make that water which cleanses man from any uncleanness that he has drawn upon himself by touching anything dead, dead human body, by coming, one can say, in contact with death. All these things are full of meaning, but you can't very well in a short, you know, evening conference to go into it. But the red heifer, for example, I mean, just to give you an idea, you know, is sacrificed extra, extra portas, extra, outside of the camp, you know, outside of the camp.

[19:35]

That reminds you immediately of the emphatic statement of the epistle to the Hebrews, that our Lord was crucified outside of the camp. Outside the camp is, in the later times, is the city of Jerusalem. That's the camp. The place of the camp is taken by the city of Jerusalem. Outside the walls, the heifer is offered outside the walls. And the place for its offering, the offering of the red heifer, was Mount Olivet. On Mount Olivet, the red heifer was offered. And it was offered strictly alone. It was a single animal that was offered. So many details of that law, which immediately leads us to the conclusion that this is the one of the symbols of that sin offering of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment in the New Testament of the red heifer offering of that idea, lustration offering, to bring a pure munditia, I mean a cleanness, you know,

[21:02]

purity into the world, the conquering of death. And that is reduced, the red heifer is reduced to ashes. Ashes are even in that law described with the same word, dust, with the word dust. And that dust is again mixed with water. And this mixture of the dust and the water

[21:31]

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