The Greater Grievance

It is the Holy Spirit's work to convict of sin and apply comfort. And the Christian can resist these operations. But if it has become somewhat hipster-fashionable to wallow in the mire of despair, as if it somehow speaks of a deeper sort of piety, then it must be said that the latter offense is more grievous than the former.

In "Faith Seeking Assurance", Anthony Burgess writes:

It is a great sin to rebel against God’s Spirit, whether in the conviction of sin and duty or as comfort to counteract our doubt and distrust. Yes, the latter is a greater sin, for though the Spirit of God convinces and reproves us, yet its particular operation is to convince us of our adoption, thereby enabling us to call God 'Abba, Father.' Therefore, when we peevishly refuse the Spirit’s work within us, we do in a most eminent manner oppose the Spirit in His greatest glory.

The greater work of the Spirit is positive, i.e., as the Great Comforter of Christ's people. Therefore, to oppose Him in His greater work is the greater offense.

Far from breeding complacency, receiving the Spirit's comfort is actually the sharpest and most potent flesh-mortifying sword in the Christian's arsenal as it implies that the Christian has looked upon Christ in faith and has been ravished by His beauty and thus satisfied. Two opposing affections cannot comingle in the human heart, and therefore the Spirit's comfort is Christ loved and sin loathed—and sin loathed is sin mortified.

Mourn sin and look to Christ, look to Christ and then rejoice!

SBG!

It has been common practice among Calvinists to add a postscript of SDG or Soli Deo Gloria in their communications with each other, especially when a particular blessing has been received. I would like to propose a new expression—SBG or Suffering Before Glory.

One of the core tenets of the doctrine of union with Christ is that everything in the way of the Christian life that a believer receives or goes through in the application of redemption (ordo salutis) is predicated upon Christ having merited or gone through the thing bestowed or experienced, beforehand, in His accomplishment of redemption (historia salutis). This means that just as Christ suffered before He was received into glory, the one united to Him through faith must also suffer before he is glorified in the consummation.

While there is suffering that is the lot of every human being by virtue of subsistence in a fallen world, there is suffering that is unique to the Christian.

The world system, i.e., that philosophy of life that seeks to set man up as God, is hostile to the one who denies himself and lives a life of dependence on God—a life lived in light of the Creator-creature distinction.

Satan and his minions, they who seek to rob God of the glory that is due Him as the Sovereign Lord of reality, tirelessly go up against the children of God because they are the only ones, with the image of God restored in them, who are capable of redounding the glory of creation unto Him who is its Creator.

Finally, there is the self as considered with indwelling sin. This is the source of the Christian's greatest antagonism, and the cry of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 leaves no room for doubt as to the nature of the struggle that elicits such convulsions of soul.

This suffering is glorifying, not just for the Christian in the conclusion of his pilgrimage, but presently to Christ, since it produces His image in the Christian sufferer and serves to increase His mediatorial glory. The one who proclaims allegiance to Christ but is not desirous of affording Him the glory that He rightly deserves will shrink away from suffering. Consequently, he will not be glorified at Christ's return.

May the following meditation from Herman Hoeksema in Peace for the Troubled Heart strengthen you for suffering. SBG!

The 3 Points of Mortification of Sin

We all know of the importance of the mortification of sin, but sometimes the concept floats off like a balloon up in the skies of abstraction. This is an attempt to put some particularization into a non-negotiable of the Christian life.

In my own words:

1. Faith in Christ in the efficacy of His death on the cross.

2. Relentless prayer.

3. Humility and broken sobriety.


In John Owen's words:

Gospel Sobriety in Owen

In the work entitled, A Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace, John Owen describes the antithesis as being in either of two possible dominions. The one who is in the dominion of sin, the person who has not been blessed with definitive sanctification, is the unbeliever. For this person, there has not occurred that epochal break with the rule of sin by virtue of faith-wrought union with Christ. The believer, while still at war with indwelling sin in progressive sanctification, has been liberated from sin's sovereignty.

