Men talk bravely of believing whilst whole and sound; few know it. Christ is the mystery of the Scripture; grace the mystery of Christ. Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of your own to it, and you spoil it. Christ will not so much as look at it for believing. When you believe and come to Christ, you must leave behind you your own righteousness, and bring nothing but your sin: (Oh, that is hard!) leave behind all your holiness, sanctification, duties, humblings, and so on; and bring nothing but your wants [lacks] and your miseries, or else Christ is not fit for you, nor you for Christ. Christ will be a pure Redeemer and Mediator, and you must be an undone sinner, or Christ and you will never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world to take Christ alone for righteousness; that is to acknowledge Him Christ. Join anything to Him of your own, and you un-Christ Him. Thomas Willcox
Willcox makes it clear for those who will look closely what believing (having faith in) in Christ includes, or at least part of what that includes. A person that comes to Christ must leave behind his or her own righteousness and bring nothing but his or her sin. This sounds simple to many, but in truth it is very hard to do once much less on a consistent basis. This is necessary for justification and it is what sinners need to hear as they struggle with sinful hearts that seem to fight them and even overwhelm them at times as they pursue Christ. It is hard for a person to give up all hope in self and what self can do and look to Christ alone to save him or her for no reason other than grace which says that no one deserves to be saved. At times when a person wants to look to Christ apart from all self-righteousness it can lead to an overwhelming fear. It means that I have never accomplished one thing in life that would contribute to my salvation and I can never do one thing in life that can contribute to my salvation. It means that I give up all control in terms of my salvation and cast all my hopes on God.
This is impossible for an unregenerate person to do in and of themselves. They will try and try to give up all hope in themselves without realizing that their striving to give up all hope is in the strength of self which means that they have hope in what self can do. The regenerate but poorly taught (in the experimental sense) person will always doubt his or her salvation because of sin, though it must be said that many should doubt and perhaps a lot that don’t doubt should. However, the truly regenerate person has a conscience that is more sensitive than the unregenerate and is troubled far more for his or her sin. Part of this trouble with the regenerate person is not growing (in a parallel sense) in resting in the righteousness of Christ. The regenerate person will grow and as that person grows, so will that person’s sight of his or her own heart and so that person will see more and more sin. That person will fight this sight of sin and in fighting will find out the inability of the heart and apart from sinking into nothingness and desiring helplessness so that s/he may look to the righteousness of Christ alone, that person will in some way be looking to the righteousness of self (or lack thereof) as a basis to stand on.
The person that truly comes to Christ as an unbeliever will be stripped of all hope in self at that moment. God will have brought that person off of hope in self and will break that person from trust in self and pride. However, now the real battle begins. Grace begins to teach the soul more and more of its sinfulness and need of grace. The believer may indeed be growing in holiness, but that believer is also growing more and more aware of his or her own sin. A greater sight of Christ and a growing sense of resting in His righteousness is needed. How can one trust in grace ALONE if one is trusting in self to some degree? How can one trust in the righteousness of Christ ALONE if one is trusting in some work or righteousness of self? What is needed for the unregenerate person and the believer is in one sense the same. They must all learn to bring nothing in their hands to Christ and look to His cross and righteousness alone.
A person must come to Christ if that person is to come truly to Christ and bring nothing but his or her own sin. That is, as Willcox points out, hard. Oh how the desire to control God in some way and remain in control of ourselves will fight this. Oh how the pride of man in his own self-sufficiency fights to withstand this. The formal person and the religious person and the civil person will fight this to the death, but the only thing a person has to bring to Christ is sin. Jesus Christ did not come to save the righteous, nor did He come to help people sanctify themselves. Christ is the sinner’s justification and Christ is the sinner’s sanctification. Christ will only save and sanctify by grace alone and so if the sinner brings any shred of his own righteousness to Christ, then that is what disqualifies the sinner. Christ came to save sinners who have nothing in their hands and hearts but sin. They look to Him alone for righteousness. Sinners must flee to Christ alone and look to Him ALONE by and for grace ALONE.
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