The Sovereignty of God

The Second Coming

2006-12-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH

WHERE HAVE THEY GONE;
AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING?
Ecclesiastes 4:1-2

Don Fortner

Sermon #71 Bible Doctrine

Title WHERE HAVE THEY GONE; AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Text Ecclesiastes 4:1-2

Subject: The Happiness Of God's Saints Between Death And The Resurrection

Date: Tuesday Evening - November 17, 1998

Tape # U-95a

Introduction:

Ecclesiastes 4:1-2 "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. (2) Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive."

The wise man, Solomon, after considering "all the oppressions that are done under the sun," the tears of the oppressed in this world, the power of those who oppress, and the fact that there is no comfort for God's saints in this world, said, "I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive." In the Book of Revelation, we read a similar statement - "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord" (14:13).

Yet, when you and I go to the funeral home and grave side to bid our loved ones good-bye, we are filled with sorrow and weeping. Why is that so?

If the one God has taken is an unbeliever, I can understand the sorrow. Those who die in unbelief and sin die under the wrath of God!
If our sorrow is the sorrow of parting friends, I can understand that too. None of us like to part with cherished friends and loved ones.
But if the sorrow is the sorrow of those who have no hope, uncontrollable anguish, or even anger at God for having taken someone we love, I cannot understand that

Such sorrow reveals both ignorance and unbelief, ignorance of the blessed state of God's saints in heaven. And unbelief regarding the Word of God, the promises of the gospel, and the finished work of Christ.

Tonight I want to talk to you about God's saints in heaven, our brothers and sisters who have been taken from us. The title of my message is WHERE HAVE THEY GONE; AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Proposition: I want to show you that God's saints in heaven, our departed friends are alive and well. Though their bodies have died and been laid in the earth, they are more alive than ever and full of happiness.

Divisions: In the message this evening I have four points. I am going to make two statements and answer two questions.

1. The soul of a redeemed sinner, immediately after death, enters into heaven, into a state of eternal happiness.

2. For the believer, the death of the body and the freeing of his soul is a welcome relief.

3. Where have our departed friends gone?

4. What are God's saints doing in heaven?

I. First, let me show you from the Word of God that THE SOUL OF A REDEEMED SINNER, IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH, ENTERS INTO HEAVEN, INTO A STATE OF ETERNAL HAPPINESS.

It is not my intention to answer the foolish questions of infidels and heretics. And I do not intend to be sidetracked by the foolish speculations of ignorant men and women about life after death. My purpose is threefold: I want to…

Therefore, I will speak to you about the wonder of immortality with simplicity, appealing to no authority but the Word of God.

You and I are men and women with immortal, undying souls. Though these bodies must die and rot in the earth like the brute beasts, our souls will exist forever. As soon as you die your soul will enter into a state of endless happiness or misery. Man does not die like a dog. When your dog dies, that's all. It ceases to be. But when you die, that is not all. Your soul lives on, not in a state of sleep, insensitivity, and inactivity, but in the fulness of life and consciousness. "What will it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

The souls of believers, redeemed sinners, men and women who have been made righteous before God by the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, the souls of God's saints return to God at death. Our departed brothers and sisters, as soon as they closed their eyes in death, opened them again in glory. There they shall remain until the second coming of Christ. And when Christ comes again in his glory, he will bring them all with him, raise their bodies from the dust, and reunite their bodies and souls in resurrection glory. Believers yet living when Christ comes shall then be changed, glorified, and caught up into glory. And we shall forever be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:13-18).

I will not now speak of the horrible state of the wicked and unbelieving after death. They shall immediately, as soon as they close their eyes in death, wake up in the torments of hell. O sinner, how I wish you could realize that. The wrath of God is upon you. If you die without Christ, you must be forever damned! To die without Christ is to die without hope! But for the believer, things are different. The believer, as soon as he dies, is alive forever. His soul goes immediately home to God in heaven.

A. The Word of God, when speaking of the believer's death, always represents it as an immediate entrance into heavenly blessedness and glory.

Actually, for the believer, death is not death at all, but the beginning of life. Our Lord said, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:26). God's elect never die! The death of the body is the liberty of the soul. And as soon as our souls are freed from this body of sin and death, we shall enter heaven.

1. When the righteous perish from the earth, they live in uprightness forever (Isa. 57:1-2).

Isaiah 57:1-2 "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. (2) He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness."

In Justification By Imputed Righteousness.

In Regeneration By Imparted Righteousness.

Their bodies in the grave.

Their souls in the arms of Christ (Heb. 4:9-11).

God reckons the righteousness of Christ imputed to us to be our righteousness. And he makes it ours. In heaven, our departed brethren walk in their uprightness, in spotless purity and holiness, in shining robes of bliss and glory.

2. As soon as a believer dies, he is carried by God's angels into heaven, Abraham's bosom, the place of endless comfort (Lk. 16:22-25).

"Abraham's bosom" was a Jewish expression referring to the place of heavenly happiness prepared for God's saints between death and the resurrection.

Luke 16:22-25 "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; (23) And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. (24) And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. (25) But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented."

3. Every repentant sinner, as soon as he dies, is taken to be with Christ in Paradise (Lk. 23:43).

a. Paradise is heaven, the garden of God (Rev. 2:7).

It is the third heaven which Paul had been raptured for a brief visit (2 Cor. 12:2-4), during his pilgrimage here. Paradise is the place of the divine majesty, the place of happiness, pleasure, and endless delight.

b. It was to Paradise that Christ went as soon as he died, to obtain eternal redemption for us (Heb. 9:12).

c. It is a place of assured blessedness, promised to sinners who seek the mercy of God in Christ - "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."

"Today" - immediately.

"Shalt thou" - Assuredly.

"Be with me" - In endless company.

"In Paradise" - Heaven.

4. Death for the believer is gain, infinite, immeasurable gain (Phil. 1:21, 23).

Philippians 1:21-23 "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (22) But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. (23) For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:"

a. Paul believed that, as soon as he departed from this world, he would immediately be with Christ in blessed communion.

b. Believing the Word and promise of God, he looked upon death as a desirable thing.

B. What is the state of the saint's life between death and the resurrection?

I will not say more than the Bible says. But this much I know, the souls of God's saints are not floating around in the sky.

1. They have gone to a specific place, where Christ is. 2. They are assembled as a glorified church (Heb. 12:22-23).

Hebrews 12:22-24 "But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, (23) To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, (24) And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."

Lazarus (Lk. 16:23).

Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17:3).

Do God's saints in heaven have a body between death and the resurrection? A physical body? No. A spiritual body, a heavenly form, a house for their souls? Most definitely! (2 Cor. 5:1).

2 Corinthians 5:1 "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Every believer, as soon as he leaves this body enters into heavenly glory with Christ. It is this assurance of heavenly glory and bliss that makes death a desirable thing for the believer.

II. Secondly, I want you to see that FOR THE BELIEVER THE DEATH OF HIS BODY AND THE FREEING OF HIS SOUL IS A WELCOME RELIEF (Phil. 1:21-23; Rev. 14:13).

Revelation 14:13 "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."

While living in this world, we seek to be content with God's good providence. We want to glorify him by living before him in faith, resigning all things to his will. And we would not change our lot in life, even if we could. Our heavenly Father knows and always does what is best.

I want you to understand me. I am not weary of life. I cannot imagine a man in this world having a happier, more tranquil, blessed life than I have.

My Wife - My Daughter - My Son-In-Law - My Granddaughter!

My Church Family - My Friends.

The Ministry God Has Given Us.

But life in this world, at best, is a burden to the heaven born soul. In this tabernacle we groan (2 Cor. 5:1-4). We groan for life! Our hearts cry, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death!"

2 Corinthians 5:1-4 "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2) For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (3) If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. (4) For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."

A. In this body we struggle with sin - In heaven we shall be free from sin!
B. In this body we are tempted and often fall - In heaven we shall never be tempted and shall never fall.
C. In this body we weep much - In heaven we shall weep no more.
D. In this body we long to be like Christ - In heaven we shall be like Christ.
E. In this body we long for Christ's presence - In heaven we shall forever be with Christ!

I have many friends in heaven whom I dearly love. I miss them. But I do not sorrow for them. I envy them!

Illustration:

When an eagle is happy in an iron cage, when a sheep is happy in a pack of wolves, when a fish is happy on dry land, then, and not until then, will my soul be happy in this body of flesh! Death for this man will be a welcome relief (Psa. 17:15).

Psalms 17:15 "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."

III. I have shown you from the Scriptures that God's saints, as soon as they die, enter into heaven, and that death for the believer is a welcome relief. Now, let me answer this question - WHERE HAVE OUR DEPARTED FRIENDS GONE?

I have already shown you that they have gone to heaven. They have not gone to purgatory. They are not asleep. Our friends who have left us are in heaven. But where is heaven? That is a question I cannot answer. God has not told us. Heaven is a place somewhere outside this world, somewhere outside time. But it is a place, a real place.

Heaven is the place where Christ is.

Heaven is the place to which he has promised to bring us (John 14:1-3).

John 14:1-3 "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. (2) In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (3) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

Heaven is the place where our departed friends are right now (Heb. 12:22-23).

Read 2 Corinthians 5:1-8. In these eight verses Paul tells us several things about the believer's death and entrance into heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:1-8 "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2) For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (3) If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. (4) For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. (5) Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. (6) Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (7) (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) (8) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

A. Death is the dissolving of this earthly body.

This body is of the earth.

This body is only suitable for the earth.

This body must return to the earth.

And the dissolution of this body is no cause for sorrow. It will be like taking off a shoe that hurts my foot - A welcome relief! It will be like laying aside a tool that is no longer needed. It will be like tearing down a tent to move into a house.

B. In heaven, we shall have another house for our souls. "In my Father's house are many mansions," houses, dwelling places.

A House Not Made With Hands.

A House Prepared By Christ.

A House Suitable To Our Glorious Life.

C. As soon as this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, we shall enter that house Christ has prepared for our souls in heaven.

There will be no lapse of time, no delay, between the dissolving of this body and our entrance into our house in glory.

D. This is not a matter of conjecture, but a matter of certainty - "We know…"

What happens to the believer after death? Do you ask me, "Where have our departed friends gone?" They have gone to heaven. They have gone home. They have gone to be with Christ!

IV. Fourthly, let me briefly answer one more question. WHAT ARE GOD'S SAINTS DOING IN HEAVEN?

The Scriptures speak sparingly with regard to the saints' employment in heaven. But there are four or five things revealed to us.

A. God's saints in heaven are celebrating and adoring the perfections of God in Christ (Rev. 5:11-12; 7:11-12).

His Holiness!

His Power!

His Wisdom!

His Goodness!

His Grace!

His Faithfulness!

His Love!

Revelation 5:11-12 "And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; (12) Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."

Revelation 7:11-12 "And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, (12) Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen."

B. God's saints in heaven are delightfully employed in beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ (John 17:24).

John 17:24 "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

Oh, my soul, what will it be to behold the glory of our Redeemer? We shall forever behold him as he is, with a constantly increasing knowledge of him.

Heaven is the Garden of God where the Rose of Sharon is in full blossom; and the fragrance of it perfumes the whole place. Heaven is to behold Christ forever, never taking my eyes off him, and never wanting to.

C. God's saints in heaven are employed in the constant exercise of every spiritual grace.

D. God's saints in heaven are employed in the unending service of Christ (Rev. 7:14-15).

Revelation 7:14-15 "And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (15) Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them."

Electing Grace.

Redeeming Grace.

Regenerating Grace.

Justifying Grace.

Sanctifying Grace.

Preserving Grace.

E. God's saints in heaven are engaged in constant, uninterrupted fellowship, communion, and conversation with one another and with the holy angels.

Covenant Mercy.

Angelic Services.

Redeeming Love.

Saving Grace.

Divine Providence.

Application:

1. Make certain that you are in Christ.
2. Take comfort with regard to those who have gone to heaven.
3. Be assured that our weary, troublesome lives will end soon - and they will end well (2 Cor. 4:17 - 5:1).

2 Corinthians 4:17-5:1 "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; (18) While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Illustration:

AMEN.

Don Fortner, Pastor
Grace Baptist Church
Danville, Ky.

The Christ of Arminianism

2006-01-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

Steven Houck

The Bible warns us that in the last days in which we live there will be many false Christs-those who claim to be Christ but who are imposters. Jesus said, "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many." (Matt. 24:4-5). We who profess to be Christians must take heed. We must be very careful that we are not deceived. Our calling is to trust, love, and follow the true Christ and Him only. We may have nothing to do with the false Christs who are so numerous in our day. We know about the Christ of the cults and other religions. He is a good man, a prophet, the first creation of God, a great spirit, a divine idea, or even a god himself. But he is not true and eternal God. He receives his existence from another who is greater than he. He is not the Christ of the Bible. We are not deceived by this Christ. He is a false Christ. We know about the Christ of Roman Catholicism. They profess that He is true God. He suffered and died for the forgiveness of sin. He arose again, ascended into heaven, and is coming again. But he is not a complete Savior. The Christ of the Roman Catholics can not save sinners without their own good works and the intercession of priests. He is not the Christ of the Bible. We are not deceived by this Christ. He is a false Christ. There is, however, another false Christ who is much more dangerous than the Christ of the cults and the Christ of Roman Catholicism. He has deceived people for many years and he continues to deceive millions. This Christ is so dangerous that, if it were not impossible, he would deceive the very elect (Matt. 24:24). He is the Christ of Arminianism. This false Christ is extremely dangerous because in many ways he appears to be the True Christ. They say that he is true God, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They say that he died on the cross to save sinners. They even say that he saves by his grace alone, without the work of man. This Christ will have nothing to do with the Christ of the cults and the Christ of Roman Catholicism. But watch out! Be warned! The Christ of Arminianism is not the Christ of the Bible. Do not be fooled! 1. The Christ of Arminianism - loves every individual person in the world and sincerely desires their salvation. The Christ of the Bible - earnestly loves and desires the salvation of only those whom God has unconditionally chosen to salvation. (Ps. 5:5, Ps. 7:11, Ps. 11:5, Matt. 11:27, John 17:9-10, Acts 2:47, Acts 13:48, Rom. 9:10-13, Rom. 9:21-24, Eph. 1:3-4) 2. The Christ of Arminianism - offers salvation to every sinner and does all in his power to bring them to salvation. His offer and work are often frustrated, for many refuse to come. The Christ of the Bible - effectually calls to Himself only the elect and sovereignly brings them to salvation. Not one of them will be lost. (Isa. 55:11, John 5:21, John 6:37-40, John 10:25-30, John 17:2, Phil. 2:13) 3. The Christ of Arminianism - can not regenerate and save a sinner who does not first choose Christ with his own "free will." All men have a "free will" by which they can either accept or reject Christ. That "free will" may not be violated by Christ. The Christ of the Bible - sovereignly regenerates the elect sinner apart from his choice, for without regeneration the spiritually dead sinner can not choose Christ. Faith is not man's contribution to salvation but the gift of Christ which He sovereignly imparts in regeneration. (John 3:3, John 6:44 & 65,John 15:16, Acts 11:18, Rom. 9:16, Eph. 2:1,Eph. 2:8-10, Phil. 1:29,Hebr. 12:2) 4. The Christ of Arminianism - died on the cross for every individual person and thereby made it possible for every person to be saved. His death, apart from the choice of man, was not able to actually save anyone for many for whom he died are lost. The Christ of the Bible - died for only God's elect people and thereby actually obtained salvation for all those for whom He died. His death was a substitutionary satisfaction which actually took away the guilt of His chosen people. (Luke 19:10, John 10:14-15 & 26, Acts 20:28, Rom. 5:10, Eph. 5:25, Hebr. 9:12, I Peter 3:18) 5. The Christ of Arminianism - loses many whom he has "saved" because they do not continue in faith. Even if he does give them "eternal security," as some say, that security is not based upon his will or work but the choice which the sinner made when he accepted Christ. The Christ of the Bible - preserves His chosen people so that they can not lose their salvation but persevere in the faith to the very end. He preserves them by the sovereign electing will of God, the power of His death, and the mighty working of His Spirit. (John 5:24, John 10:26-29, Rom. 8:29-30, Rom. 8:35-39, I Peter 1:2-5, Jude 24-25) As you can see, although the Christ of Arminianism and the Christ of the Bible may at first seem to be the same, they are very different. One is a false Christ. The other is the true Christ. One is weak and helpless. He bows before the sovereign "free will" of man. The other is the reigning Lord Who wills what He pleases and sovereignly accomplishes all that He wills. If you believe and serve the Christ of Arminianism, you must recognize the fact that you do not serve the Christ of the Bible. You have been deceived! Study the Scriptures and learn of the True Christ. Pray for grace to repent and trust Christ as your sovereign.

The Christian in Romans 7

2006-01-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

By A. W. Pink

In this chapter the apostle does two things:First, he shows what is not and what is the Law’s relation to the believer—judicially, the believer is emancipated from the curse or penalty of the Law (7:1-6); morally, the believer is under bonds to obey the Law (vv. 22, 25). Secondly, he guards against a false inference being drawn from what he had taught in chapter 6. In 6:1-11 he sets forth the believer’s identification with Christ as “dead to sin.” (vv. 2, 7, etc.) Then, from verse 11 onwards, he shows the effect this truth should have upon the believer’s walk. In chapter 7 he follows the same order of thought. In 7:1-6 he treats of the believer’s identification with Christ as “dead to the law” (see vv. 4, 6). Then, from verse 7 onwards he describes the experiences of the Christian. Thus the first half of Romans 6 and the first half of Romans 7 deal with the believer’s standing, whereas the second half of each chapter treats of the believer’s state; but with this difference: the second half of Romans 6 reveals what our state ought to be, whereas the second half of Romans 7 (vv. 13-25) shows what our state actually is.The controversy which has raged over Romans 7 is largely the fruitage of the Perfectionism of Wesley and his followers. That brethren, whom we have cause to respect, should have adopted this error in a modified form, only shows how widespread today is the spirit of Laodiceanism. To talk of “getting out of Romans 7 into Romans 8” is excuseless folly. Romans 7 and both apply with undiminished force and pertinence to every believer on earth today. The second half of Romans 7 describes the conflict of the two natures in the child of God: it simply sets forth in detail what is summarized in Galatians 5:17; Romans 7:14, 15, 18, 19, 21 are now true of every believer on earth. Every Christian falls far, far short of the standard set before him—we mean God’s standard, not that of the so-called “victorious life” teachers. If any Christian reader is read to say that Romans 7:19 does not describe his life, we say in all kindness, that he is sadly deceived. We do not mean by this that every Christian breaks the laws of men, or that he is an overt transgressor of the laws of God. But we do mean that his life is far, far below the level of the life our Savior lived here on earth. We do mean that there is much of “the flesh” still evident in every Christian—not the least in those who make such loud boastings of their spiritual attainments. We do mean that every Christian has urgent need to daily pray for the forgiveness of his daily sins (Luke 11:4), for “in many things we all stumble” (Jas. 3:2, R. V.).In what follows we shall confine ourselves to the last two verses of Romans 7, in which we read, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with flesh the law of sin” (vv.24, 25).This is the language of a regenerate soul, and it sums up the contents of the verses immediately preceding. The unregenerate man is wretched indeed, but he is a stranger to the “wretchedness” here expressed, for he knows nothing of the experience which evokes this wail. The whole context is devoted to a description of the conflict between the two natures in the child of God. “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (v. 22), is true of none but born-again persons. But the one thus “delighting” discovers “another law in his members.” This reference must not be limited to his physical members, but is to be understood as including all the various parts of his carnal personality. This “other law” is also at work in the memory, the imagination, the will, the heart, etc.This “other law,” says the apostle, warred against the law of his mind (the new nature), and not only so, it brought him “into captivity to the law of sin.” (v. 23) To what extent he was brought into “captivity” is not defined. But brought into captivity he was, as is every believer. The wandering of the mind when reading God’s Word, the issuing from the heart (Mark 7:21) of evil thoughts when we are engaged in prayer, the horrid images which sometimes come before us in the sleep-state— to name no others—are so many examples of being “brought into captivity to the law of sin.” “If the evil principle of our nature prevails in exciting one evil thought, it has taken us captive. So far it has conquered, and so far are we defeated, and made a prisoner” (Robert Haldane).It is the consciousness of this warring within him and this being brought into captivity to sin, which causes the believer to exclaim, “O wretched man that I am!” This is a cry brought about by a deep realization of indwelling sin. It is the confession of one who knows that in his natural man there dwelleth no good thing. It is the mournful plaint of one who has discovered something of the horrible sink of iniquity which is in his own heart. It is the groan of a divinely-enlightened man who now hates himself—his natural self—and longs for deliverance.This moan, “O wretched man that I am,” expresses the normal experience of the Christian, and any Christian who does not so moan is in an abnormal and unhealthy state spiritually. The man who does not utter this cry daily is either so out of communion with Christ, or so ignorant of the teaching of Scripture, or so deceived about his actual condition, that he knows not the corruptions of his own heart and the abject failure of his own life.The one who bows to the solemn and searching teaching of God’s Word, the one who there learns the awful wreckage which sin has wrought in the human constitution, the one who sees the exalted standard of holiness which God has set before us, cannot fail to discover what a vile wretch he is. If he is given to behold how far short he falls of attaining to God’s standard; if, in the light of the divine sanctuary, he discovers how little he resembles the Christ of God; then will he find this language most suited to express his godly sorrow. If God reveals to him the coldness of his love, the pride of his heart, the wanderings of his mind, the evil that defiles his godliest acts, he will cry, “O wretched man that I am.” If he is conscious of his ingratitude, of how little he appreciates God’s daily mercies; if he marks the absence of that deep and genuine fervor which ought ever to characterize his praise and worship of that One who is “glorious in holiness;” if he recognizes that sinful spirit of rebellion, which so often causes him to murmur or at least chafe against the dispensations of God in his daily life; if he attempts to tabulate not only the sins of commission but the sins of omission, of which he is daily guilty, he will indeed cry, “O wretched man that I am.”Nor is it only the “back-slidden” Christian, now convicted, who will mourn thus. The one who is truly in communion with Christ, will also emit this groan, and emit it daily and hourly. Yea, the closer he draws to Christ, the more will he discover the corruptions of his old nature, and the more earnestly will he long to be delivered from it. It is not until the sunlight floods a room that the grime and dust are fully revealed. So, it is only as we really come into the presence of Him who is the light, that we are made aware of the filth and wickedness which indwell us, and which defile every part of our being. And such a discovery will make each of us cry, “O wretched man that I am!”“But,” inquires someone, “does not communion with Christ produce rejoicing rather than mourning?” We answer, It produces both. It did with Paul. In verse 22 of our chapter he says, “I delight in the law of God.” Yet only two verses later he cries, “O wretched man that I am!” Nor does this passage stand alone. In 2 Corinthians 6 the same apostle says, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (v. 10). Sorrowful because of his failures, because of his daily sins. Rejoicing because of the grace which still bore with him, and because of the blessed provision which God has made even for the sins of His saints. So again in Romans 8:1 after declaring, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,” and after saying, “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (vv. 16-17); the apostle adds, “But ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (v. 23) Similar is the teaching of the apostle Peter, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations” (1 Pet. 1:6). Sorrow and groaning, then, are not absent from the highest spirituality.In these days of Laodicean complacency and pride, there is considerable talk and much boasting about communion with Christ, but how little manifestation of it do we behold! Where there is no sense of utter unworthiness, where there is no mourning over the total depravity of our nature, where there is no sorrowing over our lack of conformity to Christ, where there is no groaning over being brought into captivity to sin; in short, where there is no crying, “O wretched man that I am,” it is greatly to be feared that there is no fellowship with Christ at all.When Abraham walked with the Lord, he exclaimed, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes. (Gen. 18:27) When Job came face to face with God, he said, “Behold I am vile” (40:4), and again, “I abhor myself.” (42:6) When Isaiah entered the divine Presence, he cried, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.” (Isa. 6:5) When Daniel had that wondrous vision of Christ (Dan. 10:5-6), he declared, “There remained no strength in me: for comeliness was turned in me into corruption.” (v.8) And in one of the last epistles by the beloved apostle to the Gentiles, we read, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief’ (1 Tim. 1:15). These utterances proceeded not from unregenerate men, but came from the lips of God’s saints. Nor were they the confessions of back-slidden believers: rather were they voiced by the most eminent of the Lord’s people. Where, today, shall we find any who are fit to be placed along side of Abraham, Job, Isaiah, Daniel and Paul? Where indeed! And yet, these were the men who were so conscious of their vileness and unworthiness! saying, “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (vv. 16-17); the apostle adds, “But ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (v. 23) Similar is the teaching of the apostle Peter, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations” (1 Pet. 1:6). Sorrow and groaning, then, are not absent from the highest spirituality.“O wretched man that I am.” This then is the language of a regenerate soul. It is the confession of the normal (undeceived and undeluded) Christian. The substance of it may be found not only in the recorded utterances of Old and New Testament saints, but as well, in the writings of the most eminent Christians who have lived during the last five hundred years. Different indeed were the confessions and witnessings borne by eminent saints of the past from the ignorant and arrogant boastings of modern Laodiceans! It is refreshing to turn from the present-day biographies to those written long ago. Ponder the following excerpts:Mr. Bradford, of holy memory, who was martyred in the reign of bloody queen Mary, in a letter to a fellow-prisoner in another penitentialy, subscribed himself thus: “The sinful John Bradford: a very painted hypocrite: the most miserable, hard-hearted, and unthankful sinner, John Bradford.” (1555 A.D.)Godly Rutherford wrote, “This body of sin and corruption embitters and poisons our enjoyment. Oh that I were where I shall sin no more.” (1650 A.D.)Bishop Berkeley wrote, “I cannot pray, but I sin; I cannot preach, but I sin; I cannot administer, nor receive the holy sacrament, but I sin. My very repentance needs to be repented of: and the tears I shed need washing in the blood of Christ.” (1670 A.D.)Jonathan Edwards, in whose home died that remarkable man Mr. David Brainerd (the first missionary to the Indians, and whose devotion to Christ was witnessed to by all who knew him), and with whom he was intimately acquainted, says in his “Memoirs of Mr. Brainerd,” “His religious illuminations, affections, and comfort, seemed to a great degree to be attended with evangelical humiliation; consisting in a sense of his own utter insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness; with an answering disposition and frame of heart. How deeply affected was he almost continually with his great defects in religion; with his vast distance from that spirituality and holy frame of mind that become a child of God; with his ignorance, pride, deadness, barrenness! He was not only affected with the remembrance of his former sinfulness, before his conversion, but with the sense of his present vileness and pollution. He was not only disposed to think other saints better than he; yea to look on himself as the worst and least of saints; but, very often, as the vilest and worst of mankind.”Jonathan Edwards himself, than whom few men have been more honored of God, either in their spiritual attainments or in the extent to which God has used them in blessing to others, near the end of his life wrote thus: “When I look into my heart and take a view of its wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell. And it appears to me, that, were it not for free grace, exalted and raised up to the infinite height of all the fulness and glory of the great Jehovah, I should appear sunk down in my sins below hell itself; far below the sight of everything, but the eye of sovereign grace, that alone can pierce down to such a depth. And it is affecting to think how ignorant I was, when a young Christian [alas, that so many older Christians are still ignorant of it.—A.W.P.], of the bottomless depths of wickedness, pride, hypocrisy and deceit left in my heart” (1743 A.D.).Augustus Toplady, author of “Rock of Ages,” wrote thus in his private diary under December 31, 1767—“Upon a review of the past year, I desire to confess that my unfaithfulness has been exceeding great; my sins still greater; God’s mercies greater than both.” And again, “My short-comings and my mis-doings, my unbelief and want of love, would sink me into the lowest hell, was not Jesus my righteousness and my Redeemer.”Listen to the words of that godly woman, the wife of that eminent missionary A. Judson: “Oh how I rejoice that I am out of the whirlpool! Too gay, too trifling, for a missionary’s wife! That may be, but after all, gaiety is my lightest sin. It is my coldness of heart, my listlessness, my want of faith, my spiritual inefficiency and inertness, by love of self, the inherent and every-day pampered sinfulness of my nature, that makes me such a mere infant in the cause of Christ—not the attractions of the world.”John Newton, writer of that blessed hymn, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see;” when referring to the expectations which he cherished at the outset of his Christian life, wrote thus: “But alas! these my golden expectations have been like South Sea dreams. I have lived hitherto a poor sinner, and I believe I shall die one. Have I, then, gained nothing? Yes, I have gained that which I once would rather have been without! Such accumulated proof of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of my heart, as I hope by the Lord’s blessing has, in some measure, taught me to know what I mean when I say, Behold, I am vile. . .I was ashamed of myself, when I began to seek it, I am more ashamed now.James Ingliss (Editor of Wayrnarks in the Wilderness) at the close of his life, wrote Mr. J.H. Brookes, “As I am brought to take a new view of the end, my life seems so made up of squandered opportunities, and so barren of results, that it is sometimes very painful; but grace comes in to meet it all, and He will be glorified in my humiliation also” (1872). On which Mr. Brookes remarked, “How like him, and how unlike the boastings of those who are glorying in their fancied attainments!”One more quotation: this time from a sermon by the late C. H. Spurgeon. Said the prince of preachers, “There are some professing Christians who can speak of themselves in terms of admiration; but, from my inmost heart, I loathe such speeches more and more every day that I live. Those who talk in such a boastful fashion must be constituted very differently from me. While they are congratulating themselves, I have to lie humbly at the foot of Christ’s Cross, and marvel that I am saved at all, for I know that I am saved. I have to wonder that I do not believe Christ more, and equally wonder that I am privileged to believe in Him at all—to wonder that I do not love Him more, and equally to wonder that I love Him at all—to wonder that I am not holier, and equally to wonder that I have any desire to be holy at all considering what a polluted debased, depraved nature I find still within my soul, notwithstanding all that divine grace has done in me. If God were ever to allow the fountains of the great deeps of depravity to break up in the best man that lives, he would make as bad a devil as the devil himself is. I care nothing for what these boasters say concerning their own perfections; I feel sure that they do not know themselves, or they could not talk as they often do. There is tinder enough in the saint who is nearest to heaven to kindle another hell if God should but permit a spark to fall upon it. In the very best of men there is an infernal and well-nigh infinite depth of depravity. Some Christians never seem to find this out. I almost wish that they might not do so, for it is a painful discovery for anyone to make; but it has the beneficial effect of making us cease from trusting in ourselves, and causing us to glory only in the Lord.”Other testimonies from the lips and pens of men equally pious and eminent might be given, but sufficient have been quoted to show what cause the saints of all ages have had for making their own these words, “O wretched man that I am.” A few words now on the closing verse of Romans 7.“Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” “Who shall deliver me?” This is not the language of despair, but of earnest desire for help from without and above himself. That from which the apostle desired to be delivered is termed “the body of this death.” This is a figurative expression for the carnal nature is termed “the body of sin,” and as having “members.” (Rom. 7:23) We therefore take the apostle’s meaning to be, Who shall deliver me from this deadly and noxious burden—my sinful self!In the next verse the apostle answers his question, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It should be obvious to any impartial mind that this looks forward to the future. His question was, “Who shall deliver me?” His answer is, Jesus Christ will. How this exposes the error of those who teach a present “deliverance” from the carnal nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. In His answer, the apostle says nothing about the Holy Spirit; instead, he mentions only “Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is not by the present work of the Spirit in us that Christians will be delivered “from this body of death,” but by the yet future coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for us. It is then that this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruption shall put on incorruption.But, as though to remove all doubt that this “deliverance” is future, the apostle concludes by saying, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Let every reader note carefully that this comes after he had thanked God that he would be “delivered.” The last part of verse 25 sums up what he had said in the second part of Romans 7. It describes the Christian’s dual life. The new nature serves the law of God; the old nature, to the end of history, will serve “the law of sin.” That it was so with Paul himself is clear from what he wrote at the close of his life, when he termed himself “the chief’ of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). That was not the exaggeration of evangelical fervor, still less was it the mock modesty of hypocrisy. It was the assured conviction, the felt experience, the settled consciousness of one who saw deeply into the depths of corruption within himself, and who knew how far, far short he attained to the standard of holiness which God set before him. Such, too, will be the consciousness and confession of every other Christian who is not blinded by conceit. And the outcome of such a consciousness will be to make him long more ardently and thank God more fervently for the promised deliverance at the return of our Savior and Lord, when He shall “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself’ (Phil. 3:2 1); and having done so, He will “present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24). Hallelujah, what a Savior!It is remarkable that the only other time the word “wretched” (the only other time in the Greek too) is found in the New Testament occurs in Revelation 3:17, where to the Laodiceans Christ says, and knowest not that thou art wretched!” Their boast was that they had “need of nothing.” They were so puffed up with pride, so satisfied with their attainments, that they knew not their wretchedness. And is not this what we witness on every hand today? Is it not evident that we are now living in the Laodicean period of the history of Christendom? Many were conscious of the “need,” but now they fancy they have received “the second blessing,” or “the baptism of the Spirit,” or that they have entered into “victory;” and, fancying this, they fondly imagine that their “need” has been met. And the proof of this is, they are the very ones who “know not” that they are “wretched.” With an air of spiritual superiority they will tell you that they have “got out of Romans 7 into Romans 8.” With pitiable complacency they will say that Romans 7 no longer depicts their experience. With smug satisfaction they will look down in pity upon the Christian who cries, “O wretched man that I am,” and like the Pharisee in the temple, they will thank God that it is otherwise with them. Poor blinded souls! It is to just such that the Son of God here says, “And knowest not that thou art wretched.” We say “blinded” souls for mark it is to these Laodiceans that Christ says, “Anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest SEE!” (Rev. 3:18) It is to be observed that in the second half of Romans 7 the apostle speaks in the singular number. This is striking and most blessed. The Holy Spirit would intimate to us that the highest attainments in grace do not exempt the Christian from the painful experience there described. The apostle portrays with a master pen—himself sitting for the picture—the spiritual struggles of the child of God. He illustrates by a reference to his own personal experience the ceaseless conflict which is waged between the antagonistic natures in the one who has been born again.May God in His mercy so deliver us from the spirit of pride which now defiles the air of modern Christendom, and grant us such an humbling view of our own uncleanness that we shall join the apostle in crying with ever-deepening fervor, “O wretched man that I am!” Yea, may God vouchsafe to both writer and reader such a view of their own depravity and unworthiness that they may indeed grovel in the dust before Him, and there praise Him for His wondrous grace to such hell-deserving sinners.

