CHAPTER II. MANS OWN CHARACTER NO GROUND OF PEACE
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
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