When we see and judge rightly of the guilt and malignity of sin, still it is with a great reserve of tenderness for ourselves, and we chiefly mean the sin of others. Thus instead of reforming, every one excuses one. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
It is far easier to see sin in others than ourselves, at least if we are governed or even influenced by self-love and a desire to excuse ourselves, justify ourselves, or rationalize our own motives for sin and even the deeds themselves. King David stands as the example of those who condemn behavior (even with anger and indignation) that is far less than our own sin which we have condoned and excused away. We can be agitated and rightly indignant about the sin of others because we see the action for what it is and do not take into account their motives, though if we saw their motives we would think that they were bad too and have a hard time understanding how they could excuse such wicked behavior. But if “I” committed the same action with basically the same motives, “I” would excuse my behavior or at least assign mitigating factors to it because of those motives or intents.
The tenderness we show toward our own sin is remarkable when we see how react against the sin of others when it is against our own self-love. When we see the sin of others, especially if it has negative results for ourselves, we will impute the worst of motives to them. However, if we do the same act toward them we will impute the best of motives to ourselves and thus excuse our behavior and our attitude. This leads to the point by Adam, that instead of reforming we all excuse one person, which is to say each one excuses himself or herself. That keeps a person from reforming self and leaves the person with the desire to reform others, but when all are reforming others and not self, that means that no one is left to actually reform.
When every person is driven by self-love rather than love for God and his or her neighbors, this will result in judgmental attitudes or very “flexible” attitudes. Both are really driven by the same heart of self and self-love. If self-love drives a person to be very rigid in certain areas, then self-love will judge the motives of others who do not follow that line of thinking and be harsh in attitude and judgment toward them. If a person from self-love is very flexible and nonchalant in an area, then self-love will drive that person to be very flexible and nonchalant in his or her judgment of others who have the same attitude, but this will also move that person to be very judgmental against those who are rigid in that same area. Self judges all but itself and will not reform while at the same time it wants all others to reform to its own standard.
Pride and its parallel of the justification of self will lead to great sin in the refusal to see our own sin, which means that it is really a refusal to repent. One can see how the justification of self in the practice of a sin is opposite to confessing sin and bowing to the sovereign grace of God in justification. But we can also see how the refusal to see the chief sin of self-love and pride will lead one to repent of self-love and pride which will then lead to a great blindness in all other areas. As long as self-love and pride rule in a person or at least have much sway at all the conviction of sin and repentance and reformation will not be possible. This great sin of self (self-love and pride) keeps a person in great darkness about his or her sin and also keeps a person in bondage to sin. It can be very judgmental and very hard on sin in others, but it is very tender toward self. The heart that is tender toward self can also become tender toward the sins of others and actually just begin to dismiss sin in many or all areas. Thus it is easy to see how self-love in one way or the other will lead to excusing of sin and no true reformation will occur.
The need for broken hearts and people who learn to cry out to God for deliverance from self and its blinding influence is greatly needed. We can also see how people, churches, and nations grow blind to sin and are turned over to more and more sin. We can also see how preachers that do not deal with the issues of sin from the heart are not really dealing with sin more than a slight scratch on the surface. One can turn from outward sin and not turn from sin at all. Turning from outward sin can be nothing more than a way to excuse other sin. How God must show grace or sin will reign in all of its deceitful ways. Our proud hearts that are full of self will move us to be more and more rigid or more and more toward dismissing of sin. Both are rebellion against God and are fruits of self-love and pride which is/are the essence of sin.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment