God Loves… Himself

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Behold the glory of our God in saving sinners. Behold the glory of the richness of His mercy and the greatness of the love with which He loved sinners. Behold the glory of His grace which made sinners alive with Christ and raised them with Him and seated them with Christ in the heavenlies in Christ. One can read the text above in a wooden or rote manner and miss the beauty and glory of it. One can even read the text above in a theological manner (regardless of the theological creed) and miss the glory of it. But the text above strips any concept of righteousness or glory from man and exalts the wonder and glory of God.

Why is God rich in mercy toward sinners? Because of His great love with which He loves them. The focus of why God shows mercy is because of God. Why does God take sinners who are dead in their transgressions and make them alive together with Christ? It is so that “in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” God saves sinners because of Himself and the glory of His grace. There is no room for merit or worth or righteousness from the sinner, but all is from God and is to the glory of His own name and grace. There is no room in this text but a Gospel of grace alone.

When verse 8 starts off the verse with the word “for” which gives us a reason or a cause that links verse 8 with the preceding verses, we can see that the Word of God destroys any hope that sinners have in themselves and the weight of the Gospel is put directly upon grace alone. Why has God saved these wretched creatures and given them life in Christ? He did this to the in order that for all eternity He would show forth “the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Then in verse 8 it gives us an explanation of why and perhaps even how this is true. Grace has saved sinners through faith, but even that faith is not of the people themselves, but faith itself is the gift of God. Faith itself comes to the sinner by grace since it is the gift of God and is not worked for. The glory of grace shines forth in the Gospel that is all of grace.

Verse 8 shows us that this grace that saves comes to the sinner through faith which itself is a gift (of grace) of God, and then verse 9 tells us with great clarity that this salvation and faith are not a result of works. Sinners must grasp this tightly and with great tenacity. Salvation is completely by grace and faith itself is completely by grace as well. If faith is not by the grace of God, then it is the work of the human will and that means men have some room for boasting. Men constantly want to add one work to the Gospel and that is when they want to add the work of faith to the human will rather than have faith be the gift of God by grace alone.

We must fight the insertion of the act of the human will into the Gospel of grace alone or we will be admitting the work of the human will into the Gospel of grace alone and as such will be bringing a work into the Gospel and it is no longer by grace alone. In the modern day many professing Calvinists want to link arms with Arminians in name who are really Pelagians and say that they are preaching the same gospel. Perhaps they are, but a true Calvinist will stand for grace alone and the true Arminian will stand for free-will in the arena of the Gospel and the two can never join hands in reality. The Gospel that is of grace alone will not stand for any work of the human soul and that includes any work of the human will because that intrudes upon grace and allows for one work (at least) to be a part of the so-called Gospel at that point and as such it is no longer a Gospel of grace alone. This insertion of one work into the Gospel should alarm ministers of the Gospel and they should stand firmly in opposition to it.

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

In this passage of Holy Writ, we see how it must be that the Gospel is by grace alone. There can be nothing else but grace that can save the sinner in ways that the sinner needs saved by. Sinners are by nature children of wrath and live in the lusts of their flesh. Sinners are dead in their trespasses and sins. What is there that can take a sinner from deadness and give them life? Only God can do that. What can move God to give those who are dead in trespasses and sins life? Only God can move God to do that. There is nothing desirable about those who are dead in sins and trespasses to God. They do nothing that is righteous and all their words are nothing but the scent of an open grave which has the smell of a rotting corpse because the corpse has not been covered up.

Who can take those who walk according to the course of the world which is set in place by the prince of the power of the air and turn their hearts from that to loving to follow Christ? Only God can take a person and change their hearts that they can and will do this. But again, what will move God to do such a thing? Only the love God has for His own glory and the glory of His own grace. The Gospel is saturated with grace from beginning to end and there is nothing but the glory of God’s grace in this Gospel. God does not start with sinners who deserve anything but His wrath and enmity as they go on in sin and are at enmity with Him.

This passage of Scripture sets out the depravity of man so very clearly but also the utter need for the Gospel of grace alone as well. Those who are dead in sins and trespasses can do nothing to earn the slightest rag of righteousness. Those who are dead in sins and trespasses can do nothing to take away the slightest bit of sin. They must have Christ to save them by grace alone or they will never be saved. These sinners have nothing in them and there is nothing they can do to make them the slightest bit more savable, but instead they are utterly dependent on the grace of God to save them at all points and in all ways.