Bearing the Rod Man

2006-01-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

by A.W. Pink

“Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). How can it be otherwise, living as he is in a world which is under the curse that Adam’s sin entailed, and, what is worse, under God’s judgment because of its casting out of His beloved Son. Yet the subject of “trouble” needs to be “rightly divided” if we are to properly heed that exhortation, “Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:17), an important part of which consists in understanding the meaning and message of our Father to us in all the “trouble” which we encounter and experience. As we turn to the Holy Scriptures for light upon this subject of Trouble, Suffering, Affliction, Tribulation, Persecution etc., we discover two distinct and different lines of Truth thereon, running all trough the Word. On the one hand we read that, “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22), parallel with which are such passages as Luke 6:26, 2 Timothy 3:12 etc. But on the other hand, we read that “the curse causeless shall not come” (Prov. 26:2), that God does not “afflict willingly” (Lamentations 3:33), and that “if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31). Much of the “trouble” and “affliction” experienced by us, we bring upon ourselves, through our own folly. We see this plainly exemplified in the natural realm: how many are now suffering bodily ills through intemperate eating and drinking: how many are nervous wrecks as the result of “burning the candle at both ends”! The same principle holds good in the spiritual realm: the chastening rod of God is upon many of His children because of their self-will and self-pleasing: some of them are passing through sore financial straits because their “sins have withholden” God’s temporal mercies (Jeremiah 5:25); still others, who have been favored with clear and definite light from God as to a certain course of duty—e.g. separating themselves from religious associations which dishonor Christ—and because they have not walked therein, the Lord has “hedged up their way with thorns” (Hosea 2:6). Nevertheless, it would be a serious mistake to draw the inference that every time we see a suffering Christian, we behold one who has seriously displeased God, and therefore is now being severely chastised by Him. It would be wrong to form such a conclusion concerning every case, because trouble and suffering issue from other causes, and are sent by God for other purposes than the reproof of sin—sent sometimes to experimentally fit the recipient for greater and higher usefulness in the service of Christ: compare 2 Corinthians 1:4. Now from what has been pointed out above, it should be quite clear that real exercise of heart is called for from each one of us whenever painful trials come upon us; that we need to get down before God, and cry, “show me wherefore Thou contendedest with me” (Job 10:2). To take this attitude is the part of wisdom, for if God be dealing with us over something that has displeased Him, and we fail to humble ourselves before Him and learn of Him what it is which is now choking the channel of His highest blessing toward us, and obtain grace from Him to put right what is wrong, then the chastening “profits” us not, and further and increased chastisement must be our portion; for it is not until we are “exercised thereby,” exercised in conscience, that we have any promise it will issue in “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11). If the “trouble” through which we are passing at any period of our lives be a reproof from God because of our sins or unfaithfulness, and instead of suspecting that He is displeased with us and taking our place in the dust before Him, begging Him to put His finger on the festering sore in our hearts: if instead, we proudly imagine that there is nothing wrong in our lives, that we have given God no cause to smite us, and complacently assume that we are suffering only for “righteousness’ sake,” and draw comfort from such promises as Matthew 5:11, 12, we are deceived by Satan, and are but “forsaking our own mercy” (Jonah 2:8). It is written, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper” (Prov. 28:13). Thus, whenever “trouble” comes upon a Christian it is always the safest policy to come to the Lord and say, “Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred” (Job 5:24). From what has been said above, it will be seen that it often falls to the lot of God’s servants to perform a duty which is most unpleasant to the flesh. When they come into contact with a Brother or Sister who is passing through deep waters, their natural desire is to administer comfort, but in some instances (at least) to do so would be guilty of “healing also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly”: and how is this done? The same verse tells us, by “saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). That was what the ‘false prophets” had done to Israel, and that was the very thing which carnal Israel desired: their demand was, “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Isa. 30:10); and human nature has not changed any since then!It is a thankless task for any true servant of Christ today to be faithful to his Master, and faithful to the souls of those with whom he deals. Not that God requires him to think the worst of every case that comes to his notice, but that it is his burden duty to exhort each one to act on Job 10:2. But if he does do so, he may be assured at the beginning, that in the majority of cases he will be looked upon as harsh, hypercritical, unkind, like one of Job’s censorious comforters; for there are few indeed who have an honest heart, are ready to know the worst about themselves, and are willing to be cut by the knife of God’s Word. The great majority want only comfort , the “promises” of Scripture, the message of “Peace, peace.But do not the Promises of God belong unto His children? Certainly they do: but here too “there is a season, and a time to every purpose” (Eccl. 3:1): there is a time when we may rightfully draw consolation and strength from the promises, and there is a time when we may not legitimately do so. When all is right between our souls and God, when every known sin has been confessed, and forsaken in sincere purpose of heart, then may we righteously draw milk from the breasts of Divine consolation. But just as there are times when it would be injurious for us to eat some of the things we do when we are well, so to take unto ourselves comfort from the Divine promises while sin is cherished in our hearts, is baneful and sinful. The above (now slightly revised) recently sent by us in a letter to one passing through deep waters. It occurred to us that it might be a timely word for others. Many are now in the fiery furnace, and few indeed are there capable of speaking to them a word in season. It is not sufficient to bid them “Trust in God,” and assure them that brighter days are ahead. The conscience needs to be searched; the wound must be probed and cleansed, before it is ready for “the balm of Gilead”; we must humble ourselves “beneath the mighty hand of God” (1 Pet. 5:6), if we are to be exalted again by Him in “due time.” May the Lord be pleased to bless the above unto some of “His own”.

Divine Chastisement

2006-01-10T18:54:00.000-08:00

By A.W. Pink

"Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor
faint when thou are rebuked of him" (HEBREWS 12:5).

It is of first importance that we learn to draw a sharp distinction between Divine punishment and Divine chastisement - important for maintaining the honour and glory of God, and for the peace of mind of the Christian. The distinction is very simple, yet is it often lost sight of. God's people can never by any possibility be punished for their sins, for God has already punished them at the Cross. The Lord Jesus, our Blessed Substitute, suffered the full penalty of all our guilt, hence it is written "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Neither the justice nor the love of God will permit Him to again exact payment of what Christ discharged to the full. The difference between punishment and chastisement lies not in the nature of the sufferings of the afflicted: it is most important to bear this in mind. There is a threefold distinction between the two. First, the character in which God acts. In the former God acts as Judge, in the latter as Father. Sentence of punishment is the act of a judge, a penal sentence passed on those charged with guilt. Punishment can never fall upon the child of God in this judicial sense because his guilt was all transferred to Christ: "Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree."

But while the believer's sins cannot be punished, while the Christian cannot be condemned (Rom. 8:3), yet he may be chastised. The Christian occupies an entirely different position from the non-Christian: he is a member of the Family of God. The relationship which now exists between him and God is that of parent and child; and as a son he must be disciplined for wrongdoing. Folly is bound up in the hearts of all God's children, and the rod is necessary to rebuke, to subdue, to humble.

The second distinction between Divine punishment and Divine chastisement lies in the recipients of each. The objects of the former are His enemies. The subjects of the latter are His children. As the Judge of all the earth, God will yet take vengeance on all His foes. As the Father of His family, God maintains discipline over all His children. The one is judicial, the other parental.

A third distinction is seen in The design of each: the one is retributive, the other remedial. The one flows from His anger, the other from His love. Divine punishment is never sent for the good of sinners, but for the honouring of God's law and the vindicating of His government. But Divine chastisement is sent for the well-being of His children: "We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness" (Heb. 12:9-10).

The above distinction should at once rebuke the thoughts which are so generally entertained among Christians. When the believer is smarting under the rod let him not say, God is now punishing me for my sins. That can never be. That is most dishonouring to the blood of Christ. God is correcting thee in love, not smiting in wrath. Nor should the Christian regard the chastening of the Lord as a sort of necessary evil to which he must bow as submissively as possible. No, it proceeds from God's goodness and faithfulness, and is one of the greatest blessings for which we have to thank Him. Chastisement evidences our Divine son-ship: the father of a family does not concern himself with those on the outside: but those within he guides and disciplines to make them conform to his will. Chastisement is designed for our good, to promote our highest interests. Look beyond the rod to the All-wise hand that wields it!

The Hebrew Christians to whom this Epistle was first addressed were passing through a great fight of afflictions, and miserably were they conducting themselves. They were the little remnant out of the Jewish nation who had believed on their Messiah during the days of His public ministry, plus those Jews who had been converted under the preaching of the apostles. It is highly probable that they had expected the Messianic Kingdom would at once be set up on earth and that they would be allotted the chief places of honour in it. But the Millennium had not begun, and their own lot became increasingly bitter. They were not only hated by the Gentiles, but ostracized by their unbelieving brethren, and it became a hard matter for them to make even a bare living. Providence held a frowning face. Many who had made a profession of Christianity had gone back to Judaism and were prospering temporally. As the afflictions of the believing Jews increased, they too were sorely tempted to turn their back upon the new Faith. Had they been wrong in embracing Christianity? Was high Heaven displeased because they had identified themselves with Jesus of Nazareth? Did not their suffering go to show that God no longer regarded them with favour?

Now it is most instructive and blessed to see how the Apostle met the unbelieving reasoning of their hearts. He appealed to their own Scriptures! He reminded them of an exhortation found in Proverbs 3:11-12, and applied it to their case. Notice, first, the words we place in italics: "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you." This shows that the exhortations of the Old Testament were not restricted to those who lived under the old covenant: they apply with equal force and directness to those of us living under the new covenant. Let us not forget that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable" (2 Tim. 3:16) The Old Testament equally as much as the New Testament was written for our learning and admonition.

Second, mark the tense of the verb in our opening text: "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh." The Apostle quoted a sentence of the Word written one thousand years previously, yet he does not say "which hath spoken," but "which speaketh." The same principle is illustrated in that sevenfold "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith (not "said") unto the churches" of Rev. 2 and 3. The Holy Scriptures are a living Word in which God is speaking today!

Consider now the words "Ye have forgotten." It was not that these Hebrew Christians were unacquainted with Prov. 3:11 and 12, but they had let them slip. They had forgotten the Fatherhood of God and their relation of Him as His dear children. In consequence they misinterpreted both the manner and design of God's present dealings with them, they viewed His dispensation not in the light of His Love, but regarded them as signs of His displeasure or as proofs of His forgetfulness. Consequently, instead of cheerful submission, there was despondency and despair. Here is a most important lesson for us: we must interpret the mysterious providences of God not by reason or observation, but by the Word. How often we "forget" the exhortation which speaketh unto us as unto children- "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him."

Unhappily there is no word in the English language which is capable of doing justice to the Greek term here. "Paideia" which is rendered "chastening" is only another form of "paidion" which signifies "young children," being the tender word that was employed by the Saviour in John 21:5 and Hebrews 2:13. One can see at a glance the direct connection which exists between the words "disciple" and "discipline": equally close in the Greek is the relation between "children" and "chastening." Son-training would be better. It has reference to God's education, nurture and discipline of His children. It is the Father's wise and loving correction which is in view.

It is true that much chastisement is the rod in the hand of the Father correcting His erring child. But it is a serious mistake to confine our thoughts to this one aspect of the subject. Chastisement is by no means always the scourging of His refractive sons. Some of the saintliest of God's people, some of the most obedient of His children, have been and are the greatest sufferers. Oftentimes God's chastenings instead of being retributive are corrective. They are sent to empty us of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness: they are given to discover to us hidden transgressions, and to teach us the plague of our own hearts. Or again, chastisements are sent to strengthen our faith, to raise us to higher levels of experience, to bring us into a condition of usefulness. Still again, Divine chastisement is sent as a preventative, to keep under pride, to save us from being unduly elated over success in God's service. Let us consider, briefly, four entirely different examples.

DAVID. In his case the rod was laid upon him for grievous sins, for open wickedness. His fall was occasioned by self-confidence and self-righteousness. If the reader will diligently compare the two Songs of David recorded in 2 Samuel 22 and 23, the one written near the beginning of his life, the other near the end, he will be struck by the great difference of spirit manifested by the writer in each. Read 2 Samuel 22:22-25 and you will not be surprised that God suffered him to have such a fall. Then turn to chapter 23, and mark the blessed change. At the beginning of v. 5 there is a heart-broken confession of failure. In vv. 10-12 there is a God-glorifying confession, attributing victory unto the Lord. The severe scourging of David was not in vain.

JOB. Probably he tasted of every kind of suffering which falls to man's lot: family bereavements, loss of property, grievous bodily afflictions came fast, one on top of another. But God's end in it all was that Job should benefit therefrom and be a greater partaker of His holiness. There was not a little of self-satisfaction and self-righteousness in Job at the beginning. But at the end, when He was brought face to face with the thrice Holy One, he "abhorred himself" (42:6). In David's case the chastisement was retributive, in Job's corrective.

ABRAHAM. In him we see an illustration of an entirely different aspect of chastening. Most of the trials to which he was subjected were neither because of open sins nor for the correction of inward faults. Rather were they sent for the development of spiritual graces. Abraham was sorely tried in various ways, but it was in order that faith might be strengthened and that patience might have its perfect work in him. Abraham was weaned from the things of this world, that he might enjoy closer fellowship with Jehovah and become the "friend" of God.

PAUL. "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure (2 Cor. 12:7). This "thorn" was sent not because of failure and sin, but as a preventative against pride. Note the "lest" both at the beginning and end of the verse. The result of this "thorn" was that the beloved apostle was made more conscious of his weakness. Thus, chastisement has for one of its main objects the breaking down of self-sufficiency, the bringing us to the end of our selves.

Now in view of these widely different aspects chastenings which are retributive, corrective, educative, and preventative, how incompetent are we to diagnose, and how great is the folly of pronouncing a judgment concerning others! Let us not conclude when we see a fellow-Christian under the rod of God that he is necessarily being taken to task for his sins. In our next meditation we shall, D.V., consider the spirit in which Divine chastisements are to be received.

Gospel Preaching Commanded

2006-01-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

By A.W. Pink

There are those who misrepresent the doctrine of election in this way. Here I am sitting down at my table tonight with my family to tea. It is a cold winter’s night, and outside on the street are some hungry starving tramps and children, and they come and knock on my door and they say, "We are so hungry, Sir, Oh, we are so hungry and cold, and we are starving: won’t you give us something to eat?"Give you something to eat? No, you do not belong here, get off with you." Now people say that is what election means, that God has spread the gospel feast and some poor sinners conscious of their deep need come to the Lord and say, "Have mercy upon me, and the Lord says, "No, you are not among My elect." Now, my friends, that is not the teaching of this Book, nor anything like that. That is absolutely a false representation of God’s truth. I do not believe anything like that, my friends, and I would not insult you by asking you to come here night by night and listen to anything like that.1. Compel them to come inNow then, here is the truth. God has spread the feast but the fact is that nobody is hungry. and nobody wants to come to the feast, and everybody makes an excuse to keep away from the feast. and when they are bidden to come they say, "No, we do not want to, or We are not ready yet." Now God knew that from the beginning, and if God had done nothing more than spread the feast every seat at His table would have been vacant for all eternity! I have no hesitation in saying there is not one man or woman in this church tonight, but who made excuses time after time before you first came to Christ. You are just like the rest. You made excuses. so did I, and if God had done nothing more than just spread the feast every chair would have been vacant, therefore what do you read in that parable in Luke 14? Because the feast was not furnished with guests God sent forth His "servants". Oh, put your glasses on. It does not say "servants", it says God sent forth His "servant" and told Him to "compel" them to come in that His feast might be furnished with guests. And there is not a man or a woman In this church tonight or in any other church that would ever sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb unless you had been compelled to come in, and compelled by God.Well, you say, what do you mean by "compelled?" I mean this, that God had to overcome the resistance of your will, God had to overcome the reluctance of your heart, God had to overcome your loving of pleasure more than loving of God, your love of the things of this world more than Christ. I mean that God had to put forth His power and draw you, and if any of you know anything of the Greek or have a Strong’s Concordance, look up that Greek verb for "draw" in John 6:44, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" —It means "use violence". It means to drag by force. There is not a Greek scholar on earth that can challenge that statement—I mean—and back it up with proof. It’s the same Greek word that is used in John 21 when they drew the net to the land full of fishes. They had to pull with all their might for it was full of fishes. They had to drag it, Yes, my friend, and that is how you were brought to Christ. You may not have been conscious of it. you may not have known inside yourself what was taking place, but every last one of us was a rebel against God, fighting against Christ, resisting His Holy Spirit, and God had to put forth almighty power and overcome that resistance and bring us to our knees, and if any of you object to that strong language, then I am here to tell you, you do not believe in the teaching of this Book on the absolute depravity of man.Man is lost, and man is dead in trespasses and sins by nature. Listen, it is not simply that man is sick and needs a little medicine: it is not simply that man is ignorant and needs a little teaching: it is not simply that man is weak and needs a little hope: man is dead, dead in trespasses and sins, and only almighty power from heaven can ever resurrect him and bring him from death unto life. That is the gospel I believe in and I do not preach the gospel because I believe the sinner has power in himself to respond to it. Well, you say, then what is the use of preaching the gospel if men are dead? What is the use of preaching it? I will tell you. Listen! Here was a man with a withered hand, paralyzed, and Christ says. "Stretch forth thine hand"; It was the one thing that he could not do! Christ told him to do a thing that was impossible in himself. Well then you say why did Christ tell him to stretch forth his hand? Because Divine power went with the very word that commanded him to do it! Divine power enabled him to. The man could not do it of himself. If you think that he could you are ready for the lunatic asylum, I don’t not care who you are. Any man or woman here who thinks that that man was able to stretch forth his paralyzed arm by an effort of his own will is ready for the lunatic asylum! How can paralysis move?Well, I will give you something stronger than that. You need something strong today, you need something more than skim-milk, you need strong meat if ever you are going to be built up and grow and become strong in the Lord and the power of His might—Here is a man who is dead and buried and his body has already begun to corrupt so that it stank. There he was in the grave and someone came to that graveside and said, "Lazarus. come forth", and if that someone had been anyone else than God Himself manifest in flesh. he might have stood there till now calling, "Come forth". What on earth was the use of telling a dead man to come forth? None at all, unless the One Who spoke that word had the power to make that word good.Now then my friends, I preach the gospel to sinners, not because I believe the sinner has any power at all in himself to respond to it: I do not believe that any sinner has any capacity in himself whatever. But Christ said, "the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life", and by God’s grace I go forth preaching this Word because it is a word of power, a word of spirit, a word of life. The power is not in the sinner, it is in the Word when God the Holy Spirit is pleased to use it. And my friends, I say in all reverence; if God told me in this Book to go out and preach to the trees. I would go! Yes sir. God once told one of His servants to go and preach to bones and he went. I wonder if you should have gone! Yes, that has a local application as well as a future interpretation prophetically:2. Preach the Gospel to Every CreatureNow the question arises again, why are we to preach the gospel to every creature?—if God has only elected a certain number to be saved? The reason is, because God commands us to do so. Well, but, you say, it does not seem reasonable to me That has got nothing to do with it; your business is to obey God and not to argue with Him. God commands us to preach the gospel to every creature and it means what it says—every creature and it is solemn thing. Every Christian in this room tonight has yet to answer to Christ why he has not done everything in his power to send that gospel to every creature! Yes, I believe in missions—probably stronger than most of you do, and if I preached to you on missions perhaps I would hit you harder than you have been hit yet. The great majority of Gods people who profess to believe in missions, are just playing at them—I make so bold as to say of our evangelical denominations today that we are just playing at missions and that is all. Why my friends. there is almost half of the human race—think of it—in this 20th century—travel so easy and cheap. Bibles printed in almost every language under heaven, and as we sit here tonight there is almost half of the human race that never yet heard of Christ, and we have got to answer to Christ for that yet! You have and I have, Oh. yes, I believe in man’s responsibility. I do not believe in man’s "freedom" but I do in man’s responsibility, and I believe in the Christian’s responsibility in a double way, and everyone of us here tonight has yet got to face Christ and look into those eyes as a flame of fire, and He is going to say to us, I entrusted to you My gospel. It was committed as a "trust" to you, (See 1 Thess. 2:4) It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.Oh, my friends, we are playing at things. We have not begun to take religion seriously, any of us. We profess to believe in the coming of Christ, and we profess to believe that the one reason why Christ has not come back yet is because His Church, His Body, is not yet complete. We believe that when His body is complete He will come back. And my friends, His "body" never, never, will be complete until the last of His elect people will be called out, and His elect people are called out under the preaching of the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, and if you are really anxious for Christ to come back soon, then you had better be more wide awake to your responsibility in connection with taking or sending the gospel to the heathen!Christ’s word, and it is Christ’s word to us, is "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel", He does not say "Send ye", He says "Go ye", and you have to answer to Christ yet because you have not gone! Well, you say, do you mean by that that everyone of us here tonight ought to go out to the mission field? I have not said that, I am not any man’s judge, Many of you here tonight have a good reason which will satisfy Christ why you have not gone. He gave you work to do here. He put you in a position here. He has given you responsibilities to discharge here, but every Christian who is free to go, and does not go, has got to answer to Christ for it yet."Go ye into all the world." Well then you say, Where am I to go? Oh, that is very easy. You say, easy? Yes, I mean it: it is very easy. There is nothing easier in the world than to know where you ought to begin missionary work. You have it in the first chapter of Acts and the eighth verse: "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem (that is the city in which they were) and in all Judea (that is the State in which their city was), and in Samaria (that is the adjoining State), and unto the uttermost part of the earth", If you want to begin missionary work, you have to begin it in your home-town, and my friends if you are not interested in the salvation of the Chinese in Sydney, then you are not really interested in the salvation of the Chinese in China, and you are only fooling yourselves if you think you are! Oh, I am calling a spade a spade tonight. If you are anxious about the souls of the Chinese in China, then you will be equally anxious about the souls of the Chinese here in Sydney, and I wonder how many in this building tonight have ever made any serious effort to reach the Chinese in Sydney with the gospel! I wonder? I wonder how many here tonight have been round to the Bible House in Sydney and have said to the Manager there, "Do you have any New Testaments in the Chinese language, or do you have any Gospels of John in the Chinese language? How much are they per hundred? or per dozen?" And I wonder how many of you have bought a thousand or a hundred, and then have gone round to the houses in the Chinese quarter and have said, "My friend, this is a little gift that will do your soul good if you will read it."Ah, my friends, we are playing at missions, it is just a farce, that is all! "Go ye" is the first command. Go where? Those around me first. Go what with? The gospel! Well, you say, "Why should I go?" Because God has commanded you to! Well, you say, "What is the use of doing it if He has just elected certain ones?" Because that gospel is the means that God uses to call out His own elect, that is why! You do not know, and I do not know, and nobody here on earth knows, who are God’s elect and who are not. They are scattered over the world, and therefore we are to preach the gospel to every creature, that it may reach the ones that God has marked out among those creatures.

From a sermon preached in Sydney during his Australian ministry in the 1920’s.

