God Loves… Himself

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

If my nature, heart, will, and affections must be changed, God must do it; for I can no more change them than I could make myself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

While the quote from Adam above is a strike at all the religion of self and the will of self, it makes the point and makes it powerfully. Man is made in the first creation and he had nothing to do with that. Man did not choose his parents, did not choose to be born, and did not choose one thing about himself. Man did not choose how he looks, how tall he is, nor how heavily boned he is. Man did not choose his personality nor several things about his inner life as well. When it comes to man needing a new heart, there is no question that this is the work of God as well.

It is relatively easy for men to see the basics of how utterly incapable they were about their birth and how they came into the world. It is far harder, however, for men to recognize their utter nothingness before God and their utter inability in changing their nature, heart, will, and affections. This is part of the creation and no one can do this but God Himself. Man will argue and fight that he is free to change himself by a mere choice or act of the will, but this is simply impossible. This is a sovereign work of the Spirit and that is His work alone.

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

James 1:18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

In the two passages above the assertion of Adam is easily seen as true. The new birth is not the work of man, but instead it is in the exercise of His will that we are brought forth. It is not because of the parents or lineage of a person that one is born from above, but it is the will of God. It is not the will of any human flesh and not the will of any man, but instead the new birth happens only by the will of God. It should be clear from the very fact that a man cannot make himself so man cannot make a new self, but people want to deny that. But the texts of Scripture stand strong in their affirmations that God alone can give them new hearts.

True repentance and regeneration are not two completely different things in reality. When God changes the heart of a person, then the person turns from unbelief to belief and from the power of sin to the power of grace. While sinners are only too happy to settle for an external repentance and think that they have repented, those with new hearts will long to repent of sin more and more and in fact their sin is their greatest misery. A new heart gives men new tastes and new views of things, so that the sin that man once loved is now his greatest misery. It is a trial to the heart of man to find out that he still finds some delight in sin and has little sorrow for it, but he seeks the Lord to give him more sorrow in sin so that by tasting the bitterness of it he will learn to leave it alone. It is also a great trial to a sensitive soul that he loves the Lord so little, so he asks for the Lord to grant him a turning from love for the world and self to love the Lord with more and more of his being.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

Pride is seeing the defects of others, and overlooking our own. Humility is seeing, feeling, and lamenting sin in ourselves; not only past, but present sin; not only actual sin, but the root of it in an evil nature, and all sin without disguise or extenuation, in all its guilt and malignity. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

No man is humbled or sincere with God, till he is willing to know the worst of himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

The statement or quote just above is a very tough statement for our hearts to deal with. We want to know just enough of ourselves to think of ourselves as sinful because we know that we are supposed to do so, but to want to know or at least to be willing to know the worst of ourselves is a much different thing. It may be that we can even desire to know bad things of ourselves so that we can boast before others what God has shown us, but that is still not a willingness to know the worst of ourselves. The heart has so many crevices and abysses to hide itself from ourselves that it takes a lot of light and digging to uncover the worst of ourselves as the heart wants to be hidden in the darkness. The depths of self-love and pride are beyond our understanding and we always want to protect self in ways that perhaps we don’t understand. The heart of man seems to always be in a self-defensive posture.

It is not “natural” for a soul to want to see itself in the blazing light of holiness, but the heart that loves holiness will have some desire to see itself as it is in order to repent of those sins. It is easy to maintain a comfortable religion while just dealing with sins that we think are normal and does not take much discomfort to actually stop the sin or even deal with the sin enough in the heart to deceive ourselves. But can a person really be sincere with God until that person is willing to know the worst of self? Adam is hitting on an important point that souls can so easily deceive themselves over. It is also an important point in that souls can keep themselves comfortable and deceived in an unconverted state. A truly repentant state or a state of a regenerate heart is one that will grow in its repentance because it wants to be holy as He is holy.