Verse 4 starts off by giving a glaring contrast between the dead sinners and the only way sinners can be saved. They can only be saved by God. Look at how dead sinners are by nature as they go along in the walk of death that is found in trespasses and sins, but look at the hand of God who makes sinners alive by grace alone. It is by grace alone that God raises sinners from the spiritual dead and makes them spiritually alive. It is by grace alone that God sets His love on sinners and makes them alive in Christ. If sinners could see that they are dead in sins and trespasses and are by nature children of wrath, they would see with clarity that they must have God show grace to them or they will perish. What is there about a dead person that lived a life of enmity toward God that would move God to give them life? What is there about a person who lives in the lusts of his or her flesh and does nothing but indulge the desires of the flesh and mind that would attract God in the slightest to save them? Only the grace of God would be moved to save such vile wretches.

The rest of the passage goes no about the wonders of grace, but for the moment we can behold the beauty of the glory of His grace. Only God can move God to save sinners from themselves and their bondage to sin and the devil. Only the grace of God in Christ can save sinners and nothing else can even contribute the slightest to such a glorious grace. The Gospel that must be proclaimed must be proclaimed to people who are being taught how dead they are in sin and what they are by nature. When those things are seen and felt by the people as true of them, the Gospel of grace becomes beautiful and glorious to them.

You say you cannot believe, you cannot repent. Fitter for Christ if you have nothing but sin and misery. God to Christ with all our impenitence and unbelief, to get faith and repentance from Him; that is glorious. Tell Christ, “Lord, I have brought no righteousness, no grace to be accepted in, or justified by; I am come for Thine, and must have it.” We would be bringing to Christ, and that must not be. Not a penny of nature’s highest improvements will pass in heaven. Grace will not stand with works (Titus 3:5; Rom 11:6). That is a terrible point to nature, which cannot think of being stripped of all, not having a rag of duty or righteousness left to look at. Thomas Willcox

The last part of this statement by Willcox gets at the real issues of the Gospel of grace alone too. Grace will not stand with works. There is no real getting around this vital, vital point. Either Christ has accomplished salvation completely and totally leaving man with nothing to do other than receive or He left something for man to do. This, however, not only means that Christ is not the complete Savior, but that man is partial savior of self and does indeed have something to boast about. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us the good news of what Christ has done and does not leave us with something left to do. The Gospel of grace alone leaves us with no works to do for salvation and does not leave us with one work to do in order to be declared just before God.

The least work makes grace no longer to be grace. Again, this point cannot be emphasized too much. The least work turns the Gospel of grace alone into another gospel. “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom 11:6). Grace is only grace when it is pure and unmixed with anything else. In terms of the Gospel of grace alone, it is by Christ alone that sinners are justified and He does this by grace alone. If we add one work to the Gospel of grace alone, we add one work to Christ. If we add one work to Christ, then we add one work to the Gospel of grace alone. Faith is either a work of the Spirit that Christ has purchased and given to sinners by grace alone or faith is the work of the will of man. If it is the work of the will of man, then the Gospel is not Christ alone and it is not by grace alone.

Grace will not stand with works, but the hardest thing for so many people to believe is that grace will not stand with any act of a will that is free (free-will). A will that is truly free is a will that is free of grace and so a free-will cannot stand with the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel of grace alone does not accomplish all by grace but leave men to come up with faith on their own, but instead faith itself is a free gift of grace. This is so beautiful and so glorious that it is indeed beyond the ability of human language to describe it. This is so utterly glorious that sinners have nothing left for them to do in the realm of justification. They don’t have any works to do in order to be justified and they have no faith and no repentance to work up either. In accordance with the Gospel of Christ alone and grace alone, both faith and repentance come by grace as well. The freeness of this Gospel of grace alone demands that we not add one work to it in order to protect the freedom and freeness of God in giving grace at His pleasure rather than giving it in response to an act of man.

How impossible this is to the fallen nature of man to love the Gospel of grace alone when it strips of all hope in self and of all pride in contributing one thing. It is so attractive the fallen nature of man to at least contribute some little thing and to have salvation according to the will of man rather than totally depend on the pleasure of God (grace alone). As Willcox said, man is left with “not having a rag of duty or righteousness left to look at.” How horrible this appears to self-sufficient and proud man, but how beautiful it appears to those who see that all good things are from God and it is His glory. This is why the older writers and preachers taught that proud man must be broken and to be humbled before man could be converted. The selfish and proud heart will always hang on to some little something, though indeed it is not little in reality. The proud heart that hangs on to one thing is actually holding on faith in self rather than faith in Christ. It is really belief in self that is at the heart of this so-called “faith” regardless the name it goes under.