NATURAL MEN

2006-01-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

by Jonathan Edwards
Preached to the Stockbridge Indians, February, 1753
Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down
before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, "Sirs what must I do
to be saved?" Acts 16:29-30
We have here and in the context and account of the conversion of the jailer,
which is one of the most remarkable instances of the kind in the Scriptures.
The jailer before seems not only to have been wholly insensible to the things of
religion, but to have been a persecutor, and to have persecuted these very
men, Paul and Silas; though he now comes to them in so earnest a manner,
asking them what he must do to be saved. We are told in the context that all
the magistrates and multitude of the city rose up jointly in a tumult against
them, and took them, and cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep
them safely. Whereupon he thrust them into the inner prison, and made their
feet fast in the stocks. And it is probable he did not act in this merely as the
servant or instrument of the magistrates, but that he joined with the rest of
the people in their rage against them. And that he did what he did urged on by
his own will, as well as the magistrates' commands, which made him execute
their commands with such rigor.
But when Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises at midnight, and there was
suddenly a great earthquake, and God had in so wonderful a manner set open
the prison doors, and every man's bands were loosed, he was greatly terrified.
And in a kind of desperation, he was about to kill himself. But Paul and Silas
crying out to him, "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here," then he called
for a light, and sprang in, as we have the account in the text. We may observe:
First, the objects of his concern. He is anxious about his salvation. He is
terrified by his guilt, especially by his guilt in his ill treatment of these
ministers of Christ. He is concerned to escape from that guilty state, the
miserable state he was in by reason of sin.
Second, the sense which he has of the dreadfulness of his present state.
This he manifests in several ways.
1. By his great haste to escape from that state. By his haste to inquire what he
must do. He seems to be urged by the most pressing concern, sensible of his
present necessity of deliverance, without any delay. Before, he was quiet and
secure in his natural state. But now his eyes are opened. He is in the utmost
haste. If the house had been on fire over his head, he could not have asked
more earnestly, or as being in greater haste. He could soon have come to Paul
and Silas, to ask them what he must do, if he had only walked. But he was in
too great haste to walk only, or to run; for he sprang in. He leaped into the
place where they were. He fled from wrath. He fled from the fire of divine
justice, and so hastened, as one that fled for his life.
2. By his behavior and gesture before Paul and Silas. He fell down. That he
fell down before those whom he had persecuted, and thrust into the inner
prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks, shows what was the state of his
mind. It shows some great distress, that makes such an alteration in him, that
brings him to this. He was broken down, as it were, by the distress of his
mind, in a sense of the dreadfulness of his condition.
3. His earnest manner of inquiring of them what he shall do to escape from
this miserable condition, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" So distressed,
that he is brought to be willing to do anything; to have salvation on any terms,
and by any means, however difficult; brought, as it were, to write a blank, and
give it in to God, that God may prescribe his own terms.
Doctrine. Those who are in a natural condition, are in a dreadful condition.
This I shall endeavor to make appear by a particular consideration of the
state and condition of all unregenerate people.
I. As to their actual condition in this world.
II. As to their relations to the future world.
I. The condition of those who are in a natural state, is dreadful in the
PRESENT world.
First, on account of the depraved state of their natures. As men come into the
world, their natures are dreadfully depraved. Man in his primitive state was a
noble piece of divine workmanship; but by the fall it is dreadfully defaced. It
is awful to think that so excellent a creature as man is, should be so ruined.
The dreadfulness of the condition, which unconverted men are in, in this
respect, appears in the following things:
1. The dreadfulness of their depravity appears in that they are so sottishly
blind and ignorant. God gave man a faculty of reason and understanding,
which is a noble faculty. Herein he differs from all other creatures here below.
He is exalted in his nature above them, and is in this respect like the angels,
and is made capable to know God, and to know spiritual and eternal things.
And God gave him understanding for this end, that he might know him, and
know heavenly things and made him as capable to know these things as any
others. But man has debased himself and has lost his glory in this respect. He
has become as ignorant of the excellency of God, as the very beasts. His
understanding is full of darkness. His mind is blind. It is altogether blind to
spiritual things. Men are ignorant of God, and ignorant of Christ, ignorant of
the way of salvation, ignorant of their own happiness, blind in the midst of the
brightest and clearest light, ignorant under all manner of instructions. Rom.
3:17,"The way of peace they have not known." Isa. 27:11,"It is a people of no
understanding." Jer. 4:22,"My people is foolish, they have not known me;
they are sottish children, and have none understanding:" Jer. 5:21,"Hear now
this, O foolish people, and without understanding." Psalm. 95:10, 11,"It is a
people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways; unto
whom I swore in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest." 1 Cor.
15:34,"Some have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame."
There is a spirit of atheism prevailing in the hearts of men; a strange
disposition to doubt of the very being of God, and of another world, and of
everything which cannot be seen with the bodily eyes. Psalm. 121:1,"The fool
has said in his heart, there is no God." They do not realize that God sees them
when they commit sin, and will call them to an account for it. And therefore, if
they can hide sin from the eyes of men, they are not concerned, but are bold to
commit it. Psalm. 94:7, 8, 9,"Yet they say, the Lord shall not see, neither shall
the God of Jacob regard it. Understand, you brutish among the people; and,
you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall he not hear?
He who formed the eye, shall he not see?" Psalm. 73:11,"They say, How does
God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" So sottishly
unbelieving are they of future things, of heaven and hell, and will commonly
run the venture of damnation sooner than be convinced. They are stupidly
senseless to the importance of eternal things. How hard to make them believe,
and to give them a real conviction, that to be happy to all eternity is better
than all other good; and to be miserable forever under the wrath of God, is
worse than all other evil. Men show themselves senseless enough in temporal
things; but in spiritual things far more so. Luke 12:56,"You hypocrites, you
can discern the face of the sky, and of the earth; but how is it that you do not
discern this time?" They are very subtle in evil designs, but sottish in those
things which most concern them. Jer. 4:22,"They are wise to do evil, but to do
good they have no knowledge." Wicked men show themselves more foolish
and senseless of what is best for them, than the very brutes. Isa. 1:3,"The ox
knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib; but Israel does not know,
my people does not consider." Jer. 8:7, "Yes, the stork in the heaven knows
her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe
the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord."
2. They have no goodness in them. Rom. 7:18, "In me, that is, in my flesh,
dwells no good thing." They have no principle that disposes them to anything
that is good. Natural men have no higher principle in their hearts than selflove.
And herein they do not excel the devils. The devils love themselves, and
love their own happiness, and are afraid of their own misery. And they go no
further. And the devils would be as religious as the best of natural men if they
were in the same circumstances. They would be as moral, and would pray as
earnestly to God, and take as much pains for salvation, if there were the like
opportunity. And as there is no good principle in the hearts of natural men, so
there are never any good exercises of heart, never one good thought, or
motion of heart in them. Particularly, there is no love to God in them. They
never had the least degree of love to the infinitely glorious Being. They never
had the least true respect to the Being that made them, and in whose hand
their breath is, and from whom are all their mercies. However they may seem
to do things at times out of respect to God, and wear a face as though they
honored him, and highly esteemed him, it is all in mere hypocrisy. Though
there may be a fair outside, they are like painted sepulchers. Within, there is
nothing but putrefaction and rottenness. They have no love to Christ, the
glorious Son of God, who is so worthy of their love, and has shown such
wonderful grace to sinners in dying for them. They never did anything out of
any real respect to the Redeemer of the world since they were born. They
never brought forth any fruit to that God who made them and in whom they
live and move and have their being. They never have in any way answered the
end for which they were made. They have hitherto lived altogether in vain,
and to no purpose. They never so much as sincerely obeyed one command of
God; never so much as moved one finger out of a true spirit of obedience to
him, who made them to serve him.
And when they have seemed outwardly to comply with God's commands,
their hearts were not in it. They did not do it out of any spirit of subjection to
God, or any disposition to obey him, but were merely driven to it by fear, or in
some way influenced by their worldly interest. They never gave God the honor
of one of his attributes. They never gave him the honor of his authority by
obeying him. They never gave him the honor of his sovereignty by submitting
to him. They never gave him the honor of his holiness and mercy by loving
him. They never gave him the honor of his sufficiency and faithfulness by
trusting in him. But have looked upon God as one not fit to be believed or
trusted, and have treated him as if he were a liar. 1 John 5:10, "He who
believes not God has made him a liar."
They never so much as heartily thanked God for one mercy they have
received in their whole lives, though God has always maintained them, and
they have always lived upon his bounty. They never so much as once heartily
thanked Christ for coming into the world and dying to give them an
opportunity to be saved. They never would show him so much gratitude as to
receive him, when he has knocked at their door; but have always shut the
door against him, though he has come to knock at their door upon no other
ground but only to offer himself to be their Savior. They never so much as had
any true desires after God or Christ in their whole lives. When God has
offered himself to them to be their portion, and Christ to be the friend of their
souls, they did not desire it. They never desired to have God and Christ for
their portion. They had rather be without them than with them, if they could
avoid going to hell without them. They never had so much as an honorable
thought of God. They always have esteemed earthly things before him. And
notwithstanding all they have heard in the commands of God and Christ, they
have always preferred a little worldly profit or sinful pleasure before them.
3. Unconverted men are in a dreadful condition by reason of the dreadful
wickedness which there is in them.
(1) Sin is a thing of a dreadful nature, and that because it is against an
infinitely great and an infinitely holy God. There is in the nature of man
enmity against God, contempt of God, rebellion against God. Sin rises up as
an enemy against the Most High. It is a dreadful thing for a creature to be an
enemy to the Creator, or to have any such thing in his heart as enmity against
him; as will be very clear, if we consider the difference between God and the
creature, and how all creatures, compared with him, are as the small dust of
the balance, are as nothing, less than nothing, and vanity. There is an infinite
evil in sin. If we saw the hundredth part of the evil there is in sin, it would
make us sensible that those who have any sin, let it be ever so small, are in a
dreadful condition.
(2) The hearts of natural men are exceedingly full of sin. If they had but one
sin in their hearts, it would be sufficient to render their condition very
dreadful. But they have not only one sin, but all manner of sin. There is every
kind of lust. The heart is a mere sink of sin, a fountain of corruption, where
issue all manner of filthy streams. Mark 7:21, 22,"From within, out of the
heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication's, murders, thefts,
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness." There is no one lust in the heart of the devil, that is not in the
heart of man. Natural men are in the image of the devil. The image of God is
erased out, and the image of the devil is stamped upon them. God is graciously
pleased to restrain the wickedness of men, principally by fear and respect to
their credit and reputation, and by education. And if it were not for such
restraints as these, there is no kind of wickedness that men would not commit,
whenever it came in their way. The commission of those things, at the mention
of which men are now ready to start, and seem to be shocked when they hear
them read, would be common and general; and earth would be a kind of hell.
What would not natural men do if they were not afraid? Mat. 7:17, "But
beware of men." Men have not only every kind of lust, and wicked and
perverse dispositions in their hearts, but they have them to a dreadful degree.
There is not only pride, but an amazing degree of it: pride, whereby a man is
disposed to set himself even above the throne of God itself. The hearts of
natural men are mere sinks of sensuality. Man is become like a beast in
placing his happiness in sensual enjoyments. The heart is full of the most
loathsome lusts. The souls of natural men are more vile and abominable than
any reptile. If God should open a window in the heart so that we might look
into it, it would be the most loathsome spectacle that ever was set before our
eyes. There is not only malice in the hearts of natural men, but a fountain of it.
Men naturally therefore deserve the language applied to them by Christ, Mat.
3:7,"O generation of vipers;" and Mat. 23:33,"You serpents, you generation
of vipers."
Men, if it were not for fear and other such restraints, would not only commit
all manner of sin, but to what degree, to what length would they not proceed!
What has a natural man to keep him from openly blaspheming God, as much
as any of the devils; yes, from dethroning him, if that were possible, and fear
and other such restraints were out of the way? Yes, would it not be thus with
many of those, who now appear with a fair face, and will speak most of God,
and make many pretenses of worshiping and serving him? The exceeding
wickedness of natural men appears abundantly in the sins they commit,
notwithstanding all these restraints. Every natural man, if he reflects, may see
enough to show him how exceedingly sinful he is. Sin flows from the heart as
constantly as water flows from a fountain. Jer. 6:7, "As a fountain casts out
her waters, so she casts out her wickedness." And this wickedness, that so
abounds in their hearts, has dominion over them. They are slaves to it. Rom.
7:14,"Sold under sin." They are so under the power of sin, that they are
driven on by their lusts in a course against their own conscience, and against
their own interest. They are hurried on to their own ruin, and that at the same
time their reason tells them, it will probably be their ruin. 2 Pet. 2:14,"Cannot
cease from sin." On account of wicked men's being so under the power of sin,
the heart of man is said to be desperately wicked. Jer. 17:9 and Eph.
2:1,"Dead in trespasses and sins."
(3) The hearts of natural men are dreadfully hard and incorrigible. There is
nothing but the mighty power of God will move them. They will cleave to sin,
and go on in sin, let what will be done with them. Pro. 27:22,"Though you
should bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his
foolishness depart from him." There is nothing that will awe our hearts; and
there is nothing that will draw them to obedience: let there be mercies or
afflictions, threatenings or gracious calls and invitations, frowning, or
patience and long-suffering, or fatherly counsels and exhortations. Isa.
26:10,"Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the
majesty of the Lord."
Secondly. The relative state of those who are in an unconverted condition is
dreadful. This will appear if we consider,
1. Their relative state with respect to GOD; and that because,
(1) They are without God in the world. They have no interest or part in God.
He is not their God. He has declared he will not be their God (Hos. 1:9). God
and believers have a mutual covenant relation and right to each other. They
are his people, and he is their God. But he is not the covenant God of those
who are in an unconverted state. There is a great alienation and estrangement
between God and the wicked. He is not their Father and portion. They have
nothing to challenge of God, they have no right to any one of his attributes.
The believer can challenge a right in the power of God, in his wisdom and
holiness, his grace and love. All are made over to him, to be for his benefit.
But the unconverted can claim no right in any of God's perfections. They have
no God to protect and defend them in this evil world: to defend them from sin,
or from Satan, or any evil. They have no God to guide and direct them in any
doubts or difficulties, to comfort and support their minds under afflictions.
They are without God in all their affairs, in all the business they undertake, in
their family affairs, and in their personal affairs, in their outward concerns,
and in the concerns of their souls.
How can a creature be more miserable than to be separated from the Creator
and to have no God whom he can call his own God? He is wretched indeed,
who goes up and down in the world, without a God to take care of him, to be
his guide and protector, and to bless him in his affairs. The very light of
nature teaches that a man's God is his all. Jdg. 18:24, "You have taken away
my gods, and what have I more?" There is but one God, and in him they have
no right. They are without that God, whose will must determine their whole
well being, both here and forever. That unconverted men are without God
shows that they are liable to all manner of evil. They are liable to the power of
the devil, to the power of all manner of temptation, for they are without God
to protect them. They are liable to be deceived and seduced into erroneous
opinions, and to embrace damnable doctrines. It is not possible to deceive the
saints in this way. But the unconverted may be deceived. They may become
papists, or heathens, or atheists. They have nothing to secure them from it.
They are liable to be given up of God to judicial hardness of heart. They
deserve it. And since God is not their God, they have no certainty that God
will not inflict this awful judgment upon them. As they are without God in the
world, they are liable to commit all manner of sin, and even the unpardonable
sin itself. They cannot be sure they shall not commit that sin. They are liable
to build up a false hope of heaven, and so to go hoping to hell. They are liable
to die senseless and stupid, as many have died. They are liable to die in such a
case as Saul and Judas did, fearless of hell. They have no security from it.
They are liable to all manner of mischief, since they are without God. They
cannot tell what shall befall them, nor when they are secure from anything.
They are not safe one moment. Ten thousand fatal mischiefs may befall them,
that may make them miserable forever.
They, who have God for their God, are safe from all such evils. It is not
possible that they should befall them. God is their covenant God, and they
have his faithful promise to be their refuge. But what mischief is there which
may not befall natural men? Whatever hopes they may have may be
disappointed. Whatever fair prospect there may seem to be of their
conversion and salvation, it may vanish away. They may make great progress
towards the kingdom of God, and yet come short at last. They may seem to be
in a very hopeful way to be converted, and yet never be converted. A natural
man is sure of nothing. He is sure of no good, nor is he sure of escaping any
evil. It is therefore a dreadful condition that a natural man is in. They, who
are in a natural state, are lost. They have wandered from God, and they are
like lost sheep, that have wandered from their shepherd. They are poor
helpless creatures in a howling wilderness, and have no shepherd to protect or
to guide them. They are desolate, and exposed to innumerable fatal mischief's.
(2) They are not only without God, but the wrath of God abides upon them.
John 3:36, "He who believes not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abides on him." There is no peace between God and them, but God is
angry with them every day. He is not only angry with them, but that to a
dreadful degree. There is a fire kindled in God's anger; it burns like fire.
Wrath abides upon them, which if it should be executed, would plunge them
into the lowest hell, and make them miserable there to all eternity. They have
provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. God has been angry with them
every since they began to sin. He has been provoked by them every day, every
since they exercised any reason. And he is provoked by them more and more
every hour. The flame of his wrath is continually burning. There are many
now in hell that never provoked God more than they, nor so much as many of
them. Wherever they go, they go about with the dreadful wrath of God
abiding on them. They eat, and drink, and sleep under wrath. How dreadful a
condition therefore are they in! It is the most awful thing for the creature to
have the wrath of his Creator abiding on him. The wrath of God is a thing
infinitely dreadful. The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion. But what is
the wrath of a king, who is but a worm of the dust, to the wrath of the
infinitely great and dreadful God? How dreadful is it to be under the wrath of
the First Being, the Being of beings, the great Creator and mighty possessor of
heaven and earth! How dreadful is it for a person to go about under the wrath
of God, who gave him being, and in who he lives and moves, who is
everywhere present, and without whom he cannot move a step, nor draw a
breath! Natural men, inasmuch as they are under wrath, are under a curse.
God's wrath and curse are continually upon them. They can have no
reasonable comfort, therefore, in any of their enjoyments; for they do not
know but that they are given them in wrath, and shall be curses to them, and
not blessings. As it is said in Job 18:15,"Brimstone shall be scattered upon his
habitation." How can they take any comfort in their food, or in their
possessions, when they do not know but all are given them to fit them for the
slaughter.
2. Their relative state will appear dreadful, if we consider how they stand
related to the DEVIL.
(1) Those who are in a natural state are the children of the devil. As the saints
are the children of God, so the ungodly are the children of the devil. 1 John
3:10,"In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil."
Mat 13:38, 39,"The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the
kingdom: but the tares are the children of wicked one. The enemy that sowed
them is the devil." John 8:44,"You are of your father, the devil, and the lusts
of your father you will do." They are, as it were, begotten of the devil. They
proceed from him. 1 John 3:8,"He who commits sin, is of the devil." As Adam
begat a son in his own likeness, so are wicked men in the likeness and image of
the devil. They acknowledge this relation, and own themselves children of the
devil, by consenting that he should be their father. They subject themselves to
him, hearken to this counsels, as children hearken to the counsels of a father.
They learn of him to imitate him, and do as he does, as children learn to
imitate their parents. John 8:38,"I speak that which I have seen with my
Father, and you do that which you have seen with your father." How awful a
state is this! How dreadful is it to be a child of the devil, the spirit of darkness,
the prince of hell, that wicked, malignant, and cruel spirit! To have anything
to do with him is very dreadful. It would be accounted a dreadful, frightful
thing only to meet the devil, to have him appear to a person in a visible shape.
How dreadful then must it be to be his child; how dreadful for any person to
have the devil for his father!
(2) They are the devil's captives and servants. Man before his fall was in a
state of liberty; but now he has fallen into Satan's hands. The devil has got the
victory and carried him captive. Natural men are in Satan's possession and
they are under his dominion. They are brought by him into subjection to his
will, to go at his bidding, and do what he commands. 2 Tim. 2:26,"Taken
captive by him at his will." The devil rules over ungodly men. They are all his
slaves, and do his drudging. This argues their state to be dreadful. Men
account it an unhappy state of life to be slaves; and especially to be slaves to a
bad master, to one who is very hard, unreasonable, and cruel. How miserable
do we look upon those people, who are taken captive by the Turks, or other
such barbarous nations, and put by them to the lowest and most cruel slavery,
and treated no better than they treat their cattle! But what is this to being
taken captive by the devil, the prince of hell, and made a slave to him? Had
not a man better be a slave to anyone on earth than to the devil? The devil is,
of all masters, the most cruel, and treats his servants the worst. He puts them
to the vilest service, to that which is the most dishonorable of any in the world.
No work is so dishonorable as the practice of sin. The devil puts his servants
to such work as debases them below the dignity of human nature. They must
make themselves like beasts to do that work to serve their filthy lusts. And
besides the lowliness of the work, it is a very hard service. The devil causes
them to serve him at the expense of the peace of their own conscience, and
oftentimes at the expense of their reputation, at the expense of their estates,
and shortening of their days. The devil is a cruel master; for the service upon
which he puts his slaves is to undo themselves. He keeps them hard at work
day and night, to work their own ruin. He never intends to give them any
reward for their pains, but their pains are to work out their own everlasting
destruction. It is to gather fuel and kindle the fire for themselves to be
tormented in to all eternity.
(3) The soul of a natural man is the habitation of the devil. The devil is not
only their father and rules over them, but he dwells in them. It is a dreadful
thing for a man to have the devil near him, often coming to him. But it is a
more dreadful thing to have him dwell with a man, to take up his constant
abode with him; and more dreadful yet to have him dwell in him, to take up
his abode in his heart. But thus it is with every natural man. He takes up his
abode in his heart. As the soul of a godly man is the habitation of the Spirit of
God, so is the soul of a wicked man the habitation of unclean spirits. As the
soul of a godly man is the temple of God, so the soul of a wicked man is the
synagogue of Satan. A wicked man's soul is in Scripture called Satan's house,
and Satan's palace. Mat. 12:29,"How can one enter into a strong man' s
house?" meaning the devil. And Luke 11:21,"When a strong man armed
keeps his palace, his goods are in peace." Satan not only lives, but reigns, in
the heart of a wicked man. He has not only taken up his abode there, but he
has set up his throne there. The heart of a wicked man, is the place of the
devil's rendezvous. The doors of a wicked man's heart are open to devils. They
have free access there, though they are shut against God and Jesus Christ.
There are many devils, no doubt, that have to do with one wicked man, and
his heart is the place where they meet. The soul of a wicked man is, as it was
said of Babylon, the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and
a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Thus dreadful is the condition of a
natural man by reason of the relation in which he stands to the devil.
II. The state of unconverted men is very dreadful, if we consider its relation to
the FUTURE world.
Our state here is not lasting, but transitory. We are pilgrims and strangers
here, and are principally designed for a future world. We continue in this
present state but a short time; but we are to be in that future state to all
eternity. And therefore men are to be denominated either happy or miserable,
chiefly with regard to that future state. It matters but little comparatively
what our state is here, but it will continue but a short time; it is nothing to
eternity. But that man is a happy man who is entitled to happiness, and he is
miserable who is in danger of misery, in his eternal state. Prosperity or
adversity in the present state alters them but very little because this state is of
so short continuance.
First, those who are in a natural condition, have no title to any inheritance in
another world. There are glorious things in another world. There are
unsearchable riches, an unspeakable and inconceivable abundance; but they
have nothing to do with it. Heaven is a world of glory and blessedness. But
they have no right to the least portion of those blessings. If they should die and
go out of the world as they are, they would go destitute, having no inheritance,
no friend, no enjoyments to go to. They will have no God to whom they may
go, no Redeemer to receive their departing souls, no angel to be a ministering
spirit to them, to take care of them, to guard or defend them, no interest in
that Redeemer, who has purchased those blessings. What is said of the
Ephesians is true of those who are in a natural condition." At that time you
were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in
the world." What a dreadful case they are in, who live in the world having no
hope, without any title to any benefits hereafter, and without any ground to
hope for any good in their future and eternal state!
Second, natural men are in a dreadful condition because of the misery to
which they are exposed in the FUTURE world. This will be obvious, if we
consider,
1. How great the misery is of which they are in danger.
2. How great is their danger of this misery.
1. How great the misery is of which they are in danger. It is great in two
respects:
(1) The torment and misery are great in themselves.
(2) They are of endless duration.
(1) The torment and misery, of which natural men are in danger, are
exceedingly great in themselves. They are great beyond any of our words or
thoughts. When we speak of them, our words are swallowed up. We say they
are great, and exceedingly great, and very dreadful. But when we have used
all the words we can to express them, how faint is the idea that is raised in our
minds in comparison with the reality! This misery will appear very dreadful if
we consider what calamities meet together in it. In it the wicked are deprived
of all good, separated from God and all fruits of his mercy. In this world they
enjoy many of the streams of God's goodness. But in the future world they will
have no more smiles of God, no more manifestations of his mercy by benefits,
by warnings, by calls and invitations. He will never more manifest his mercy
by the exercise of patience and long-suffering, by waiting to be gracious. No
more use any forbearance with them for their good. No more exercise his
mercy by strivings of his Spirit, by sending messengers and using means.
They will have no more testimonies of the fruits of God's goodness in enjoying
food and clothing, and comfortable dwellings and convenient
accommodations, nor any of the comforts of this life. No more manifestations
of his mercy by suffering them to draw near to him with their prayers, to pray
for what they need. God will exercise no pity towards them, no regard for
their welfare. Cut off from all the comforts of this life, shut out of heaven, they
will see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But they shall
be turned away from God and from all good, into the blackness of darkness,
into the pit of hell, into that great receptacle, which God has provided on
purpose to cast into it the filthy, and polluted, and abominable of the universe.
They will be in a most dreadful condition. They will have no friends. God will
be their enemy, angels and the spirits of the just will be their enemies, devils
and damned spirits will be their enemies. They will be hated with perfect
hatred, will have none to pity them, none to bemoan their case, or to be any
comfort to them. It appears that the state of the damned will be exceedingly
dreadful in that they will suffer the wrath of God, executed to the full upon