Each soul should ask itself in the light of Scripture as it prays to God. Do I really want to know the worst of myself? Do I really want to see and know the depths of sin in my heart? Do I really want to know the extent of blackness that remains in my heart? If not, I just want to remain in a state of deception in order to remain comfortable while holding self in high regard and without a true love for God and holiness. Until the Lord Himself has humbled our soul and made us sincere in our walk with God, we are not truly willing to know ourselves which is the same thing as knowing the worst thing about ourselves. This is a terrible condition to be in, though it must be admitted that a person can be comfortable in it.

The soul that longs for true holiness is a person that will long to know things about its own heart so that it may deal with sin as it is. The soul that longs for true holiness out of love for God will know from past experience how painful it is for the Lord to open up the blackness and vileness of its own heart, but it wants to walk with God and it wants to be free from the sin which binds it in ways it does not know at the moment. Oh the depths of the sin of our hearts and the depths of our self-love which constantly deceives us to that depths of sin!

When we see that we are sinners by nature and that we are sinners by practice we see ourselves with horror and agony of soul, but there is much more to come. We will constantly cry out as the tax collector did as he would not even look up, “’God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’” We will cry out with David for the Lord to know our hearts. We will begin to see things in ourselves that we have accused others of and despised others over. We will begin to see mass hypocrisy and religiosity in our own hearts. We will want to cover our mouths in order never to utter a word again when we see our mouths as an the outpouring of a cesspool of sin in the heart. We will be cast upon Christ for free-grace and we will not trust in our own self-wrought repentance of faith. We will want nothing but free-grace.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

Pride is seeing the defects of others, and overlooking our own. Humility is seeing, feeling, and lamenting sin in ourselves; not only past, but present sin; not only actual sin, but the root of it in an evil nature, and all sin without disguise or extenuation, in all its guilt and malignity. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

The heart that wants real repentance and actually seeks real repentance from God is a heart that wants to know its sin, even though it may be hard to hear coming from other people. But if we want to know our sin and desire true humility, hearing it from others will also reveal a lot of pride in our hearts. We will see how our hearts rise within us when “certain” others bring up sins to us. We will begin to notice that our hearts rise in different ways depending on the person who brings our sin up. It may be that we are not guilty of the specific sin that a person brings up, but our hearts will reveal some aspect of our pride to us.

Our pride is like the eye of an eagle which is always looking for defects in others, yet that eye is quite dull when it looks at self. By looking at others with that piercing eye of the eagle we see so much in them that we can feel good about ourselves which enables us to feel superior to others. We know our own motives and so we can excuse our own defects, but we don’t know the hearts of others so we just assume the worst about them. But do we really know our own motives? Could it be that our own motives are full of self and pride and since they are in our own best interests we just assume that they are good? Just assuming that “my” motives are good is just one way pride enables us to overlook our own sin.

As imperfect people who are perfectly saved by Christ and yet in a way that does not make us perfect in daily (or hourly) practice, we must grow in our knowledge of our sin and yet of grace. We must grow in humility as we die to self and pride. It is true that this sounds like hard work and indeed it is hard. It is so hard, however, that it is impossible for men to kill their own pride and work up their own humility. We will only have as much humility as we have of the life of Christ (the One who was and is perfect in humility) in us. Humility, then, has to do with a view of self that influences our view of God, others, and the world. As pride is the exaltation of self, so humility is the emptying of self. As pride in its self-love blinds us to ourselves, so humility enables us to see ourselves in a true light that grows brighter as we grow in humility. As pride gives us sharp eyes in our judgments and assumptions about the motives of others, so humility gives us a different kind of eyes to view others with and not assume the worst about them but instead to assume the best about them.

