Paul cited another eminent man in Jewish history whose words harmonized with the apostle's. Whereas Abraham lived before the Mosaic Law, David lived under it. Abraham's story is in the law section of the Hebrew Bible, and David's is in the prophets section. Here is the second witness Paul referred to in 3:21. Abraham represents the patriarchal period of Israel's history and David the monarchy period. As Israel's greatest king, one would assume that David would have been a strong advocate of the Mosaic Law. He was, but he did not view it as the key to justification.
The passage Paul quoted from David's writings (Ps. 32:1-2) does not state directly that David himself received justification by faith, though he did. It stresses that those to whom God "reckons"righteousness (i.e., the justified) are "blessed."Paul was carrying the sense of one passage (v. 6) over to explain the meaning of another (vv. 7-8). The second passage contained the same word (logizesthai, translated "reckons"or "credits"in v. 6, and translated "taken into account"or "count"in v. 8).
"One of the reasons why Paul quotes these verses is the presence in them of the key word reckon.' The practice of associating verses from the OT on the basis of verbal parallels was a common Jewish exegetical technique."129
Psalm 32 is one of David's penitential psalms that he wrote after he had sinned greatly. Paul not only proved that David believed in imputed rather than earned righteousness with this quotation, but he also showed that when a believer sins his sin does not cancel his justification.
"Forgiveness is more than mere remitting of penalty. Even a hard-hearted judge might remit a man's fine if it were paid by someone else, but forgiveness involves the heart of the forgiver. God's forgiveness is the going forth of God's infinite tenderness toward the object of His mercy. It is God folding the sinner, as the returning prodigal was folded, to His bosom. Such a one is blessed indeed!"130
". . . it is not the reckoning' of people's good works but God's act in notreckoning their sins against them that constitutes forgiveness."131
"God does keep a record of our works, so that He might reward us when Jesus comes; but He is not keeping a record of our sins."132
