When guilt is raised up, take heed of getting it allayed in any way but by Christ’s blood: that will tend to hardening. Make Christ your peace; “for He is our peace” (Eph 2:14); not your duties and your tears. Christ your righteousness, not your graces. You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins. Look at Christ, and do as much as you will. Stand with all your weight upon Christ’s righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on your righteousness, another on Christ’s. Till Christ come and sit on high upon a throne of grace in the conscience, there is nothing but guilt, terrors, secret suspicions; the soul hanging upon hope and fear, which is an ungospel-like state. Thomas Willcox
There is so much Gospel truth in the statement above. How difficult it is for new believers and those with tender consciences to grab this truth, though it is also part of the spiritual battle for all. All people fall short of the glory of God constantly and so this raising of guilt can happen at any moment. Oh how far we fall short of this glory and how hard it is to see ourselves as so vile and wicked, but by the eye of faith we are enabled to look to the blood of Christ and know that this guilt was and is taken away by Christ. It is by beholding Christ, His blood, and His righteousness that the fight of faith is fought in victory. This faith, which is given by God in Christ, must grow stronger as it is faced with an increasing knowledge of its own sinfulness and weakness. It is Christ in the soul dwelling there that is working in the soul and causing it to persevere in the face of trials and afflictions, but also an increasing knowledge of the heart of self. It must grow if it is a true faith and it will grow because of Christ. But this faith is accompanied with a dying to self which makes people think that their faith is decreasing as they don’t feel like they are trusting Christ. What they are decreasing in is their faith in self when faith in Christ grows.
When this guilt rises up in the soul (and it will) we must not look to our duties (which is the natural human response). Our duties are things we should do anyway, but even the best of our duties are tainted with sin and as such they can never make up for the slightest of sin. That is like trying to pay for sin with more sin. Oh no, the soul must look to Christ alone. The soul must know that its duties can never stand before God as righteousness and so the soul must not try to put any weight on its duties for righteousness. The soul is saved by grace alone and by the gift of a free and perfect righteousness imputed to it. That righteousness is perfect and cannot be added to, so the soul must rest on it and it alone.
As Willcox notes, we must not try to one foot on the righteousness of Christ and another foot on our own righteousness (duties, value). What we must beware of, however, is that this is not just a stand on your own righteousness with the whole weight or the righteousness of Christ with the whole weight. Instead, it tells us to put all the weight on the righteousness of Christ and put no weight at all on self. It is so easy for the soul to put 99% (or some less) of the weight on the righteousness of Christ and the remaining weight on self while it deceives itself that it is trusting in Christ alone. The soul can even think it is trusting in Christ alone and instead be trusting in itself to trust in Christ. The soul can think it trusts in Christ alone for justification while trusting in itself for some of its sanctification. This is very dangerous as well. The soul must constantly look to Christ alone for its justification even as it grows in faith and holiness. At no point is the soul to trust in its works and duties.
We can get a picture of this by the Old Testament sacrificial system. A person that brought an animal to be sacrificed was to lay hands on the animal. The person was actually to have leaned on that animal which pictured the soul leaning on a sacrifice and the guilt of the person being transferred to the animal. What would have happened if the person would have leaned on the animal mostly and then leaned partially on an idol? Even if the person would have leaned almost exclusively on the animal and just a tiny bit on the idol, as is very clear, that would have been a wicked act. But modern sinners are guilty of that same wicked act of idolatry when they lean (even a little) on the righteousness of duties and self. All of our weight must be upon the righteousness of Christ or we are idolaters. How we must be humbled and broken from our open sin and from depending on our duties.
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