The heart that is dying to pride and growing in humility is a heart that will begin to live in the light of the presence of God. This is a heart that will grow in the true knowledge of God and as it does that it sees itself in a true light. It is as the heart is being torn from its blinders of self to self because of pride and now sees self in the light of His glory that the heart is humbled and sees self in the true light. It is in that light that humility will begin to see sin in self, feel sin in itself, and will start to lament sin in itself. False humility can point out things about itself, but true humility will see what it formerly passed over and mourn over what was formerly seen as small things about itself. True humility will not just see sins that are carried out, but it will see right to its core which is a sinful nature. It is true that the regenerate soul is given a new heart, but oh it cannot escape the habits of the old nature until it arrives in glory.

As the soul grows in humility it will grow in seeing through the disguises of its own sin and see itself as getting worse and worse. This is why we must understand that the soul that has truly been granted repentance unto life is a soul that will be an almost constant “repenter” for life, which is to say that the soul that has really repented is the soul that has been humbled and will grow in its need to repent. Real repentance unto life is by grace alone and the soul is turned from self to Christ. Real repentance of those with Christ is when Christ becomes that person’s life and that person now has the humility of Christ as his or her life and now sees sin in a different light. The person who has His humility will see sin in self and as it grows in the disgust of self it is one that really repents over and over again.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

If we would put doing in place of thinking, knowing, and wishing, we would understand the meaning of Romans 7 and be convinced of the need of a better righteousness than our own. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

Real repentance (as opposed to a deceptive repentance, a fake repentance, a pseudo repentance…) does require thinking, but real repentance requires thinking and real repentance. Real repentance does include knowing, but it also requires the doing of what one knows and not just knowing about it. Real repentance includes wishing, but it also includes a strong enough desire or wish to actually repent and not just desire to repent without repenting. Here is a clue to some things which eternal souls have stumbled over and will stumble over in thinking that they have repented in truth when all they have done is to think about repentance, know about repentance, and wish they would have repented.

Luke 13: 1 Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? 3 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? 5 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The words of Jesus slice to the hearts of those who have ears to hear. Some people had reported to Him about some injustices, but Jesus spoke to them and their need to repent rather than commiserate about what went on. His words to them were unvarnished with niceties and without coating of sugar or anything else. He told them that unless they repented they would all likewise perish. It is vital to get the pointed nature of His words. He did not tell them that they were too worthy or too valuable for that to happen to them. He did not tell them that the people that happened to were great sinners. He did not tell them to relax and it would be fine. He also did not tell them that as long as the thought about repentance they would be okay. He did not tell them that as long as they knew about repentance they would be okay. He did not tell them that as long as they wished to repent they would be fine. Jesus was clear that they must actually repent or they would perish.

Romans 7 is a book that is very hard on those who believe that they are basically good or that they can attain a high level of sanctification. Paul stands against anything like that when he speaks of being slain by the law and then wonders who could deliver him from his body of death. Those who are honest with the biblical standard of holiness and their own lack of it (to put it nicely) have not doubt that if a man is to stand before a thrice holy and righteous God that man must have the righteousness of another. It is not just that man falls short ever so often, but that man falls short ever moment of his existence and in everything he does. Man has no righteousness at all of his own and so he must have the righteousness of another or he will perish.

It is very true that a person must be turned from following the path of sin and destruction, but real repentance also includes the inward man and his intellectual life and the desires and intents of the heart. Man must not only repent of what he has done, he must also repent of what he has not done. Man must not only repent of sinful desires, but he must repent of his best desires. Real repentance is to repent of pride and self which includes the very best things and the most righteous things that man can do. Real repentance is not just stopping certain things; it is to repent of the loves and desires that moved us to do those things. It is, in a word, turning from self to Christ. It is to turn from being proud of self to being proud of the cross. It is to turn from self-righteousness to the righteousness of Christ. It is to turn from self-sufficiency to the sufficiency of Christ. It is to turn from pride in religious to the humiliation regarding my works of righteousness. No, this is not works. This is all by grace. No man can repent like that in the strength of self for that would just be more of self. Oh no, this is a work of the Spirit and it is by grace alone.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

There may be an abiding consciousness of sin, with self-condemnation, where there is not the least degree of self-indignation, or self-abhorrence. Humility is knowing that we are not humble. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

It is by having some humility that we can know that we don’t have perfect humility. The more humility we have the more we will see that we don’t have. The more humility that we have, then, should show us a lot about real repentance. As Luther (paraphrased) put it, the man that truly repents will be one that repents the rest of his life. A true repentance, then, is not a perfect repentance, but is one that is the gift of God and that repenting will continue the rest of the person’s life. A true repentance, then, is a start of what will be a lifelong practice. But humility is required for true repentance and it is growing in humility that shows us our need for more and more repentance.