them, poured out without mixture. They shall bear the wrath of the Almighty.
They shall know how dreadful the wrath of an Almighty God is.
Now none knows, none can conceive. Psalm. 90:11,"Who knows the power of
your anger?" Then they shall feel the weight of God's wrath. In this world
they have the wrath of God abiding on them, but then it will be executed upon
them. Now they are the objects of it, but then they will be the subjects of it.
Now it hangs over them, but then it shall fall upon them in its full weight
without alleviation, or any moderation or restraint. Their souls and their
bodies shall then be filled full with the wrath of God. Wicked men shall be as
full of wrath as anything that glows in the midst of a furnace is of fire. The
wrath of God is infinitely more dreadful than fire. Fire, yes the fiercest fire, is
but an image and shadow of it. The vessels of wrath shall be filled up with
wrath to the brim. Yes, they shall be plunged into a sea of wrath. And
therefore hell is compared to a lake of fire and brimstone, because there
wicked men are overwhelmed and swelled up in wrath, as men who are cast
into a lake or sea, are swallowed up in water. O who can conceive of the
dreadfulness of the wrath of an Almighty God!
Everything in God is answerable to his infinite greatness. When God shows
mercy, he shows mercy like a God. His love is infinitely desirable because it is
the love of God. And so when he executes wrath it is like a God. This God will
pour out without mixture. Rev. 14:10,"The same shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his
indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." No mixture of
mercy or pity; nothing thrown into the cup of wrath to assuage or moderate it.
"God shall cast upon him and not spare." (Job 27:22) They shall be cast into
the wine-press of the wrath of God, where they shall be pressed down with
wrath, as grapes are pressed in a wine-press. Rev. 14:19,"Cast into the great
wine-press of the wrath of God." God will then make appear in their misery
how terrible his wrath is, that men and angels may know how much more
dreadful the wrath of God is, than the wrath of kings, or any creatures. They
shall know what God can do towards his enemies, and how fearful a thing it is
to provoke him to anger.
If a few drops of wrath do sometimes so distress the minds of men in this
world, so as to be more dreadful than fire, or any bodily torment, how
dreadful will be a deluge of wrath. How dreadful will it be, when all God's
mighty waves and billows of wrath pass over them! Every faculty of the soul
shall be filled with wrath, and every part of the body shall be filled with fire.
After the resurrection the body shall be cast into that great furnace, which
shall be so great as to burn up the whole world. These lower heavens, this air
and this earth, shall all become one great furnace, a furnace that shall burn
the earth, even to its very center. In this furnace shall the bodies of the wicked
lie to all eternity, and yet live, and have their sense of pain and torment not all
diminished. O, how full will the heart, the vitals, the brain, the eyes, the
tongue, the hands, and the feet be of fire; of this fire of such an inconceivable
fierceness! How full will every member, and every bone, and every vein, and
every sinew, be of this fire! Surely it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God. Who can bear such wrath? A little of it is enough to destroy us.
Psalm. 2:12, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way,
when his wrath is kindled but a little." But how will men be overwhelmed,
how will they sink, when God's wrath is executed in so dreadful a degree! The
misery which the damned will endure, will be their perfect destruction. Psalm.
50:22, "Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and
there be none to deliver."
In several places the wicked are compared to the stubble, and to briers and
thorns before devouring flames, and to the fat of lambs, which consumes into
smoke. Psalm. 37:20, "But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the
Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they
consume away." They shall be as it were ground to powder under the weight
of God's wrath. Mat. 21:24. Their misery shall be perfect misery; and because
damnation is the perfect destruction of a creature, therefore it is called death.
It is eternal death, of which temporal death, with all its awful circumstances,
is but a faint shadow of the state of the soul under the second death. How
dreadful the state of the damned is, we may argue from the desert of sin. One
sin deserves eternal death and damnation, which, in the least degree of it, is
the total destruction of the creature. How dreadful, then, is the misery of
which natural people are in danger, who have lived some time in the world,
and have committed thousands and thousands of sins, and have filled up many
years with a course of sinning, and have committed many great sins, with high
aggravations, who have sinned against the glorious gospel of Christ, and
against great light, whose guilt if far more dreadful than that of the people of
Sodom and Gomorrah! How dreadful is the punishment to which they are
exposed, in which all their sins shall be punished according to their desert,
and the uttermost farthing shall be exacted of them! The punishment of one
idle word, or sinful thought, would be more than they could bear. How then
will they bear all the wrath that shall be heaped upon them for all their
multiplied and aggravated transgressions? If one sin deserves eternal death
and damnation, how many deaths and damnations will they have accumulated
upon them at once! Such an aggravated, multiplied death must they die every
moment, and always continue dying such a death, and yet never be dead. Such
misery as this may well be called the blackness of darkness. Hell may well be
called the bottomless pit, if the misery is so unfathomably great.
Men sometimes have suffered extreme torment in this world. dreadful have
been the sufferings of some of the martyrs. But how little those are, in
comparison of the sufferings of the damned, we may learn from 1 Pet. 4:16,
17, 18,"Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let
him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come, that judgment must
begin at the house of God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of
those that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved,
where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" The apostle is here speaking of
the sufferings of Christians. And from thence he argues, that seeing their
sufferings are so great, how unspeakably great will be the sufferings of the
wicked! And if judgment begins with them, what shall be the end of those who
obey not the gospel! As much as to say, the sufferings of the righteous are
nothing to what those, who obey not the gospel, are. How dreadful, therefore,
does this argue their misery to be! Well may the sinners in Zion be afraid, and
fearful, and surprised. Well may the kings of the earth, and the great men,
and rich men, and chief captains, and every bond man, and every free man,
hide themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, at Christ's
second coming; and cry and say to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and
hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the
Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"
Well may there be weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell, where there is such
misery. Thus the misery of those who are in a natural condition, is, in itself,
exceedingly great.
(2) It is of endless duration. The misery is not only amazingly great, and
extreme, but of long continuance; yes, of infinitely long continuance. It never
will have any end. There will be no deliverance, no rest, no hope. But they will
last throughout all eternity. Eternity is a thing in the thought of which our
minds are swallowed up. As it is infinite in itself, so it is infinitely beyond the
comprehension of our minds. The more we think of it, the more amazing will
it seem to us. Eternity is a duration, to which a long period of time bears no
greater proportion than a short period. A thousand years, or a thousand ages,
bear no greater proportion to eternity than a minute; or which is the same
thing, a thousand ages are as much less than eternity as a minute. A minute
comes as near an equality to it; or you may take as many thousand ages out of
eternity, as you can minutes. If a man by the utmost skill in arithmetic, should
denote or enumerate a great number of ages, and should rise by multiplication
to ever so prodigious numbers, should make as great figures as he could, and
rise in multiplying as fast as he could, and should spend his life in multiplying;
the product of all would be no nearer equal to the duration which the wicked
must spend in the misery of hell, than one minute. Eternity is that, which
cannot be made less by subtraction. If we take from eternity a thousand years
or ages, the remainder is not the less for it. Eternity is that which will forever
be but beginning, and that because all the time which is past, let it be ever so
long, is but a point to what remains. The wicked, after they have suffered
millions of ages, will be, as it were, but in the first point, only setting out in
their sufferings. It will be no comfort to them that so much is gone, for they
will have none the less to bear. There will never a time come, when, if what is
past is compared to what is to come, it will not be as a point, and as nothing.
The continuance of their torment cannot be measured out by revolutions of
the sun, or moon, or stars, by centuries or ages. They shall continue suffering
after these heavens and this earth shall wax old as a garment, until the whole
visible universe is dissolved. Yes, they shall remain in their misery through
millions of such ages as are equal to the age of the sun, and moon, and stars,
and still it will be all one, as to what remains, still no nearer the end of their
misery. Mat. 25:41,"Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels." Mark 9:44,"Where their worm dies
not, and the fire is not quenched." Rev. 20:10, "They shall be tormented day
and night forever and ever." And 14:11,"The smoke of their torment ascends
up forever and ever." The damned in hell in their misery will be in absolute
despair. They shall know that their misery will have no end, and therefore
they will have no hopes of it. O, who can conceive the dreadfulness of such
despair as this in the midst of such torment! Who can express, or think
anything how dreadful the thought of eternity is to them, who are under so
great torment! To what unfathomable depths of woe will it sink them! With
what a gloom and blackness of darkness will it fill them!
What a boundless gulf of sorrow and woe is the thought of eternity to the
damned, who shall be in absolute and utter despair of any deliverance! How
dreadful, then, is the condition of those who are in a natural state, who are in
danger of such misery.
2. The dreadfulness of their condition will appear by considering how great
their danger is of this misery. This will be obvious from the following things:
(1) Their danger is such, that continuing in their present state, they will
unavoidably sink into this misery.
First, the state in which natural people now are, naturally tends to it. And
this, because they are separate from God, and destitute of any spiritual good.
The soul that is in a state of separation from its Creator, must be miserable
because he is separate from the fountain of all good. He who is separate from
God, is in great danger of ruin because he is without any defense. He who is
separate from God, must perish, if he continue so, because it is from God only
that he can have those supplies which can make him happy. It is with the soul
as it is with the body. The body without supplies of sustenance will miserably
famish and die. So the souls of natural men are in a famishing condition. They
are separate from God, and therefore are destitute of any spiritual good,
which can nourish the soul, or keep it alive; like one that is remote in a
wilderness, where he has nothing to eat or drink, and therefore, if he continue
so, will unavoidably die. So the state of natural men naturally tends to that
dreadful misery of the damned in hell, because they are separate from God.
Second, they are under the power of a mortal disease, which if it not healed,
will surely bring them to this death. They are under the power and dominion
of sin, and sin is a mortal disease of the soul. If it is not cured, it will certainly
bring them to death; namely, to that second death of which we have heard.
The infection of the disease has powerfully seized their vital parts. The whole
head is sick, the whole heart faint. The disease is ingrained. The infection is
spread throughout the whole frame. The very nature is corrupted and ruined;
and the whole must come to ruin, if God by his mighty power does not heal
the disease. The soul is under a mortal wound; a wound deep and dreadfully
confirmed. Its roots reach the most vital parts; yes, they are principally seated
there. There is a plague upon the heart, which corrupts and destroys the
source of life, ruins the whole frame of nature, and hastens an inevitable
death. There is a most deadly poison, which has been infused into, and spread
over, the man. He has been bitten by a fiery serpent, whose bite issues in a
most tormenting death. Sin is that, which does as naturally tend to the misery
and ruin of the soul, as the most mortal poison tends to the death of the body.
We look upon people far gone in a consumption, or with an incurable cancer,
or some malady, as in doleful circumstances. But that mortal disease, under
whose power natural men are, makes their case a thousand times more
doleful. That mortal disease of natural men does, as it were, ripen them for
damnation. We read of the clusters of the vine of the earth being for the winepress
of the wrath of God, Rev. 14:18, where by the clusters of the vine are
meant wicked men. The wickedness of natural men tends to sink them down
to hell, as the weight of a stone causes it to tend toward the center of the earth.
Natural men have, as it were, the seeds of hell within their own hearts. Those
principles of sin and corruption, which are in them, if they remain
unmortified, will at length breed the torment of hell in them, and that
necessarily, and of their own tendency. The soul that remains under the power
of sin will at length take fire of itself. Hell will kindle in them.
(2) If they continue in their present state, this misery appears to be
unavoidable, if we consider the JUSTICE and TRUTH of God.
First, if they continue in their present condition, so surely as God is just, they
shall suffer the eternal misery of which we have heard. The honor of God's
justice requires it, and God will not disparage his own justice. He will not
deny his own honor and glory, but will glorify himself on the wicked as well as
the godly. He will not lose his honor of any one of his creatures which he has
made.
It is impossible that God should be frustrated or disappointed. And so surely
as God will not be frustrated, so surely shall they who continue in a natural
condition, suffer that eternal misery, of which we have heard. The avenging
justice of God is one of the perfections of his nature. And he will glorify all his
perfections. God is unalterable in this as well as his other perfections. His
justice shall and must be satisfied. He has declared that he will by no means
clear the guilty, Exo. 34:7. And that he will not justify the wicked, Exo. 23:7.
And that he will not at all acquit the wicked, Nah. 1:3. God is a strictly just
Judge. When men come to stand before him, he will surely judge them
according to their works. Those who have guilt lying upon them, he will surely
judge according to their guilt. The debt they owe to justice must be paid to the
uttermost farthing. It is impossible that anyone, who dies in his sins, should
escape everlasting condemnation and punishment before such a Judge. He will
render to every man according to his deeds. Rom. 2:8,"Unto them that are
contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation
and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil." It
is impossible to influence God to be otherwise than just in judging ungodly
men. There is no bribing him. He accepts not the person of princes, nor
regards the rich more than the poor. Deu. 10:17, "He regards not people, nor
takes reward." It is impossible to influence him to be otherwise than strictly
just, by any supplications, or tears, or cries. God is inexorably just. The cries
and the moans of the malefactor will have no influence upon this Judge to
pass a more favorable judgment on them, so as in any way to acquit or release
them. The eternal cries, and groans, and lamentations of the wicked will have
no influence upon him. Though they are ever so long continued, they will not
prevail upon God.
Second, so surely as God is true, if they die in the state they are now in, they
shall suffer that eternal misery. God has threatened it in a positive and
absolute manner. The threatenings of the law are absolute. And they, who are
in a natural state, are under the condemnation of the law. The threatening of
the law takes hold upon them. And if they continue under guilt, God is obliged
by his word to punish them according to that threatening. And he has often, in
the most positive and absolute manner, declared that the wicked shall be cast
into hell; that they who believe not shall be damned; that they shall have their
portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; and that their misery
shall never have an end. And therefore, if there be any truth in God, it shall
surely be so. It is as impossible that he who dies in a natural condition, should
escape suffering that eternal misery, as that God should lie. The Word of God
is stronger and firmer than mountains of brass, and shall not fail. We shall
sooner see heaven and earth pass away, than one jot or tittle of all that God
has said in his Word not be fulfilled. So much for the first thing, that evinces
the greatness of the danger that natural men are in of hell; namely, that they
will unavoidably sink into hell, if they continue in such a condition.
(3) Their danger will appear very dreadful, if we consider how uncertain it is,
whether they will ever get out of this condition. It is very uncertain whether
they will ever be converted. If they should die in their present condition, their
misery is certain and inevitable. But it is very doubtful whether they will not
die in such a condition, their misery is certain and inevitable. But it is very
doubtful whether they will not die in such a condition. There is great danger
that they will; great danger of their never being converted. And this will
appear, if we consider two things.
First, they have nothing on which to depend for conversion. They have
nothing in the world, by which to persuade themselves that they shall ever be
converted. Left to themselves, they never will repent and turn to God. If they
are ever converted, therefore, it is God who must do it. But they have no
promise of God, that they ever shall be converted. They do not know how soon
they may die. God has not promised them long life; and he has not promised
them that they shall be ready for death before they die. It is but a
peradventure, whether God will ever give them repentance to the
acknowledging of the truth. 2 Tim. 2:25. Their resolutions are not to be
depended on. If they have convictions, they are not to be depended on; they
may lose those convictions. Their conversion depends on innumerable
uncertainties. It is very uncertain, then, whether they will be converted before
they die.
Second, another thing which shows the danger there is that they shall never be
converted, is, that there are but few, comparatively, who are ever converted.
But few of those, who have been natural people in time past, have been
converted. Most of them have died unconverted. So it has been in all ages, and
hence we have reason to think that but few of them, who are unconverted
now, will ever be converted; that most of them will die unconverted, and will
go to hell. Natural people are ready to flatter themselves, that they shall be
converted. They think there are signs of it. But a man would not run the
venture of so much as a sixpence in such an uncertainty as they are, about
their ever being converted, or not going to hell. This shows the doleful
condition of natural men, as it is uncertain whether they shall ever be
converted.
Third, those who are in a natural condition are in danger of going to hell
every day. Those now present, who are in a natural condition, are in danger of
dropping into hell before tomorrow morning. They have nothing to depend
on, to keep them out of hell one day, or one night. We know not what a day
may bring forth. God has not promised to spare them one day; and he is every
day angry with them. The black clouds, that are full of the thunder of God's
wrath, hang over their heads every day, and they know not how soon the
thunder will break forth upon their heads. Natural men are in Scripture
compared to those that walk in slippery places. They know not when their feet
will slip. They are continually in danger. Psalm. 73:18,"Surely you did set
them in slippery places; you cast them down into destruction. How are they
brought into desolation as in a moment." Natural men hang over the pit of
hell, as it were, by a thread, that has a moth continually gnawing it. They
know not when it will snap in twain, and let them drop. They are in the
utmost uncertainty. They are not secure one moment. A natural man never
goes to sleep, but that he is in danger of waking in hell. Experience
abundantly teaches the matter to be so. It shows, by millions of instances, that
man is not certain of life one day. And how common a thing is it for death to
come suddenly and unexpectedly! And thousands, beyond all reasonable
question, are going to hell every day, and death comes upon them
unexpectedly. "When they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden
destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they
shall not escape." It is a dreadful condition that natural people are in upon
this account. And no wise person would be in their condition for a quarter of
an hour for the whole world, because such is the danger that they will drop
into hell before that quarter of an hour is expired.
Thus I have shown how dreadful the condition of natural men is, relatively
considered. I shall mention two or three things more, which yet further make
it appear how doleful their condition is.
1. The longer it continues, the worse it grows. This is a dreadful circumstance
in the condition of a natural man. Any disease is looked upon as the more
dreadful, for its growing and increasing nature. Thus a cancer and gangrene
are regarded as dreadful calamities, because they continually grow and
spread. And the faster they grow, the more dreadful are they accounted. It
would be dreadful to be in a natural condition, if a person could continue as
he is, and his condition grow no worse; if he could live in a natural condition,
and never have it any more dreadful, than when he first begins to sin. But it is
yet much more dreadful, when we consider that it every day becomes worse
and worse. The condition of natural men is worse today than it was yesterday,
and that on several accounts. The heart grows more and more polluted and
hardened. The longer sin continues unmortified, the more is it strengthened
and rooted. Their guilt also grows greater, and hell every day grows hotter;
for they are every day adding sin to sin, and so their iniquity is increasing
over their heads more and more. Every new sin adds to the guilt. Every sin
deserves eternal death for its punishment. And therefore in every sin that a
man commits, there is so much added to the punishment, to which he lies
exposed. There is, as it were, another eternal death added to augment his
damnation.
And how much is added to the account in God's book every day. How many
new sins are set down, that all may be answered for; each one of which sins
must be punished, that by itself would be an eternal death! How fast do
wicked men heap up guilt, and treasure up wrath, so long as they continue in
a natural condition! How is God more and more provoked, his wrath more
and more incensed; and how does hell-fire continually grow hotter and hotter!
If a man has lived twenty years in a natural condition, the fire has been
increased every day since he has lived. It has been, as it were, blown up to a
greater and greater degree of fierceness. Yes, how dreadfully does one day's
continuance in sin add to the heat of hell-fire!
2. All blessings are turned into curses to those who live and die in such a
condition. Those things which are most pleasant and comfortable, and which
men esteem the blessings of life, are but curses unto such; as their food, and
their drink, and their clothing. There is a curse goes with every mouthful of
food, and every drop of drink, to such a person. There is a curse with his
clothing which he puts on. It all contributes to his misery. Though it may
please him, yet it does him no good, but he is the more miserable for it. If he
has any enjoyment which is sweet and pleasant to him, the pleasure is a curse
to him. He is really the more miserable for it. It is an occasion of death to him.
His possessions, which he values himself upon, and sets his heart upon, are
turned into a curse to him. His house has the curse of God upon it, and his
table is a snare and a trap to him. Psalm. 69:22. His bed has God's curse upon
it. When he lies down to sleep, a curse attends his rest; and when he goes forth
to labor, he is followed with a curse on that. The curse of God is upon his
fields, on his corn, and herds, and all he has. If he has friends and relations,
who are pleasant and dear to him, they are no blessings to him. He receives no
comfort by them, but they prove a curse to him. I say it is thus with those who
live and die in a natural condition. Deu. 28:16, etc., "Cursed shall you be in
the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket, and
your store. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your land,
and the increase of your kine, and the flocks of your sheep.
Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go
out. The Lord shall send upon you cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that
you set thing hand unto for to do, until you be destroyed, and until you perish
quickly; because of the wickedness of your doings, whereby you have forsaken
me." Man's faculties of reason and understanding, and all his natural powers,
are turned into a curse. Yes, spiritual mercies and privileges shall also be
turned into a curse to those who live and die in a natural condition. A curse
goes with the worship of God, and with sabbaths and sacraments, with
instruction, and counsels, and warnings, and with the most precious
advantages. They are all turned into a curse. They are a savor of death unto
death. They do but harden the heart, and aggravate the guilt and misery, and
inflame the divine wrath. Isaiah 6:9, 10. "Go, make the heart of this people
fat." 2 Cor. 2:16,"To the one we are the savor of death unto death." It will
only be an occasion of their misery, that God ever sent Christ into the world
to save sinners. That which is in itself so glorious a manifestation of God's
mercy, so unspeakable a gift, that which is an infinite blessing to others who
receive Christ, will be a curse unto them. 1 Pet. 2:8,"A stone of stumbling, and
a rock of offense." The blood of Christ, which is the price of eternal life and
glory to some, is an occasion of sinking them vastly the lower into eternal
burnings. And that is the case of such people. The more precious any mercies
are in themselves, the more of a curse are they to them. The better the things
are in themselves, the more will they contribute to their misery. And spiritual
privileges, which are in themselves greater mercies than any outward
enjoyments, will above all other things prove a curse to them. Nothing will
enhance their condemnation so much as these.
On account of these, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the
day of judgment, than for them. Yes, so doleful is the condition of natural
men, that if they live and die in that condition, not only the enjoyments of life,
but life itself, will be a curse to them. The longer they live, the more miserable
will they be; the sooner they die, the better. If they live long in such a
condition, and die in it at last, it would have been better for them if they had
died before. It would have been far better for them to have spent the time in
hell, than on earth. Yes, better for them to have spent ten thousand years in
hell, instead of one on earth. When they look back, and consider what
enjoyments they have had, they will wish they had never had them. Though
when on earth they set their hearts on their earthly enjoyments, they will
hereafter wish they had been without them; for they will see they have only
fitted them for the slaughter. They will wish they never had had their houses
and lands, their garments, their earthly friends, and their earthly possessions.
And so they will wish that they had never enjoyed the light of the gospel, that
they had been born among the heathen in some of the most dark and
barbarous places of the earth. They will wish that Christ had never come into
the world to die for sinners, so as to give men any opportunity to be saved.
They will wish that God had cast off fallen man, as he did the fallen angels,
and had never made him the offer of a Savior. They will wish that they had
died sooner, and had not had so much opportunity to increase their guilt and
their misery. They will wish they had died in their childhood, and been sent to
hell then. They will curse the day that ever they were born, and wish they had
been made vipers and scorpions, or anything, rather than rational creatures.
3. They have no security from the most dismal horrors of mind in this life.
They have no security, but their stupidity. A natural man can have no comfort
or peace in a natural condition, but that of which blindness and senselessness
are the foundation. And from what has been said, that is the very evil. A
natural man can have no comfort in anything in this world any further, than
thought and consideration of mind are kept down in him. As you make a
condemned malefactor senseless of his misery by putting him to sleep with
opium, or make him merry just before his execution by giving him something
to deprive him of the use of reason, so that he shall not be sensible of his own
circumstances. Otherwise, there is no peace or comfort, which a natural man
can have in a natural condition. Isa. 57:21, "There is no peace, says my God,
to the wicked." Job 15:20, "The wicked man travails with pain all his days. A
dreadful sound is in his ears." The doleful state of a natural man appears
especially from the horror and amazement to which he is liable on a deathbed.
To have the heavy hand of God upon one in some dangerous sickness,
which is wasting and consuming the body, and likely to destroy it, and to have
a prospect of approaching death, and of soon going into eternity, there to be in
such a condition as this: to what amazing apprehensions must the sinner be
liable! How dismal must his state be, when the disease prevails, so that there is
no hope that he shall recover, when the physician begins to give him over, and
friends to despair of his life; when death seems to hasten on, and he is at the
same time perfectly blind to any spiritual object, altogether ignorant of God,
of Christ, and of the way of salvation, having never exercised one act of love to
God in his life, or done one thing for his glory; having then every lust and
corruption in its full strength; having then such enmity in the heart against
God, as to be ready to dethrone him, if that were possible; having no right in
God, or interest in Christ; having the terrible wrath of God abiding on him;
being yet the child of the devil, entirely in his possession and under his power;
with no hope to maintain him, and with the full view of never-ending misery
just at the door.
What a dismal case must a natural man be in under such circumstances! How
will his heart die within him at the news of his approaching death, when he
finds that he must go, that he cannot deliver himself, that death stands with
his grim countenance looking him in the face, and is just about to seize him,
and carry him out of the world. And that he at the same time has nothing to
depend on! How often are there instances of dismal distress of unconverted
people on a deathbed! No one knows the fears, the exercise and torment in
their hearts, but they who feel them. They are such that all the pleasures of
sin, which they have had in their whole lives, will not pay them for. As you
may sometimes see godly men go triumphing out of the world full of joy, with
the foretastes of heaven, so sometimes wicked men, when dying, anticipate
something of hell before they arrive there. The flames of hell do, as it were,
come up and reach them, in some measure, before they are dead. God then
withdraws, and ceases to protect them. The tormentor begins his work while
they are alive. Thus it was with Saul and Judas; and there have been many
other similar instances since; and none, who are in a natural condition, have
any security from it. The state of a natural man is doleful on this account,
though this is but a prelude and foretaste of the everlasting misery which
follows.
Thus I have, in some measure, shown in what a doleful condition those are
who are in a natural condition. Still I have said but little. It is beyond what we
can speak or think.
They who say most of the dreadfulness of a natural condition, say but little.
And they who are most sensible, are sensible of but a small part of the misery
of a natural state.

