2 Samuel 22:21-25 - David's Psalm Of Thanksgiving.

"Jehovah hath requited me according to my righteousness,

According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

For I have kept the ways of Jehovah,

And sinned not so as to depart from my God.

For all his judgments have been kept in sight,

And from his statutes I have not departed.

I was also perfect towards him,

And was on my guard against my sin.

Therefore hath Jehovah recompensed me according to my righteousness,

According to my cleanness in his eyesight."

It is impossible to suppose that these verses could have been written after David's fall. For while be acknowledges in them a tendency to sin, he affirms that he had been on his guard against it, and that he had ever kept God's statutes present before his view. However complete may be the penitent's recovery, yet can he never again be "perfect," the word applied to an animal without blemish, and therefore fit for sacrifice. The crime remains a blemish, even though the intense sorrow for the sin may make it the means of even attaining to a higher stage of spirituality and devotion. In 2 Samuel 22:22 the words literally are, "I have not sinned away from God," sin necessarily removing the sinner away from that nearness to God which is the privilege of the saint.