The Gospel of grace alone stands in the full glory of God and proud man must bow in humility before the sovereign Lord of the universe and ask for grace. There is nothing that man can do to earn it or merit it, but instead he must be stripped of all hope in self and realize that he has not the least shred or rag of righteousness in his own account or even the ability to attain it. True faith is looking to Christ alone to give faith and repentance as a gift and it comes by grace. If we think we have merited even a part, we have no idea of the nature of true grace.

You say you cannot believe, you cannot repent. Fitter for Christ if you have nothing but sin and misery. God to Christ with all our impenitence and unbelief, to get faith and repentance from Him; that is glorious. Tell Christ, “Lord, I have brought no righteousness, no grace to be accepted in, or justified by; I am come for Thine, and must have it.” We would be bringing to Christ, and that must not be. Not a penny of nature’s highest improvements will pass in heaven. Grace will not stand with works (Titus 3:5; Rom 11:6). That is a terrible point to nature, which cannot think of being stripped of all, not having a rag of duty or righteousness left to look at. Thomas Willcox

It is such a glorious truth for those that God by grace alone has given eyes to see and ears to hear. It is a far better (and “fitter”) thing for sinners to come to God with their unbelief and impenitence to seek faith and repentance from Him by grace alone. Sinners have no righteousness, so they should know this from the heart and make no pretence before God as if they had any. They should cry out to Him because they don’t have any. Unbelieving sinners have no grace to be accepted in and as such they should know that and make no pretence that way. Sinners have nothing in themselves to justify them and nothing in themselves to move God to justify them. The grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ frees sinners from the burden (and sin) of coming to Him with anything from themselves or of themselves. They must come with Christ or they will not come at all in terms of coming in reality.

What will a sinner bring to Christ? What will a sinner think that he can do or merit that he can bring to Christ who is the righteousness of God and the only propitiation for sin? It is far “fitter” to come to Christ as we are and look to Him alone for grace and grace alone. What is it that the sinner can bring to Christ that can move Christ to save him? Will coming up with faith, as if a dead sinner can do that, move Christ to save the sinner? Of course not as all things that come from a dead sinner are dead works. All things that are from the flesh are flesh. The only thing that can move the living God to bring life into the dead sinner is His love for Himself (as triune) and His own glory. It is that love with which He loved sinners and brings them to life (Eph 2:4-5).

The sinner must not come to Christ with any righteousness of his or her own and that includes any faith which the sinner thinks that he can come up with. The sinner have no grace or graces to commend them by and nothing that can possibly contribute to justification or move God to justification. This is so important that I have repeated this in the same post. We don’t bring anything to Christ, but instead they must have all from Him. Sinners, as a result of their proud hearts, always want to bring something to Christ instead of bowing low and confessing that they have nothing to bring Him, but instead they have nothing but ill-merit and demerit on their part. Sinners must receive all from Christ or they will perish. Faith is not what people can do in and of themselves, but instead faith is looking to Christ and receiving grace alone because of Christ alone.

There is nothing of nature (man’s nature) that man can bring to God that is acceptable because man is totally depraved. There is no improvement that man can make to his own nature that will make him more acceptable to God. It should also be pointed out that while there are many improvements that man can make in the outward sense, it is even a greater wickedness to trust in those as righteousness to make one acceptable before God. The Pharisees, who attempted to make moral improvements and think of them as righteousness, were those that Jesus spoke to and of the harshest. Religion will not help a person move closer to God based on the works of nature, of the flesh, and of a person’s own righteousness. Only the grace of God in Christ Jesus can do that.

The Gospel of grace alone, though indeed not thought highly of in the modern world, is still the only Gospel that there is. The Gospel of grace alone should teach us to look for grace at all points and in all ways, but instead many (in the Reformed community as well) want to believe it in terms of words but are always trying to find ways to bring a work or works into it. If faith and repentance are not of grace alone, then the Gospel is not of grace alone. If the sinner looks to self for faith and repentance in order to be saved, then the Gospel is not about the sinner looking to Christ alone and grace alone. Perhaps I am spending too much time on this issue, but it is so neglected in our day that it needs to be stressed over and over again. The issue is not a minor one, but instead it gets at the heart of the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel is all of free-grace and has nothing of free-will in it. When ministers do not turn sinners from their own wills to grace, they are not teaching a Gospel of grace alone.