THE SNARE OF SERVICE

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THE SNARE OF SERVICE
Arthur W. Pink

The main business and the principal concern of the Christian should be that of thanking, praising and adoring that blessed One who has saved him with an everlasting salvation, and who, to secure that salvation, left Heaven s glory and came down to this sin-cursed earth, here to suffer and die the awful death of the cross, that His people might be delivered from this present evil world (Gal.1:4). Praise is comely
for the upright (Psa.33:1). But to see the upright praising God is something which Satan cannot endure, and he will employ every art and device to turn aside the happy Christian from such blissful occupation. Our great enemy is very, very subtil in the methods and means he uses. He cares not what the object may be as long as it serves to engross the believer and hinder his giving to Christ that consideration (Heb.3:l) and adoration (Rev. 5:12) which are His due. Satan s aim is gained if he can occupy the believer with perishing sinners rather than the Lord of glory. The tactics which the devil uses with the saints are the same he uses so successfully with the unsaved. What is the chief thing he employs to shut out Christ from the vision of the lost (2 Cor.4:4)? Is it not getting them occupied with their own deeds and doings? Assuredly it is. In like manner he deals with God s people: he seeks to get them engaged in service as a substitute for communing with Christ. It is the dragon posing as an angel of light, stirring up the feverish nature and restless energy of the flesh, to find some outlet that appears to be pleasing to God.
Above we have said that the great aim and chief exercise of the Christian should be that of worshiping and adoring his blessed and wondrous Savior, which is, really, heaven begun on earth. Yet, let it be pointed out, this ought not to terminate at the lips, our very lives ought to show forth His praise (1 Pet. 2:9), our daily walk ought to be pleasing and honoring unto Him (1 Cor. 10:31), our every act needs to be brought into conformity to His holy will (Prov.3:6). To these statements many, perhaps all, Christians will assent. But do they perceive what is necessarily involved? We fear not. It involves a life s task. And what is that? This: a constant searching of the Scriptures with a prayerful and earnest desire to find out what is pleasing to Him, a holy determination to discover the details of His revealed mind. This is the service to which God has called each of His people: to serve Him, to take His yoke upon them, to submit to His rule over them, to be in all things in subjection to His holy will. But, we say again, the learning of what His will really is, in all its fullness, is a life s task which requires and calls for the utmost attention in the cultivation of our own soul s garden. Exercise thyself unto godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). Take heed unto thyself (1 Tim. 4:16). Keep thyself pure (1 Tim.5:22). Study to show thyself approved unto God (2 Tim. 2:15). These are some of the exhortations of Holy Writ which much need to be taken to heart by God s dear people in these hustling, bustling days. But, alas, they are unheeded by many. And what is one of the chief causes of hindrance? What is it that in these times so often prevents the child of God from taking heed unto himself? This: he is far to much engrossed in attempting to take heed for others. The woman who has spent much of the day in attending to domestic duties, the man who has been toiling for his daily bread, instead of spending the evening quietly in spiritual devotions, prayerfully studying God s Word, giving attendance to reading (1 Tim. 4:13), and thus feeding his soul, removing the world s stains acquired through the day, and conversing with his family upon the things of God, has a round of religious meetings which he must attend, numerous church duties which he must perform. So it is with many on the holy Sabbath. Instead of that being, as God has designed, chiefly a day of rest, only too often it becomes the busiest of the whole week. No wonder that so many are little better than nervous wrecks! And all because of departing from God s arrangements. It is greatly to be feared that when the saints shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in the body (2 Cor. 5:10) that many of the redeemed will have to make the
sad lament, they made me keeper of the vineyards; mine own vineyard have I not kept (Song of Sol. 1:6). Note carefully the first word, it is not, He made me keeper of the vineyards. No, His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:30); but they. Ah, it is the Egyptian taskmasters who spur on the people of God to engage in works in which the Lord has never called them to do. Martha is not alone in being cumbered (weighted down) with much serving (Luke 10:40).
The witness of our lives is far more weighty than that of our lips. If we spent more time in secret communion with Christ, people would take knowledge of us that we had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). If we were more diligent and painstaking to find out and to put into practice the precepts and commands which God has recorded in His Word for the regulation of our lives; if, in consequence, we were really walking with Him, filled with that peace which passeth all understanding, rejoicing in the Lord; then instead of our going to the people and pressing upon all and sundry the precious things of Christ thus disobeying Him who has bidden His disciples, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs (Matthew 7:6) some, at least, would come to us and ask a reason of the hope that is in us (1 Pet. 3:15). But, as we have said above, the restless energy of the flesh longs to find some outlet, and our hearts are only too eagerly inclined to substitute service toward others for personal dealing with God for ourselves. It calls for less exercise of soul to memorize a few texts for the purpose of quoting them to someone else than it does to measure myself by the Scriptures, confess my sad failures and beg God to write His Word upon my heart. Ah, it is a comforting sop for our conscience to persuade ourselves that, though our walk is so far from being what it should be, yet we can do our duty in warning the wicked, or engage in some form of Christian service. Yes, and Satan will whisper in our ears, You have been faithful there, and instead of being humbled and chastened before God for our miserable failures to live to Christ, our evil hearts are puffed up by the devils flatteries that we have, at least, faithfully preached Christ.
Let not the reader conclude from what has been said that the writer is opposed to either public worship or the Christian s being engaged in any good works for the benefit of others. Not so, though we would earnestly warn against any attempt to worship with those who are not walking with God, or engaging in works which are not really glorifying to Him. Our main design has simply been to show the need of putting
first things first. Our first great need is not seeking to minister to others, but ourselves being ministered unto by the Lord. Our highest privilege is not that of being engaged in service for Christ, but of enjoying daily communion with Him. Our first obligation is not that of being concerned over the welfare of our neighbors, but making our own calling and election sure. Our first great task is not to serve our fellowmen, but to serve our God by studying His Word, learning His will, and then doing it. Our first circle of responsibility is not towards strangers and distant acquaintances, but our own home. Our chief ambition should not be the proclamation of Christ with our lips, but the preaching of Him by our lives. If we have not learned to worship God in the secret place, we cannot do so in public assembly. If we are not ourselves really following Christ, walking and communing with Him, it is but mockery to speak of Him to others. If we preach Him in words but deny Him in our works, then we are only a stumbling block to those who hear us. If our service for Christ is robbing us of the time so urgently needed for the cultivation of our personal vineyard, then it is a snare and a curse to us. Then take heed unto thyself, lay aside every weight (Heb. 12:1) which hinders you from running the race which God has set before us. As a well known hymn says, Take time to be holy, or, better still, as a Scripture says, The kingdom of God is... righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men (Rom. 14:17,18).

REAL CHRISTIANITY

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REAL CHRISTIANITY
Arthur W. Pink
Alas, how very little real Christianity there is in the world today! Christianity consists in being conformed unto the image of God's Son "Looking unto Jesus" constantly, trustfully, submissively, lovingly, the heart occupied with the example which Christ has left me, just in proportion as I am living upon Him and drawing from His fullness, am I realizing the ideal He has set before me. In Him is the power, from Him
must he received the strength for running "with patience" or steadfast perseverance, the race. Genuine Christianity is a life lived in communion with Christ: a life lived by faith, as His was. "for me to live is Christ" (Phil 1:21); "Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. 2:20) Christ living in me and through me.

THE WRONG EMPHASIS

2006-01-04T15:16:00.000-08:00

THE WRONG EMPHASIS!
Arthur W. Pink
Once a man makes the conversion of sinners his prime design and all-consuming end and NOT THE GLORY OF GOD, he is exceedingly apt to adopt a wrong course. Instead of striving to preach the Truth in all its purity, he will tone it down so as to make it more palatable to the unregenerate. Impelled by a single force, moving in one fixed direction, his object is to make conversion easy; and therefore, favorite passages (like John 3:16) are dwelt upon incessantly, while others are ignored or pared away. It inevitably reacts upon his own theology; and various verses in the Word are shunned, if not repudiated. What place will he give in his thoughts to such declarations as, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" (Jer. 13:23); "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw Him" (John 6:44); "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:14)? He will be sorely tempted to modify the truth of God's sovereign election, of Christ's particular redemption, of the imperative necessity for the super-natural operations of the Holy Spirit.

The Total Depravity of Man Chapter 14 SUMMARY

2006-01-02T20:29:00.000-08:00

The Entrance of evil into the domain of God is admittedly a deep mystery, nevertheless sufficient is revealed in the Scriptures to prevent our forming erroneous views. For instance, it is contrary to the Word of truth to entertain the notion that either the fall of Satan and his angels or that of our first parents took God by surprise or wrecked His plans. For all eternity God designed that this earth should be the stage on which He would display His perfections: in creation, in providence and in redemption (1Co_4:9). Accordingly, He foreordained everything which comes to pass in this scene (Act_15:18; Rom_11:36; Eph_1:11). God is not idly looking on from a far-distant world at the happenings of this earth, but is Himself ordering and shaping everything to the ultimate promotion of His glory—not only in spite of the opposition of men and Satan, but by means of them, everything being made to serve His purpose. Nor did the introduction of evil into the universe take place simply by the bare permission of the Most High, for nothing can come to pass that is contrary to His decreed will. Rather, for wise and holy reasons, God foreordained to allow His mutable creatures to fall, thereby affording an occasion for Him to make a further and fuller exhibition of His attributes.
God’s Overruling
From God’s standpoint the result of Adam’s probation was left in no uncertainty. Before He formed him out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, He knew exactly how the appointed testing of Him would eventuate. But more: God had decreed that Adam should eat of the forbidden fruit. That is certain from 1Pe_1:19-20, which tells us that the shedding of Christ’s blood was verily "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (cf. Rev_13:8). As Witsius rightly affirmed of Adam’s sin, "If foreknown it was also predestinated: thus Peter joins together ‘the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God’ (Act_2:23)." In full harmony with that fact, note that it was God Himself who placed in Eden the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Moreover, as Twisse, the celebrated moderator of the Westminster Assembly, asked in 1653, "Did not the Devil provoke Eve and Adam to sin against God in paradise? Could not God have kept the Devil off? Why did He not? Doth it not manifestly appear that it was God’s will to have them tempted, to have them provoked unto sin? And why not?" God overruled it for a higher manifestation of His glory. Just as without night we could not admire the beauty of day, so sin was necessary as a dark background on which the divine grace and mercy should shine forth more resplendently (Rom_5:20).
It has been asserted dogmatically by some that God could not have prevented the fall of our first parents without reducing them to mere machines. It is argued that since the Creator endowed man with a free will he must be left entirely to his own volitions, that he cannot be coerced, still less compelled, without destroying his moral agency. That may seem to be good reasoning, yet it is refuted by Holy Writ. God declared to Abimelech concerning Abraham’s wife, "I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her" (Gen_20:6). It is not impossible for God to exert His power over man without destroying his responsibility, for there is a case in point where He restricted man’s freedom to do evil and prevented him from committing sin. In like manner, He prevented Balaam from carrying out the wicked desires of his heart (Num_22:38; Num_23:3, Num_23:20). Also, He prevented kingdoms from making war on Jehoshaphat (2Ch_17:10). Why, then, did not God exert His power and prevent Adam and Eve from sinning? Because their fall served His own wise and blessed designs.
But does that make God the Author of sin? The culpable Author, no; for as Piscator long ago pointed out, "Culpability is failing to do what ought to be done." Clearly it was the divine will that sin should enter this world, or it would not have done so. God had the power to prevent it. Nothing ever comes to pass except what He has decreed. As John Gill said, "Though God’s decree made Adam’s fall infallibly necessary as to the event, yet not by way of efficiency, or by force and compulsion on the will." Nor did God’s decree in any way excuse the wickedness of our first parents or exempt them from punishment. They were left entirely free to the exercise of their nature, and therefore were fully accountable and blameworthy for their actions. While the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the solicitations of the serpent to eat its fruit were the occasion of their sinning, yet they were not the cause. That lay in their voluntarily ceasing to be in subjection to the will of their Maker and rightful Lord. God is the efficient Author of whatever works of holiness men perform, but He is not the Author of their sins.
God’s decree that sin should enter this world was a secret hid in Himself. Our first parents knew nothing of it, and that made all the difference so far as their responsibility was concerned. Had they been informed of the divine purpose and the certainty of its fulfillment by their actions, the case would have been radically altered. They were unacquainted with the Creator’s secret counsels. What concerned them was God’s revealed will, and that was quite plain. He had forbidden them to eat of a certain tree, and that was enough. But He went further, even warning Adam of the dire consequences which should follow his disobedience. Death would be the penalty. Thus, transgression on his part was without excuse. God created Adam morally "upright," without any bias toward evil. Nor did He inject any evil thought or desire into Eve. "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man" (Jam_1:13). Instead, when the serpent came and tempted Eve, God caused her to remember His prohibition. Consider the wonderful wisdom of God, for though He had predestinated the fall of our first parents, yet in no sense was He the Instigator or Approver of their sins, and their accountability was left entirely unimpaired.
These two things we must believe if the truth is not to be repudiated: that God has foreordained everything that comes to pass; that He is in no way blamable for any of man’s wickedness, the criminality thereof being wholly his. The decree of God in no way infringes on man’s moral agency, for it neither forces nor hinders man’s will, though it orders and bounds its actions. Both the existence and operations of sin are subservient to the counsels of God’s will, yet that does not lessen the evil of its nature or the guilt of its committers. Someone has said that though God does not esteem evil to be good, yet He accounts it good that evil should be. Nevertheless sin is that "abominable thing" (Jer_44:4) which the holy One always hates. In connection with the crucifixion of Christ there was the agency of God (Joh_19:11; Act_4:27-28), the agency of Satan (Gen_3:13; Luk_22:53) and the agency of men. Yet God neither concurred nor cooperated with the internal actions of men’s wills, charging them with the wickedness of their deed (Act_2:23). God overrules evil for good (Gen_45:8; Psa_76:10), and therefore He is as truly sovereign over sin and hell as He is over holiness and heaven.
God’s Perfect Plan
God cannot will or do anything that is wrong: "The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works" (Psa_145:17). He therefore stands in no need whatsoever of vindication by any of His puny creatures. Yet even the finite mind, when illumined by the Spirit of truth, can perceive how God’s admittance of evil into this world provided an occasion for Him to display His ineffable perfections in the fullest manner and to the greatest degree. He thus magnified Himself by bringing a clean thing out of an unclean, and by securing to Himself a return of praise from redeemed sinners such as He does not receive from the unfallen angels. Horrible and terrible beyond words was the revolt of man against his Maker, and fearful and total the ruin which it brought upon him and all his posterity. Nevertheless, the wisdom of God contrived a way to save a part of the human race in a manner by which He is more glorified than by all His works of creation and providence; also, the misery of sinners is made the occasion of their greater happiness. This is a never ending wonder.
That way of salvation, determined and defined in the terms of the everlasting covenant of grace, was one by which each of the divine Persons is exceedingly honored. Jonathan Edwards long ago pointed out:
Herein the work of redemption is distinguished from all the other works of God. The attributes of God are glorious in His other works; but the three persons of the Trinity are distinctly glorified in no other work as in this of redemption. In this work every distinct person has His distinct parts and offices assigned personal properties, relations, and economical offices. The redeemed have an equal concern with and dependence upon each person in this affair, and owe equal honour and praise to each of Them. The Father appoints and provides the Redeemer, and accepts the price of redemption. The Son is the Redeemer and the price—He redeems by offering up Himself. The Holy Spirit immediately communicates to us the thing purchased; yea, and He is the good purchased. The sum of what Christ purchased for us is holiness and happiness. Christ was "made a curse for us... that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal_3:13-14). The blessedness of the redeemed consists in partaking of Christ’s fulness, which consists in partaking of that Spirit which is not given by measure unto Him. This is the oil that was poured upon the Head of the Church, which ran down to the members of His body (Psa_133:2).
It is a serious mistake to regard the Lord Jesus as our Saviour to the exclusion of the saving operations of both the Father and the Spirit. Had not the Father eternally purposed the salvation of His people, chosen them in Christ and bestowed them on Him; had He not entered into an everlasting compact with Him, commissioned Him to become incarnate, and redeemed them, His Beloved never would have left heaven in order that He might die, the just for the unjust. Accordingly, we find that He who loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son has ascribed to Him the salvation of the church: "Who hath saved us, and called us... according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2Ti_1:9). Equally necessary are the operations of the Holy Spirit to actually apply to the hearts of God’s elect the good of what Christ did for them. He is the One who convicts of sin and imparts faith to them. Therefore their salvation is also ascribed to Him: "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2Th_2:13). A careful reading of Tit_3:4-6 shows the three Persons acting together in this connection: "God our Saviour" in Tit_3:4 is plainly the Father. "He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Tit_3:5), "which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour" (Tit_3:6). Compare the doxology of 2Co_13:14.
It is very profitable to ponder the many promises which the Father made to and respecting Christ. Upon the Son’s acceptance of the exacting terms of the covenant of grace, the Father agreed to invest Him with a threefold office, thereby authenticating His mission with the broad seal of heaven: the prophetic office (Deu_18:15, Deu_18:18; cf. Act_3:22), the priestly office (Heb_5:5; Heb_6:20) and the kingly office (Jer_23:5; Psa_89:27). Thus Christ did not run without being sent. God the Father promised to furnish and equip the Mediator with a plentiful effusion of the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isa_42:1-2; cf. Mat_12:27; Act_10:38). He promised to strengthen Christ, supporting and protecting Him in His execution of the tremendous work of redemption (Isa_42:1, Isa_42:6; Psa_89:21). This undertaking would be attended with such difficulties that creature power, though unimpaired by sin, would have been quite inadequate for it. Therefore the Father assured Christ of all needed help and power to carry Him through the opposition and trials He would encounter. Note how the incarnate Son rested upon those promises (Psa_16:1; Psa_22:10; Isa_50:6-8; Psa_69:4-7).
The Father promised to raise the Messiah from the dead (Psa_21:8; Psa_102:23-24; Isa_53:10), and it is blessed to observe how Christ laid hold of the promise (Psa_16:8-11). Promise of His ascension was also made to Christ (Psa_24:3, Psa_24:7; Psa_68:18; Psa_89:27; Isa_52:13). That promise too was appropriated by the Saviour while still on earth (Luk_24:26). Having faithfully fulfilled the terms of the covenant, Christ was highly exalted by God, and made to be Lord and Christ (Act_2:36), God seating Him at His own right hand. That is an economical lordship, a dispensation committed to Christ as the God-Man. God has crowned with glory and honor the One whom men crowned with thorns. The "government" is upon His shoulder.
Christ was assured of a "seed" (Isa_53:10). His crucifixion must not be regarded as a dishonor to Him, since it was the very means ordained of God whereby He should propagate numerous spiritual progeny. He referred to this in Joh_12:24. The "seed" promised Christ occupies a prominent place in Psalm 89 (see Psa_89:3-4, Psa_89:29-36; cf. Psa_22:30). Thus, from the outset Christ was assured of the success of His undertaking.
As there were two parts to the covenant, so the elect were given to Christ in a twofold manner. As He was to fulfill its terms, they were entrusted to Him as a charge; but in fulfillment of the covenant, the Father promised to bestow them on Him as a reward. In the former sense, they were regarded as fallen, and Christ was held responsible for their salvation. They were committed to Him as lost and straying sheep (Isa_53:6) whom He must seek out and bring into the fold (Joh_10:16). In the latter sense, they are viewed as the fruit of His travail, the trophies of His victory over sin, Satan and death ; as His crown of rejoicing in the day to come, when He shall be "glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe" (2Th_1:10); as the beloved wife of the Lamb.
Finally, God made promise of the Holy Spirit to Christ. The Spirit was with Christ during the days of His flesh, anointing Him to preach the gospel (Isa_61:1) and work miracles (Mat_12:28). But He received the Spirit in another manner (Psa_45:7; Act_2:33) and for a different purpose after His ascension. He, as the God-Man Mediator, was given the administration of the Spirit’s activities and operations toward the world in providence and toward the church in grace. Joh_7:39 and Joh_16:7 make it clear that the Spirit’s advent was dependent on Christ’s exaltation. That assurance was also appropriated by Christ before He left this scene. On the point of His departure, He said to His disciples, "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you" (Luk_24:49), which was duly accomplished ten days later. In full accord with what has just been pointed out, we hear the Saviour saying from heaven, "These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God" (Rev_3:1). He "hath," to communicate to His redeemed individually and to His churches corporately.
The grand design in the Spirit’s descent to this earth was to glorify Christ (Joh_16:14). He is here to witness to the Saviour’s exaltation, Pentecost being God’s seal upon the Messiahship of Jesus. The Spirit is here to take Christ’s place. That is clear from Christ’s words to the apostles: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever" (Joh_14:16). Until then the Lord Jesus had been their Comforter, but He was on the eve of returning to heaven. Nevertheless, He graciously assured them, "I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you" (Joh_14:18, margin) . This promise was fulfilled spiritually in the advent of His Deputy. The Spirit is here to further Christ’s cause. The word Paraclete (translated "Comforter" in John’s gospel) is rendered "advocate" at the beginning of the second chapter of his first epistle, and an advocate is one who appears as the representative of another. The Spirit is here to interpret and vindicate Christ, to administer for Christ in His kingdom and church. He is here to make good His redeeming purpose, by applying the benefits of His sacrifice to those in whose behalf it was offered. He is here to endue Christ’s servants (Luk_24:49).
It is of first importance to recognize and realize that the Lord Jesus obtained for God’s people not only redemption from the penal consequences of sin, but also their personal sanctification. How little this is emphasized today. In far too many instances those who think and speak of the "salvation" which Christ has purchased attach no further idea to the concept than that of deliverance from condemnation, omitting deliverance from the love, dominion and power of sin. But the latter is no less essential, and is as definite a blessing as the former. It is just as necessary for fallen creatures to be delivered from the pollution and moral impotence which they have contracted as it is to be exempted from the penalties which they have incurred, so that when reinstated in the favor of God they may at the same time be capacitated to love, serve and enjoy Him forever. And in this respect also the divine remedy meets all the requirements of our sinful malady (see 2Co_5:15; Eph_5:25-27; Tit_2:14; Heb_9:14). This is accomplished by the gracious operations of Christ’s Spirit, begun in regeneration, continued throughout their earthly lives, consummated in heaven.
God’s Honor
Not only is the triune God more honored by redemption than He was dishonored by the defection of His creatures, but His people also are greatly the gainers. That too magnifies the divine wisdom. It would have been wonderful indeed had they been merely restored to their original state; but it is far more wonderful that they should be brought to a much higher state of blessedness—that the fall should be the occasion of their exaltation! Their sin deserved eternal wretchedness, yet everlasting bliss is their portion. They are now favored with a greater manifestation of the glory of God and a fuller discovery of His love than they would have had otherwise, and in those two things their happiness principally consists. They are brought into a much closer and endearing relation to God. They are now not merely holy creatures but heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. The Son having taken their nature upon Him, they have become His "brethren," members of His body, His spouse. They are thereby provided with more powerful motives and inducements to love and serve Him than they had in their unfallen condition. The more of God’s love we apprehend, the more we love Him in return. Throughout eternity the knowledge of God’s love in giving His dear Son to and for us, and Christ’s dying in our stead, will fix our hearts upon Him in a manner which His favors to Adam never could have done.
It is in the gospel that the wonderful remedy for all our ills is made known. That glorious gospel proclaims that Christ is able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by Him. It tells us that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. It announces that sinners, even the chief of sinners, are the ones that are freely invited to come. It publishes liberty to Satan’s captives and the opening of doors to sin’s prisoners. It reveals that God has chosen the greatest of sinners to be the everlasting monuments of His mercy. It declares that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses believers from all sin. It furnishes hope to the most hopeless cases. The miracles which Christ performed in the bodies of men were types of His miracles of grace on sinners’ souls. No case was beyond His healing. He not only gave sight to the blind and cleansing to the leper, but delivered the demon-possessed and bestowed life on the dead. He never refused a single appeal made to His compassion. Whatever the sinner’s record, if he will trust in the atoning sacrifice of Christ he will be saved, now and forever.

