If God testify against us, who can testify for
us? If God's opinion of man's sinfulness, his judgment of man's guilt, and his
declaration of sin's evil be so very decided, there can be no hope of acquittal
for us on the ground of personal character of goodness, either of heart or life.
That which God sees in us furnishes only matter for condemnation, not for pardon.
It is vain to struggle or murmur against God's
judgment. He is the Judge of all the earth; and he is right as well as sovereign
in his judgment. He must be obeyed; his law in inexorable; it cannot be broken
without making the breaker of it (even in one jot or tittle) worthy of death.
When the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the soul
it sees this. Conviction of sin is just the sinner seeing himself as he is,
and as God has all along seen him. Then every fond idea of self-goodness, either
in whole or in part, vanishes away. The things in him that once seemed good
appear so bad, and the bad things so very bad, that every self-prop falls from
beneath him, and all hope of being saved, in consequence of something in his
own character, is then taken away. He sees that he cannot save himself; nor
help God to save him. He is lost, and he is helpless. Doings, feelings, strivings,
prayings, givings, abstainings, and the life, are found to be no relief from
a sense of guilt, and, therefore, no resting-place for a troubled heart. If
sin were but a disease or a misfortune, these apparent good things might relieve
him, as being favorable symptoms of returning health; but when sin is guilt
even more than disease; and when the sinner is not merely sick, but condemned
by the righteous Judge; then none of these goodnesses in himself can reach his
case, for they cannot assure him of a complete and righteous pardon, and, therefore,
cannot pacify his roused and wounded conscience.
He sees God's unchangeable hatred of sin, and
the coming revelation of his wrath against the sinner; and he cannot but tremble.
An old writer thus describes his own case; "I had a deep impression of the things
of God; a natural condition and sin appeared worse than hell itself; the world
and vanities thereof terrible and exceeding dangerous; it was fearful to have
ado with it, or to be rich; I saw its day coming; Scripture expressions were
weighty; a Saviour was a big thing in mine eyes; Christ's agonies were earnest
with me; I thought that all my days I was in a dream till now, or like a child
in jest; and I thought the world was sleeping."
The question, "Wherewith shall I come before the
Lord?" is not one which can be decided by an appeal to personal character, or
goodness of life, or prayers, or performances of religion. The way of approach
is not for us to settle. God has settled it; and it only remains for us to avail
ourselves of it. He has fixed it on grounds altogether irrespective of our character;
or rather on grounds which take for granted simply that we are sinners, and
that therefore the element of goodness in us, as a title, or warrant, or recommendation,
is altogether inadmissible, either in whole or in part.
To say, as some inquiring ones do at the outset
of their anxiety, I will set myself to pray, and after I have prayed a sufficient
length of time, and with tolerable earnestness, I may approach and count upon
acceptance, is not only to build upon the quality and quantity of our prayers,
but is to overlook the real question before the sinner, "How am I to approach
God in order to pray?" All prayers are approaches to God, and the sinner's anxious
question is, "How may I approach God?" God's explicit testimony to man is, "You
are unfit to approach me;" and it is a denial of the testimony to say, "I will
pray myself out of this unfitness into fitness; I will work myself into a right
state of mind and character for drawing near to God." Anxious spirit! Were you
from this moment to cease from sin, and do nothing but good all the rest of
your life, it would not do. Were you to begin praying now, and do nothing else
but pray all your days, it would not do! Your own character cannot be your way
of approach, nor your ground of confidence toward God. No amount of praying,
or working, or feeling, can satisfy the righteous law, or pacify a guilty conscience,
or quench the flaming sword that guards the access into the presence of the
infinitely Holy One.
That which makes it safe for you to draw near
to God, and right for God to receive you, must be something altogether away
from and independent of yourself; for, yourself and everything pertaining to
yourself God has already condemned; and no condemned thing can give you any
warrant for going to him, or hoping for acceptance. Your liberty of entrance
must come from something which he has accepted; not from something which
he has condemned.