You say you cannot believe, you cannot repent. Fitter for Christ if you have nothing but sin and misery. God to Christ with all our impenitence and unbelief, to get faith and repentance from Him; that is glorious. Tell Christ, “Lord, I have brought no righteousness, no grace to be accepted in, or justified by; I am come for Thine, and must have it.” We would be bringing to Christ, and that must not be. Not a penny of nature’s highest improvements will pass in heaven. Grace will not stand with works (Titus 3:5; Rom 11:6). That is a terrible point to nature, which cannot think of being stripped of all, not having a rag of duty or righteousness left to look at. Thomas Willcox

Here is one point (at least) where the Gospel of grace alone shines through and sets itself apart from Arminianism (free-will) and of those who profess to be Reformed but have imbibed too much of Arminianism. The sinner that sees just how depraved (total depravity) s/he is and that s/he cannot repent and believe, realizes that faith and repentance must come from Christ as free-grace rather than coming from his or her own “free-will.” The Arminian (professing Reformed or not) will tell people that they need and even must believe (which indeed they must), but will not tell them that they cannot do it and that they must have Christ give faith and repentance to them by grace alone. This is a huge distinction between the Gospel of grace alone and all other views.

The sinner who understands that s/he has no ability to repent and believe now understands that s/he must have grace as the choice of God and that God must draw that person to Himself or that person will never come. It is grace, grace, glorious grace that must bring the sinner to Christ rather than the so-called free-will of the person, and this grace is an effectual grace and an irresistible grace. The will of the unregenerate sinner can do nothing spiritual or good and so the will of the unregenerate sinner is not effectual (completely impotent and total inability in this realm) and can do nothing apart from grace. How wonderful it is to tell the sinner and show the sinner how Christ is effectual and can give the sinner all the grace needed that the sinner needs and that the sinner can do nothing but receive this glorious grace. Sinners must look to Christ and ask Him to give them a humbled heart that will do nothing but look to grace to bring them to Christ. As Luther wrote, in something of a paraphrase, until the sinner is ready to deny his free-will the sinner is not ready to be saved. As long as sinners look to their so-called free-wills to do something they will not look to Christ and free-grace alone to do what is needed.

Sinners must see that they don’t just have an intellectual unbelief, but that they have an unbelieving heart. Their hearts are at enmity with the living God and they cannot just exercise their will and be saved. The sinner cannot just decide to be saved and so bring himself to God and say that now that s/he has decided to pray a prayer or be saved that God should save the person. Oh no, that is contrary to the Gospel of grace alone. That is contrary to the Gospel of the glory of God in Christ where all the glory and all the works and merits of salvation must come from Christ or it is something the human brings to Christ expecting to be received for. Woe to the man or the woman who comes to Christ with anything in his or her hands expecting to be received by Christ on that basis, even the slightest bit.

As Willcox points out, it is more fit that we come before Christ with nothing but our sin and misery. It is more fit in keeping with the character of Christ and the glory of God in Christ. It is far more fitting that sinners should look to Christ for faith and repentance that He purchased for them on the cross by grace alone and that it is applied to them by grace alone by the Holy Spirit. That is far more fitting for a self-sufficient God who does all for His own name and glory and is moved out of love for Himself than it is to be moved by the sinful desires and hearts of sinful men who make sinful decisions. It is far more glorious for God for sinful men to obtain salvation and all else from the hand of God by grace than it is for God to give them something because of an act of their own will. Oh how beautiful and glorious it is for sinners to look to Christ to give them faith and repentance by grace than for sinners (somehow) to overcome their own sinful natures and come up with faith from their own will and so God gives them salvation in response to that. This is a Gospel of grace alone when sinners come to God because of grace rather than their own merit or will. This is a Gospel of grace alone when sinners look to Christ alone rather than to their wills for all things.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

They who call on penitent sinners to believe, mistake both repentance and faith; and that which they teach is no glad tidings to the sinner. Horatius Bonar

This is a huge mistake on Bonar’s part in one context, but of course he may have been speaking of a certain group and painted with too large a brush. Christ called on those who were weary and heavy-laden to come to Him. Are impenitent sinners called to come to Christ? It is also true that sinners have faith (Christ) come to them rather than working up faith in their own strength. Bonar, at least in this chapter, makes it appear that sinners have the strength in them to believe though according to his creed he did not believe that. When Jesus said that a person must be turned and become like a child to enter the kingdom, that is what He meant. A person must indeed be turned. In the context, He is speaking of the humble being the greatest in the kingdom. What is so wrong about calling those who are broken for their sin to believe while telling those who are not broken that they need to be convicted by the Spirit? The Holy Spirit convicts sinners for a reason and it is His work to do so.

To the better class of sinners (if such there be), who have by laborious efforts got themselves sufficiently humbled, it may be glad tidings; but not to those who are without strength, the lost, the ungodly, the hard-hearted, the insensible, the lame, the blind, the halt, the maimed. Horatius Bonar

The efforts of men in seeking the Lord to humble them are one and the same as those who are “without strength, the lost, the ungodly, the hard-hearted, the insensible, the lame, the blind, the halt, the maimed.” These are the spiritually poor and these are the humbled and the contrite. Christ came to these types of people to proclaim the Gospel (Luke 4:18-19). Some of those who are seeking humility from the hand of the Lord are those who will become truly humbled and as such they will see themselves to be without spiritual strength and utterly lost. Those taught of the Lord will see themselves as ungodly and hard of heart. But those who are not taught of the Lord these things will never be broken from pride and self by His hand that graciously works these thing in souls.

“It is not sound doctrine,” says Dr. Colquhoun, “to teach that Christ will receive none but the true penitent, or that none else is warranted to come by faith to him for salvation. The evil of that doctrine is that it sets needy sinners on spinning repentance, as it were, out of their own bowels, and on bringing it with them to Christ, instead of coming to him by faith to receive it from him. If none be invited but the true penitent, then impenitent sinners are not bound to come to Christ; and cannot be blamed for not coming.” Horatius Bonar

But contrary to Dr. Colquhoun, though again it may be in a different context, Christ will receive none but those that are truly penitent. Christ came for real sinners and the really bad ones. Christ came to save those who see themselves as broken and without hope in themselves. No, they don’t earn anything by becoming penitent and seeing the damnation that they so richly deserve, but the heart that sees its sin and has its eyes opened by Christ will be drawn to Christ. The Lord Jesus does not call the impenitent sinner to Himself. But this is quite a different thing than saying that sinners start trying to spin their own repentance, but instead it is those who seek true repentance from Christ that will see that they must be granted repentance. They will also see that they must be granted a new heart to believe.

It does not follow that if only penitent sinners are invited then impenitent sinners are not bound to come to Christ and have no blame. No, it just means that they have not sought Christ to get a penitent heart. The impenitent sinner is full of pride and self and has no real desire for Christ, but that just shows how hard his heart is. This also shows how glorious the grace of God is in the Gospel of grace alone. It is by grace that sinners will begin to seek the Lord for grace. It is by grace that sinners have their eyes opened to see their sin. It is by grace that sinners are drawn to Christ. Bonar’s system seems to leave sinners in their own pride until they decide to believe while the old way of the Puritan’s and Edwards leaves sinners totally at the mercy and grace of God from beginning to end. The Gospel is of grace alone and Bonar’s system fails at this point. Sinners should seek the Lord according to the means of grace and look to His hand to give a new heart, repentance, and faith.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Spurious repentance, the produce and expression of unbelief and self-righteousness, may be found previous to faith – just as all manner of evils abound in the soul before it believes. But when faith comes, it comes not as the result of this self-wrought repentance, – but in spite of it; and this so called repentance will be afterwards regarded by the believing soul as one of those self-righteous efforts, whose only tendency was to keep the sinner from the Savior. Horatius Bonar

Of course there is a spurious repentance and it comes from unbelief and self-righteousness, but this shows how men should be delivered from self-righteousness and the strength of self before they think they can believe. Anything that comes from the heart that is full of unbelief and self-righteousness will of course be the produce of pride and unbelief. But we must also beware that many people have a faith that is orthodox and moral and comes from a heart of pride and self-righteousness. Spurious repentance and spurious faith are common and all come from pride and unbelief. The unbelieving heart that thinks it believes can say that it believes by grace alone, which leaves people in a rather precarious position if one holds to the things Bonar does. How does one know if the “faith” that one has comes from self and unbelief or comes from a new heart?

