Every one may have observed that in paroxysms of passion, or ill-humor, the judgment is absolutely disabled; we are incapable of reasoning keenly in the wrong, and very positive. It is not uncommon for persons to be thus blind in cold blood, and some all their lives. Reason never discerns itself, or any thing else truly, till it sees its own impotence. (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).
The stunning truths that are presented in the quote from Adam above have ramifications that extend to all of life. When people are lusting after another or after things, their judgment is disabled. When people are angry or overly happy, their judgment is disabled. When a person is drunk or high on drugs, that person’s judgment is disabled. When a person is in a bad mood or perhaps in some form of depression, that person’s judgment is disabled. So why do we try to reason with people when they are incapable of reasoning? This explains, then, in some way and to some degree the nature of blindness that the unregenerate are in. They are blinded to the truth by their own hearts which are dead in pride, self-love, and self-centeredness.
If Jonathan Edwards (and many others before and after) was correct about the nature of sin as being pride and self-love, then we can see how pride and self-love work together (one and the same thing, perhaps) to blind a person from the truth about self and from the truth of the beauty of God. Pride is much like a passion or an ill-humor in that it interprets all things through the lenses or prism of its exalted view of self. Self-love rejects the worst things about self so that it can continue its high thoughts of self. When the heart that is filled with self-love and self-centeredness hears that truth that self-love and self-centeredness is (are) the very heart of sin, that heart hates the truth. When that heart then hears that God is holy in His self-centeredness and self-love, the heart hates that and is at enmity with God. A heart that has enmity within it is a heart that is blinded to the truth.
The heart that has enmity toward the true God is only too willing to hear about a false god, however. So when false prophets and false preachers abound, the people love to hear of a God that is not focused on Himself and His own glory but instead is focused on them and their earthly welfare. They hear what the love to hear and with hate refuse to hear what they hate to hear. A person that is dead in the sin of self-love and pride will hate the true God who is holy in His self-love and self-centeredness, yet that same person will love the popular god of today that is said to love them and desire worldly wealth for them.
The proud in heart are those who are blinded in much the same way as one that is drunk or in a great anger. In fact, it is perhaps correct to think of the proud in heart as those who are intoxicated with self and the love of self and also driven by hatred of what is true about God and the flashes of light that come in about themselves. A person that is controlled by alcohol night after night will not believe that s/he is actually controlled by the alcohol, but instead wants to think highly of self and in pride will fight to think highly of self. A person that is driven by feeling is a person that is not really in control but is following a feeling or desire, and a person that is driven by self is not in control but simply follows the love of self wherever it thinks may make it feel good. In other words, that is not the practice of solid reason and it is not being a true intellectual in any way. It is a form of slavery.
As the sinner must give up all hope in self in order to hope in Christ alone, so the sinner must give up all hope in his own reason and look to be enlightened by Christ alone. Until sinners see their own inability to overcome sin and to work up their own righteousness, they will not see an utter and absolute need for Christ. But it is also true that until sinners see the utter inability of their own reason to discover Christ and His glory, they will continue in the darkness of pride and self-love as they trust in their own darkened reason. The depravity of man is such that it has a great effect on the reason of man, but proud man will hang on to his reason until the light of the fires of hell awakens him to the nature of sin. People must be delivered from pride or they will never see their own sin and they will never truly repent. People must be delivered from pride or they will never see the glory of Christ and the Gospel, but instead they will only see the one manufactured by their own fallen reason. Oh how man must repent of pride and self in order to see the truth of self and the truth of Christ and the Gospel.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment