The distinction between legal humiliation and evangelical humiliation (as termed by Edwards) is vital to some form of understanding of true humility and then true conversion. He says that “this is a great and most essential thing in true religion.” He then goes on to say “they that are destitute of this, have no true religion, whatever profession they may make, and high soever their religious affections may be.” This distinction, while not talked about in our day much at all if at all, is vital to salvation and sanctification. We must return to the days when men wrestled with Scripture and the nature of their own hearts and others in order that our day would do the same thing.
The quote from below is from Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections and the longer quote can be read in the BLOG Humility 36.
“In a legal humiliation men are made sensible that they are nothing before the great and terrible God and, that they are undone, and wholly insufficient to help themselves; as wicked men will be at the day of judgment; but they have not an answerable frame of heart, consisting in a disposition to abase themselves, and exalt God alone. This disposition is given only in evangelical humiliation, by overcoming the heart, and changing its inclination, by a discovery of God’s holy beauty. In a legal humiliation, the conscience is convinced; as the consciences of all will be most perfectly at the day of judgment; but because there is no spiritual understanding, the will is not bowed, nor the inclination altered. In legal humiliation, men are brought to despair of helping themselves; in evangelical, they are brought voluntarily to deny and renounce themselves; in the former, they are subdued and forced to the ground; in the latter, they are brought sweetly to yield, and freely and with delight to prostrate themselves at the feet of God.”
In a legal humiliation the conscience is convinced. This tells us something that we should have known and yet have not taken into account in the most serious of ways. In many methods of evangelism we are told that we are to get sinners to admit that they are sinners. But that is not enough. The unhumbled and unbroken soul can admit that s/he is a sinner and even have the conscience feeling the weight of sin to some degree, but we must not stop there at all. As Edwards notes, and we have looked at in earlier BLOGS on this issue, all will have at least this level of stricken conscience on the day of judgment. But there is no spiritual understanding to go along with this. The conscience, then, is nothing more than what a natural man has. The natural conscience can be pricked with no true spiritual understanding and without the will being bowed to Christ. The natural conscience can be pricked without the inclination being changed and altered at all. In other words, the soul with a convinced conscience is not necessarily a soul that is under a true conviction of sin. We can be under a form of conviction and yet that be no more than a criminal that was caught in the act.
This is vital for men and women in the modern day to grasp for the sake of the souls of others as well as their own. There is a massive distinction between what the unregenerate and non-spiritual soul is capable of and that of the believing soul. The externals may appear to be the same, but inwardly there is a massive difference. But if we are only trained to think according to the externals, we will be guilty of misleading souls and perhaps deceive ourselves. In the modern day Christianity is not seen as the inner life of the soul, but instead it is caught up with morality, good actions, and for a few it is all about doctrine. But true Christianity is all about the state of the heart and of the life of the soul. Edwards forces us to think that way. Humility is of the inward man and not just of the external person as true Christianity is. God does not dwell with the proud.
This is where we see the root of the false conversions of some in Scripture and then many in our day. They were convicted of sin in an external way and yet they were not convicted in the deepest parts of their souls in a spiritual manner. Instead of those evangelizing them trying to discern what is truly going on in the soul, instead they try to get the person to pray a prayer or to do some act of the will. This leads the person with an external conviction of sin to make an external act of faith toward Christ. The person was never truly humbled and so is going on in his or her proud state and never truly come to Christ. The person is never taken into the spiritual realm in understanding, conscience, and affection and so this person’s will is not truly bowed to submit to Christ and so is still in his or her pride. This unhumbled and unbroken person’s inclination has not been altered and so that person still is inclined to self-love and self-esteem in all s/he does and this is not just lack of love to Christ, it is enmity toward Him. Until a person is broken from self-will that person is not ready to seek the will of God. Humility is utterly vital to seek God and for sanctification. Apart from it a person is left in the bondage of pride to the devil.
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