The new heart is the key in this issue. Sinners should seek a new heart from God as it is the new heart that makes one a new creature and so one has a true and spiritual faith. Involved in this, if it can be spoken of in that way, is unity with Christ and the indwelling Christ. A true faith is not the same thing as simply believing certain facts as true, but it is what a person has that is united to Christ and has Christ living in him or her. The Scriptures do not give us instructions on how to see if we have faith, though it does tell us things that if we don’t have them we don’t have faith. But instead we are told to examine ourselves to see if Christ is in us and a whole book is written so that people can know if they have eternal life or not. Faith has one object and that is Christ. The whole job of faith, as seen from Romans 4:16 above, is to receive grace. The whole of the Gospel is by faith in order that it may be by grace. One huge issue with Bonar’s apparent position is that it rests upon a mere believing of the facts (though he would deny this elsewhere) as opposed to a belief that is given by grace alone and receives grace alone. Faith cannot see faith but instead it is to be fixed on Christ alone.

Bonar is worried that people will be deceived by a self-wrought repentance, but he does not seem as concerned about a self-wrought belief or faith. He is rightly concerned about that and is correct that a self-wrought repentance will later be seen by a believing soul as a self-righteous effort, but what if that person has a self-wrought belief? How will the person ever come to see that as a self-righteous effort? It seems to me that Bonar’s concern, and a right concern, is far more dangerous from his own position which leads people to a faith which comes from self-righteousness works hidden under the guise of orthodoxy. Bonar’s position does not allow for a true irresistible grace to work, but instead looks for an immediate faith which has all the dangers he is worried about when looking at other positions.

The Gospel of John has several people coming to a quick belief when they saw a miracle or simply believed what Christ had said. But if one traces out what happens to those groups of people, we will see that the vast majority of people who were said to have believed were later seen as lost. An immediate belief without the conviction of the Spirit and His humbling work in the soul is far more dangerous than the evangelistic practices of the Puritans and Edwards. An immediate belief that is joined to a moral life and an orthodox creed is far more dangerous than it is to be instructed to seek a new heart from God by grace alone. What Bonar thinks of a spurious repentance can simply be an unregenerate sinner being turned from his sin by the Spirit. The continuing repentance from outward sin to using the means of grace while seeking God for a new heart seems to have far less dangers than that of Bonar’s immediate belief system which is not biblical. The glorious Gospel of grace alone which starts the conversion of sinners by grace in convicting them of sin and humbling them before God is biblical.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

They who would inculcate a course of prayer, and humiliation, and self-examination, and dealing with the law, in order to believing in Christ, are teaching what is the very essence of Popery; not the less poisonous and perilous, because refined from Romish grossness, and administered under the name of gospel. Horatius Bonar

It seems odd that Bonar would confuse what the Puritans and Edwards taught on how people are to seek God for grace by praying, humiliation of the soul, self-examination, and the use of the Law as means of grace as being the “very essence of Popery.” We could ask Bonar the question that Dr. John Gerstner asked a minister one time, and which others have asked at times as well. Imagine a man who had been attending an orthodox church (could even be a member) for years and knew that the Bible taught irresistible grace and election. He came to the minister and said that he knew he did not believe and was not a Christian. The minister told the man that he needed to believe, but the man said that he knew that but he also knew that God must choose him and that God must draw him. How was he going to believe apart from those things? What would the minister tell the man to do?

The Arminian and the Pelagian have no problems in this area, they just tell the person that they need to believe or that they must repent and believe. But for those who know that the Bible teaches that God must initiate the process, what are they to do before they are converted? Should they just go on in sin and wait until God does what He does? The Reformed person (biblical) understands that God gives faith as a free gift but that He also draws sinners to Himself through the means of grace. The way to having true faith is the real issue. Should men and women wait until God puts faith in them in a single moment or should they seek the Lord to give them a new heart through the means of grace? In light of fact that the Gospel includes irresistible grace, we should look to how that irresistible grace draws men and women from beginning to end.