The human heart is born dead in sins and trespasses and by nature children of wrath. In the fall the human heart fell into the bondage of pride and self-love. The devil is the proudest creature in the universe and he does all from that pride and self-love. All unregenerate human beings are his children and as such they live by pride and self-love as well, though they are restrained by the sovereign hand of God more than the devil is restrained. When the Lord in His great mercy is pleased to grant life to a human soul, that life He gives the soul is a sharing in His life and the Lord Jesus Christ was perfectly humble. In giving the soul a taste of humility, the soul begins to obtain a real view of itself. That humility that is given it enables it to now see to some degree how horrible its pride and self-love are. The soul is now enabled to gain a glimmer of how hateful its pride and self-love are to a thrice holy God.

It has been said for hundreds of years, though perhaps not so much in the last hundred or so, that if God opened our hearts to us and showed us the whole of our sinfulness, we would die at the sight. It is clear from Scripture that unregenerate men flee from the light because they don’t want their sins exposed and so love the darkness. While it may sound strange to the uninitiated, only holy people don’t mind a sight of their sin even though they hate it. A holy person (to some degree) wants to be finished with sin and as such wants to have God show him his sin that he may seek grace to repent of it. The unholy person is still full of pride and self and simply wants to retain a good opinion of himself.

The person that has been declared holy in the sight of God by the work and grace of Christ alone and has Christ as his or her perfect righteousness, that is a person who has Christ as his humility as well. That is a person that can seek God to open his eyes to some of his sin so that he may mourn and taste the bitterness of them and then turn from them in a real repentance. This is a person that has Christ working in him or her His humility and as such this person can see more and more of his pride in secular life as well as religious life. As Christ works humility in the heart of the soul, the person sees more of his or her own pride and becomes more and more disgusted with him or herself. As the person is enabled to really repent of the pride and self-love that is shown him or her, that person grows in humility by the work of Christ in the person, but that opens the eyes to more pride and self. In other words, in a sense it is a circle, but those with some true humility to that degree see their own pride and self and as such know that they are not truly humble.

The humble soul alone, then, sees its own pride and self and so that moves the person to flee from pride and self. The humble soul will always know that it can never be perfectly humble but will always have room to grow in humility. The person that thinks that s/he is humble is a deceived person because a person that has true humility will see so much pride and self-love in his or her own heart that this will keep that person from saying or thinking that s/he is humble. The humble person can admit that s/he is more humble than a previous time and can admit to presently being full of pride and self. The proud person may be proud enough to confess pride, but will never see the depths of his or her own pride and self. It is clear, then, that it takes some humility in order to really repent. We should seek the Lord for a little humility that we may really repent and then seek more humility to repent more.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

There may be an abiding consciousness of sin, with self-condemnation, where there is not the least degree of self-indignation, or self-abhorrence. Humility is knowing that we are not humble. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

Adam strikes to the heart with a piercing quote again, though it is to be feared that truths like these are seldom read by a few and never read by the majority. One can have a sense and even abiding consciousness of sin and yet there be nothing resembling real repentance. One can have an abiding consciousness of sin and that with self-condemnation, yet there can still be nothing resembling real repentance. In some ways and some aspects Adam gets to the very heart of heart religion here. The heart can have a sense of sin and be moved in some ways and yet that can still be on the very surface of true Christianity.