I knew an awakened soul who, in the bitterness
of his spirit, thus set himself to work and pray in order to get peace. He doubled
the amount of his devotions, saying to himself, "Surely God will give me peace."
But the peace did not come. He set up family worship, saying, "Surely God will
give me peace." But the peace came not. At last he bethought himself of having
a prayer meeting in his house as a certain remedy. He fixed the night; called
his neighbors; and prepared himself for conducting the meeting, by writing a
prayer and learning it by heart. As he finished the operation of learning it,
preparatory to the meeting, he threw it down on the table saying, "Surely that
will do, God will give me peace now." In that moment, a still small voice seemed
to speak in his ear, saying, "No, that will not do; but Christ will do." Straightway
the scales fell from his eyes, and the burden from his shoulders. Peace poured
in like a river. "Christ will do," was his watchword for life.
Very clear is God's testimony against man, and
man's doings, in this great matter of approach and acceptance. "Not by works
of righteousness which we have done," says Paul in one place,[1] and "to him that worketh not," says he in a second; [2] "not justified by the works of the law," say he
in a third.[3]
The sinner's peace with God is not to come from
his own character. No grounds of peace or elements of reconciliation can be
extracted from himself, either directly or indirectly. His one qualification
for peace is, that he needs it. It is not what he has, but what he lacks of
good that draws him to God; and it is the conscienceness of his lack that bids
him look elsewhere, for something both to invite and embolden him to approach.
It is our sickness, not our health, that fits us for the physician, and casts
us upon his skill.
No guilty conscience can be pacified with anything
short of that which will make pardon a present, a sure, and a righteous thing.
Can our best doings, our best feelings, our best prayers, our best sacrifices,
bring this about? Nay; having accumulated these to the utmost, does not the
sinner feel that pardon is just as far off and uncertain as before? and that
all his earnestness cannot persuade God to admit him to favor, or bride his
own conscience into true quiet even for an hour?
In all false religion, the worshipper rests his
hope of divine favor upon something in his own character, or life, or religious
duties. The Pharisee did this when he came into the temple, "thanking God that
he was not as other men."[4] So do those in our
day who think to get peace by doing, feeling, and praying more than others,
or than they themselves have done in time past; and who refuse to take the peace
of the free gospel till they have amassed such an amount of this doing and feeling
as will ease their consciences, and make them conclude that it would not be
fair in God to reject the application of men so earnest and devout as they.
The Galatians did this also when they insisted on adding the law of Moses to
the gospel of Christ as the ground of confidence toward God. Thus do many act
among ourselves. They will not take confidence from God's character or Christ's
work, but from their own character and work; though in reference to all this
it is written, "The Lord hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper
in them."[5] They object to a present confidence,
for that assumes that a sinner's resting place is wholly out of himself, - ready-made,
as it were, by God. They would have this confidence to be a very gradual thing,
in order that they may gain time, and, by a little diligence in religious observances,
may so add to their stock of duties, prayers, experiences, devotions, that they
may, with some humble hope, as they call it, claim acceptance from God. By this
course of devout living they think they have made themselves more acceptable
to God than they were before they began this religious process, and much more
entitled to expect the divine favor than those who have not so qualified themselves.
In all this the attempted resting-place is self, - that self which God
has condemned. They would not rest upon unpraying, or unworking, or undevout
self; but they think it right and safe to rest upon praying, and working, and
devout self, and they call this humility! The happy confidence of the
simple believer who takes God's word at once, and rests on it, they call presumption
or fanaticism; their own miserable uncertainty, extracted from the doings of
self, they speak of as a humble hope.