If a person will only have faith that comes from a believing heart and cannot work that new heart in self, then it is not wrong to tell a person that s/he needs to pray and ask God for a new heart that can and will believe. If God by His grace works humility in the hearts of sinners before He gives them new hearts, then it is not wrong to tell a person and give instructions on how to seek humiliation (self-emptying) before God. If the heart is as deceptive as the Bible teaches and the devil deceives as the Bible teaches, then there will be many who will end up deceived about their salvation on that day. Is it wrong to tell people to examine their hearts since Scripture tells men to examine their hearts? Since the Scripture tells us that we cannot know sin apart from the Law and that the Law is a tutor to men to lead them to Christ, then how can it be wrong to instruct others on using the Law in order to guide them to the end of all hope in self?

These things are not the very essence of Popery, but instead they are the very antithesis of Popery when rightly understood. The teaching of Popery is much closer to what Bonar taught than what the Puritans and Edwards taught. Popery will also say that salvation is by grace, but it also puts the stress on men believing and men doing. That is closer to what Bonar is doing than what the Puritans and Edwards taught in telling men that they were seeking salvation using the means of grace looking to God to save them by grace alone as He wills. The essence of Popery is a form of Arminianism or Pelagianism which puts salvation in the hands of men. What the Puritans and Edwards taught was that salvation is all of grace and grace comes to the soul at the mere pleasure of God.

The Gospel is good news indeed. It is required that men believe, but God works this in men by grace alone. It is God who convicts men of sin in order that they will lose hope in self to believe. It is God who humbles men so that the stout pride in the heart will be broken so that they may have true faith. It is God who alone can use the Law to show men their utter helplessness. That is not Popery, that is biblical and more than that it is a Gospel of grace alone. The sinner is left with nothing to obtain of self but instead can only obtain what is needed by grace. This is the true teaching of grace alone. Bonar misunderstood this.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Few things are more dangerous to the anxious soul than the endeavors to get convictions, and terrors, and humiliations, as preliminaries to believing the gospel. Horatius Bonar

While it may be the case that Bonar is in a certain context, his own statement is actually quite dangerous. It would seem (at least from this immediate context) that Bonar thinks of believing the gospel as nothing more than believing some information. A heart that truly believes is a new heart or a regenerate heart. The older way of evangelism (Puritans and Edwards) focused on regeneration while Bonar is focused on an activity of the soul in believing. The older way thought that the way to faith was for the heart to be regenerated by grace. The way for a soul to seek regeneration by grace was to seek the Lord to give grace to it. The work of the Spirit is to convict, so how can it be dangerous to seek God for the conviction of the Spirit? It is the work of the Spirit to deliver the soul from pride as God gives grace to the humble, so how can it be dangerous for the soul to seek the Spirit to work humility in the soul? Bonar is confusing the idea that the sinner is to seek the Lord to work these things in the heart by grace with the sinner doing those things himself. But it is very dangerous to think that the heart can just live in sin which hardens the heart and then the next moment without a thought or concern simply believe.

They who would tell a sinner that the reason of his not finding peace is that he is not anxious enough, nor convicted enough, nor humble enough, are enemies to the cross of Christ. Horatius Bonar

This would make the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, Nettleton, and many others enemies of the cross of Christ. Is it really beyond the Bible to think that a person is not convicted of sin and is not humbled enough to be converted? Is it really beyond the biblical teaching that sinners must be convicted of sin in order to know that they need a Savior from that sin? Christ came to save sinners, which means that He came to save those who know that they are sinners and know this from the depths of their soul. Why is it a fact that in the conversions recorded in Scripture men and women are convicted of sin and even cry out? Why is it so hard to believe that sinners born in pride and hardened in pride must be humbled from that pride as a means of grace that prepares them (prepared by grace) to be saved? According to Habakkuk 2:4, “as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.” Pride is opposite to faith. We are told by Jesus that “unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What does becoming like a child mean if it does not include humility and lowliness? Was Jesus an enemy of the cross for teaching that?

The older way of looking at evangelism and preaching was far more consistent with the biblical teaching that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble and that He will dwell with the humble and contrite in spirit. It is not dangerous and it does not make one an enemy of the cross to tell people that they should seek God for humility and for conviction of sin. Instead of being dangerous, it is fully in line with the total inability of man in spiritual things and teaches men that all that they will receive from God regarding salvation at any point will be by grace alone. It is a simple matter of applying the means of grace.