In many ways this gets to the heart of real repentance which is the repentance from the deepest parts and aspects of the soul. It seems self-evident that the soul can have a consciousness of its sin and yet continue on in sin. The soul can even know it is worthy of condemnation for its sin and still continue on in its sin. What is needed, however, for real repentance, is for the soul to be indignant with self and to abhor self. Only when the soul is turned from love for self and its pride to the abhorrence of self will real repentance have occurred. However, once again, the heart has many ways to get around real repentance and be satisfied with a deception. The soul can be indignant against itself in a self-righteous way rather than indignant against itself that it has sinned against God. This is a dangerous deception. The soul can also abhor the fact that it has been caught in sin or abhor the fact with self-righteousness that it has sinned, but that is not the same thing as abhorring the very self as a vile and wretched sinner against God. We have to be very careful and seek discernment from the Lord.

The soul that has been granted real repentance will be able to discern, though it may require much prayer and seeking of the Lord, some degree of true indignation and abhorrence of self. The unregenerate person can despise self and be indignant with self, but the source of that will always be self-love and pride. Yet the regenerate person will always be fighting self and pride as regeneration does not make a person perfect, so the regenerate person always has those things with him or her along with the signs of true repentance. This means that it is quite difficult at times to wade through the issues of the heart and the work of the evil one who wants to deceive and misdirect our attention to things other than Christ.

Adam states that humility is knowing that we are not humble. This sounds simplistic at the first reading, but the more one ponders it the more one begins to get a glimpse of the meaning. The proud can work up a humility in their own power and deceive themselves into thinking that they are proud, but the humble will know that they are not thoroughly and finally humble and so they will see their pride and know that they are not naturally humble. The person that sees that s/he has no sufficiency in self to be humble and looks to Christ to work all of his or her humility in the soul is a person that sees that s/he is not truly humble and so must always be fighting the pride that arises in the heart. The heart that sees that it should be humble simply because it is a creature knows that it is not perfectly humble and at times when it has some humility that humility is fleeting. The person that sees how humble s/he should be because of his or her sinfulness knows that sin will still work in that heart and will work against humility and for pride. The person who knows that humility is not natural and that every aspect of it comes as a gift from Christ, that person will seek the Lord for humility on a constant basis because that person understands that s/he is not humble beyond what the Lord gives as He pleases.

The Lord must work real repentance in our hearts and make us truly humble. The heart that has had some degree of real repentance will abhor self because of its sin even though it is a converted soul. The heart that has some degree of real repentance is a heart that is not perfect and is dependent upon the Lord to see its sin, to hate its sin out of a love for God, and that it must have humility as a gift as well. The really repentant soul looks to Christ for all as a gift and by grace alone.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

Till we know sin, and feel the burden of it in some degree, we shall be blind to every thing else, in Scripture, whether of nature or grace; we shall pray with great reserve, and never mean half of what we say. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

It is interesting that Adam says, though somewhat self-evident in my view, that apart from knowing sin and having a burden for it we shall be blind to every thing else, but included in that is that we shall pray with great reserve and never mean half of what we say. Prayer and speaking with honesty are vital to the spiritual soul, but most likely Adam is referring to our prayers when he says that we never mean half of what we say. If we view prayer as a way of communing and communicating with God, then if we only mean half of what we say (at best) this shows us how superficial we are. If prayer is a mark of our spiritual life and we only mean half of what we say, then that also shows us how superficial (non-spiritual) we are. Since God knows our hearts, our real desires are set out in His presence and He knows how superficial we are and how badly we need true repentance to really pray.

It is also not possible to work up within our own strength a burden of sin in order to fool God about our prayers. How this brings light to our pride and self-love which are the strength of sin. Pride and self-love blind us to our sin and actually moves us to sin as well. In fact, those things are at the heart of our sinful and fallen nature. Part of the awful effects of pride and self-love is that wicked drive for human beings to be self-sufficient. The fact is, however, it is the humble alone who can truly pray. This should show us the great need of a true and inner repentance in order to live before God, commune with God, and to seek the face of God.