The Total Depravity of Man Chapter 13 REMEDY

2006-01-02T20:28:00.000-08:00

Perhaps some readers are inclined to demur thus: "Why devote a separate section to this? We already know all about it. The remedy for ruined man is to be found in God’s salvation." But that is a very superficial view, and a wrong one too; for the greatest and grandest of all the wonderful works of God ought never to be spoken of so lightly or dismissed so cursorily. Moreover, the matter is far from being as simple as that; and since there is such widespread ignorance concerning the disease itself it is necessary to examine closely and in some detail a description of its cure. The fact needs to be deeply realized at the outset that as far as all natural wit is concerned the condition of fallen man is beyond repair, that as far as self-help or human skill is concerned his case is hopeless. None other than the Son of God Himself declared, "With men this is impossible" (Mat_19:26); and it is only as we perceive, to some extent at least, the various respects in which that impossibility lies that we can begin to appreciate the miracle of grace which secures the recovery of lost sinners.
Man’s Deadly Disease
The deadly disease which has seized man is not a simple but a compound one, consisting of not a single element but a combination, each of which is fatal in itself. Look at some of them. Man’s very nature is thoroughly corrupt, yet he is in no way horrified because of it. Not only is sin part and parcel of his being, but he is deeply in love with it. He is filled with enmity against God, and his heart is as hard as a stone. He is wholly paralyzed Godward, and completely under the dominion and sway of Satan. He is devoid of righteousness, a guilty sinner without a spark of holiness, a moral leper. He is utterly incapable of helping himself, for he is "without strength" (Rom_5:6). The wrath of God abides on him, and he is dead in trespasses and sins. Fallen man is not merely in danger of ruin and destruction, but is already sunk in them. He is like a brand on the very edge of a raging fire, which will swiftly be consumed unless the divine hand plucks him out (Zec_3:2). His condition is not only wretched but desperate, inasmuch as he is altogether incapable of devising any expedient for his cure.
The sinner is guilty, and no creature can make an atonement for him. He is an outcast from God, terrified by His very perfections; therefore he does his best to banish Him from his thoughts. No tongue can express or heart be suitably affected with the woeful plight and abject misery of the natural man. And such will be his condition forever unless God intervenes. Yet all of this presents only one side of the problem—the easier one—which stands in the way of man’s recovery. To finite intelligence it would seem that a creature so vile and polluted, so wayward and rebellious, so obnoxious to the righteous God, is beyond all hope; surely it would not comport with the divine honor to save such a wretch. How a transgressor could be pardoned consistently with the requirements of that law which he had despised and flouted, and be delivered from the penalty which it justly demands, and how he could be brought back into God’s favor in concord with the maintaining of the divine government, presented a difficulty which no angelic wisdom could solve. It was a secret hidden in God till He was pleased to make it known.
There are those—with no regard to the Word of truth—who suppose that God must pardon and receive into favor those who throw down the weapons of their rebellion against Him and ask for mercy. But the solution to the problem is far from being as simple as that. Human reason can advance no valid and sufficient argument why God should forgive the sinner merely because he repents, or that this could be done consistently with His moral government. Rather the contrary is evident. The contrition of a criminal will not exonerate him in a human court of law, for it offers no satisfaction and reparation for his crimes. Any sinner who cherishes the idea that his repentance gives him a claim to divine clemency and favor demonstrates that he is a total stranger to true repentance; and he will never repent until he abandons such presumption. Universal experience and observation, as well as Scripture, fully attest the fact that no one ever repents while he is left to himself. He is not made the subject of those divine operations to which he has no claim, and which mere reason is incapable of concluding that God will grant.
It is obvious that an adequate remedy for the complicated and fatal malady by which man is stricken must be of God. It must be of His devising, His providing, His applying, His making effectual. That is another way of saying it must be wholly of Him from start to finish, for if any part is left to the sinner, at any stage, it is certain to fail. Yet it must be pointed out once more that God was under no obligation whatever to make such provision, for when man deliberately apostatized from Him he forfeited all favorable regard from his Maker. Not only might God righteously inflict the full penalty of His broken law on the entire human race; consistent with His holy nature He could have left all mankind to perish eternally in that condemnation into which they had cast themselves. Had He utterly forsaken the whole of Adam’s apostate posterity and left them as remediless as the fallen angels, it would have been no reflection whatever on His goodness, but rather a display of His inexorable justice. Therefore, whenever redemption is mentioned, it is constantly described as proceeding from sovereign grace and mere mercy (Eph_1:3-11).
Yet something more than a gracious design was required on God’s part in order for any sinner to be saved. Grace was indeed the source of God’s action, yet it was not sufficient of itself. One may have the most admirable intentions, yet be unable to carry them out. How often is the deep love of a mother impotent in the presence of her suffering child! There has to be the putting forth of divine power also if the purpose of grace is to be accomplished. And it can be no ordinary power, but, as Scripture affirms, "the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power" (Eph_1:19). It calls for the exercise of far more might to recreate a fallen creature than it did to create the universe out of nothing. Why so? Because in that there was no opposition, nothing to resist God’s working; whereas in the case of fallen man there is the hostility of his will, the alienation of his heart, the inveterate enmity of his carnal mind, to be overcome. Furthermore, the malice and opposition of Satan must be neutralized, for he endeavors with all his might to retain his hold on his victims. The devil must be despoiled of the advantage which he had gained, for it is not consistent with the glory of God that he should be left to triumph.
But something more than the exercise of God’s power was still required. Omniscience must be exercised as well as omnipotence. Strength itself will not build a house; there must also be art to contrive and proportion the materials. Skill is the chief requirement of an architect. Let that faintly illustrate what we are here trying to express. Those who are saved are not only the products of God’s amazing grace and almighty power but also "his workmanship" (Eph_2:10). God’s wisdom wonderfully appears in the beautiful fabric of His grace, in the spiritual temple which He erects for His own residence. He has "wrought for us the selfsame thing" (2Co_5:5). As stones are carved and polished, so believers are made "living stones" in that edifice in which God will dwell forever. Now that which is exquisite in execution points to the excellent skill in its planning. The counterpart of God’s law in the hearts of His quickened children is no less the fruit of His wisdom than the writing of it on the tables of stone. His wisdom was shown in the first framing of it; His wisdom is apparent also in the imprinting of it upon the understanding and the affections.
God’s Redemptive Cure
The depths and riches of God’s wisdom are to be found neither in the marvels of creation nor in the mysteries of providence. Rather they are most fully and illustriously revealed in the plan and fruits of redemption. This is clear from several scriptures. In the God-Man Mediator "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col_2:3). He is expressly designated "the wisdom of God" (1Co_1:24). "Unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places" is now being made known by means of "the church the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph_3:10). The devising of a method whereby a part of mankind should be recovered out of their miserable state is indeed the masterpiece of divine wisdom. Nothing but Omniscience could have found a way to effect such a triumph in a manner suited to all the divine perfections. The wise men of this world are termed "princes" (1Co_2:6-8), but angels are designated "principalities and powers in the heavenlies" because of their superior dignity, wisdom and strength. Yet though they are so great in intelligence, always beholding the face of the Father, a new and grander discovery of God’s wisdom is made to them through the church, for His work in the redemption of it far transcends their understanding.
The celestial hierarchies had witnessed the dishonor done to the authority of God and the discord brought into the sphere of His government by the sin and rebellion of Adam. It was therefore necessary, morally speaking, that the defiance of God’s rule should be dealt with, and that the affront to His throne should be rectified. This could not be done except by the infliction of that punishment which in the unalterable rule and standard of divine justice was necessary. The dismissal of sin on any other terms would leave the rule of God under unspeakable dishonor and confusion. As John Owen stated:
For where is the righteousness of government if the highest sin and provocation that our nature was capable of, and which brought confusion on the whole creation below, should for ever go unpunished? The first express intimation that God gave of His righteousness in the government of mankind was His threatening punishment equal unto the demerit of disobedience if man should fall into it: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." If He revoke and disannul this sentence, how shall the glory of His righteousness in the rule of all be made known? But how this punishment should be undergone, which consisted in man’s eternal ruin, and yet man be eternally saved, was a work for Divine wisdom to contrive.
Not only was it necessary for the honor of God’s righteousness, as He is the moral Governor and supreme Judge of all the earth, that sin should be summarily punished; it was required that there should be obedience to God, such obedience as would bring more glory to Him than the dishonor and reproach which resulted from the disobedience of man. We again quote Owen:
This was due unto the glory of His holiness in giving the Law. Until this was done, the excellency of that Law as becoming the holiness of God, and as an effect thereof, could not be made manifest. For if it were never kept in any instance, never fulfilled by any one person in the world how should the glory of it be declared? How should the holiness of God be represented by it? How should it be evident that the transgression of it was not rather from some defect in the Law itself, than from any evil in them that should have yielded obedience unto it? If the Law given unto man should never be complied withal in perfect obedience by any one whatever, it might be thought that the Law itself was unsuited unto our nature, and impossible to be complied withal.
It did not become the Rector of the universe to give man a law whose spirituality and equity should never be exemplified in obedience. That law was not imposed, primarily, that man might suffer justly for its transgression, but rather that God should be glorified in its performance. But since Adam’s offense brought ruin upon all his posterity, so that they are incapable of meeting its requirements, how could perfect obedience be rendered to it? Omniscience alone could supply the answer.
It is truly amazing that the wisdom of God has, by our redemption, made that which is the greatest possible dishonor to Him the occasion of His greatest glory. Yet this is indeed the case. Nothing is so displeasing to the Most High as sin, nothing so dishonoring to Him, for it is in its very nature enmity against Him, contempt of Him. Sin is a reproach to His majesty, an insult to His holiness, an insurrection against His government. And yet this "abominable thing" which He hates (Jer_44:4), upon which He cannot look but with infinite disfavor (Hab_1:13), is made the occasion of the greatest possible good. What a miracle of miracles that the Lord makes the wrath of man to praise Him (Psa_76:10), that the very evil which aims at dethroning Him is transmuted into the means of magnifying Him; indeed, that thereby He has made the grandest manifestation of His perfections. Sin casts contempt upon the law of God, yet through redemption that law is made supremely honorable. Never was the King of heaven so grievously slighted as when those made in His image and likeness revolted against Him. Never was such honor paid Him as by the way He chose to effect the salvation of His people. Never was the holiness of God so slighted as when man preferred to give allegiance to that old serpent the devil. Never did God’s holiness shine forth so illustriously as in the victory He gained over Satan.
It is equally wonderful that God contrived a way whereby a flagrant transgressor should become not guilty, and that he who was completely destitute of righteousness should be justified, or pronounced righteous, by the Judge of all the earth. Had such things as these been submitted for solution, they had forever appeared to be irreconcilable contradictions to all finite understandings. It seems to be utterly impossible for a condemned culprit to be cleared of any charge against him. Sin necessarily entails punishment; how then can any committer of it escape the "due reward" of his deeds (Luk_23:41) except by a manifest violation of justice? God has declared plainly that He "will by no means clear the guilty" (Exo_34:7). He has determined by an unalterable decree that sin shall be paid its wages. Then how can the guilty be exempted from the sentence of death? Nor is the problem any less formidable of how God can, with perfect equity, declare righteous those who have not themselves met the requirements of the law. To judge as entitled to the reward of obedience those whose record is a lifelong disobedience appears to be worse than an irregularity. Nevertheless, Omniscience contrived a solution to both of these problems, a solution which is in every respect a perfect and a glorious one.
Without that solution, the restoration of any of mankind to favor and fellowship with God and to enjoyment of Him was utterly impossible. It was so not only because of the total depravity of man himself, but because of the concernment of the glory of the divine perfections in our sin and apostasy. Not only was man stricken with a fatal disease, from which there was not the slightest hope of deliverance unless a supernatural remedy be provided, but the government of God had been so grievously outraged by man’s revolt that full compensation must be made to His insulted scepter, and complete satisfaction offered to His broken law, before the throne of heaven could be satisfied. Great beyond conception to finite intelligence was the difficulty of repairing the damage worked in the whole of our constitution by sin, yet greater far were the obstacles which stood in the way of the exercise of God’s grace and mercy in restoring the outcast. That way of restoration must be one wherein God was magnified. His justice must be vindicated, His threatenings realized, His holiness glorified. The manner in which all of those ends were achieved and those results secured is the adoring marvel alike of the redeemed and of the angels.
As others before us have pointed out, if the divine government was to be vindicated the whole work of our recovery must be performed in our nature. The very nature of those who had sinned was to be recovered from the ruin of the fall and brought to everlasting well-being. Human nature was not only to be freed of any pollution, but made intrinsically holy. In order to effect the salvation of sinners, no satisfaction could be made to the glory of God for the vitiation of apostate man’s nature with all its evil fruits, but only in the nature of those who had sinned and were to be saved. Since God’s giving of the law to our first parents was itself an effect of His wisdom and holiness, wherein could the glory of them be exalted if that rule of righteousness were complied with by a nature of a totally different kind? Should an angel fulfill it, his obedience would be no proof that the law was suited to man’s nature, to which it was originally prescribed; rather would an angel’s compliance with the law have been a reflection on the divine goodness in giving it to men. Nor could there have been the necessary relation between the nature of the substitute and those on whose behalf he acted and suffered; and therefore such an arrangement would not have magnified the divine wisdom, but would have been at best an unsatisfactory expedient.
God’s Representative
The Scriptures are very explicit in their teaching about the necessity of the same nature in the representative and in those whom he represented, as being consistent with God’s wisdom. Speaking of the way of our relief, the apostle declared, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he [the Deliverer] also himself likewise took part of the same" (Heb_2:14). It was human nature—here expressed by "flesh and blood"—that was to be delivered, and therefore it was human nature in which this deliverance was to be wrought. The apostle entered into considerable detail on this point in Rom_5:12-21, the sum of which is in verse Rom_5:19 : "As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [’by one man,’ Rom_5:15] shall many be made righteous." The same nature that transgressed must work out the remedy. This truth is reiterated in 1Co_15:21 : "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Our ruin could not be retrieved, nor deliverance from our guilt be effected, except by one in our own nature.
Observe that the deliverance needed to be accomplished by one whose substance was derived from the common stock of our first parents. It would not have met the exigencies of the case for God to create a second man out of the dust of the ground, or out of anything which was different in nature from ourselves; in such a case there would have been no relation between him and us, therefore we could have been in no way concerned in anything he did or suffered. That alliance depended solely on the fact that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men" (Act_17:26). But another difficulty was presented, one which also would have proved insurmountable to all created intelligences had not "the only wise God" revealed His provision for resolving it. Any deliverer of sinful men must derive his nature from their original stock, yet he must not bring along with it the least taint of corruption or liability to guilt on his own account; for if his nature were defiled, if it lacked the image of God, it could do nothing that would be acceptable to Him. And were he subject to the penalty of the law on his own account, he could make no satisfaction for the sins of others. But since every descendant of Eve is shaped in sin and conceived in iniquity, how could any of her seed be sinless? Only Omniscience could bring an immaculately clean thing out of thorough uncleanness.
We must not lose sight of the grounds on which defilement and guilt adhere to our nature, as they do in all individuals alike. First, our participation in sin was in Adam as our covenant head and federal representative. Therefore his offense was ours also, and justly imputed to us. Because we sinned in him, we became "by nature the children of wrath," the subjects of God’s judicial displeasure. Second, we derived our nature from Adam by way of natural generation, so that his defilement is communicated to all his offspring. We are the degenerate plants of a degenerate stock. Thus, still another difficulty was presented: The nature of a deliverer for fallen man must, as to its substance, be derived from our first parents, yet so as not to have been in Adam as a legal representative, nor be derived from him by natural generation. But how could it be that his nature should relate as truly to Adam as does ours, while neither partaking of the guilt of Adam’s transgression nor participating in his pollution? Such a one was utterly beyond the concept of every finite mind.
We have considered some of the difficulties—yes, seeming impossibilities—which stood in the way of the recovery of any of the fallen sons of Adam, showing that something more than a benign purpose of grace on God’s part was required to effect that recovery-something more than the putting forth of His mighty power. The obstacles which needed to be removed were so many and so great that "the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph_3:10) also needed to be called into play. The difficulty from the human side was the desperate state of the sinner. How could his darkness be changed into light, his enmity into love, his unwillingness into willingness, without any violence being done to his moral agency? The obstacles from the divine side were how the Most High could restore such wretches to His favor, and yet not compromise His perfections; how He could have dealings with moral lepers without sullying His holiness, clear the guilty without repudiating His law, exercise mercy consistently with His justice. To provide a remedy for such a malady, and to do so in a way that honored the throne of God, was far beyond the reach of created intelligence.
In order to save a law-cursed and hell-deserving sinner it was necessary that some method and means be devised whereby he could be delivered from all the consequences of the fall, and at the same time meet all the requirements of the divine government. Sin had to be dealt with unsparingly, yet transgressors be exempted from their merited doom. Full conformity to the law must be accomplished, yet by one in the same nature as those who had violated it. That was clearly signified by the Old Testament types: the redeemer had to be a kinsman of those he befriended (Lev_25:25; Rth_4:4-6). Moreover, the requirements of the law could be met only by one whose nature was derived from the same stock as those on whose behalf he transacted, yet his humanity must not be tainted in the least degree by their common defilement. It was necessary that he be a man of the seed of Adam (Luk_3:31) and of Eve (Gen_3:15), yet an absolutely pure and holy man, for none other could personally and perpetually obey in thought, word and deed. But none such existed: "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not" (Ecc_7:20); nor would there ever have been one had the human race been left to itself. Nothing but the manifold wisdom and miracle-working power of God could produce him.
Yet one was needed who was more than man, indeed, far superior to those heavenly beings who veil their faces in the presence of Deity, in order to discharge the liabilities of depraved sinners, and renew them in holiness. This is evident from several considerations. The most exalted creature, simply because he is a creature, is obligated to give perfect obedience to his Maker, and therefore could merit nothing on behalf of others. If he fully performed his duty, he would indeed work out a righteousness and be entitled to the reward of the law; but he would need that righteousness on his own account, and therefore it would not be available for imputation to another—still less to many others. Also, the work he had to do—pay in full that incalculable debt incurred by those who were to be saved, make expiation for all their sins, reconcile them to God, restore them to His favor, make them fit for the inheritance of the saints in light—was far beyond the compass of any mere creature, no matter how high his rank in the scale of being. Moreover, any deliverer of the apostate sons of Adam must be essentially and infinitely holy, for none less qualified could put away the infinite guilt of their countless iniquities.
In order for any portion of mankind to be eternally saved for the glory of God, it was not only necessary that flawless obedience be given to God’s law, but that such obedience bring more honor to His holiness than the dishonor brought on it by the disobedience of all. To affirm that it matters little what becomes of the glory of God so long as poor sinners are saved in some way or other is nothing but a fabrication of the carnal mind. Where God is revered and loved above all, the sentiments will be very different: better far that the whole of Adam’s race perish than that the character of Deity be sullied and the foundations of His throne undermined. But such obedience could not be given by any mere creature, no matter how pure his nature or how eminent his rank; there must be somewhat of the divine in it’ in order for his performance to have infinite value. Nor might his obedience be constrained, but rather voluntary, for that which is forced does not proceed from love and is valueless. Also, his conformity to the law could not be one which he was personally responsible to render to it, for in that case it could not be accepted as a due compensation for the disobedience of all.
It was not a single individual who was to be recovered from the fall and be brought to glory, but "ten thousands" (Jud_1:14), each of them with more sins to his account than the hairs on his head; and every sin had in it immeasurable guilt, since it was committed against the infinite Majesty of heaven. The woe to which all of them were consigned was also infinite, its duration being eternal—everything unspeakably dreadful and painful which our nature is capable of suffering. Nor could they be delivered from the awful consequences of their sin without adequate satisfaction being made to the offended justice of God. To assert the contrary is to say it does not matter to God whether He is obeyed or disobeyed, whether He is honored or dishonored in and by His creatures; and that would be to deny His very being, seeing it is directly contrary to the glory of all His perfections. But where was the person who was qualified and capable of making the requisite propitiation for sin? Where was the one fitted to act as mediator between God and men, between the holy One and the unholy? Where was the one who could bestow life on the dead and merit everlasting blessedness for them?
If a remedy were to be provided for sinners, it must be one that would restore them to the same state and dignity in which they were placed before the fall. To recover them to any lesser honor and blessedness than that which was theirs originally would not consist with either the divine wisdom or bounty. Owen stated: "Seeing it was the infinite grace, goodness and mercy of God to restore him, it seems agreeable unto the glory of the Divine excellencies in their operations that he should be brought into a better and more honourable condition than that which he had lost." In his primitive state man was subject to none but his Maker. Though he was less in dignity than the angels, yet he owed them no obedience; they were his fellow servants of the Lord God. Obviously (as Owen also pointed out), if the sinner were saved by any mere creature, he could not be restored to his first state and dignity, for in such a case he would owe allegiance and subservience to that creature who had redeemed him—he would become the property of the one who bought him. That would not only introduce the utmost confusion, but the sinner would be in a still worse case than he was before the fall, for he would not be in the position where he owed subjection and honor to God alone.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the only sufficient deliverer of fallen men must be one possessed of infinite dignity and worthiness, in order that he might be capable of meriting infinite blessings. He must be a person of infinite power and wisdom, for the work he must perform could be successfully accomplished by none less. But another requisite was that he should be a person who was infinitely dear to God the Father, in order to give his transactions an infinite value in the Father’s esteem, and that the Father’s love to him might balance the offense and provocation of our sins. He must also be a person who could act in this matter in his own right, who in himself was not a servant and subject of the Most High; otherwise he could not merit anything for those he wished to save. Moreover, he must be a person possessed 6f infinite mercy and love, for none other would voluntarily undertake a task so arduous, so humiliating, and involving such unspeakable suffering, for creatures so unworthy and foul as fallen men. But where in all the universe was such a one to be found? No created person possessed the necessary qualifications. When the Apostle John saw the vision of the seven-sealed book, we are told that he wept because no man in heaven or earth was found worthy to open the book (Rev_5:1-4). Had not the manifold wisdom of God found the solution to all these problems, men and angels alike forever would have been nonplussed by them.
The various elements in the complicated problem of salvation for any of Adam’s children are far from being exhausted in those already pointed out. Man was made to serve and glorify God. In spirit and soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all that was given to and entrusted with him, he was not his own, but was in the place of a servant. The same was equally the case with the angels. But from that condition and status the human race in Adam revolted, determining to be "as gods"-lords over themselves. There is something of that in every sin: a preferring of self-will to the will of the Almighty. By his insurrection, man fell into complete bondage to sin and Satan. In order to free the sinner from his captivity, it was necessary for any deliverer to take the position man originally occupied. He must enter the place of absolute subjection to God, entirely subordinating his own will to His; for in no other way could adequate compensation be made to the outraged government of God, and the damage done by our first parents be repaired. But how could any uncreated being occupy the position of a creature? With what propriety could one possessed of infinite dignity and excellence suffer such humiliation? How could one who was above all law come under the law and give obedience to it?
In his original state man had nothing but what his Creator had given him. Made out of the dust of the ground, he was endowed with intelligence and moral agency—to be employed in the divine service. He was also dependent on his Maker for every breath he drew. But he deliberately left that state of need and dependence, determining to enrich himself and assume absolute dominion. But his awful crime brought upon him and all whom he represented the loss of his original endowments. He lost the image of God, his dominion over the animals, his own soul. Consequently, any savior for him needed to experience the degradation and poverty which the sinner had brought on himself. But how was such an experience possible for anyone who was infinitely rich in himself and in his own right? Since Adam stood for and transacted on the behalf of all whom he legally represented, it follows that any savior would need to serve not in a private capacity but as the covenant head of those whom he was to recover. Finally, since God made the first man lord of the earth, giving him dominion over all creatures, which dominion he forfeited upon his fall, then a deliverer must be capable of recovering that lost state. But where was one that was able to purchase so vast an inheritance?
"The things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luk_18:27). Omniscience found a solution to all those problems which baffled the minds of men. Scripture places not a little emphasis on this. It is referred to as "the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory [salvation]" (1Co_2:7). "In a mystery" connotes that which is undiscoverable by human reason, incomprehensible to the finite capacity, completely concealed until divinely revealed, and even then beyond our powers to comprehend fully. In Eph_1:8 we are told of it: "Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence." The word "abounded" has the force of gushing out, overflowing. It is called "all wisdom" for its excellence. It was not a single concept or act, but a conjunction of many excellent ends and means to the glory of God. To wisdom is added "prudence." The former refers to the eternal contriving of a way, the latter to the ordering of all things for the accomplishment of God’s counsel or purpose—wisdom in devising, prudence in executing. In Eph_3:10 it is designated "the manifold wisdom of God" because of its complexity and variety: the salvation of sinners, the defeat of Satan, the full discovery of the blessed Trinity in Their different persons, separate operations, combined actions and expressions of goodness; and because of the vastness of its extent.
That manifold wisdom of God, now exhibited before the angels in the redemption of the church, is said to be "according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph_3:11). The eternal Son of God, predestined to be the God-Man Mediator, is the grand medium, means and manifestation of the divine omniscience, and therefore He is called "The Word of God" (Rev_19:13) and "the wisdom of God" (1Co_1:24). "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him" (Eph_1:9-10). We again quote Owen:
The mystery of the will of God is His counsels concerning His own eternal glory in the sanctification and salvation of the Church here below, to be united unto that above. The absolute original hereof was in His own good pleasure, or the sovereign acting of His wisdom and will. But it was all to be effected in Christ, which the apostle twice repeats: He would gather "all things into a head in Christ, even in Him," that is, in Him alone.
Thus it is said of Him with respect unto His future incarnation and work of mediation that "the Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was" (Pro_8:22-23). The eternal personal existence of the Son of God is supposed in these expressions . . . without it none of these things could be affirmed of Him. But there is a regard in them both unto His future incarnation and the accomplishment of the counsels of God thereby. With respect thereto, God "possessed" Him in the beginning of His way, and set Him up from everlasting. God possessed Him eternally as His essential wisdom, as He was always and is always in the bosom of the Father, in the mutual, ineffable love of the Father and Son, in the eternal bond of the Spirit. But He signally possessed Him "in the beginning of His way" as His wisdom acting in the production of all the ways and works that are outwardly in Him. The beginning of God’s way before His works, are His counsels concerning them, even as our counsels are the beginning of our ways with respect unto future works. And He "set Him up from everlasting" as the foundation of all the counsels of His will, in and by whom they were to be executed and accomplished.
Proverbs 8 is an exceedingly profound chapter, but a most blessed one In it, as Pro_8:1 shows, the voice of "wisdom" is heard. That a person is in view is evident from Pro_8:12 : "I wisdom dwell with prudence" and Pro_8:17 : "I love them that love me." That it is a divine person may be seen from Pro_8:15 : "By me kings reign." But it is equally clear from the statement "I was brought forth" in Pro_8:24 and Pro_8:25, and from "I was by him [the Father], as one brought up with him" in Pro_8:30, that such expressions could not be predicated of the Son of God absolutely, that is, as coeternal and coequal with the Father. "Wisdom" is here to be understood as the Son as God-Man Mediator in His two natures, as the One ordained to be the incarnate "wisdom of God" (1Co_1:24). When He declares, "The LORD possessed me. . . [the Hebrew is without the ‘in’] the beginning of his way, before his works of old" (Pro_8:22) it is the Mediator speaking in the covenant subsistence which He had with God the Father and the Spirit before the universe was called into existence. The eternal Son was from "the beginning" (cf. Rev_1:8) of the triune God’s "way," for in all things He must "have the preeminence" (Col_1:18).
The first counsel of God had respect to the Man Christ Jesus, for He was appointed to be not only the Head of His church but "the firstborn of every creature" (Col_1:15). The One whom the Lord of hosts addresses as "the man, my fellow" (Zec_13:7, literal trans.) shared the divine union and glory. He stated, "In the volume [Greek, head] of the book it is written of me" (Heb_10:7). He was the Object and Subject of God’s original decree. Charnock said,
Our Redeemer carne forth of the womb of a decree from eternity, before He came out of the womb of the Virgin in time. He was hid in the will of God before He was made manifest in the flesh of a Redeemer. He was a Lamb slain in purpose before He was slain upon the cross. He was possessed by God in the beginning or the beginning of His way (the Head of His works), and set up from everlasting to have His delights among the sons of men.
The person of the God-Man Mediator was the origin of the divine counsels. As such, the triune Jehovah "possessed" or embraced Him, as a treasury in which all the divine counsels were laid up, as an efficient Agent for the execution of all His works. Christ was God’s first Elect (Isa_42:1) and then the church was chosen in Him (Eph_1:4).
"I was set up from everlasting" (Pro_8:23). That declaration concerns Him not essentially as God the Son, but economically as the Mediator: "set up" or literally "anointed" by a covenant constitution and by divine subsistence. Before all worlds Christ was appointed and anointed to His official character. Before God planned to produce any creature, He first "set up" Christ as the great archetype and original. "Then I was by him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him" (Pro_8:30). It is not the Father’s complacence in the second Person in the Trinity (as such) which is there in view, but His satisfaction and joy in the Mediator, as God contemplated Him as the repository of all His designs. The Hebrew word for "brought forth" also signifies "master-builder," and is so rendered in the English Revised Version. How blessedly it describes Him who could be relied upon to carry out the Father’s purpose. In God’s eternal thoughts the Man Christ Jesus was the object of His love. By Him all things were to be created. By Him vessels were to be formed for His glory. By Him the grand remedy was to be provided for sin’s victims.
It is indeed lamentable that so few of the Lord’s people have been instructed in these "deep things of God" (1Co_2:10), for they have been revealed for their edification and consolation. What we have sought to explain in Proverbs 8 throws light on other passages. For example, many a thoughtful person has been puzzled by Joh_6:62 : "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" In what sense had He been in heaven as Man before He became incarnate? Though we are ignorant of this awesome truth, the Old Testament saints were not, as is clear from Psa_80:17 : "Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself." Though the Man Christ Jesus had no historical existence, He had a covenant subsistence with the Father, as taken into union with the second Person of the Trinity. As faith gives a present "substance" (the Greek word means "a real subsistence") in the believer’s heart and mind of the things hoped for, so that he has a present enjoyment of things yet future, so in the mind of Him before whom all things are ever present, Christ as incarnate was ever a living reality. Thus when God said, "Let us make man in our image" (Gen_1:26) the ultimate reference was to the God-Man who is par excellence "the image of the invisible God" (Col_1:15).
Infinite Wisdom of God
Let us pause here and admire and adore the glorious wisdom of God, which found a way to save His people in a manner that was infinitely becoming and honoring to Himself; and let us bow in wonder and worship before the Lord Jesus who, notwithstanding the unspeakable shame and suffering involved, delighted to do the Father’s will. The manifold wisdom of God is seen in His choice of the One to be the Head and Saviour of the church, since that One was in every respect fit to perform that office and work, possessed of all the necessary qualifications—in fact He was the only person suited to the work. God’s great wisdom appeared in His knowing that Christ was a fit Person. None but Omniscience could have thought of God’s dear Son becoming the Redeemer of hell-deserving sinners.
God’s choice of the Person who was to be the Restorer of His honor, the Vanquisher of Satan, the Victor of death, and the Deliverer of His fallen people, was a perfect one. Who but One endowed with infinite wisdom would have thought of selecting his only begotten Son for such a fearful undertaking? For Christ, as God, is one of the eternal Three who were offended by sin, and from whom men had revolted. They were His avowed enemies, and they deserved His infinite vengeance. Who, then, could have conceived of Him as One who would set His heart on depraved wretches, who would exercise infinite love and pity toward them, would be willing to provide an all-sufficient remedy for all their ills? But even if that choice were made, seemingly insurmountable difficulties would have stood in the way of its realization. How was it possible for a divine person to enter the place of ruined sinners, to come under the law and give perfect obedience to it, and so work out a perfect righteousness for those who had none? And how could it be possible for the holy One to be made a curse, for the Lord of glory to suffer the penalty of the broken law, for the Beloved of the Father to experience the fires of divine wrath, for the Lord of life to die? Such problems as those would have forever baffled all created intelligences. But divine wisdom found a solution.
First, the manifold wisdom of God ordained that His dear Son should be constituted the last Adam, that as He made a covenant of works with the first man who was of the earth, so He would make a covenant of grace with the second Man, who is the Lord from heaven. As the first Adam stood as the covenant head and federal representative of all his posterity, so the last Adam would stand as the covenant Head and Representative of all His seed. But as the first Adam broke the covenant of works and brought ruin upon all those for whom he acted, so the last Adam would fulfill the terms of the covenant of grace, and thereby secure the everlasting blessedness of all on whose behalf He transacted. Accordingly, a covenant was entered into between the Father and the Son, the Former promising a glorious reward upon the Latter’s meeting all the conditions. That wonderful transaction is referred to in Psa_89:3-5 : "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto [the antitypical] David [which means ‘the beloved’] my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah. And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, 0 Lord: thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints." That passage, like Proverbs 8, takes us back to the eternal counsels of God, for Psa_89:19 declares, "Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty." That One was fully able to accomplish heaven’s vast and gracious designs.
That covenant of grace was a mutual compact voluntarily entered into between the Father and the Son, the One promising a rich reward in return for the fulfillment of the terms agreed upon; the Other solemnly pledging Himself to carry out its stipulations. Many are the scriptures which speak of Christ in connection with the covenant. In Isa_42:6 we hear the Father saying to the Son, "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will give thee for a covenant of the people." In Mal_3:1 Christ is designated "the messenger of the covenant" because He came here to make known its contents and proclaim its glad tidings. In Heb_7:22 He is designated "a surety of a better testament [covenant]," in Heb_9:15 "the mediator of the new testament," while in Heb_13:20 we read of "the blood of the everlasting covenant." In that covenant the Son agreed to be the Head of God’s elect, and to do all that was required for the divine glory and the securing of the elect’s eternal blessedness. Reference is made to that in "his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2Ti_1:9). A federal relation then existed between God (Christ) and the church, though this was not made fully manifest until He became incarnate. It was then that the Son was appointed to the mediatorial office, when He was "set up" or "anointed," when He was "brought forth" from the everlasting decree (Pro_8:23-24) and given a covenant subsistence with the triune God.
It was proposed and freely agreed upon that the Beloved of the Father should take upon Him the form of a servant and be made in the likeness of sin’s flesh. Accordingly, in the fullness of time He was "made of a woman," taking a human spirit and soul and body into perpetual union with Himself. As the body of Adam was supernaturally made out of the virgin earth by God’s immediate hand, so the body of Christ was supernaturally made out of the virgin’s substance by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit. So too the union of soul and body in Adam prefigured the hypostatic union of our nature with the Son of God, so that He is not two persons in one, but one Person with two natures-those natures not being confounded, but each preserving its distinctive properties. Owen’s remark is significant:
His conception in the womb of the Virgin, as unto the integrity of human nature, was a miraculous operation of the Divine power. But the prevention of that nature from any subsistence of its own, by its assumption unto personal union with the Son of God, in the first instance of its conception, is that which is above all miracles, nor can be designated by that name. A mystery it is, so far above the order of all creating or providential operations, that it wholly transcends the sphere of them that are most miraculous. Herein did God glorify all the properties of the Divine nature, acting in a way of infinite wisdom, grace and condescension.
He who was the Lord of all and owed no service or obedience to any, being in the form of God and equal with Him, descended into a condition of absolute subjection. As Adam deliberately forsook the place of complete submission to God, which was proper to his nature and acceptable to God, and aspired after lordship, so the Son of God left that state of absolute dominion which was His by right, and took upon Him the yoke of servitude. The Son’s descent involved far greater humiliation to Himself than was the glory to which the first man aspired in his pride. As others have shown, this self-abasement of the Lord of glory to an estate of entire subjection is referred to by the apostle in Heb_10:5, where Christ is heard saying "A body hast thou prepared me." Those words are an explanatory paraphrase of "Mine ears hast thou opened"—margin "digged" —in Psa_40:6, which in turn looks back to Exo_21:6, where a statute was appointed to the effect that one who voluntarily gave himself up to absolute and perpetual service signified it by having his ear bored with an awl. Thus, Heb_10:5, in the light of Psa_40:6 and Exo_21:6, implies that Christ’s body was prepared for Him with the express design of His absolute service for God.
Christ the Mediator
By His assumption of human nature, not only was Christ fitted to render subjection to God, but He became qualified to serve as Mediator between God and men. For it is required that a mediator be related to both of the parties he would reconcile, and that he be the equal of each of them. An angel would not be qualified for this office, since he possesses neither the divine nor the human nature. It was necessary for Christ to be real man as well as God in order to perform the work of redemption: the former so that He should be susceptible to suffering, qualified to offer Himself as a sacrifice, capable of dying. So too the assumption of human nature fitted Christ to be the Substitute of His people, to act not only on their behalf but in their room and stead, actually to take their lawful place and offer full satisfaction to the law by obeying its precepts and enduring its penalty. But that, in turn, required that He be their Surety and Sponsor, that He be so related to them legally and federally that He could fittingly serve as their Substitute. As there was a federal and representative oneness between the first Adam and those he stood for, so there must be a like oneness between the last Adam and those for whom He transacted, that as the guilt of the former was charged to the account of his posterity, so the righteousness of the Latter might be imputed to all His seed.
Yet the truth concerning the position which the Son of God took is not fully expressed by the above statements. It is not sufficient to say that He became their Surety and Substitute. We must go farther back and ask what it was that made it proper that He should serve as the Sponsor of His people before their offended Lawgiver and Judge. The answer is Their covenant union. Christ served as their Surety and Substitute because He was one with them, and therefore He could and did assume and discharge all their liabilities. In the covenant of grace Christ had said to the Father, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me" (Heb_2:12-13). Most blessedly is that explained in what immediately follows: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same," therefore He is not ashamed to call them brothers. Federation is the repository of this amazing mercy, identification the key which unlocks it. Christ came not to strangers but to His "brethren"; He assumed human nature, not in order to procure a people for Himself, but to secure a people already His (Mat_1:21; Eph_1:4).
Since a union has existed between Christ and His people from all eternity, it inevitably follows that when He came to this earth He took on Himself their debts, and now that He has gone to heaven they must be clothed (Isa_61:10) with all the rewardableness of His perfect obedience. This is very much more than a technicality of theology, being the strongest buttress of all in the walls of truth which protect the atonement, though it is one of the most frequently and fiercely assailed by its enemies. Men have argued that the punishment of the innocent Christ as though He were guilty was an outrage upon justice. In the human realm, to punish a person for something when he is neither responsible nor guilty is, beyond question, unjust. But that objection is invalid and entirely pointless in connection with the Lord Jesus, for He voluntarily entered the place and lot of His people in such an intimate way that it could be said, "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one" (Heb_2:11). They are not only one in nature, but are also so united in the sight of God and before His law as to involve an identification of legal relations and reciprocal obligations and rights. "By the obedience of one shall many be made [legally constituted] righteous" (Rom_5:19).
It was required of the Surety of God’s people that He should not only render full and perfect obedience to the precepts of the law, and thereby provide the meritorious means of their justification, but should also make full satisfaction for their sins by having visited upon Him the curse of the law. But before that penalty could be inflicted, the guilt of the transgressors must be transferred to Him; that is to say, their sins must be judicially imputed to Him. To that arrangement the holy One willingly consented, so that He who "knew no sin" was legally "made sin" for them (2Co_5:21). God laid on Him the iniquities of them all, and then the sword of divine justice struck Him (Zec_13:7), exacting full satisfaction. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Blotting out our transgressions, procuring for us the favor of God, purchasing the heavenly inheritance, required the death of Christ. That which demanded the death sentence was the guilt of our sins. Let that be removed, and condemnation for us is gone forever. But how could guilt be "removed"? Only by its being transferred to another. The punishment due to the church was borne by her Surety and Substitute. God charged to Him all the sins of His elect, and moved against Him accordingly, visiting on Him His judicial wrath.
How marvelous are the ways of God. As death was destroyed by death—the death of God’s Son—so sin by sin—the greatest that was ever committed, the crucifixion of Christ—putting it away as far as the East is from the West. Because God imputed the trespasses of His people to their Surety, He was condemned that they might be acquitted. Christ took upon Him their accumulated and incalculable debt and, by discharging it, made them forever free and solvent. By His precious blood all their iniquities were expiated, so that the triumphant challenge rings out: "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?" (Rom_8:33). Throughout His life and by His death Christ was repaying and repairing all that injury which the sins of the church had done to the demonstrative glory of God. God now remits the sins of all who truly believe in Christ, because Deity has received a vicarious but full satisfaction for them in the person of their Substitute. Through Christ they are delivered from the wrath to come. Necessarily so, for God’s acceptance of the Lamb’s sacrifice obtained the eternal redemption of all for whom it was offered. Just as a storm cloud empties itself on earth and then melts away under the rays of the sun, so when the storm of divine judgment had exhausted itself upon the cross our sins disappeared from before God’s face, and we were received into His everlasting favor.
Wonderful as was the work that the incarnate Son performed for His people, something more was still needed in order to provide a complete remedy for their complicated ruin, for the former covered only the legal aspects of their plight. A miracle of grace needed to be worked in them in order to make them experientially worthy of everlasting glory; indeed, such a work was absolutely indispensable to fit them to commune with God in this life. His elect needed to be quickened into newness of life, their enmity against God destroyed, their darkness dispelled, their wills freed, their love of sin and hatred of holiness rectified. In a word, they needed to experience a thorough change of heart, a principle of grace had to be communicated to them, and they needed to be made new creatures in Christ.
That miracle of grace is performed by the Holy Spirit in those who are "by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph_2:3). But how little this is realized today. Insistence on this fact has all but disappeared from the modern pulpit, even in those who pride themselves on being orthodox. The work of the Spirit in the saving of sinners has no place in the creed of many a churchgoer; and where it is nominally acknowledged it possesses no real weight and exerts no practical influence.
In the majority of places where the Lord Jesus is still formally owned as the only Saviour, the current teaching is that He has made it possible for men to be saved, but that they themselves must decide whether or not they will be saved; thus the greatest of all God’s works is left contingent on the fickle will of men as to whether it is a success or a failure. Narrowing the circle to those places where it is still held that the Spirit has a mission and ministry in connection with the gospel, the general idea prevailing is that, when the Word is faithfully preached, the Spirit convicts men of sin and reveals to them their need of a Saviour; but beyond that, very few are prepared to go. The popular view is that the sinner has to cooperate with the Spirit, that he must yield himself to His "striving," or he will not and cannot be saved. But such a pernicious and God-insulting concept repudiates two cardinal facts. To affirm that the natural man is capable of cooperating with the Spirit is to deny that he is "dead in trespasses and sins," for a dead man is powerless to do any good. To say that the specific operations of the Spirit in a man’s heart and conscience are capable of being so resisted as to thwart His endeavors is to deny His omnipotence.
The solemn and unpalatable fact is that were the Spirit of God to suspend His operations, not a single person on earth would savingly benefit from the redemptive work of Christ. The natural man is such an enemy to God and so obstinate in his rebellion that he dislikes a holy Christ, and remains opposed to His way of salvation until his heart is divinely renewed. The criminal darkness and delusion which fill every soul in which sin reigns cannot be removed by any agent but God the Spirit—by His giving a new heart and enlightening the understanding to perceive the exceeding sinfulness of sin. There are indeed thousands of people ready to respond to the fatal error that sinners may be saved without throwing down the weapons of their warfare against God. There are many who receive Christ as their Saviour, but are unwilling to surrender to Him as their Lord. They would like His rest, but they refuse His yoke, without which His rest cannot be had. His promises appeal to them, but they have no heart for His precepts. They will believe in an imaginary Christ who is suited to their corrupt nature, but they despise and reject the Christ of God. Like the multitudes of old, they are pleased with His loaves and fishes; but for His heart-searching, flesh-withering, sin—condemning teaching they have no appetite. Nothing but the miracle-working power of the Spirit can change them.
C. H. Spurgeon stated:
Man is utterly and entirely averse to everything that is good and right. "The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom_8:7). Turn you all Scripture through, and you will find continually the will of man described as being contrary to the things of God. What said Christ in that text so often quoted by the Arminian to disprove the very doctrine which it clearly states? What did Christ say to those who imagined that men would come without Divine influence? He said, first, "No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him"; but He said something more strong-"Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life." Herein lies the deadly mischief: not only that he is powerless to do good, but that he is powerful enough to do that which is wrong, and that his will is desperately set against everything that is right. Men will not come; you cannot force them to by all your invitations. Until the Spirit draw them, come they neither will, nor can.
The manifold wisdom of God is just as evident in the official task assigned the Holy Spirit as in the work that the Son was commissioned to perform. The miracles of regeneration and sanctification are as wonderful as were the obedience and sufferings, the death and resurrection, of Christ; and the saint is as truly and as deeply indebted to the One as he is to the Other. If it was an act of amazing condescension for God the Son to leave heaven’s glory and assume human nature, it was equally so for God the Spirit to descend to this earth and take up His abode in fallen men and women; and if God pointed up the marvel and importance of the one by mighty wonders and signs, so did He in connection with the latter—the song of the angelic choir (Luk_2:13) having its counterpart in the "sound from heaven" (Act_2:2), the Shekinah "glory" (Luk_2:9) in the "tongues like as of fire" (Act_2:3). If we admire the gracious and mighty works of Christ in cleansing the leper, strengthening the palsied, giving sight to the blind and imparting life to the dead, no less is the Spirit to be adored for His supernatural operations in quickening lifeless souls, illuminating their minds, delivering them from the dominion of sin, removing their enmity against God, uniting them to Christ and creating in them a love of holiness.
How complete and perfect is the remedy which the grace and wisdom of God have provided for His people. As they were federally in Adam, and therefore held responsible for what he did, so they are federally in Christ, and therefore enjoy all the benefits of His meritorious work. As they were ruined by the breaking of one covenant, so they are restored by the keeping of another. As they were made guilty by Adam’s disobedience being charged to their account, so they are justified before the throne of God because the righteousness of their Surety is imputed to them. As they fell under the curse of the law, were alienated from God and became children of wrath, through Christ’s redemption they are entitled to the reward of the law, reconciled to God and restored to His favor. As they inherited a corrupt nature from their first head, so they receive a holy nature from their second Head. In every respect the remedy answers to the malady.