The contrast between what is presented by Bonar in his writings in this location and the older writers is actually quite important. The older writers would see that God draws men to Himself through the conviction of sin and the humbling of the soul and that men should use the means of grace as they seek the Lord for those things. Bonar seems to think that those things are dangerous and that men should seek to believe. The older writers would say that no one will truly believe apart from being convicted of sin and humbled which are necessary for a person to be born again. The older writers would say that Bonar was dangerous in that he was skipping the way of grace in bringing men to Christ. The way of grace alone starts with grace and ends with grace but uses the means of grace. it teaches men that they should use the means of grace as they seek God for grace. It teaches men that nothing they are doing can possibly move God to save them or earn merit, but that God saves sinners in the way of the means of grace. The old way taught that Christ purchased grace for sinners and they are to seek it in the means of grace. In doing this, the Spirit delivers them from pride and gives grace to the humbled heart. That is not enmity to the cross.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

One huge difference between various methods of evangelism and preaching the Gospel is at the point of faith, repentance, and of grace. People have differed (for various reasons) on how much the Law has to do with the sinner coming to Christ and of the need for sinners to be convicted of sin and of humiliation of the soul. The sides of the debate, though we can acknowledge that it may be the case that many have the same motive (grace alone), yet this is not just a debate that can be dismissed as unimportant. I will argue (as I have argued previously) that this is vital to the Gospel. In the next few BLOGS I will be interacting with one section of Horatius Bonar’s book, THE WAY OF Peace. It is from chapter 11, the chapter on Insensibility. The point I am arguing is that the sinner must be BROUGHT to Christ by grace alone. The sinner has no ability to come to Christ and must be BROUGHT to Christ in order for the sinner to be saved by grace alone. Included in this, of course, is how sinners are taught and enabled to come to Christ by God. If we are to urge sinners to come to Christ, we should tell them the only way that they can come and that is a power that is not of their own.

That terror of conscience may go before faith, I do not doubt. But such terror is very unlike Bible repentance; and its tendency is to draw men away from, not to, the cross. Alarms, such as these, are not uncommon among unbelieving men, such as Ahab and Judas. They will be heard with awful distinctness in hell; but they are not repentance. Horatius Bonar

Bonar notes that a terror of conscience may go before faith, but that such terror is very unlike Bible repentance. He then asserts that the tendency of such terror is to draw men away from the cross. I am not sure where that is taught in Scripture, but that would appear to be in accordance with the things he has experienced in his ministry. While there could be various interpretations of what he meant, it is clear that terror is not the same thing as repentance. However, in the context (see below) it appears that Bonar is trying to get men to preach the mercy, love, and grace of Christ in a way where men are not humbled and broken for sin. He does not think that is necessary. The Scriptures, on the other hand, do show us people who are in terror in their conviction of sin. Jesus preached hell and wrath far more than He preached on love and mercy, so while evangelistic success in terms of numbers may not be a result of preaching terror of conscience, it is certainly true that the Lord Jesus did preach this way.

Sorrow for sin comes from apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, from the sight of the cross and of the love which the cross reveals. The broken and the contrite heart is the result of our believing the glad tidings of God’s free love, in the death and resurrection of his Son. Horatius Bonar

While it is correct that a true sorrow for sin comes from the apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ and from the apprehension of the cross and the love which the cross reveals, those things are for believers. The unbeliever will not apprehend love in the cross and will not apprehend the mercy of God in Christ. It is quite true that the truly broken and contrite heart is the result of a new heart which is a believing heart apprehending the free love of God, but that is not the issue with unbelievers. Men are born with proud hearts and those hearts must be humbled and broken before sinners will see their great need of Christ. Indeed, if they are converted they will have hearts that are humbled and broken in a spiritual way, but the heart that is full of pride and self will see no need of Christ other than perhaps a little help. The Scriptures teach us that the Law is our tutor to bring us to Christ and it does that by showing us our sin and our utter helplessness and inability to keep it.

The Gospel of grace alone shines with the perfection and beauty of Christ and His grace, but in order for sinners to see that they must see their own inability in sin. Sinners must see that Christ is the Physician who saves dead sinners and not those who can help themselves. Sinners must reach an end of their hope in themselves and of their own ability in order to rest in Christ as their hope and their strength. The teaching of the Law to sinners is not to teach them another way of salvation apart from Christ, but to show them that they cannot help themselves in the slightest and they must have Christ alone. Sinners must see that they cannot come to Christ unless they are drawn.