The following quote is preceded by Owen's treatment of what it means for sin to have dominion in the mind. I am now on the part wherein he discusses the affections, and I found this snippet to be valuable:

"If we love any thing more than God, as we do if we will not part with it for his sake, be it as a right eye or as a right hand unto us; if we take more satisfaction and complacency in it, and cleave more unto it in our thoughts and minds than unto God, as men commonly do in their lusts, interests, enjoyments, and relations; if we trust more to it, as unto a supply of our wants, than unto God, as most do to the world; if our desires are enlarged and our diligence heightened in seeking after and attaining other things, more than towards the love and favour of God; if we fear the loss of other things or danger from them more than we fear God, -- we are not under the rule of God or his grace, but we are under the dominion of sin, which reigns in our affections...All the commands we have in the Scripture for self-searching, trial, and examination; all the rules that are given us unto that end; all the warnings we have of the deceitfulness of sin and of our own hearts, -- are given us to prevent this evil of shutting our eyes against the prevalent corruption and disorder of our affections." (The Essential Works Of John Owen)

The gravitas in Owen's words is hard to miss. The ascertaining of our right standing with God, of being not in the dominion of sin but of grace, does not appear to him as simply a matter of "getting used to our justification" but involves real hard and sacrificial work! While Owen is keen on highlighting the primacy of faith: "I call these latter evidences subordinate ones, and additional to that of faith, [and they are] of great use by way of establishment and confirmation unto believers, provided they be not abused to sole resting and reliance upon them, to the great prejudice of our life of faith: for we live by faith (so must all repenting sinners when they have attained to the highest pitch of holiness in this life), and not by sense, no, not even spiritual sense; it is a good handmaid to faith, but no good mistress to it.", it is a faith that is ever examining the heart so that its affections may solely be grounded on Christ.

I am always thankful for Owen's Gospel sobriety.

Can a Christian Be in Habitual Sin?

John Owen, with great pastoral care and sensitivity, answers the question:


Discourse IX (Delivered April 19, 1677)

Question. Whether lust or corruption, habitually prevalent, be consistent with the truth of grace?

Answer. This is a hard question; there are difficulties in it, and, it may be, it is not precisely to be determined. I am sure we should be wonderfully careful what we say upon such a question, which determines the present and eternal condition of the souls of men.

Supposing we retain something of what was spoken in stating a lust or corruption so habitually prevalent, because this is the foundation of our present inquiry, I shall bring what I have to say upon this question to a few heads, that they may be remembered.

I say, then, --

Chaotic Change

The process of being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, called sanctification, is a lifelong dynamic of the Holy Spirit revealing the nature and extent of indwelling sin, with the attendant horrors of being confronted with the reality of our ugly selves in the light of God's beautiful holiness. This also involves the Spirit leading us by the hand and incessantly reorienting our hearts and minds toward the Goal through the Gospel. Exhausted and horrified, we are grateful for the righteousness, peace, and joy that is ours in the midst of our failures and we are invigorated by undeserved grace. We get up, dust ourselves, and pursue Christ once again in grateful obedience.

The fact of the matter is that change is most often a process and seldom an event. Change happens chaotically. It comes unannounced, in fits and starts. We don't wake up and say, "Hey, I think I'll create all kinds of change today." Change is pushed upon us by a persevering Redeemer, who will not walk away from the work he has begun...He will put the need of change before us in the most inopportune moments. He will not submit to our schedule or agenda for our day. He has not promised that change will be enjoyable each time or a comfortable process over the long haul. He has promised to stay near us, giving us everything we need, and he has guaranteed that we will be more than we ever thought we could be. (He will not cease working until we are like Jesus. Now, how's that for a goal!) So, he calls us to be patient. He calls us to be willing to wait. He calls us to continue when continuing is hard, and as we are continuing, to look for any way we can to incarnate his transforming love. (Paul D. Tripp, What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage [Illinois:Crossway, 2010], 131-132)

Swingin' Zwingli?

If any Christian man would be honest with himself, he might readily agree with me when I say that the sin of sexual lust just might be the "final frontier" in the lifelong process of mortification of sin. It has reduced many great men to loaves of bread (Prov. 6:26), the likes of which figure in the roster of those labelled as heroes of the faith. Can we mention the more prominent names, like Samson, David, and Solomon, and forget their trysts with unchastity? Arguably the greatest theologian since the Apostle Paul, Augustine himself is known to have been weighed down heavily by this struggle.

On the Reformation front, we read this of Huldrych Zwingli:

Zwingli apparently struggled early in life with sexual temptation. By his own admission he broke his vow of chastity on several occasions and often spoke of the shame that overshadowed his life. In fact, his appointment to the church in Zurich in 1519 was challenged based on rumors that he had seduced the daughter of an influential citizen. As it turned out, this "lady" had seduced many in Zurich, Zwingli among them. The charge of immorality was finally dropped when it was discovered that Zwingli's only rival for the post openly lived with several mistresses and had six illegitimate children! Zwingli himself lived with a widow, Anna Reinhart, and finally married her in 1524 shortly before the birth of their child. (Zwingli and Anabaptists)

and

Like many in his day, Zwingli's morals didn't always stand up to scrutiny. In January, 1519, a church called him to Zurich. When the call came, a young woman in Einsiedeln charged him with getting her pregnant. Zwingli admitted his guilt. In his admission, Zwingli said he made an early vow not to touch a woman but found it difficult to keep. He said, "Alas, I fell and became like the dog, who according to the Apostle Peter, turned back to his own vomit." He tried some self-justification by pointing out that the girl was not the daughter of a prominent citizen but the daughter of a barber. In those days barbers had poor reputations. He also said she possessed a poor reputation and had seduced him!