Pride and self-love are also the very energy of hypocrisy and our being like the Pharisees in terms of the differing forms of legalism. Our exalted view of ourselves and our abilities in the things of religion blind us to how much we are pretending before others, to ourselves, and before God. Our prayers are what we think they should be, but they do not come from the heart and they do not come from Christ in the soul. Our prayers are not what we truly desire and so our hearts do not desire the things of God (in truth) and instead they pretend to desire the things of God in words and yet that simply reflects a hypocritical heart.

Until our hearts have some degree of burden from sin and some degree of real repentance, our prayers are nothing but vile acts of self-love and idolatry before God. Without a burden for our sin we are satisfied with self and our level of “spirituality.” Without a burden for sin we show that we are not concerned with our remaining sin (whether unconverted or converted) and so we are not humbled before God and our prayers are the offerings of self. Without true love for God we only operate upon the power of self-love and pride. Why do we think that our prayers that are fueled by self-love and pride are acceptable to the living God? After all, a prayer of pride and self-love is nothing more than the prayer of the Pharisee who “was praying this to himself” in Luke 18:11.

Once the Spirit opens our eyes to see that the very nature of sin is self-love and pride and not just what we do, we can see the horror of our most religious acts and that includes our prayers if not shows that our prayers are even the very worst of our sins. While many complain that their prayer-lives are not what they should be, few will admit that their prayer lives are full of pride and self and as such they don’t mean what they ask for and as such their prayers are open displays of hypocrisy before God. Apart from a real repentance, we cannot truly pray. Apart from a real repentance, our prayers are nothing but hypocrisy. Apart from a real repentance, we are deceived about our prayers and our whole religious life. Apart from a real and inward repentance, we are putting on faces and pretending to be religious before others, ourselves, and God. While we may be able to fool others at times and ourselves most of the time, we are only fooling ourselves if we think we can fool God at any point in time. Apart from a real and inward repentance from self and pride, the whole of life is nothing but empty deception. We must have a real and inward repentance worked in us and granted us by Christ. If not, we are just deceiving ourselves even more and showing how badly we need a real repentance.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

Till we know sin, and feel the burden of it in some degree, we shall be blind to every thing else, in Scripture, whether of nature or grace; we shall pray with great reserve, and never mean half of what we say. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

This statement by Adam is truly profound. While it is not a statement that is consistent with works, one can think of it that way as if a person can obtain knowledge of many things if he will just work hard enough to come to an understanding of his sin. It is better to think of this statement in terms of the state of the heart and how it views things. Using an illustration of Jonathan Edwards, a person can describe honey to us from a scientific standpoint. It can give us all the properties and how they work together. But a person that has tasted honey knows honey in one way more than the scientist ever can that has never tasted honey. We can also imagine a scientist that studies pain that has never had much pain, yet that person can describe pain, can give a lot of information about pain in one sense, but the person that has lived with a lot of pain for a long time knows more about pain than the scientist can ever find out in just studying it. The person that has lived with pain can also describe what the relief of pain is and how that pain has effects on the moods and on mental focus.

So a person that feels the burden of sin will know levels of sin that one that has never felt the burden of sin ever will. It is possible to know a lot about sin in terms of knowing it by the way of information, but the person that has tasted the conviction of sin brought by the Lord and has felt the burden of sin will know it much more than the person who only knows about it in terms of information. The person who has felt the pain, darkness, and guilt of sin has a distinct idea of what it means for the weight of the wrath of God to be upon him or her. The person who has felt the pain, darkness, and guilt of sin knows something of the fear of eternal damnation. The person who has felt the pain, darkness, and guilt of sin knows something of what it means to know that s/he is worthy of eternal damnation. The person who has felt the pain, darkness, and guilt of sin knows something of the power of sin over the soul. The person who has felt the pain, darkness, and guilt of sin knows something of what it means to be washed, cleansed, and set free by Christ.

