The last BLOG (Humility 36) consisted mainly in a quotation from Jonathan Edwards and his efforts to distinguish between a legal humiliation and an evangelical humiliation. It ended with this quote: “They that are destitute of this, have no true religion, whatever profession they may make, and high soever their religious affections may be.” This quote gets at the importance of true humility and then of how awful it would be if the devil in his deceitful scheming brought a false idea of humility in the Church. Edwards also said that “This is a great and most essential thing in true religion.” That which is essential to true religion will change that religion if it is absent. For example, we are told that the doctrine that the Church stands or falls on is justification by faith alone. That is true. However, if true humility is necessary for there to be true faith, then we can see how deceitful it would be for some to have an idea that they can have faith apart from true humility. It can also be seen how it would change the whole idea of justification if sinners could have true faith and yet retain their pride. In the next several BLOGS we will look at how the quotes from Edwards in the prior BLOG (Humility 36) point to a great lack in our day.
“Evangelical humiliation is a sense that a Christian has of his own insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness, with an answerable frame of heart. There is a distinction to be made between a legal and evangelical humiliation. The former is what men may have while in a state of nature, and have no gracious affection; the latter is peculiar to true saints. The former is from the common influence of the Spirit of God, assisting natural principles, and especially natural conscience; the latter is from the special influences of the Spirit of God, implanting and exercising supernatural and divine principles…”
Edwards first sets out to give an idea of what evangelical humiliation is for this is most essential to true religion. A person must have, then, “a sense of his own insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness, with an answerable frame of heart.” To be true to the bigger context of Edwards’ work on Religious Affections, he is saying that this is a necessary sign of conversion. True and gracious affections will always have an evangelical humiliation. If a person has not been humbled so as to have evangelical humiliation, then that person’s affections will be for self rather than flow from and to God through Christ. True gracious affections will be for God primarily. Romans 7:24, as it gives us this from the heart of Paul, seems so stress this in him as well: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” This is also the teaching that Paul gave in Romans 4: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” (v. 5).
While this type of thinking does not fit with the modern approach of always trying to say good things about people to make them feel good about themselves, it is nevertheless far more biblical to esteem Christ rather than self. Until a person is driven from his own sufficiency to see that s/he is utterly insufficient for anything spiritual from self, that person will not trust in the sufficiency of Christ alone. One can stress the sufficiency of Christ for years and years, but until a man sees his own utter insufficiency he will not look to Christ alone as fully sufficient. The proud heart will always look to self for some sufficiency in self, but once it is broken from its own sufficiency it knows that it must have another who really is sufficient. This is true Christianity and this is what the modern generation must learn from the older generations. We must teach people that they need to go to Christ but we must also teach them how God draws them to Christ. Part of His drawing grace is in working in people the knowledge and then felt knowledge of their own utter insufficiency. This is part of His means of grace.
How hard it is for the proud soul to admit that s/he is despicable in the sight of God. How hard it is for the nice, proper, and polite person to admit that self is odious to God. But even more, the soul needs to arrive at the point where the self (natural man, sinful self, proud self) is despicable and odious to itself in the depths of its own soul. This is when we begin to see sin as sin. This is when we begin to see that the very worst thing that can be said about us is that we are sinners. This is when we begin to understand that the worst thing a human being can say to us is far better than what we are in the eyes of God in and of ourselves. The heart of humility can only begin when a person sees him or herself as a creature with no rights in the presence of its Creator. The heart of the person that sees what true humiliation before God is sees itself as a sinful creature in the presence of its Creator with no rights at all. God owes that sinful creature nothing but His omnipotent and eternal wrath. The humbled creature recognizes that as true because it now sees itself for what it is in His sight. Until the soul sees how insufficient it is as a creature and then sees itself as being truly despicable and odious to God because of sin, it will not understand grace. The intellect can grasp the doctrine, but until the heart is humbled it will not have grace dwelling in it.
God Loves... Himself 
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