The Total Depravity of Man Chapter 12 COROLLARIES

2006-01-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

In the introductory section we intimated that we would endeavor to show that our present subject is of immense doctrinal importance and of great practical value. In view of all that has been advanced in our subsequent discussion, that fact should be clear. The Scriptures supply us with a divinely accurate diagnosis of man’s present condition. They show us, as nothing else can or does, why the entire course of human history has been what it is, and explain why all the remedial methods and measures of man to effect any radical improvement in society are thorough failures. They account for the fact that man in the twentieth century is essentially the same as in the first, that like moral features pertain to white and black, yellow and red faces, that no change of environment or living conditions can transform a sinner into a saint. Removing thistles and nettles from a stony ground and transplanting them into the most fertile soil and lovely surroundings will not cause them to bear fragrant flowers or edible fruit. Human nature is fundamentally the same whether people live in mansions or hovels. Man does what he does because of what he is.
Value of This Doctrine
The importance of this doctrine of man’s total depravity also appears in the close bearing it has on other aspects of the truth, and the light it tends to cast on them. Reject what is revealed in Genesis 3 and the remainder of the Bible becomes entirely meaningless; but accept what is recorded there and everything else becomes intelligible and is seen in its proper perspective. The whole scheme of redemption manifestly proceeds in view of our first parents’ ruination of their race. Our defection in Adam and our recovery by Christ plainly stand or fall together. Because man is a sinner he needs a Saviour; and being so great a sinner, none but a divine Saviour is sufficient for him. Since sin has corrupted the whole of man’s constitution, vitiating and debasing all his faculties, he is utterly incapable of doing anything to raise himself out of the horrible pit into which the fall has plunged him. Sooner will the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots than those who are at enmity with God evoke any love to Him or do that which is pleasing in His sight. If such a creature is to be made fit to dwell forever with the thrice holy One, obviously a miracle of grace must be worked in him.
Equally real and great is the practical value of this doctrine. Nothing else is so well calculated to humble the proud heart of man and bring him into the dust before his Maker crying, "Behold, I am vile." Nothing else is so well calculated to demonstrate the utter futility of the sinner’s attempting to appease God and obtain His approbation by any efforts of his own, or to gain acceptance with Him by his own performance. A murderer standing in the dock might as well seek to win the judge’s favor by his smiles and flattery. Nothing is so well calculated to convince us that, since our hearts are rotten to the core, our very righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And nothing else will so deeply impress on the heart of a believer his entire dependence on the Lord as a keen sense of what he is by nature. He must realize that God must work in him to will and to do of His good pleasure if he is ever to perform His bidding, that nothing but daily supplies of grace can preserve him in the narrow way. Let us particularize what has just been summarized.
Since the entire being of the natural man is under the dominion of sin, it follows that his will is in bondage also. Anyone who denies that fact evinces that he does not understand or believe in the total depravity of man, for in effect he is asserting that one of the most important of his faculties has not been debased by the fall. But as the whole of man’s body is corrupt, so his entire soul is inclined to evil only, and so long as he remains in the sinful state his will is in captivity to sin. The power of the will can extend itself only to things within its own province and cannot act above it. All actions and powers of action are limited by the nature and capacity of their agent. As creatures below man cannot act rationally, neither can those who lack a holy principle act spiritually. Before divine grace works on and in the heart, man’s will is enslaved by sin. He is "in the bond of iniquity" (Act_8:23), the servant of those lusts and pleasures which he chooses and delights in. Christ must make us free (Joh_8:36) before there is or can be any deliverance from our moral captivity.
The Lord Jesus declared, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant [bond-man] of sin" (Joh_8:34). Sin is his master, ordering all his actions. Nevertheless, he voluntarily assents to it. That is why it is termed "the will of the flesh" (Joh_1:13), for it is defiled. It is "without strength" (Rom_5:6) to do that which is good. Since the tree itself is corrupt, no good fruit can be borne by it. Rom_8:7 not only declares that the carnal mind is enmity against God and that it is not subject to the law of God, but adds "neither indeed can be," which would not be the case were the will of fallen man free, or had it power to do good. Even when the understanding is convinced and sees the truth, the will obstinately opposes and rejects it. Rightly did G. H. Bishop of the Dutch Reformed Church say
Man can no more turn to God than the dead can sit up in their coffins. He can no more originate a right desire than he can create a universe. God the Holy Spirit alone, by sovereign, special interference, calls dead sinners to life and creates within them "the desires of their hearts"—the first faint fluttering of a breath toward holiness.
Some may reply, "But my own experience refutes what you have said. I am clearly conscious of the fact that my will accepted the offer of the gospel, that I freely came to Christ as a lost sinner and accepted Him as my own Saviour." We fully admit that. But if they go a little farther back they will find that their experience confirms what we have said. Previous to conversion, their will was opposed to God, and they refused to come to Christ. Though the time arrived when that was reversed, who produced or caused that change they or God? In every conscious act he performs, man necessarily wills. In repenting he wills, in believing he wills, in turning from his evil ways to God in Christ he wills. But does the sinner make himself willing, or does God? The question at issue is Does salvation begin by self-movement or divine? Scripture is plain on the matter. God alters the bent or bias of the will by communicating a principle of grace and holiness. A supreme will overcomes man’s. He who said, "Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen_1:3) says, "Let rebellion and opposition cease," and they do so. "So then it is not of him that willeth [originally], nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy" (Rom_9:16). As He loved us before we loved Him, so His will precedes ours in conversion.
Moral Insensibility of Natural Man
Because the natural man is dead in trespasses and sins, he is quite insensible to his wretched plight. One of the most terrible elements in the fatal malady which has struck him is that he is so morally paralyzed that he is quite unaware of his desperate state. At this juncture it is necessary to point out that there is a difference between being totally ignorant of our condition and being insensible of it. The unregenerate may acquire a theoretical knowledge of man’s total depravity, yet they are without any feeling of the same in themselves. They may hold the theological belief that sin is the transgression of the divine law, but they have no inward horror and anguish over their vileness. That deadly insensibility is in all sinners at all times. Their natural emotions may be stirred as they listen to a portrayal of the sufferings of Christ on the cross—just as they shed tears over some particularly touching incident told in the newspapers or enacted on the stage—but they do not weep over their awful enmity against God, nor mourn because of their contrariety to His holiness. They are quite incapable of doing so, for they have stony hearts as far as God is concerned (Eze_36:26) and do not realize that His wrath rests on them.
This explains why sinners generally seem secure and happy. It has always appeared strange as well as distressing to the saints to see the ungodly so unconcerned and lighthearted, though under sentence of death. Job did not understand how the wicked could "take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ," spending "their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave" (Job_21:12-13). The psalmist was perplexed when he "saw the prosperity of the wicked" and observed that they were "not in [soul] trouble as other men" (Psa_73:3-5). Amos was astonished as he saw the sinners in Zion "put far away the evil day," lie "upon beds of ivory, ... eat the lambs out of the flock, ... invent to themselves instruments of musick, ... drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments" (Amo_6:1-6), utterly unconcerned about their souls. Though natural men differ from one another in so many respects, in this they are very much alike: they generally live as though there is no God to whom they must render an account, and who will pass sentence of eternal damnation upon them. Such ignorance in rational and immortal creatures can be explained only on the ground of their insensibility. They have eyes, but see not; ears, but hear not; hearts, but perceive not. It is not at all strange that they, neither discerning nor feeling their danger, should not fear it.
Those who deny the moral insensibility of sinners are proclaiming their own insensibility, for they repudiate not only what Scripture maintains but what universal observation confirms. Nothing but ignorance can account for the conduct of the great majority of mankind, who are saying peace and safety while exposed to instant and eternal destruction. They are completely unconcerned that their hearts are desperately wicked, their understandings darkened, and their wills in bondage to evil. They are unaware of Satan’s malignant dominion over them, and do not know that he is perpetually causing them to sin. The devil employs a multitude of devices to ensnare them. He knows how to take full advantage of their dullness. Yet though they are led captive by him from day to day they do not perceive his wiles and influence. Even though they recognize the objects which he employs to seduce them, they do not realize his seducing power. They are ignorant that they are continually walking in the paths of the destroyer, who is leading them blindfold to hell. They do not know—or if they do, they do not care—that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, and that to follow a multitude to do evil is the direct road to endless woe. Hence they are not aware of their stumblings. They are united in their disaffection toward God and in their love of sin. They join hand in hand; all lead, and are led. Their very numbers inspire them with boldness and resolution, and encourage them to walk together in the path of ruin.
In view of all that has been advanced, it is crystal clear that fallen man is in a lost and perishing condition. He is obnoxious to God, alienated from His life (Eph_4:18), cast out of His favor (Gen_3:24), cut off from communion with Him (Eph_2:12). He is given up to the devil, to be led captive by him as he pleases. He is dead in trespasses and sins, and that means (among other things) that he is utterly powerless where spiritual things are concerned, quite unable to do anything in regard to them. Yet he is efficient with respect to that which is carnal and devilish. Entirely averse to all that is good and holy, his will is desperately set against the truth, but prone to—and in love with—whatever is sinful and evil. He is lying in a horrible pit of corruption, unable to break the cords of sin which hold him fast. He is so infatuated with his iniquities as to regard them as his benefactors (see Hos_2:5, Hos_2:12). His heart is so calloused that the mercies of God do not melt him, nor do His threatenings and judgments awe him. Instead of the divine goodness leading him to repentance, it leads him to deeper impenitence, unbelief and presumption; for since he sees the sun shining and the rain falling on the evil and on the good, and God allowing all things to come alike to the one as to the other, he concludes that He will treat them all alike in the next world.
Man’s plight is very much worse than is generally recognized, even in those sections of Christendom which are still regarded as being orthodox. Imagine an island affected by some calamity, say, a raging fire, the only escape being a bridge to the mainland. The bridge offers the possibility of escape, of salvation for the entire island population. The realization of the possibility is dependent on the choice of each individual. The bridge does not offer automatic salvation, but simply the opportunity to attain it. If an individual thinks that the fire will die down, and he remains on the island, he forfeits the possibility of escape by the bridge. It is true that he can be carried by force over the bridge to safety.
But, someone says, God does not accomplish the soul’s salvation by compulsion. Unless the individual wills to accept God’s way of escape, he perishes. He himself must decide to cross the bridge.
But can he do so? Sin has such a stupefying effect on the whole soul of the natural man that he is oblivious to his peril and insensible of his dire need. It loses sight of the fact that the sinner is not only in gross darkness, but has no desire to be enlightened; he is stricken with a deadly malady, and is unwilling to be healed. He is highly displeased if someone tells him of his awful danger, for he resents anything which disturbs his false peace and comfort. Sinners in Bible times could not bear to hear the plain preaching of either God’s prophets or His incarnate Son. They stoned the former and crucified the Latter. So it is now; they refuse to give a hearing to one who declares them to be totally depraved. The sinner, though mentally convinced of the urgency of his situation, has no eyes to see the "bridge." And if another offered to lead him it would be of no avail, for he lacks strength. True, God does not effect the soul’s salvation by compulsion, but He does so by a miracle of grace: making His people willing in the day of His power (Psa_110:3), imparting life, light and strength to them.
Since man is totally depraved, how great is his need of salvation! The guilt of Adam’s transgression is charged to his account, the polluted nature of our first parents transmitted to him. He is shaped in iniquity, conceived in sin, and enters this world a child of wrath, estranged from God from his mother’s womb (Psa_58:3). Born with a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, from earliest childhood he pursues a course of self-will and self-pleasing, treasuring up wrath against himself. His iniquities are more in number than the hairs of his head (Psa_40:12), and his "trespass [guiltiness] is grown up unto the heavens" (Ezr_9:6). He lies beneath the death sentence of the law. That curse cannot be removed until full satisfaction has been rendered to it, and the guilty culprit is utterly powerless to render such satisfaction. Nor can any of his friends—not even his nearest and dearest relatives—discharge his incalculable debt. "None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: for the redemption of their soul is precious" (Psa_49:7-8), or "costly," as the same word is rendered in 1Ki_7:9-10. The sinner is a moral bankrupt, with no good thing to his credit, without a penny to discharge his liabilities.
Such a creature is utterly unfit for heaven; even if he were permitted to enter it, he would at once desire to leave, for he would be entirely out of his element, having nothing whatever in common with the ineffable holiness of its atmosphere and society. He is already ripe for hell, fit only for the company of the damned. Thus the natural man is in a perishing condition. Not only does he need delivering from the curse of the law, the wrath of God, and the captivity of the devil; he also needs saving from himself: from the guilt, dominion and pollution of his sins. He needs to be saved from his hard, impenitent and unbelieving heart, from his love of the world, from his self-righteousness. Divine justice requires not only that he be clear of any accusation the law can bring against him, but that he possess a perfect obedience which constitutes him righteous before the law, thus giving him title to the reward of endless joy. But his righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and the wearer of them a moral leper. His plight is desperate beyond the power of words to express. There is only a step between him and death, and beyond that lies "the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jud_1:13).
It is equally evident that the lost sinner is incapable of contributing toward his salvation. Can a foul and filthy fountain send forth clear, pure water? Neither can a polluted creature offer anything which is acceptable to the holy One. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD" (Pro_15:8), as He made clear at the beginning, when He did not accept Cain and his offering. Instead of a pleasing service to God, it is an insulting provocation, for it lacks that principle without which it is impossible to please Him. The supplications of the unregenerate are rejected by God. "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear" (Isa_1:15). Why? Because such "praying" is the howling of those in pain (Hos_7:14) rather than the breathings of loving devotion. It is the wishings and cravings of those who want their lusts gratified (Jam_4:3) rather than their souls ministered to. It is the bold presumptions for things unwarranted by the divine promises, for they hope to have mercy without holiness, sins forgiven without forsaking them. Their praying consists of the perfunctory exercises of those who have a form of godliness but are strangers to its power. Likewise are their fastings rejected (Isa_58:3-7; Zec_7:5).
Charnock said:
We can no more be voluntarily serviceable to God while our serpentine nature and devilish habits remain in us, than we can suppose that the Devil can be willing to glorify God while the nature he contracted by his fall works powerfully in him. Our nature and will must be changed, that our actions may regard God as our end, that we may delightfully meditate on Him, and draw the motives of our obedience from love.
The imperative necessity of that radical change in the soul—a change as great and complete as to be like a second birth—was expressed by Christ when He declared, "Ye must be born again," having prefaced the same by stating, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (Joh_3:3, Joh_5:1-7). There must be a spiritual and supernatural principle in us before we can live a spiritual and supernatural life. The new birth is indispensable, yet what can one who is dead in sin do to experience it? As Nicodemus asked, "How can a man be born when he is old?" (Joh_3:4). "Ye must be born again" at once reveals the utter futility of all self-effort. Such a demand withers all fleshly pretensions and bars the gates of heaven against all the unregenerate. It is designed to crush pride and make man realize his helplessness.
As the sinner cannot regenerate himself, neither can he produce any sincere repentance, for "godly sorrow worketh repentance" (2Co_7:10), and he has not a spark of godliness. Until he is born again he can neither hate sin nor abhor himself. Nor is he capable of exercising faith. How can he confide in one to whom he is a total stranger, trust in one whom he regards as his enemy, love one with whom he is at odds? The obstacles in the way to salvation are absolutely insurmountable by any efforts of the sinner. He could as easily turn the ocean tide as deliver his soul. That solemn fact was shown by Christ when in answer to His disciples’ question "’Who then can be saved?" He averred, "With men this is impossible" (Mat_19:26). What a shattering word that was to all creature sufficiency! How it should bring the sinner to despair of saving himself.
Salvation Only by God’s Grace
Since man is totally depraved it necessarily follows that if ever he is to be saved it can be only by divine grace and power. Grace is a truth which is peculiar to divine revelation. It is a concept to which the unaided powers of the human mind can never stretch. Proof of that is found in the fact that where the Bible has not gone it is quite unknown. But grace is not only taught in God’s Word; it is given great prominence there. Holy Writ declares that salvation is by grace from first to last: it issued from grace, it is received by grace, it is maintained by grace, it is perfected by grace. Divine grace is bestowed on those who have no merits, and from whom no recompense is demanded. More than that, it is given to those who are full of demerit and blame. How thoroughly grace sets aside every thought of worthiness in its object is evident from a single quotation: "Being justified freely by his grace" (Rom_3:24). The Greek word is even more impressive and emphatic, and might be rendered "gratuitously," "for nothing." The same term is translated "for nought" in 2Th_3:8, and "without a cause" in Joh_15:25. There is nothing whatever in the beneficiary to make it attractive, but rather everything to make it repulsive. "None eye pitied thee... to have compassion upon thee... When I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thy blood, I said unto thee..., Live" (Eze_16:5-6).
Divine grace is the sinners only hope, for it is not searching for good men whom it may approve, but for the guilty and lost whom it may save. It comes not to those who have done their best and are quite presentable, but rather to those who have done their worst and are in rags and tatters. Grace ever draws near to the sinner with his condition fully exposed. Grace recognizes no distinctions either social or moral: the chaste virgin is on the same level as the confirmed harlot, the religious moralist with the wildest profligate. Grace is God’s provision for those who are so corrupt that they cannot help their conduct, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so dead that He must open their graves and bring them onto resurrection ground. Unless men are saved by grace they cannot be saved at all. It is equally true that the salvation of sinners must be by divine power. Their ignorance and insensibility are irremovable by any human means. Nothing but God’s might can dispel the darkness from their minds, take away their hearts of stone or free their sin-enslaved wills. All the faculties of the natural man are opposed to the offers and operations of divine grace until divine power saves him from himself. None ever turned to God except God turned him.
By this time it should be quite apparent that the sinner lies entirely at God’s disposal. If He sees fit to leave him in his sins, he is undone forever; yet God has a perfect right to do so Had He precipitated the whole race to hell, as He did the fallen angels the day they sinned, it would have been no excess of severity but simply an act of justice, for they deserved eternal damnation. In its ultimate analysis salvation is a matter of God’s choice and not ours, for we are merely clay in His hands to be molded into a vessel of honor or dishonor entirely as He pleases (Rom_9:21). Sinners are in the sovereign hand of God to save or to destroy according to His own will. That is His divine prerogative. "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth" (Rom_9:18). Far from offering any apology, He bids us observe and ponder that solemn fact: "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand" (Deu_32:39). Such a One is not to be spoken lightly about, but to be held in the utmost awe.
In the very nature of the case, mercy is not something which can be claimed as a right—least of all from Him whom we have wronged far above all others—but lies entirely at the discretion of the one who is pleased to exercise it.
Robert Erskine stated: "Because He is a sovereign God, infinitely happy in Himself without us, it is at His option to manifest mercy or not, to save or not, as much as it was His option to make man or not." "He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, ‘What doest thou?" (Dan_4:35). Therefore He exercises sovereignty in His reason for showing mercy, because He "will shew mercy." God is sovereign not only as to the ones He saves, but as to the time, the instrument, and the means by which He saves them. Such teaching alone accords to God His proper place, as it likewise cuts away all ground for human merits and boasting; and at the same time it deepens the wonderment and gratitude of the redeemed. God can never act unjustly, but He can and does bestow His favors on whom He pleases, and in so doing exercises His high prerogative: "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" (Mat_20:15).
The exemption of any sinner from everlasting condemnation is an act of sovereign mercy and free grace; therefore God consults none but exercises His own good pleasure as to those on whom He bestows this grace. "Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias... when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian" (Luk_4:25-27). If some are brought to believe in Christ, while others are left in their unbelief, it is sovereign grace alone which makes the one differ from the other. And if it is right for God to make such a difference in time, it could not be wrong for Him to purpose doing so from eternity. They who balk at sovereign and unconditional election believe in neither the total depravity of man nor the God of the Bible. On the one hand, He hides these things from those who are wise and prudent in their own conceit. On the other, He reveals them to babes (Mat_11:25). There cannot be an election without a rejection: "The one shall be taken, and the other left" (Mat_24:40-41). "The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded" (Rom_11:7). "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom_9:13).
Inasmuch as the sinner’s will is enslaved by sin, God must overcome his opposition before he will submit to Him. But both Scripture and observation make it evident that He does not bring all rebels into subjection, but only a favored few. As Psa_110:3 declares, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." Though "by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph_2:3), equally depraved and guilty, yet these few even in their unregenerate state are "God’s people." They are His by sovereign election, His by eternal decree, His by covenant relationship. He loved them with an everlasting love (Jer_31:3), chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph_1:4), predestinated them to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom_8:29). Accordingly, in the day of His power He quickens them into newness of life, and puts the soul into a condition to receive the truth and cordially embrace it. That putting forth of divine power upon and within the "vessels of mercy" takes place at a definite season, for there is a select time for God to show favor to the members of Zion (Psa_102:13). As the length of Israel’s captivity in Babylon was so divinely fixed that none could any longer detain them when that time had expired, likewise must His elect be delivered from their bondage to sin and Satan when the appointed moment arrives. He who ordered the moment of our birth and death (Ecc_3:2) does not leave us to decide the day of our conversion—still less whether we shall be converted or not.
"Thy people shall be willing" to whom? To do what? Willing for that to which previously they were completely averse. Willing to submit their intellect wholly to God’s Word, so that they receive with childlike simplicity all that is revealed there. Willing to lean no more to their own understanding, but to accept without question the mysteries of the faith. High imaginations and lofty reasonings against the knowledge of God are cast down, and every thought brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Miracles which infidels scoff at, aspects of truth which critics term contradictory, precepts which run counter to the lusts of the flesh, are meekly accepted. The elect are willing to bow to God’s way of salvation, so that they freely abandon their idols, renounce the world, repudiate all merits of their own, and come as empty-handed beggars, acknowledging themselves to be deserving only of hell. Willing to receive Christ as Prophet to instruct, as Priest to atone for their sins, as King to rule over them. Willing to receive Him as their Lord, to take His yoke upon them, to follow the example He has left them. Willing to bear reproach for His sake, to be given the cold shoulder, to be hated and persecuted. Willing to be on the side of the minority, to be cast out of the organized church if need be, to lay down their lives rather than deny Him.
Obviously, a miracle of grace must be effected within them before they will choose what is so contrary to fallen human nature. That wonderful change from unwillingness to willingness is not the result of creature effort, but of divine operation; it is not of self-improvement, but the effect of God’s work in the soul. Thus we read of "the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power" (Eph_1:19)—That putting forth of His power does not violate man’s constitution or responsibility. Instead of destroying the freedom of his will, it liberates it from its native bondage. God’s people are not dragged to Christ, but drawn (Joh_6:44) by "bands of love" (Hos_11:4). That action of His power has reference to that blessed time when the effectual inworking of the Spirit delivers the soul from the dominion of sin and Satan, when the influences of grace prevail over the corruptions of the flesh, when the Lord opens the heart to receive His Word (Act_16:14), when the affections are turned from the world to Christ, and the soul gladly gives up itself to Him. This power is life-giving and liberating, and delivers from death in sin. It communicates a new disposition which causes its recipient cordially to yield himself to God. This convincing power convicts the individual of his wickedness, wretchedness and need. God’s power works in him "both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phi_2:13). As the Christian reflects on all that this power has accomplished in him, he sings:
O happy day that fixed my choiceOn Thee, my Saviour and my God!Well may this glowing heart rejoice,And tell its raptures all abroad.
‘Tis done, the great transaction’s done;I am my Lord’s, and He is mine;He drew me, and I followed on,Charmed to confess the voice divine.
Marvel of Christ’s Mediation
The vile condition of mankind heightens the marvel of Christ’s mediation. It was by no means incumbent upon God to recover those who had turned their backs on Him. As He was not obligated to prevent their defection, neither was He obliged to restore any of those who had revolted. ‘When He permitted the whole human race to offend in Adam, had He left them to be buried in the ruins of their fall, to sink utterly beneath the weight of their iniquities, it would have been no undue severity on His part. He might well have reserved all men in those chains which they fully deserved, and left them to feed on the fruits of their evil doings, without lifting a finger for their deliverance. To go farther back, as God might forever have left men in their nothingness without bringing them into being, so He could have left them all in their contracted misery. There was no more reason why the Lord should save any of Adam’s posterity than there was for Him to bring back the fallen angels to their original obedience and bliss. The blessedness of God Himself would have been no more infringed upon by the eternal destruction of our entire race than it was by the everlasting ruin of devils. It was wholly at God’s own option whether He provided a Saviour or withheld Him.
There was no reason why God should not have abandoned all mankind. He certainly was not bound in justice to intervene on their behalf, for as the righteous Governor of the world He might well have proceeded to uphold the majesty of His law by executing its penalty on the disobedient, thereby making them an example of vengeance to all other intelligences in the universe. Nor did His goodness oblige Him to rescue His refractory subjects from their misery, for He had previously given full proof of that goodness in their creation, as is still made manifest in the happiness enjoyed by all His loyal subjects. Nor did any consideration of His glory require that He should show them mercy. God’s glory is not dependent on the manifestation of any one attribute, but on the manifestation of each in its proper time and place, and in full harmony with the others. God is glorified when He sends blessings on the righteous; He is equally glorified when He sends punishment on the wicked. ‘What would the loss of this world be to Him in whose sight it is nothing, yes, less than nothing and vanity? The provision of a Saviour was a matter of His free grace, and grace is something which none can claim as a right.
God was pleased to act in a manner which will cause both the holy angels and redeemed sinners forever to marvel and adore. His way of salvation is the wonder of all wonders, whether we consider the dignity of the Mediator’s person, the nature of His work, the things it accomplished, or its beneficiaries. The Saviour was none other than the Lord of glory, the Coequal and the Beloved of the Father. His work necessitated a journey from heaven to earth, the assumption of human nature, being made under the law, and enduring unspeakable humiliation. It required Him to become the Man of sorrows, so that the whole of His life in this scene was one of suffering and grief. It involved His becoming the Substitute of His people; the iniquity of them all was placed upon Him, and He took the wages due them. It entailed laying down His life to ransom them, dying a cruel, shameful and accursed death, during which He was separated from God Himself. So infinitely meritorious and efficacious was Christ’s death that it appeased the wrath of God against His people, satisfied every demand of His justice, removed the guilt of their transgressions from them as far as the East is from the West, conquered Satan and spoiled him of his dominion over them, procured the Spirit to quicken and indwell them, opened heaven for them so that they might have access to and fellowship with God, ensured their preservation in time and fullness of joy for eternity.
And on whose behalf did the Son of God suffer such awful indignities? Not for the fallen angels, whose original habitat was heaven, but for creatures of the earth who are but breathing dust and animated clay. These best of men compared with Christ are less in His sight than a worm is in ours. In Job_25:6 He actually terms them worms. It was for the unworthy, the unholy, the unlovely, that Christ’s sacrifice was ordained. ‘What an amazing thing that the Lord should set His heart on those who in their fallen estate were incapable of doing anything to please or honor Him. The objects of Christ’s mediation were despicable not only in their beings but in their actions also. As man is nothing comparatively, so he can do nothing to glorify Christ, though he can do much to provoke and dishonor Him. How can one who is lame and blind walk or work, or one who is dead act? Such were the Lord’s people when He entertained thoughts of mercy toward them: destitute of any good qualities or fruit, and lacking any spiritual principle or nature to yield one or the other. And after Christ has bestowed such a principle and nature on His people, they cannot act except as they are acted upon. They cannot stand, except as He upholds them. They cannot move unless He draws them. Christ must work all their works in them (Isa_26:12).
Man is not only impotent but poverty-stricken. He is nothing, can do nothing, has nothing. He not only has "no money" (Isa_55:1) but is heavily in debt. He is in a famishing condition, feeding on nothing but wind and husks, on the vanities and pleasures of this world. He has nothing with which to cover his shame; though he may, like the Leodiceans, imagine himself to be rich and in need of nothing, yet in God’s sight he is poor and naked. He cannot rightly say that his soul is his own, for he has given it over to Satan, sold himself to work wickedness. ‘What a marvel that Christ should love such a forlorn creature! But more: man is not only a bankrupt spectacle but a hideous one. Poverty will not hinder love, especially if there is beauty; but who can admire deformity? Yet the sinner, in the eyes of holiness, is full of revolting loathsomeness. No human pen can depict the obnoxiousness of defiled man. He was created fair and very good, adorned with the beauty of God’s image; but not only is all of that erased, but the horrible image of Satan has displaced it. Man’s light has been turned into darkness, his comeliness into corruption; instead of a sweet savor there is a stench and burning instead of beauty (Isa_3:24).
That which makes the soul most unlovely is its being dead. ‘When life expires all beauty expires with it. A dead soul is as repulsive to God as a dead body is to us. But men are not only hateful to Christ but haters of Him. They hate His person, His offices, His precepts. They hate His very image, and the more resemblance to Him any of His followers have the more they are detested. Yet there is not the least occasion of hatred in Christ. He is altogether lovely—divinely glorious, humanly perfect. Nor does He give any cause to be hated. All His administrations are righteous, so that His justice ought to be admired as much as His mercy. But men hate Christ with an unmixed hatred, without any degree of love, without the slightest inclination or tendency toward Him. This hatred was so deadly that when He was delivered into their hands they murdered Him. This hatred remains unvarying and inveterate, firmly rooted in men’s hearts, expressed by continual acts of rebellion against God. ‘What a truly amazing thing it is that Christ should voluntarily lay down His life for such creatures! Yet "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom_5:10). Behold such love. Behold and wonder.
Opposition to the Gospel
The total depravity of all mankind explains the opposition which the gospel encounters. ‘When one considers what the gospel is in itself—a message of good news to lost sinners—one would naturally suppose that it would be universally and cordially received. Will not those condemned to eternal damnation welcome a reprieve? Will not those dying from a deadly malady be glad to avail themselves of an effectual remedy? Will the naked scorn the garments of salvation, the poverty-stricken refuse the unsearchable riches of Christ, the famishing decline an invitation to a feast? One would not think so. The evangel contains the most illustrious display of the divine character which has ever been given to this world, and thus it is called "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1Ti_1:11). It makes known to us how divine wisdom has so perfectly adjusted His attributes that God can at the same time be both just and merciful in saving a hell-deserving sinner, that He can lavish on him the riches of grace without in any way compromising His holiness. Such a marvel is so far beyond human conception that it evidences itself to be truly divine. It is indeed "worthy of all acceptation." It announces the inestimable blessings of pardon, holiness and joy, and therefore should be cordially welcomed by all who hear it.
The love of God which the gospel publishes, and the sufferings of Christ for sinners, ought to melt the hardest heart and cause every hearer fervently to cry, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." This message of glad tidings proclaims peace. It tells of deliverance from condemnation, and promises eternal life to all who receive it. Yet the fact remains that the great majority of those who hear it are scarcely affected and obtain no lasting advantage to their souls; and that perplexes many Christians. But the total depravity of man fully explains that lamentable state. In a heart that is desperately wicked there is nothing whatever on which the gospel can seize that will evoke any echo to it. Its message is directly opposed to the opinions and inclinations of the fallen creature. If it informed men of how great worldly honors could be secured gratis, or how large sums of money could be obtained for nothing, it would be heartily welcomed. If it assured men how they could indulge their lusts with impunity and live in sin without fear of death and hell, it would indeed be good news to them. But a holy gospel does not appeal to them, being foreign to their tastes.
If God were to leave men entirely to themselves in their response to the gospel, it would be universally rejected. There is a deeply rooted contrariety to God in men s very nature which makes them turn a deaf ear to His voice, though they are ready enough to listen to the least whisper of Satan. As there are plants which are attractive to the eye but poisonous to the stomach, so even though the gospel is a pleasant sound to the ear it is repulsive to a corrupt heart. The gospel requires men to renounce their own wisdom and become as little children, to repudiate their own righteousness and accept that of Another, to turn from self-pleasing and submit to the will of God. The gospel is designed to transform the inner man and regulate the outer man, and that is quite unacceptable to the unregenerate. No exhortations will reconcile a wolf and a lamb. No logical arguments will tame a fierce lion. Though man is a rational creature, he follows the promptings of his lusts rather than the dictates of his judgment. One who is wholly in love with sin and Satan does not desire to enter the service of Christ. To turn to God in Christ is altogether contrary to the stream of corrupt nature, and therefore it needs to be overcome by a flood of almighty grace, as the stream of the river is overcome by the tide of the sea.
Certain writers represent the heart of fallen man as painfully conscious of its burden and sighing for deliverance. But the statement that the natural man is eager to escape from the ruin and degradation to which sin has reduced him is a figment of fancy, unsupported by a single fact of experience. The natural man does indeed encounter conflicts, yet his struggles are not for deliverance from indwelling corruption, but to escape the accusations of conscience. Man’s misery is that he cannot sin without unpleasant consequences. There is nothing whatever in him that predisposes him to welcome the gospel or to give it joyful acceptance when it is made known to him. The heart of man is more unwilling to embrace the evangel than it is to acknowledge the equity of the law. Charnock stated:
The Law puts man upon his own strength, the Gospel takes him off from his own footing. The Law acknowledges him to have a power in himself, and to act for his own reward; the Gospel strips him of all his proud and towering thoughts (2Co_10:5), brings him to his due place, the foot of God, and orders him to deny himself as his own rule, righteousness, and end, and henceforth not to live unto himself (2Co_5:14). This is the reason why men are more against the Gospel than against the Law: because it doth more deify God and debase man.
As there needed to be a forerunner for Christ to prepare the way before Him, so the Holy Spirit must first work upon the heart before it is ready to receive the gospel. Not until He renews the soul is any real sense of need awakened; and until its sickness is felt the great Physician is not desired. Before the heart has been divinely prepared for its reception, the Word of God can find no permanent place in it. That is very evident from our Lord’s parable of the sower, wherein He likened those who heard the Word to several kinds of ground. The seed sown was the same in each case. it was the soils that differed. The seed which fell by the wayside, on the stony ground and on the thorny ground was abortive. The heart has to be made "honest and good" (Luk_8:15) before there will be any increase or fruit. None but the Holy Spirit can produce in the soul a hatred of sin, and the desire to be saved from it because of its intrinsic vileness. Only because of the distinguishing and astonishing grace of God are any brought to repent and believe the gospel. One whose affections are chained to the things of earth cannot seek those things which are above. Nothing more clearly demonstrates the certainty of human depravity than the fact that without a special and divine operation no heart ever did or ever will savingly receive the gospel.
In view of the total depravity of man we need not be the least surprised at what we observe in Christendom itself. A change of clothes effects no alteration in the character of the wearer, neither does a person, s taking on a profession of religion better his heart. It may indeed foster a spirit of hypocrisy, and cause him to take more pains to hide from the eyes of his fellowmen what he is by nature; but it will not cleanse his soul from indwelling sin. Thus, while there is more open wickedness in the profane world, there is far more secret and cloaked wickedness in the professing world. Error is bound to be much more popular than truth to the unregenerate; therefore, to make the truth in any way acceptable to them it has to be watered down, wrested and perverted. And there are always those who, for the sake of filthy lucre, are ready to perjure their souls. Hence heretical sects and systems abound on every side. ‘What delusions are cherished about the character of God! ‘What erroneous ideas are entertained about His way of salvation! ‘What false opinions are held of man’s dignity, greatness, free will, even by many who call themselves Christians! Because of the unbelief, selfishness and impiety of men’s hearts, the false prophets, who speak smooth and flattering things, are assured of a ready hearing.
Here, then, is the explanation of the babel of tongues which is now heard in Christendom. ‘When the natural man takes it on him to handle the things of God, they are sure to be corrupted. How can those who are devoid of divine grace and in love with sin faithfully communicate the gospel which unsparingly condemns sin? For the same reason, those who are without true piety will prefer to hear and follow those whose preaching gives them the most license to gratify their carnality. Moreover, Satan will see to it that his emissaries cater to the worldly minded. What are Universalism and annihilationism but opiates to remove the dread of eternal punishment? ‘What is Antinomianism, with its bald fatalism and repudiation of the moral law as the believer’s rule of life, but an attempt to set aside the unpalatable truth of man’s responsibility? What are the great majority of present-day "missions" and "revivals," with their musical attractions and sensational methods, but a pandering to those who love emotionalism and sensationalism? Higher criticism and modernism are simply devices to banish the authority of Holy Writ and get rid of the supernatural. Extreme Arminianism panders to human pride, for it is virtually the deification of man, making him the architect of his life and the determiner of his destiny.
Infinite Patience of God
The depravity of mankind makes evident the infinite patience of God. "The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power" (Nah_1:3). How significant is the conjunction of those divine perfections! It is not because God is indifferent to men’s wickedness that He does not speedily take vengeance on them; still less because He lacks the ability to do so God is not at the command of His passions as men are. He can restrain His anger when under great and just provocation to exercise it. His power over Himself is the cause of His slowness to execute wrath; nevertheless, His might to punish is as great as His patience to spare. What fearful provocations, insults and injuries God meets with daily from mankind. Charnock well states:
How many millions of practical atheists breathe every day in God’s air and live upon His bounty, who deserve to be inhabitants of hell rather than possessors of earth! An infinite holiness is opposed, and infinite justice provoked, yet an infinite patience forbears the punishment, and infinite goodness relieves our wants.
What a wonder it is that God has protracted human history until now, and that He still "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust." Patience is as truly a divine attribute as are holiness, wisdom and faithfulness.
What a mercy that God does not strike dead those who brazenly defy Him and take His holy name in vain! Why does He not suddenly cut off every blatant infidel, as He did Ananias and Sapphira? Why does He not cause the earth to open her mouth and swallow the persecutors of His people, as He did when Dathan and Abiram rebelled against Moses and Aaron? ‘Why does He tolerate the countless abominations in Christendom which are being perpetrated under the holy name of Christ? Only one answer is possible: Because He endures "with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" (Rom_9:22). There are many ways in which the patience of God is manifested in this world. First, by publishing His vengeance before He strikes. "Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee" (Job_36:18), thereby affording them space to repent. Second, by delaying the judgments which He has threatened. Recall how long the ark was being prepared before He sent the great deluge (Gen_6:3)! Third, in executing His judgments by degrees, as He sent plague after plague upon Egypt before He commissioned the angel of death to kill all her firstborn; and as the Shekinah glory departed slowly from apostate Israel, retiring stage by stage (Eze_9:3; Eze_10:4, Eze_10:19; Eze_11:23), as though reluctant to leave.
Consider how great our provocations against the Most High—against His authority and majesty. Consider how many are our transgressions against the law. Consider how long they have been continued. Each succeeding generation has been as bad as the former, or worse, "evil men and seducers waxing worse and worse." Consider how fearfully God is insulted and offended by the world’s treatment of His gospel. He proclaims mercy to the worst of sinners, but they scoff at it. He entreats them to turn to Him that they may live, but they are determined to destroy themselves. ‘What an indescribably dreadful state men must be in who prefer their idols to Christ, and have no desire to be saved from their sins! What proof of His long-suffering that God has already prolonged this day of salvation for almost five hundred years more than the Mosaic economy lasted! Yet far from appreciating such clemency the unregenerate misinterpret and abuse it. How it should astonish us that God not only preserves in this life such a multitude of monsters, but continues to spread their tables!
Sure Wrath of God
How clearly the depravity of mankind demonstrates the necessity for hell! What can be the future of stout-hearted rebels who throughout life defy their Maker and Ruler and die in impenitence? Shall such a Being be despised with impunity? If, by the common consent of all right-minded people, one who is guilty of treason against an earthly monarch is worthy of death, what punishment can be too great for those who prefer themselves to the King of kings, and daily invade His prerogatives? Sin is a challenge to the government of God, and insurrectionists must be dealt with. Sin has to be paid the wages which it has earned. Equity requires that each one should reap as he has sown. The time of God’s patience has an end. He has wrath to punish as well as patience to bear. Because God is holy He hates all sin, and as the moral Governor it becomes Him to deal with revolters. How could He be the sum of all excellence were He to make no distinction between good and evil and to treat virtue and vice alike? Christ bade His hearers, "Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him" (Luk_12:5). He knew as none other did that God is the Enemy of sin and the Avenger of those who despise His counsels.
God will yet fully vindicate His throne and make evident what a fearful thing it is to despise Him. It is right that He should display His governmental supremacy and subdue all those who rise up against Him. Though He "endures [not ‘loves’!] with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction," yet in the day to come He will show His wrath, and make known His power; and that wrath will be no greater than the mercy which men abused. The highest contempt merits the greatest anger, and it is fitting that those who refuse to make God their happiness should be made to feel everlastingly the misery of their separation from Him. Eternal life and eternal death were plainly set before them, and since they chose the latter they cannot justly blame any but themselves when they are consigned to it. God’s veracity requires Him to fulfill His threatenings; and His very goodness requires Him to separate eternally the wicked from the righteous, for the latter could not enjoy perfect peace and happiness if they lived forever with the reprobate. It is just that those who freely serve the devil should be cast into the same prison and tormented with him. How could those who hate God, whose very natures are averse to Him, be admitted into heaven? ‘What must be the portion of those who would destroy the Deity were it in their power to do so?
The total depravity of our race sheds much light on Providence. Many of God’s dealings with men present insoluble riddles unto carnal reason. There is a divine handwriting on the wall of human affairs which, like that in Belshazzar’s palace, is indecipherable by human wisdom. To those who are unacquainted with what is recorded in Genesis 3, God’s ways with our race cannot but be most mysterious. But the whole subject is at once illumined when the doctrine of human depravity is understood. The whole brood of ills which now afflicts mankind has sprung from the pregnant womb of sin. The wrecked and wretched condition in which man now finds himself is the inevitable consequence of his fall. The frowning aspect of Providence which so often darkens this scene and appalls us receives its only adequate solution in the fact that Adam’s offense fearfully changed the relation of God and the creature. Our nature being what it is, we cannot expect history to be written in any other inks than those of tears and blood. Hospitals and prisons, the discords and strifes among men, the warring between nations, unprincipled politicians, conscienceless preachers—all are the effects of the corruption of human nature.
Here is the key to the problem of suffering. All the misery in the world proceeds from sin. But not only are the governmental ways of God with men what they are because of what the race is, they are also designed to make more evident the real character of fallen man. ‘While Providence sets bounds to the exercise of human depravity, at the same time it permits sufficient manifestations thereof to leave no candid observer in doubt. God causes men to reveal what they are by suffering their insubjection to His law, their rejection of His gospel, their perverting of His truth, their persecutions of His people. How many others, who were regarded as upright, are by some sudden temptation shown to have been all along corrupt at heart. Many a merchant, lawyer, bank official, even minister of the gospel, who was highly respected is permitted to fall into open sin, that the long-cherished depravity of his soul might be exposed. How remarkably does Providence often bring to light the hidden things of darkness, as in the case of Abraham’s deception, of Joseph’s brethren’s hatred, of Judah’s secret sin, as well as Achan’s and David’s.
Belief of this doctrine ought to have a beneficial effect on the children of God A sense of our native depravity should engender deep humility. ‘What a state we were in when God plucked us as brands from the burning! The realization of that ought to make us take and maintain a very lowly place before Him. "That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more Fin self-praise] because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD" (Eze_16:63). We have no reason for being proud. That acknowledgment of Jacob’s should be our constant confession: "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant" (Gen_32:10). As we look back to the pit from which we were dug, what fervent praise and thanksgiving should be awakened in our hearts! How we should adore the One who opened our prison doors, for none but His hand could loose the bolts and open the many locks which held us captive. Our hearts should be melted and filled with wonderment at the amazing grace which has saved us from the dominion of Satan and made us kings and priests to God, which has elevated beggars to be "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
This solemnizing doctrine ought to convince the saint that he cannot keep himself alive. If, being a mutable creature, sinless Adam, when left to himself, brought about his destruction, how much more would the mutable believer, with a fallen and corrupt nature still within him, unless an Almighty hand preserved him! So perverse are we by nature, and so weak as Christians, that without Christ we can do no good thing (Joh_15:5). Sustaining and preserving grace must be sought by us hourly. We are treading a slippery path and need to pray, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe" (Psa_119:117). Finally, the knowledge of this truth ought to produce in us a spirit of complete dependence on God. How beautifully is that state depicted in the description given of the church: "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?" (Son_8:5). So ignorant and wayward are we that "we know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Rom_8:26). Only by the gracious operations of the Spirit are our affections raised above this world, is our faith strengthened, are we enabled to lay hold of a divine promise. So shut up are we to God that in all things He must work in us "both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