The person who has felt the weight of sin upon him or her will understand far more of the nature of grace than those who only study it as a subject. Those who have felt the weight of sin and have grown in their understanding of sin will pray with far more understanding of need and will pray in the name of Christ alone without any illusion of self-righteousness. Unless the soul knows something of sin and therefore of grace, the prayers of that soul will have no true freedom and never desire what the words are asking for. This is a tremendous indictment on modern Christianity. We want people to understand things with the mind and yet we don’t seek them to have a deep conviction of sin and for them to have broken hearts. Yet without those things we will have pretenders who do not understand grace and cannot truly pray. When we don’t urge people and teach people to seek the Lord for a sense of their sin and of a deep conviction, we are not providing a foundation that can be built on.

This may sound weird to some and works oriented to others, but in reality conviction of sin is the work of the Spirit in the soul and is one way Christ teaches the soul. What we must understand is that Christ calls the burdened and heavy-laden to Himself (Matthew 11:25ff) and it is only the poor in spirit who are blessed (Matthew 5:3). Apart from poor souls coming to the point where sin is a burden to them, they will not truly come to Christ and come under His yoke. Apart from poor souls arriving at the point of being utterly and totally impoverished in spirit, they will not be broken from self-righteousness and look to Christ alone for righteousness. In one sense souls that do not come to a point of deep conviction of sin where they feel the burden for it are not ready for the inward work of the Spirit to work a real repentance in them and a real turning from self to one of utter dependence upon the Lord. Conviction of sin is a necessary starting point for real repentance and real repentance is necessary in the heart of sinners so that they will have the real Christ in a real way. Apart from feeling the power and guilt of our pride, how will we seek to be turned from pride to humility? Apart from humility, how will we receive grace

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

It is the Spirit’s office to convince of sin, because he only has the power; nothing that others can say, or I can think, will bring me to a true sense and feeling of it without him. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

While the statement of Adam is true (above), it is used often in a wrong sense. When a person speaks to another on account of sin, the person being spoken to will say that it is the Spirit’s job to convince of sin and that the person speaking is trying to take the Spirit’s place. It is correct that it is the work of the Spirit to convict, but that is not the same thing as people speaking to others about their sin. It is the correct way to speak to people about their sin to know that it is the Spirit who must convict them if they are going to be truly convicted. If we don’t approach people that way, we may come across as external moralist, act as if we are better than they, or perhaps act as if the person has it in his or her power to repent of sin. People can only truly repent of sin that the Spirit has convicted them of, though people can have an external repentance apart from the convicting work of the Spirit.

John 16:7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

There is a huge difference between those who see that they have sinned, want to be free of the consequences of that sin, and so they stop their outward sin and those who are convicted by the Spirit in the depths of their souls. Those who see that the consequences of the sin will not be good for them (usually in this world, though some see it in some sense as eternal as well) are never really driven from the power of pride and self. Sin is viewed through the eyes of self and the consequences of sin are viewed through the eyes of self. The Spirit, however, brings a deeper conviction of sin than that. He convicts of sin in such a way that men see their sin as against God and are driven from all hope in self. The Spirit, though He will strive with men at times without bringing the deepest conviction, will set to work to convict men in such a way as to deliver them from themselves and their pride and hope in self.

Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”

The passage just above shows what happens when the Spirit comes with power on the soul of people and brings them to a real conviction of sin. It is true that not all may feel the same degree of piercing that these people had. This was the day that the Spirit was poured out and Peter was preaching with great power in the power of the Spirit. These were men and women who had cried out for the release of a murderer and to crucify Christ. They saw that the guilt of this sin was upon them and they knew that they were guilty of a horrible sin. They knew this and felt this because the Spirit had worked this conviction in their souls. Here you have those who had cried out for Christ to be crucified and now they were crying out for the followers of that Christ to tell them how to be saved. This was surely the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.

