Examining the Heart 14

If you have seen Christ truly, you have seen pure grace, pure righteousness in Him every way infinite, far exceeding all sin and misery. If you have seen Christ, you can trample upon all the righteousness of men and angels, so as to bring you into acceptance with God. If you have seen Christ, you would not do a duty without Him for ten thousand worlds (I Cor. 2:2).     Thomas Wilcox

The wonder and the glory of Christ is not something that many people actually behold. They see Christ as subservient to them and all the glory they see is a Christ who serves them and is focused on them. In other words, the glory that they think they see of Christ is really their own glory in one sense. But to see Christ as He is and in His pure glory, it is to see pure grace. Christ did not take human flesh to Himself because human beings had a shred of goodness in them, but He did so to save sinners for the glory of God. Christ did not go to the cross in that human flesh because there was any merit or value in human beings, but because He loved the Father and His glory. It was because God loved Himself within the Trinity that sinners are saved and it is in that love within the Trinity that we behold sheer and utter grace.

God the Father sent the Son to actually save sinners, but not because sinners had anything they could offer the Father and not because of anything within them. But the Father sent the Beloved Son and in that we see the glory of grace shining forth. We behold how God can save sinners because of Himself rather than because of anything that sinners have done and apart from any merit they have come up with or can come up with. Sinners are saved by Christ alone and grace alone. The glory of this grace shines forth from the Father, though the Son, and by the Spirit to those who have eyes to see. In this glorious Gospel we see Christ and yet when we behold Christ in truth we see the shining forth of pure grace.

There is not the slightest bit of grace in the world that has not come to human beings apart from Christ. As the Scripture teaches us that all spiritual blessings are in Christ, so all grace is in Christ and all of Christ is grace to His people. For poor sinners who have reached an end to all their works for merit and all their attempts to work up some value in themselves, Christ is set forth to them as grace Himself. For those poor sinners who have no hope in religion or in their own free-will or anything else, Christ tells them to come to Him. It is in Christ that sinners see and will find grace. It is in Christ that sinners find a real grace rather than the watered down type that is preached today. Broken and contrite sinners will want nothing but Christ and nothing but grace. Broken sinners don’t want anything to do with their own will because it is polluted, has no power, and can do nothing to earn or bring grace. Broken sinners want nothing but grace and that alone will satisfy their souls.

Those sinners who are poor, naked, and wretched in their own sight will not look to anything they are or anything they can do. Those type of sinners have reached an end to themselves and they want a pure grace and not the diluted stuff that modern preachers try to dispense out. In reality the type of grace that modern preachers (for the most part) try to sell is in reality adding a work here or a work there to grace, and the Scriptures (Rom 11:6) say quite clearly that to add a work to grace is to make grace no longer grace. The poor and wretched sinner sees that and knows that the proffered grace that is not pure grace will not suit his or her need, but in fact will do nothing but delude the soul. Only a pure grace will suit the taste of the soul that has finished with self and finds all works for salvation as bitter to the taste. This soul wants Christ and Christ alone. This soul wants grace and grace alone. Away with all of the modern thoughts of grace that is not grace. Away with the thoughts of a will that is free enough to do what only a sovereign God can do. Away with the teaching that grace is something less than completely and utterly sovereign because there is no other kind of grace and the broken heart wants nothing but a pure grace. For all eternity the soul that has acquired a taste for pure grace will want nothing else.

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