The Total Depravity of Man Chapter 11 EVIDENCES

2006-01-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

After the ground we have already covered in the preceding chapters it might be thought there is no need for a separate section to furnish proof that man is a fallen and depraved creature who has departed far from his Maker and rightful Lord. Though the Word of God needs no confirming by anything outside itself, it is not without value or interest to find that the teaching of Genesis 3 is substantiated by the hard facts of history and observation. But since there is no point on which the world is so dark as that concerning its own darkness, we feel it necessary to demonstrate the fact. All natural men, unrenewed in their minds by the saving operation of the Holy Spirit, are in a state of darkness with respect to any vital knowledge of God. No matter how learned and skillful they are in other things, in spiritual matters they are blind and stupid. But when that fact is pressed upon them their ire is aroused. Proud intellectuals, who consider themselves so much wiser than the humble and simple believer, regard it as just the empty conceit of illiterates when told that "the way of peace they have not known." Such souls are quite ignorant of their very ignorance.
Signs of Man’s Ruin
Even in Christendom the average churchgoer is fully satisfied if he learns by rote a few of the elementary principles of religion. By so doing he comforts himself that he is not an infidel, and since he believes there is a God (though it may be one which his own imagination has devised) he prides himself that he is far from being an atheist. Yet as to having any living, spiritual, influential and practical knowledge of the Lord and His ways he is a stranger, altogether unenlightened. Nor does he feel the least need of divine illumination. He has no taste or desire for a closer acquaintance with God. Never having realized himself to be a lost sinner, he has never sought the Saviour. Only those who are aware of sickness value a physician, just as none but those who are conscious of soul starvation yearn for the bread of life. Men may proudly boast that this twentieth century is an age of enlightenment, but however true that may be in a material and mechanical sense, it is certainly far from being the case spiritually. It is often averred by those who ought to know better that men today are more eager in their quest for truth than in former days, but hard facts give the lie to such an assertion.
In Job_12:24-25 we are told that "the chief people of the earth... grope in the dark without light." How evident that is to those whose eyes have been anointed by the Holy Spirit. Who but those blinded by prejudice and incapable of seeing what is right before them would still believe in "the progress of man" and "the steady advance of the human race"? And yet such postulates are made daily by those who are regarded as being the best educated and the greatest thinkers. The idle dreams of idealists and theorists should have been dispelled by the happenings of the past fifty years, when millions of earth’s inhabitants have engaged in life-and-death struggles in which the most barbarous inhumanities have been perpetrated, thousands of peaceful citizens killed in their homes, thousands more maimed for the rest of their days, and incalculable material damage done. But so persistent is error, and so radically is it opposed to that which we are here contending for, that no efforts should be spared in exposing the one and establishing the other. We thus present some of the abundant evidence which testifies clearly to the utterly ruined condition of fallen mankind.
These proofs may be drawn from the teaching of Holy Writ, the records of historians, our own observations and personal experience. Genesis 3 describes the origin of human depravity. In the very next chapter the bitter fruits of the fall quickly begin to be manifested. In chapter 3 we see sin in our first parents; in chapter 4, sin in their firstborn, who very soon supplied proof of his having received an evil nature from them. In Genesis 3 the sin was against God; in Genesis 4 it was both against Him and against a fellowman. That is always the order: Where there is no fear of God, there will be no genuine respect for the rights of our neighbors. Yet even at that early date we discern the sovereign and distinguishing grace of God at work, for it was by God-given faith that Abel presented an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord (Heb_11:4); whereas in blatant self-will and self-pleasing, Cain brought the fruit of the ground as an offering. Upon the Lord’s rejection of the sacrifice, "Cain was very wroth" (Gen_4:5) because he could not approach and worship God according to the dictates of his own mind, and thereby displayed his native enmity against Him. Jealous of God’s approval of Abel, Cain rose up and murdered his brother.
Like leprosy, sin contaminates, spreads, and produces death. Near the close of Genesis 4 we see sin corrupting family life, for Lamech was guilty of polygamy, murder and a spirit of fierce revenge (Gen_4:23). In Genesis 5 "death" is written in capital letters over the inspired record, for no less than eight times we read "and he died." But again we are shown grace super-abounding in the midst of abounding sin, for Enoch, the seventh from Adam, did not die, being translated without seeing death. That much of his time was spent in expostulating with and warning the wicked of his day is intimated in Jud_1:14-15 where we are told that he prophesied, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Noah too was a "preacher of righteousness" (2Pe_2:5) to the antediluvians, but seemingly with little effect, for we read, "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually," that "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth," and that the earth was "filled with violence through them" (Gen_6:5, Gen_6:12-13).
But though God sent a flood which swept away the whole of that wicked generation, sin was not eradicated from human nature. Instead, fresh evidence of the depravity of man was soon forthcoming. After such a merciful deliverance from the deluge, after witnessing such a fearful demonstration of God’s holy wrath against sin, and after the Lord’s making a gracious covenant with Noah, which contained most blessed promises and assurances, one would suppose that the human race would ever after adhere to the ways of virtue. But the very next thing we read is that "Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent" (Gen_9:20-21). Scholars tell us that the Hebrew word for "uncovered" clearly indicates a deliberate act, and not a mere unconscious effect of drunkenness. The sins of intemperance and impurity are twin sisters. The sad lapse of Noah gave occasion to his son Ham to sin; for, instead of throwing the mantle of charity over his father’s conduct, he dishonored him, manifesting disrespect for him. In consequence Ham brought on his descendants a curse, the effects and results of which are apparent to this very day (Gen_9:25).
Genesis 9 brings the inauguration of a new beginning, causing our minds to turn back to the very beginning of the human race. A careful comparison of the two reveals a series of most remarkable parallels between the histories of Adam and Noah. Adam was placed on an earth which came up out of "the great deep" (Gen_1:2); Noah came forth onto an earth which had just emerged from the waters of the great deluge. Adam was made lord of creation (Gen_1:28); into the hand of Noah God delivered all things (Gen_9:2). Adam was "blessed" by God and told to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen_1:28); in like manner Noah was blessed and told to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen_9:1). Adam was placed by God in a garden to "dress and keep it" (Gen_2:15); Noah "began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard" (Gen_9:20). It was in the garden that Adam transgressed and fell ; the product of the vineyard was the occasion of Noah’s sad fall. The sin of Adam resulted in the exposure of his nakedness (Gen_3:7): likewise Noah "was uncovered within his tent" (Gen_9:21). Adam’s sin brought a terrible curse on his posterity (Rom_5:12); so did Noah’s (Gen_9:24-25). Immediately after Adam’s fall a remarkable prophecy was given, containing in outline the history of redemption (Gen_3:15); immediately after Noah’s fall a remarkable prophecy was uttered, containing in outline the history of the great divisions of our race.
The Carnal World System
Genesis 10-11 takes up the history of the post-diluvian earth. These chapters show us something of the ways of men in this new world—revolting against God, seeking to glorify and deify themselves. They make known the carnal principles by which the world system is now regulated. Since Gen_10:8-12 and Gen_11:1-9 interrupt the course of the genealogies given there, they should be regarded as an important parenthesis, the former one explaining the latter. The first is concerned with Nimrod: 1. He was a descendant of Ham, through Cush (Gen_10:8), therefore of that branch of Noah’s family on which the curse rested. 2. His name means "the rebel." 3. "He began to be a mighty one in the earth," which implies that he struggled for preeminence and by force of will obtained it. 4. "In the earth" intimates conquest and subjugation, becoming a leader of and ruler over men. 5. He was a mighty hunter (Gen_10:9): three times in Genesis 10 and again in 1Ch_1:10 is the term "mighty" used of him, the Hebrew word also being rendered "chief" and "chieftain." 6. He was a "mighty hunter before the LORD"; comparing that with "the earth also was corrupt before God" (Gen_6:11) we get the impression that this proud rebel pursued his ambitions and impious designs in brazen defiance of the Almighty. 7. Nimrod was a king and had his headquarters in Babylon (Gen_10:10).
From the opening verses of Genesis 11 it is clear that Nimrod had an inordinate desire for fame, that he lusted after supreme dominion or the establishment of a world empire (cf. Gen_10:10-11), and that he headed a great confederacy in open rebellion against Jehovah. Babel means "the gate of God," but afterward, because of the divine judgment inflicted on it, it came to mean "confusion." By putting together the different details supplied by the Spirit, there can be little doubt that Nimrod not only organized an imperial government, over which he presided as king, but also instituted a new and idolatrous worship. Though he is not mentioned by name in Genesis 11, it is evident from the foregoing chapter that he was the leader of the movement here described. The topographical reference in Gen_11:2 is just as morally significant as is "going down into Egypt" and "up to Jerusalem." "They journeyed from the east" connotes that they turned their backs on the sunrise. God had commanded Noah to "multiply, and replenish the earth." But we read: "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (Gen_11:4). That was directly contrary to God, and He at once intervened, brought Nimrod’s scheme to naught, and scattered them "abroad upon the face of all the earth" (Gen_11:9).
At the Tower of Babel another crisis had arrived in the history of the human race. There mankind was again guilty of apostasy and outright defiance of the Most High. The divine confounding of man’s speech was the Origin of the different nations of the earth, and after the overthrow of Nimrod’s effort we get the formation of the "world" as it has existed ever since. This is confirmed in Romans 1, where the apostle supplies proof of the guilt of the Gentiles. In Rom_1:19 we read of "that which may be known of God"-through the display of His perfections in the works of creation. Rom_1:21-23 go further and state, "When they knew God [i.e., in the days of Nimrod], they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools [in connection with the Tower of Babel] , and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." It was then that idolatry commenced. In what follows we are told three times that "God gave them up" (Rom_1:24, Rom_1:26, Rom_1:28). It was then that He abandoned them and "suffered all nations to walk in their own ways" (Act_14:16).
The next thing after the great crisis in human affairs recorded in Genesis 11 was the divine call of Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. But before turning to that, let us consider some of the effects of the nations going their own evil ways. The first of the Gentile nations about which Scripture has much to say are the Egyptians, who made their depravity clear by mistreating the Hebrews and defying the Lord. The seven nations which inhabited Canaan when Israel entered that land in the days of Joshua were devoted to the most horrible abominations and wickedness (Lev_18:6-25; Deu_9:5). The characters of the renowned empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome are intimated in Dan_7:4-7, where they are likened to wild beasts. Outside the narrow bounds of Judaism the whole world was heathen, completely dominated by the devil. Having turned their backs on Him who is light, they were in total spiritual darkness, given up to ignorance, superstition and vice. One and all sought their happiness in the pleasures of earth, according to their various desires and appetites. But whatever "happiness" was enjoyed by them was sensual and fleeting, utterly unworthy of creatures made for eternity. They were quite insensible of their real misery, poverty and blindness.
It is true that the arts were developed to a high degree by some of the ancients and that there were famous sages among them, but the masses of the people were grossly materialistic, and their teachers propagated the wildest absurdities. They all denied a divine creation of the world, holding for the most part that matter is eternal. Some believed there was no survival of the soul after death, others in the theory of transmigration—the souls of men passing into the bodies of animals. In short, "the world by wisdom knew not God" (1Co_1:21). Where there is ignorance of Him there is always ignorance of ourselves. They did not realize they were victims of the great deceiver of souls, who blinds the minds of those who do not believe. No ancient nation was as highly educated as the Greeks, yet the private lives of her most eminent men were stained by the most revolting crimes. Those who had the ear of the public and talked most about setting men free from their passions, although held in the highest esteem as the teachers of truth and virtue, were themselves the abject slaves of sin and Satan. Morally speaking, society was rotten to the core.
The whole world festered in its corruption. Sensual indulgence was everywhere carried to its highest pitch, gluttony was an art, fornication was indulged in without restraint. The Prophet Hosea shows (chap. 4) that where there is no knowledge of God there is no mercy or truth. Instead, selfishness, oppression and persecution bear down on all. There is scarcely a page in the annals of the world which does not furnish tragic illustrations of the greed and grind, the injustice and chicanery, the avarice and consciencelessness, the intemperance and immorality to which fallen human nature is so horribly prone. What a sad spectacle history presents of our race. It abundantly bears witness to the divine declaration, "Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity" (Psa_62:9). Modern infidels may paint a beautiful picture of the virtues of many of the heathen, and out of their hatred of Christianity exalt them to the highest seats of intellectual attainment and moral excellence, but the clear testimony of history definitely refutes them.
The earth has been deluged with blood by its murders and fightings. "The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty" (Psa_74:20). In ancient Greece, parents were at liberty to abandon their children to perish from cold and hunger, or to be eaten up by wild beasts; and though such exposures were frequently practiced they passed without punishment or censure. Wars were prosecuted with the utmost ferocity, and if any of the vanquished escaped death, lifelong slavery of the most abject kind was the only prospect before them. At Rome, which was then the metropolis of the world, the court of Caesar was steeped in licentiousness. To provide amusement for his senators, six hundred gladiators fought hand-to-hand mortal combat in the public theater. Not to be outdone, Pompey turned five hundred lions into the arena to battle an equal number of his braves, and "delicate ladies" sat applauding and gloating over the flow of blood. Aged and infirm citizens were banished to an island in the Tiber. Almost two-thirds of the "civilized" world were slaves, their masters having absolute power over them. Human sacrifices were frequently offered on the temple altars. Destruction and misery were commonplace, and the way of peace was unknown (Rom_3:16-17).
The Deists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made much of the charming innocence of the tribes which lived in the "sylvan bowers of primeval forests," untainted by the vices of civilization, unpolluted by modern commerce. But when the woods of America were entered by the white man, he found the Indians as ferocious and cruel as wild beasts. As someone expressed it, "The red tomahawk might have been emblazoned as the red man’s coat of arms, and his eyes of glaring revenge regarded as the index of his character." When travelers penetrated into the interior of Africa, where they hoped to find human nature in its primitive excellence, they found instead primitive devilry. Take the milder races. To look into the gentle face of the Hindu one would suppose him incapable of brutality and bestiality, but let the facts of the Sepoy Rebellion of the nineteenth century be read, and one will find the mercilessness of the tiger. Look at the placid Chinaman. The Boxer outbreak and atrocities at the beginning of this century produced similar inhumanities. If a new tribe were discovered, we should know it too must be depraved and vicious. Simply to be informed that they were men would oblige us to conclude that they were "hateful, and hating one another."
Depravity of Jews as Well as Gentiles
The depravity of the Gentiles may not excite surprise, since their religions, instead of restraining vice, furnished a stimulus to the most horrible practices, in the examples of their profligate gods. But were the Jews any better? In considering their case we shall turn from the general to the particular, examining that people designed by God to be a specimen of human nature. The divine Being singled out and separated them from all other nations. He showered His benefits upon them, strengthened them with many encouragements, wrought miracles on their behalf, awed them with the most fearful threatenings, chastised them severely and frequently, and inspired His servants to give us an accurate account of their response. And what a wretched response it was. Except for the conduct of a few individuals among them, which, being the effect of divine grace, proves nothing against what we are here demonstrating-in fact only serves to intensify the sad contrast-the entire history of the Jews was nothing but a series of rebellions and continued departures from the living God. No other nation was so highly favored and richly blessed by heaven, and none so wretchedly repaid the divine goodness.
Provided with a law which was drawn up and proclaimed by God Himself, which was enforced by the most winsome and also the most awesome sanctions, the whole nation within a few days of its reception was engaged in obscenely worshipping a golden calf. To them were entrusted the divine oracles and ordinances, which were neither appreciated nor heeded. In the wilderness they greatly provoked the holy One by their murmuring, their lusting after the plenty of Egypt when supplied with "angels’ food" (Psa_78:25), their prolonged idolatry (Act_7:42-43) and their unbelief (Heb_3:18). After they received the land of Canaan for an inheritance, they soon evinced their base ingratitude, so that the Lord had to say to His sorrowing servant, "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them" (1Sa_8:7). So averse were they to God and His ways that they hated, persecuted and killed the messengers which He sent to turn them from their wickedness. "They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law" (Psa_78:10). They declared, "I have loved strangers, and after them will I go" (Jer_2:25).
After furnishing proof in Romans 1 of the total depravity of the Gentile world, the apostle turned to the case of privileged Israel, and from their own Scriptures demonstrated that they were equally polluted, equally beneath the curse of God. He asked, "What then? Are we better than they?" Then he answered, "No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin" (Rom_3:9). So too in 1 Corinthians 1, where the utmost scorn is expressed for that which is highly esteemed among men, the Jew is placed on the same level as the Gentile. There we are shown how God views the arrogant pretensions of the worldly wise. When the apostle asks, "Where is the wise?" he is referring to the Grecian philosophers, who dignified themselves with that title. His question indicates contempt of their proud claims. "With all your boasted knowledge, have you discovered the true and living God?" They are challenged to come forth with their schemes of religion. "After all you have taught others, what have you accomplished? Have you found out the way to eternal felicity? Have you learned how guilty sinners may have access to a holy God?" God declares that, far from being wise men, such sages as Pythagoras and Plato were fools.
Then Paul asks, "Where is the scribe?" (1Co_1:20). The scribe was the wise man, the esteemed teacher, among the Jews. He was at just as great a distance from and just as ignorant of the true God. Far from possessing any true knowledge of Him, he was a bitter enemy of that knowledge when it was proclaimed by His incarnate Son. Though the scribes enjoyed the inestimable advantage of possessing the Old Testament Scriptures, they were in general as ignorant of God’s salvation as were the heathen philosophers. Instead of pointing to the death of the promised Messiah as the grand sacrifice for sin, they taught their disciples to depend on the laws and ceremonies of Moses, and on traditions of human invention. When Christ was manifested before them, far from being the first to receive Him, they were His most bitter persecutors. His appearing before them in the form of a servant did not suit their proud hearts. Though He was "full of grace and truth," they saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. Though He announced glad tidings, they refused to listen to them. When Christ performed miracles of mercy before them, they would not believe in Him. Though He sought only their good, they returned Him nothing but evil. Their reaction was "We will not have this man to reign over us" (Luk_19:14).
Contempt for Christ
The general neglect and contempt which the Lord Jesus experienced among the people afford a very humbling view of what our fallen human nature is. But the awful depths of human depravity were most plainly evidenced by the scribes and Pharisees, the priests and elders. Though well acquainted with the prophets, and though professing to wait for the Messiah, with desperate and merciless malignity they sought His destruction. The whole course of their conduct shows that they acted against their convictions that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. Certainly they had full knowledge of His innocence of all which they charged against Him. This is evident from the plain intimation of the One who read their hearts, and who knew that they were saying within themselves , "This is the heir; come, let us kill him" (Mat_21:38). They were as untiring as they were unscrupulous in their malice. They, or their agents, dogged Christ from place to place, hoping that in His more unguarded fellowship with His disciples they might more readily trap Him, or find something in His words or actions which they could distort into a ground of accusation. They seized every opportunity to poison the minds of the public against Him and, not content with ordinary aspersions of His character, inferred that He was ministering under the immediate inspiration of Satan. What was the source of such wicked treatment of the Son of God? What but their corrupt hearts? "They hated me without a cause" (Joh_15:25), declared the Lord of glory. There was nothing whatever in either His character or conduct which merited their vile contempt and enmity. They loved the darkness and therefore hated the light. They were infatuated by their evil lusts and delighted to gratify them. So too their deluded followers gave a ready ear to false prophets who said, "Peace, peace" to them, flattered them, and encouraged them in their carnality. Consequently they could not tolerate that which was disagreeable to their depraved tastes and condemned their sinful ways. Therefore "the people" as well as their chief priests and rulers cried out, "Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas" (Luk_23:18). After they had hounded Him to a criminal’s death, their ill will pursued Him to the grave, for they came to Pilate and demanded that he seal His sepulcher. When their effort was proved to be in vain, the high Sanhedrin of Israel bribed the soldiers who had attempted to guard the tomb, and with premeditated deliberation put a lie in their mouths (Mat_28:11-15).
Nor did the enmity of Christ’s enemies abate after He left this scene and returned to heaven. When His ambassadors went forth to preach His gospel, they were arrested and forbidden to teach in the name of Jesus, and then released under threat of punishment (Acts 4). Upon the apostles’ refusal to comply, they were beaten (Act_5:40). Stephen was stoned to death. James was beheaded, and many others were scattered abroad to escape persecution. Except where God was pleased to lay His restraining hand on those in whom He worked a miracle of grace, Jews and Gentiles alike despised the gospel and willfully opposed its progress. In some cases their hatred of the truth was less openly displayed than in others, yet it was nonetheless real. It has been the same ever since. However earnestly and winsomely the gospel is preached, most of those who hear it reject it. For the most part they are like those of our Lord’s day who "made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm , another to his merchandise" (Mat_22:5). The great majority are too unconcerned to seek after even a doctrinal knowledge of the truth. Many regard this carelessness of the unsaved as mere indifference, but actually it is something much worse than that, namely, dislike for the things of God, direct antagonism to Him.
The hostility of the unsaved is made evident by the way they treat the people of God. The closer the believer walks with his Lord, the more he will grate on and be mistreated by those who are strangers to Him. But "blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake" (Mat_5:10). As one pointed out, "It is a strong proof of human depravity that man’s curses and Christ’s blessings should meet on the same persons. Who would have thought a man could be persecuted and reviled, and have all manner of evil said of him for righteousness’ sake?" But do the ungodly really hate justice and integrity, and love those who defraud and wrong them? No, they do not dislike righteousness as it respects their own interests, only that species of it which own the rights of God. If the saints would be content with doing justly and loving mercy, and would give up walking humbly with God, they might go through the world not only in peace but with the approbation of the unregenerate; but "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2Ti_3:12) because such a life reproves the ungodliness of the wicked. If compassion moves the Christian to warn his sinful neighbors of their danger, he is likely to be insulted for his pains. His best actions will be ascribed to the worst motives. Yet, far from being cast down by such treatment, the disciple should rejoice that he is counted worthy to suffer a little for his Master’s sake.
Disowning of God’s Law
The depravity of men appears in their disowning of the divine law set over them. It is the right of God to be the acknowledged Ruler of His creatures, yet they are never so pleased as when they invade His prerogative, break His laws, and contradict His revealed will. How little we realize that it is one and the same to repudiate His scepter and to repudiate His being. When we disown His authority we disown His Godhead. There is in natural man an averseness to having any acquaintance with the rule under which their Maker has placed them: "Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?" (Job_21:14-15). That aversion is seen in their unwillingness to use the means for obtaining a knowledge of His will. However eager they are in their quest for all other kinds of knowledge, however diligent in studying the formation, constitution and ways of creatures, they refuse to acquaint themselves with their Creator. When made aware of some part of His will, they attempt to shake it off, as they do not "like to retain God in their knowledge" (Rom_1:28). If they do not succeed, they avoid considering such knowledge, and do their utmost to dismiss it from their minds.
A class of the unregenerate who are exceptions to the general rule are those who attend church, make a profession of religion, and become "Bible students." Motivated by pride of intellect and reputation, they are ashamed to be regarded as spiritual ignoramuses, and want to have a good standing in religious circles. Thus they secure a cloak of respectability, and often the esteem of God’s own people. Nevertheless, they are devoid of God’s grace. They "hold the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom_1:18); they hold it, but it does not grip, influence and transform them. If they ponder the truth, it is not with delight; if they take pleasure in it, it is only because their store of information is increased and they are better equipped to hold their own in a discussion. Their design is to inform their understanding, not to quicken their affection for God. There is far more hypocrisy than sincerity within the pale of the church. Judas was a follower of Christ because he "had the bag, and bare what was put therein" (Joh_12:6) , not out of love for the Saviour. Some have the faith or truth of God "with respect of persons" (Jam_2:1); they do not receive it from the fountain, but from the channel. Often the truth delivered by another is rejected; but that same truth, coming from the mouth of their idol, is regarded as an oracle. They make man and not God their rule, for though they acknowledge the truth, they do not receive it for love of the truth, but rather because they admire the instrument.
The depravity of human nature is seen in the sad and general reversion to darkness of a people after being favored with the light. Even where God has been made known and His truth proclaimed, if He leaves men to the working of their evil hearts, they quickly fall back into a state of ignorance. Noah and his sons lived for centuries after the flood to acquaint the world with the perfections of God, yet all knowledge of Him soon disappeared. Abram and his father were idolaters (Jos_24:2). Even after a man has experienced the new birth and become the subject of immediate divine influence, how much ignorance and error, imperfection and impropriety, still remains-just because he is not completely subject to the Lord. The backslidings and partial apostasies of genuine Christians are an awful demonstration of the corruption of human nature. Our proneness to fall into error after divine enlightenment is solemnly illustrated by the Galatians. They had been instructed by Paul, and through the power of the Spirit had believed in the Saviour he proclaimed. They were so happy that they received him "as an angel of God" (Gal_4:14). Yet in the course of a few years many of those converts gave such credence to false teachers, and so far renounced biblical principles, that the apostle had to say of them, "I stand in doubt of you" (Gal_4:20). Look at Europe, Asia, Africa, after the preaching of the apostles and those who immediately followed them. Though the light of Christianity illuminated most sections of the Roman Empire, it was speedily quenched, and gave place to the darkness. The greater part of the world fell victim to Rome and Islam.
Nothing more forcibly exhibits the sinfulness of man than his proneness to idolatry. No other sin is so strongly denounced or so severely punished by God. Idols are simply the work of men’s hands, and therefore inferior to them. How irrational then to worship them! Can human madness go further than for men to imagine they can manufacture gods? Those who have sunk so low as to confide in a block of wood or stone have reached the extreme of idiocy. As Psalm 115 points out, "They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not... They that make them are like unto them"—as stupid, as incapable of hearing and seeing those things which pertain to their salvation.
The corruption of human nature discovers itself in little children. As the adage puts it, "That which is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh." And at what an early date it does! If there were any innate goodness in man, it would surely show itself during the days of his infancy, before virtuous principles were corrupted, before evil habits were formed by his contact with the world. But do we find infants inclined to all that is pure and excellent, and disinclined to whatever is wrong? Are they meek, tractable, yielding readily to authority? Are they unselfish, magnanimous when another child seizes their toy? Far from it. The unvarying result of growth in human beings is that as soon as they are old enough to exhibit any moral qualities in human action they display evil ones. Long before they are old enough to understand their own wicked tempers, they manifest self-will, greediness, deceitfulness, anger, spite and revenge. They cry and pout for what is not good for them, and are indignant with their elders on being refused, often attempting to strike them. Those born and brought up in the midst of honesty are guilty of petty pilfering before they ever witness an act of theft. These blemishes are not to be ascribed to ignorance, but to their variance with the divine law to which man’s nature was originally conformed, to that horrible change which sin has made in the human constitution. Human nature is seen to be tainted from the beginning of its existence.
The universal prevalence of disease and death witnesses unmistakably to the fall of man. All the pains and disorders of our bodies, by which our health is impaired and our way through this world made difficult, are the consequences of our apostasy from God. The Saviour plainly intimated that sickness is an effect of sin when He healed the man with the palsy, saying, "Thy sins be forgiven thee" (Mat_9:2). The psalmist also linked together God’s pardoning the iniquities of His people and healing their diseases (Psa_103:3). There is one event that happens to all. Yes, but why should it? Why should there be wasting away and then dissolution? Philosophy offers no explanation. Science can furnish no satisfactory answer, for to say that disease results from the decay of nature only pushes the inquiry farther back. Disease and death are abnormalities. Man is created by the eternal God, endowed with a never dying soul. Why then should he not continue to live here forever? Because of the fall; death is the wages of sin.
Man’s ingratitude to his gracious Benefactor is still another evidence of his sad condition. The Israelites were a woeful sample of all mankind in this respect. Though the Lord delivered them from the house of bondage, miraculously conducted them through the Red Sea, led them safely across the wilderness, they did not appreciate it. Though He screened them with a cloud from the heat of the sun, gave them light by night in a pillar of fire, fed them with bread from heaven, caused streams to flow in the sandy desert, and brought them into the possession of a land flowing with milk and honey, they were continually murmuring and complaining. Men do not acknowledge or even recognize the hand that so bountifully ministers to their needs. No one is satisfied with the place and portion Providence has assigned him; he is forever coveting what he does not have. He is a creature given to changes; he is afflicted with a malady which Solomon termed "the wandering of the desire" (Ecc_6:9).
Someone has said that every dog that snaps at us, every horse that lifts up its heel against us, proves that we are fallen creatures. The brute creation had no enmity toward man before the fall. Creation gave willing respect to Adam (Gen_2:19). Eve no more dreaded the serpent than we would a fly. But when man shrugged off allegiance to God, the beasts by divine permission shook off allegiance to man. What a proof of man’s degradation that the sluggard is exhorted to "go to the ant" and learn from a creature so much lower in the scale of being! Consider the necessity of human laws, fenced with punishments and terrors to restrain men’s lusts. Yet in spite of the vast and costly apparatus of police forces, law courts and prisons, how little success follows their efforts to repress human wickedness! Neither education, legislation nor religion is sufficient.
Finally, take the unvarying experience of the saints. It is part of the Spirit’s work to open blind eyes, to show souls their wretchedness, and to make them aware of their dire need of Christ. And when He thus brings a sinner to realize his ruined condition by an experiential knowledge of sin, that sinner s comeliness is at once turned to corruption, and he cries, "Behold, I am vile." Though grace has entered his heart, his native depravity has not been expelled. Though sin no longer has dominion over him, it rages and often prevails against him. There is ceaseless warfare within between the flesh and the spirit. There is no need for us to enlarge on this, for every Christian, because of the plague of his heart, groans within himself, "0 wretched man that I am!" He is wretched because he does not live as he earnestly longs to do, and because he so often does the very things he hates, grieving daily over evil imaginations, wandering thoughts, unbelief, pride, coldness, pretense.