Surely this is very instructive about real repentance. It is not just people learning that they have sinned and so they stop. It is not just behavior modification. It is the Spirit piercing the soul with the Scriptures and showing people who they are. It is the Spirit opening minds with light to show people that they have sinned against God and as such there is nothing they can do to save themselves. It is the Spirit showing men their utter inability to convert themselves and give themselves a new heart. It is the Spirit bringing men to an end of self and pride so that they will look to Christ and Him alone. Such we see the difference between real repentance and a false repentance, not to mention real evangelism and false evangelism. Those who teach real repentance and real evangelism are messengers who leave men in the hands of the living God to do the work. Those who teach false repentance and false evangelism leave men in their own hands and leave them with enough strength to do some work.

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

Is there any such thing as regeneration, or a change of nature, from sensuality to purity of heart, from flesh to spirit, from sin to holiness, from the world to God? So the Scripture says, and that nothing less is being Christian. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

The heart of the unregenerate sinner is set on self. The heart of the unregenerate sinner is controlled by pride and self-love. The heart of the unregenerate sinner will pursue pleasure in one thing or another, but it will seek pleasure. The heart of the unregenerate sinner will pursue honor (may be the pleasure sought) by doing things that get people to praise self. This may be in open sin or it may be in the pursuit of strict religion. But the unregenerate sinner wants the honor and praise of men and will go to extremes to obtain that.

The new heart is expressed well in Psalm 115: where the cry or prayer is “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, But to Your name give glory.” This is a true sign of a new heart when the cry of the heart is not for the glory to come to self, but instead for all glory be to God. It is true that an unregenerate heart can say those words, but the unregenerate heart cannot truly desire for itself to obtain no glory. The unregenerate heart may lie to itself and fight the desire it has to receive glory from its religious actions, but the desire will be there for honor and glory. The unregenerate heart does all for self and does all in a way where it will be admired by others or perhaps it will do things so that God will admire it (it thinks) or it will admire itself.

Jesus warned the disciples not to be like the Pharisees in Matthew 6 who did all their works of righteousness (in name) to be seen of men. They prayed to be seen by men. They gave alms to be seen of men. They fasted in order to be honored by men. In other words, they did their works of righteousness in order to be noticed by men and did not do them out of love for God. This is, of course, a way of pride and self-love and the desire of pride to be exalted and honored rather than God. It is using the things or ways that God has given us to seek Him as ways to seek self. It is using what God has given as means of His glory and using them for our own. It is spiritual idolatry and also spiritual adultery and theft.

All of this should teach us that real repentance is not easily done and in fact with men it is impossible. Real repentance is a work of God in the soul and He does it by grace alone. Regeneration is the work of the Spirit who does it by grace in the soul, so we should not expect that the fruit of real repentance is a work that is in the power of man to perform either. It takes a change of nature to be turned from sensuality to purity of heart. This change cannot be done by the power or will of man, but instead it takes a new heart that will turn the heart from self and the senses of self to love holiness and God.

Real repentance requires a turning from the flesh to spirit, but once again the flesh of man cannot turn the flesh of man to love spiritual things. The fleshly heart of man can only love what feeds the flesh of man and so a true repentance can only come from another power and that power is the Holy Spirit. The flesh of man in its great blindness and pride may deceive itself into thinking that it can turn from fleshly things, but it can only turn from the outward fleshly things. The heart itself must be turned or man will turn from outward fleshly things by the power of pride in the heart which is fleshly. Real repentance, then, must be a work of the Holy Spirit and cannot be the work of man himself.

Turning the heart from sin to holiness and from the world to God is also a Divine work instead of a human work. The nature of sin is to love self and do all for self, while the essence of holiness is to do all out of love for God. The nature of sin, on the other side of it, is to fall short of the glory of God which is to fail to glorify God in all that we do. Being turned from that to do all to the glory of God is of course a Divine work and not the work of the flesh or of man. Holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit and spiritual work is the work of the Holy Spirit. Being turned from worldly things to God is a Divine work in creating a new creation. That alone is real repentance.