Perhaps impressed with his honesty, the Zurichers called him anyway. (The Zwinglian Revolt)

What all this tells us is that we, strugglers with lust, are in good company, the realization of which must not lull us into complacency but motivate us further into more vigilant watching and praying (Matt. 26:41) for "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13). The knowledge that our heroes' hearts were broken as much as ours on account of lust may just be one of these escape hatches.

Law and Gospel—the Superiority of the Latter in Dealing with Sin and Temptation

In the Christian's lifelong battle against indwelling sin, his heart is the prize defended and assaulted. Proverbs 4:23 and John Owen agree when the former states, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" and the latter, "Our hearts, as our Savior speaks, are our treasury. There we lay up whatsoever we have, good or bad; and thence do we draw it for our use." [1]

When the heart is filled up with good, the Law and the Gospel are its contents. But Owen makes the very important point that of the two, the Gospel is the superior antidote to temptation and its fruit, sin. He writes:

For the provision to be laid up it is that which is provided in the gospel for us. Gospel provisions will do this work; that is, keep the heart full of a sense of the love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative against the power of temptation in the world...Store the heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, and his love in the shedding of it; get a relish of the privileges we have thereby—our adoption, justification, acceptance with God; fill the heart with thoughts of the beauty of his death—and you will, in an ordinary course of walking with God, have great peace and security as to the disturbance of temptations...A sense of his love and favor in Jesus Christ. Let this abide in you, and it shall garrison you against all assaults whatsoever...Contending to obtain and keep a sense of the love of God in Christ, in the nature of it, obviates all the workings and insinuations of temptation. [2]

He does not discount the utility of the Law, however:

A man may, nay, he ought to lay in provisions of the law also—fear of death, hell, punishment, with the terror of the Lord in them. But these are far more easily conquered than the other; nay, they will never stand alone against a vigorous assault. They are conquered in convinced persons every day; hearts stored with them will struggle for a while, but quickly give over. [3]

So it is the nature of the case that in dealing with sin and temptation, the Christian needs both the Law and the Gospel, with the Gospel as wielding greater efficacy. Churches who neglect one or the other, or both, benefit their members in no way.

Pastorally, however, a key application must not be missed. Pastors who emphasize the Law inordinately debilitate the sheep. Could it be that accountability of the members towards their elders is impaired by virtue of a fundamentalist, legalist bent in the latter? The erring member is predisposed to keeping quiet and left to dealing with his sin on his own because he foresees that acknowledging the error to his pastor would most likely result in humiliating condescension.

The gracious and Gospel-driven pastor would have the opposite outcome—members who are open to him and adequately mortifying sin in their lives.



Footnotes:
1. Overcoming Sin & Temptation, eds. Kelly Kapic & Justin Taylor [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 204.
2. Idid., 205.
3. Ibid., 204.

The Goodness of Gandhi and the Like?

Cast a doubt on whether Mohandas Gandhi (or even Mother Teresa and Cory Aquino) is in heaven, enjoying eternal bliss in the presence of Christ, and more often than not, you will be met with fierce antagonism from those who do not properly comprehend the biblical doctrine of Total Depravity—because these people were just...so good.

Calvin offers us a timely reminder that it is only by God's restraining providence, through common grace, that not every one of us are as evil and barbaric as our totally depraved natures provide potential for us to be, and that ultimately, it is not our goodness that saves us but the goodness of the One who lived and died in the place of the elect:

The Faith for Good and Bad Works

Imagine your best good work for God and your most heinous act. What do the two have in common? Sin. Both are tainted with it, the latter with it more apparent and yet the former undeniably has it crouching underneath, most likely veiled in self-righteous pride.

What is the solution to this dilemma? Faith.

The Blows Beckon Us Back

"It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes" (Ps. 119:71).

Why is it that something which would be absent in future glory be deemed by the Psalmist as something good?

Because suffering brings us back to God. It is reality on a megaphone blaring in our ears, "Creature!" It puts us in our rightful place—close to God, in a relationship of humble and grateful dependence on Him for everything pertaining to our well-being: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Ps. 34:18).

That Deadly Darling

God cures David of adultery by killing his endeared child. There is some Delilah, some darling, some beloved sin or other that a Christian's calling, condition, constitution, or temptations leads him to play with and to hug in his own bosom. As in a plot of ground that lies untilled, among the great variety of weeds there is usually some master-weed, which is more plenteous and more repulsive than all the rest. So it is also in the souls of men, though there be a general mixture and medley of all evil and corrupt qualities, yet there is some one sin which is usually paramount, which is most powerful and prevalent, which sways and manifests itself more eminently and evidently than any other of them.

So, though the root of sin and bitterness has spread itself over all, yet every man has his inclination to one kind of sin rather than another. And this may be called a man's besetting sin, his bosom sin, his darling sin.

Now, it is one of the hardest works in this world to subdue and bring under control this bosom sin! Oh! the prayers, the tears, the sighs, the sobs, the groans, the distress that it will cost a Christian before he subdues this darling sin!

A man may easily subdue and mortify such and such sins, but when it comes to the master-sin, to the bosom-sin, oh! What tugging and pulling is there! What striving and struggling is there to get off that sin, to get down that sin!

Now, if the Lord, by smiting you in some near and dear enjoyment, shall draw out your heart to fall upon smiting of your master-sin and shall so sanctify the affliction as to make it issue in the mortification of your bosom corruption, what eminent cause will you have rather to bless Him, than to sit down and murmur against Him! And doubtless if you are dear to God, God will, by striking your dearest mercy, put you upon striking at your darling sin! Therefore, do not murmur, even when God touches the apple of your eye; even when He has snatched the fairest and the sweetest flower out of your bosom.

— Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 13-14, italics original.

Mortification, Faith, and the American Pitbull Terrier

One of the reasons why I inveterately adore the American Pitbull Terrier—and probably why most fanciers fancy them as well—is that this breed possesses the traits of gameness and tenacity at a level far above all other breeds. The pitbull, at least those that come from reputable, tested stock, will not back down from a challenge and will keep coming back for more in spite of injury or trouble to itself.

Another reason why I love "pits" is that they remind me of the tenacity and gameness required in the Christian life. The fallen world, the devil, and most especially our own remaining propensity for sin necessitate our incessant coming back to Christ. This "keep coming back for more" virtue in the Christian is called faith, and John Owen tells us that we are to "by faith ponder on this, that though you are no way able in or by yourself to get the conquest over your distemper, though you are even weary of contending, and are utterly ready to faint, yet that there is enough in Jesus Christ to yield you relief (Phil. 4:13)" and "Christ tells us that we obtain purging grace by abiding in him (John 15:3). To act faith upon the fullness that is in Christ for our supply is an eminent way of abiding in Christ, for both our insition [engraftment] and abode is by faith (Rom. 11:19-20)." [1]

Let the following reflections be fuel for your continued "scratching" back to Christ:

"I am a poor, weak, creature; unstable as water, I cannot excel. This corruption is too hard for me, and is at the very door of ruining my soul; and what to do I know not. My soul is becomes as parched ground, and an habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them; vows and engagements have been as a thing of naught. Many persuasions have I had that I had got the victory and should be delivered, but I am deceived; so that I plainly see, that without some eminent succor and assistance, I am lost, and shall be prevailed on to an utter relinquishment of God. But yet, though this be my state and condition, let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and the feeble knees be strengthened. Behold, the Lord Jesus Christ, that has all fullness of grace in his heart [John 1:16], all fullness of power in his hand [Matt. 28:18], he is able to slay all these his enemies. There is sufficient provision in him for  my relief and assistance. He can take my drooping, dying soul and make me more than a conqueror [Rom. 8:37].

'Why do you say, O my soul, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Have you not known, have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint' (Isa. 40:27-31).

He can make the 'dry, parched ground of my soul to become a pool, and my thirsty, barren heart as springs of water'; yea, he can make this 'habitation of dragons,' this heart, so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations, to be a place for 'grass' and fruit to himself (Isa. 35:7)." [2]

Footnotes:
[1] John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Justin Taylor [Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 131-132).
[2] Ibid., 132.

Looking to Christ + Loving Sin = Futility

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone. The recovery of the doctrine of justification was the crowning achievement of the Reformation, and the Gospel is the good news not only for the unbelieving sinner but for the believing one as well.

But in our daily looking to Christ for the assurance of our salvation—which, the Reformers taught, is of the essence of faith—are we perhaps missing a key ingredient? Do we look to Christ in the manner with which the Apostle Paul did in his description of the normal Christian life in Romans 7, i.e., in utter abhorrence of the sin that still clings to him like a strapped-on carcass, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:24-25)?

