The importance of the teaching of Jonathan Edwards on the distinction between legal humiliation and evangelical humiliation cannot be overstated. This is so vital and yet seems to have been lost for quite some time. The distinction drawn here is between the religiously unconverted and those who are truly converted. The distinction he makes, then, is really the difference between eternal life and eternal death. Those with nothing more than legal humiliation will have nothing but that which they have worked in themselves and so they have not been delivered from the life of self and so have death in them. Those with a true evangelical humiliation of the soul have that which grace has worked in the soul and they have eternal life dwelling in them. Legal humiliation is the life of self being brought to see something that a natural man can see. Evangelical humiliation of the soul is what happens when Christ Himself dwells in the soul and opens it to the spiritual truths of the glory of God.
“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.”
It is important to understand that even though a person is brought to despair of helping self in legal humiliation, that is not an infallible sign of conversion. Indeed a person must be brought to despair of helping self in order to trust in grace alone, but just having a form of despair of helping self is not a sign of salvation in and of itself. The command of Jesus was to actually deny self and not just come to a point of despair of helping self. In evangelical humiliation the soul must go much deeper. It must renounce self and deny the rights of self as self-centered to exist. If self is not renounced, then Christ will be renounced in reality. If self is not denied its rights, then Christ will be denied His rights. So this is not just some small issue that bounces around the periphery of salvation, it gets to the very heart of justification by faith alone because it gets to the issue of resting in Christ alone. Until the soul despairs of any hope in itself, it will not look to Christ alone as its only hope. Until the soul despairs of self as having any merit or help, it will not rest in grace alone. But it is also true that until the soul voluntarily denies self it has not been renewed with life from above and so does not have eternal life or Christ in the soul. In legal humiliation the soul is, as it were, brought to a point and forced to see that it cannot help itself, but in evangelical humiliation the soul renounces self without force but with freeness and joy renounces self as the enemy of the soul. Self is denied with joy and even detestation because Christ is the king and life of the soul and all pretenders to His throne and kingdom in the soul must be rejected.
In legal humiliation there is no spiritual understanding and so those who are brought to despair of self don’t see the beauty of what is happening and are in a sense have this forced upon them. They do not arrive at this despair of self willingly, and in fact they hate it. Their self-centered inclinations have not been altered in the slightest and though they are forced to see that they cannot help self, they don’t like it even a little and the enmity they have against God in their hearts is still there. The will of this person has not been bowed to where this is a delight to him or her, but instead the will is still stubborn and obstinate against God. One thief on the cross was still obstinate in death even though his guilt was obvious and he was dying a just death. The other thief submitted to the truth and simply wanted to be with Jesus when He came in His kingdom. The first thief saw the truth but hated it. The second saw the truth and bowed to it.
The believing soul loves to bow with delight and prostrate itself at the feet of God. It loves to be in the dust so as to deny self and the honor to self so that His glory would shine through it. The soul that has evangelical humiliation longs to be in the dust rather than to be honored on this earth. Its desire is to delight in the glory of God as it shines through it and for others to see His glory rather than its own. This soul sees that as long as others look at it and want to honor it that others will not be looking to the glory of God. So this soul longs to be in the shadows of the limelight so that Christ would stand forth. The truly humbled soul that has denied self hates it when self gets attention because that is attention taken from Christ. The truly humbled soul has delight in being forgotten or even despised if the glory of God shines through it. That is, after all, what the concept of true humility consists of. It is the emptiness of self. It is not just pretending that self is nothing; it is the nothingness of self in the sight of God.
God Loves... Himself 
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