The sinner's own character, in any form, and under
any process of improvement, cannot furnish reasons for trusting God. However
amended, it cannot speak peace to his conscience, nor afford him any warrant
for reckoning on God's favor; nor can it help to heal the breach between him
and God. For God can accept nothing but perfection in such a case, and the sinner
has nothing but imperfection to present. Imperfect duties and devotions cannot
persuade God to forgive. Besides, be it remembered that the person of the worshipper
must be accepted before his services can be acceptable; so that nothing can
be of any use to the sinner save that which provides for personal acceptance
completely, and at the outset. The sinner must go to God as he is, or not at
all. To try to pray himself into something better than a condemned sinner, in
order to win God's favor, is to make prayer an instrument of self-righteousness;
so that, instead of its being the act of an accepted man, it is the purchase
of acceptance, - the price which we pay to God for favoring us, and the bribe
with which we persuade conscience no longer to trouble us with its terrors.
No knowledge of self, nor conscienceness of improvement of self, can soothe
the alarms of an awakened conscience, or be any ground for expecting the friendship
of God. To take comfort from our good doings, or good feelings, or good plans,
or good prayers, or good experiences, is to delude ourselves, and to say peace
when there is no peace. No man can quench his thirst with sand, or with water
from the Dead Sea; so no man can find rest from his own character however good,
or from his own acts however religious. Even were he perfect, what enjoyment
could there be in thinking about his own perfection? What profit, then, can
there be in thinking about his own imperfection?
Even were there many good things about him, they
could not speak peace: for the good things which might speak peace, could not
make up for the evil things which speak trouble; and what a poor, self-made
peace would that be which arose from his thinking as much good and as little
evil of himself as possible. And what a temptation, besides, would this furnish,
to extenuate the evil and exaggerate the good about ourselves, - in other words,
to deceive our own hearts. Self-deception must always, more or less, be the
result of such estimates of our own experiences. Laid open, as we are, in such
a case, to all manner of self-blinding influences, it is impossible that we
can be impartial judges, or that we can be "without guile,"[6]
as in the case of those who are freely and at once forgiven.
One man might say, My sins are not very great
or many; surely I may take peace. Another might say, I have made up for my sins
by my good deeds; I may have peace. Another might say, I have a very deep sense
of sin; I may have peace. Another might say, I have repented of my sin; I may
have peace. Another might say, I pray much, I work much, I love much, I give
much; I may have peace. What temptation in all this to take the most favorable
view of self and its doings! But, after all, it would be vain. There could be
no real peace; for its foundation would be sand, not rock. The peace or confidence
which comes from summing up the good points of our character, and thinking of
our good feelings and doings, or about our faith, and love, and repentance,
must be made up of pride. Its basis is self-righteousness, or at least self-approbation.
It does not mend the matter to say that we look
at these good feelings in us, as the Spirit's work, not our own. In one aspect
this takes away boasting, but in another it does not. It still makes our peace
to turn upon what is in ourselves, and not on what is in God. Nay, it makes
use of the Holy Spirit for purposes of self-righteousness. It says that the
Spirit works the change in us, in order that he may thereby furnish us with
a ground of peace within ourselves.
No doubt the Spirit's work in us must be accompanied
with peace; but not because he has given us something in ourselves to draw our
peace from. It is that kind of peace which arises unconsciously from the restoration
of spiritual health; but not that which Scripture calls "peace with God." It
does not arise from thinking about the change wrought in us, but unconsciously
and involuntarily from the change itself. If a broken limb be made whole, we
get relief straightway; not by "thinking about the healed member, but simply
in the bodily case and comfort which the cure has given. So there is a peace
arising out of the change of nature and character wrought by the Spirit; but
this is not reconciliation with God. This is not the peace which the knowledge
of forgiveness brings. It accompanies it, and flows from it, but the two kinds
of peace are quite distinct from each other. Nor does even the peace which attends
restoration of spiritual health come at second hand, from thinking about our
change; but directly from the change itself. That change is the soul's new health,
and this health is in itself a continual gladness.
Still it remains true, that in ourselves we have
no resting place. "No confidence in the flesh" must be our motto, as it is the
foundation of God's gospel.
[1] Titus iii.5
[2] Rom. iv.4
[3] Gal. ii.16
[4] Luke xviii 11
[5] Jer. ii.37
[6] Psalm xxxii.2