John Calvin Commentary Psalms 130:8

"And he will redeem Israel From all his iniquities." — Psalms 130:8 (ASV)

And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Here the Psalmist applies more closely to the Church what he said in the preceding verse. He concludes that it is not to be doubted that God, who has the power to save by many means, will prove himself the deliverer of the people he has chosen.

By these words, he teaches us that when we have evidence of our adoption by God, we should also regard our salvation as certain.

His meaning might be explained more simply in this way: Since redeeming is the continual office of God, and since he is not the redeemer of all people indiscriminately but only of his chosen people, there is no reason to fear that the faithful will not emerge from all calamities. For if it were otherwise, God would cease to carry out the office he claims for himself.

He repeats the sentiment of the preceding verse: that if Israel, with all humility, draws near to God to plead for pardon, his sins will not be an obstacle to God showing himself as his redeemer. Although the Hebrew word עון, avon, is often used for the punishment of sin, it also implicitly refers to the fault.

Whenever, then, God promises a lessening of the punishment, he at the same time assures them that he will pardon their sins; or rather, in offering sinners a gratuitous reconciliation, he promises them forgiveness.

According to this interpretation, it is said here that he will redeem his Church not from the captivity of Babylon, or from the tyranny and oppression of enemies, or from poverty, or, in short, from any other disasters, but from sin. For until God pardons the sins of those whom he afflicts, deliverance cannot be hoped for.

Let us then learn from this passage how we are to expect deliverance from all calamities, or the order we should observe in seeking it. Remission of sins always goes first, without which nothing will achieve a favorable outcome. Those who only desire to shake off the punishment are like foolish invalids, who are careless about the disease itself with which they are afflicted, as long as the symptoms that trouble them for a time are removed.

Therefore, so that God may deliver us from our miseries, we must primarily strive to be brought into a state of favor with him by obtaining the remission of our sins. If this is not obtained, it will be of little benefit to us to have the temporal punishment removed, for that often happens even to the reprobate themselves.

This is true and substantial deliverance: when God, by blotting out our sins, shows himself merciful toward us. From this, we also gather that, having once obtained forgiveness, we have no reason to fear being excluded from free access to, and from enjoying the ready availability of, God's loving-kindness and mercy. For to redeem from iniquity is equivalent to moderating punishments or chastisements.

This serves as an argument to disprove the preposterous invention of the Papists regarding satisfactions and purgatory, as if God, in forgiving the fault, still reserved the execution of the punishment upon the sinner for a future time.

If it is objected that the Lord sometimes punishes those whom he has already pardoned, I reply that I grant he does not always show them the signs of his favor at the very moment he reconciles people to himself. For he chastises them to make them cautious for the future, but while he does this, he, in the meantime, does not fail to moderate his rigor.

This, however, forms no part of the satisfactions by which the Papists imagine they present to God half the price of their redemption. In innumerable passages of Scripture, where God promises outward blessings to his people, he always begins with a promise of the pardon of sin.

It is, therefore, the grossest ignorance to say that God does not remit the punishment until they have pacified him by their works. Moreover, while God’s intention in inflicting some punishments or chastisements upon the faithful is to bring them to yield a more perfect obedience to his law, the Papists are mistaken in extending these punishments beyond death.

But it is not surprising to find them heaping together so many heathenish dreams, since they do not adhere to the true and only way of reconciliation: that God is merciful only to those who seek the expiation of their sins in the sacrifice of Christ.

It is to be noticed that it is said from all iniquities, so that poor sinners, although they feel themselves to be guilty in many ways, may not cease to cherish the hope that God will be merciful to them.