NOTES for Psa 118
That the Lord must be at the center of our hope follows from the very nature of faith. No human being, however powerful, can compare with Him, and this too is obvious. We can also accept that His mercy toward us surpasses anything we could imagine, although it is impossible to understand this fully.
It is harder to understand how a person who acknowledges that the Lord has punished him severely can hope to be accepted by God if only the righteous are able to enter His gates. Can those punished for their sins be righteous?
But He does not allow sinners to taste retribution for their lawlessness so that they will remain sinners forever. By saving them, the Lord frees them from the burden of the sins of former years, and a person whose past will no longer be held against him becomes indistinguishable from the righteous who never stumbled.
This is why the One who compared Himself to the stone rejected by the builders came to earth.