John Owen strips off our cloaks of deceitful comfort in the ff. statements:

"When men are wounded by sin, disquieted and perplexed, and knowing that there is no remedy for them but only in the mercies of God, through the blood of Christ, do therefore look to him, and to the promises of the covenant in him, and thereupon quiet their hearts that it shall be well with them, and that God will be exalted, that he may be gracious to them, and yet their souls are not wrought to the greatest detestation of the sin or sins upon the account whereof they are disquieted—this is to heal themselves, and not to be healed of God...When men do truly 'look upon Christ whom they have pierced,' without which there is no healing or peace, they will 'mourn' (Zech. 12:10); they will mourn for him, even upon this account, and detest the sin that pierced him.....Now this, I say, if it be done according to the mind of God, and in the strength of that Spirit which is poured out on believers, it will beget a detestation of that sin or sins for which healing and peace is sought.....When God comes home to speak peace in a sure covenant of it, it fills the soul with shame for all the ways whereby it has been alienated from him. And one of the things that the apostle mentions as attending that godly sorrow which is accompanied with repentance unto salvation, never to be repented of, is revenge: 'Yea, what revenge!' (2 Cor. 7:11).....he must come to self-abhorrency if he come to healing.....Let a man make what application he will for healing and peace, let him do it to the true Physician, let him do it the right way, let him quiet his heart in the promises of the covenant; yet, when peace is spoken, if it not be attended with the detestation and abhorrency of that sin which was the wound and caused the disquietment, this is no peace of God's creating, but of our own purchasing.....For instance, you find your heart running out after the world, and it disturbs you in your communion with God; the Spirit speaks expressly to you—'He that loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him' [1 John 2:15]. This puts you on dealing with God in Christ for the healing of your soul, the quieting of your conscience; but yet, withal, a thorough detestation of the evil itself abides not upon you; yea, perhaps that is liked well enough, but only in respect of the consequences of it. Perhaps you may be saved, yet as through fire, and God will have some work with you before he has done; but you will have little peace in this life—you will be sick and fainting all your days (Isa. 57:17). This is a deceit that lies at the root of the peace of many professors and wastes it. They deal with all their strength about mercy and pardon, and seem to have great communion with God in their so doing; they lie before him, bewail their sins and follies, that anyone would think, yea, they think themselves, that surely they and their sins are now parted; and so receive in mercy that satisfies their hearts for a little season. But when a thorough search comes to be made, there has been some secret reserve for the folly or follies treated about—at least, there has not been that thorough abhorrency of it which is necessary; and their whole peace is quickly discovered to be weak and rotten, scarce abiding any longer than the words of begging it are in their mouths." (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Justin Taylor [Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 119-121).

Sobering words for the sin-parched pilgrim.

The Utility of Indwelling Sin

Indwelling sin—it is the scourge of the Christian life, even more so than the world or the devil. Though the Christian has been made a partaker of the nature of Christ through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, still, absolute freedom from sin is not to be had in this present age.

To be sure, it is the Christian's duty to be mortifying sin in his life, as far as he is aware of particular instances of dominance. However, it may come as some comfort to know that this enemy has both a God-glorifying and man-benefiting function, the knowledge of which can never be a warrant for lawlessness, but is actually the impetus behind the pedagogical use of the Law.

John Owen writes,

"To mortify sin is not utterly to kill, root it out, and destroy it, that it should have no more hold at all nor residence in our hearts. It is true this is that which is aimed at; but this is not in this life to be accomplished. There is no man that truly sets himself to mortify any sin, but he aims at, intends, desires its utter destruction, that it should leave neither root nor fruit in the heart or life. He would so kill it that it should never more nor stir anymore, cry or call, seduce or tempt, to eternity. Its not-being is the thing aimed at. Now, though doubtless there may, by the Spirit and grace of Christ, a wonderful success and eminency of victory against any sin be attained, so that a man may have almost constant triumph over it, yet an utter killing and destruction of it, that it should not be, is not in this life to be expected. This Paul assures us of: 'Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect' (Phil. 3:12). He was a choice saint, a pattern for believers, who, in faith and love, and all the fruits of the Spirit, had not his fellow in the world, and on that account ascribes perfection to himself in comparison of others (v. 15); yet he had not 'attained,' he was not 'perfect,' but was 'following after' (v. 12): still a vile body he had, and we have, that must be changed by the great power of Christ at last (v. 21). This we would have; but God sees it best for us that we should be complete in nothing in ourselves, that in all things we must be 'complete in Christ,' which is best for us (Col. 2:10)" (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Justin Taylor [Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 69-70, italics original, emphasis mine).