God Loves… Himself

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

There is no evil affection, and no evil conduct, but what selfishness will, under certain circumstances, produce. It is the directly opposite affection to true benevolence, and therefore the root of all moral evil. It is the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, and not the subject to His law, neither indeed can be. It seeks personal interest, which is diametrically opposite to the glory of God and the general interest of His kingdom. It opposes the good of sinners themselves, and makes them, as the apostle says, “hateful, and haring one another.” It tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

The selfish heart will always oppose the Law of God in the heart, if not the outward man as well. It is not subject o the law of God which at the heart of it is love for God and others. In always seeking its own personal interest, it is always opposite of the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom. By definition (Romans 3:23) sin is defined as falling short of the glory of God. What this shows us is that the selfish heart that always loves self and seeks its own glory, honor, and fleshly well-being is always opposite of the glory of God and as such sins in all that it does. Not only does it sin, but it has not a drop of good in it and so is completely and totally opposed to God and His glory. The selfish heart is completely full of selfishness and has no true love and no true goodness in it. All it does is out of an undiluted selfishness and is restrained by nothing but self-love and the sovereign hand of God.

The selfish heart is completely and totally opposed to others and itself. Titus 3:3 describes the selfish heart and that is precisely what it shows us. “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” This should chill us to the depths of our souls when we see what is going on around us if not in us. The selfish heart is foolish, so those who are guided by selfish hearts are foolish. This means if we have selfish hearts we are guided by fools. If we are around those with selfish hearts, we are in the company of fools. The selfish heart is clearly disobedient to all the commands of God as it has no true love at all, but the selfish heart is also deceived. It is deceived by virtue of that heart being full of selfishness always interpreting everything by the selfish heart.

The selfish heart is opposed to the good of sinners themselves and all others around them. The selfish heart is so deceived that it does not see that it is enslaved to the lusts and pleasures it indulges its selfish heart and flesh with. The selfish heart (as seen in the eyes of God and His truth) lives in malice and envy toward others. The selfish heart is opposed to the true good of others (spiritual good) and seeks its own good. The selfish heart will use others for its own selfish and sinful pleasures and not think a thing about it. The selfish heart is hateful toward others even when it is hiding behind niceness and a big smile. The selfish heart lives in the hate of others and it is also hated by other people with selfish hearts, which is all unconverted people regardless of their profession.

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches us, sin brings man into an estate of sin and misery. When men are governed by selfish hearts which means that they are opposed to all true good, then men live in sin and seek sin and as such they bring misery upon themselves. When you have a nation full of selfish people, you will have a nation that is full of misery. When you have a planet that is full of selfish people, you will have a planet that is full of misery and as such the hearts of selfish men will covet the land and property of other nations and this will bring war. Selfish hearts will desire to use others and as such disease and illness will spread. Plainly put, we would self-destruct if God did not restrain us. There would be no salvation unless the free-grace interrupted us in our mad and hateful pursuits in bringing misery upon ourselves. Apart from free-grace there would be on true good in the human race. While sin is hateful in and of itself, it is the backdrop that sets out Christ and His grace as beautiful.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

There is no evil affection, and no evil conduct, but what selfishness will, under certain circumstances, produce. It is the directly opposite affection to true benevolence, and therefore the root of all moral evil. It is the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, and not the subject to His law, neither indeed can be. It seeks personal interest, which is diametrically opposite to the glory of God and the general interest of His kingdom. It opposes the good of sinners themselves, and makes them, as the apostle says, “hateful, and haring one another.” It tends to spread misery and destruction through the universe. It makes creatures as bad as they can be, and would destroy them all, were it not for the power and wisdom of God, which are employed in restraining, directing, and overruling its pernicious influence. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

In our day selfishness is thought to be a person who may take more of the pie than s/he should during the holiday parties. It may also be thought of those who live for themselves and are not very considerate of others. However, there is no evil in the world but comes by the evil of a selfish heart. There is no evil conduct that a selfish heart cannot produce. There is no evil affection that is beyond what can come from a selfish heart. When God turns a selfish heart over to more sin, He turns it over to a greater degree of selfishness. It is a terrible judgment to be turned over to self since that means a person is now even more opposite of true love. The more a person is turned over to a selfish heart the more that person becomes selfish and without concern for God or others.

The selfish heart by definition is full of self rather than full of the glory and love of God. The selfish heart may try to appear benevolent, but it has nothing of the truth of benevolence in it. The selfish heart has one interest and that is the interest of self. As long as there is some good to be obtained for self, or perhaps the selfish heart sees a greater good for self in appearing benevolent, self can give things in order to appear benevolent. The selfish heart wants to appear as one with love, but it has no love but for itself. The selfish heart, then, as without true love is the root of all moral evil. The Ten Commandments can only be kept to any real degree out of true love and the selfish heart has no true love at all. Instead of true love, the selfish heart is constantly looking for ways to enhance the kingdom of self.

The selfish heart is really the carnal mind in reality. The selfish heart is always looking for the earthly good of self and as such it will covet the things of others and excuse that because it thinks it has a right to those things. The selfish heart is constantly looking for ways to obtain honor from others and that from the world of those in the professing Church. In this respect, as in other respects also, the selfish heart is at enmity with God. The selfish heart longs for the honor of others, yet God commands all men to honor Him. There is a war between God and the selfish heart in that way. The selfish heart wants the things of the world in accordance with its own pleasure and desires, yet God gives worldly things according to His pleasure. How the selfish heart chafes at this. The selfish heart wants to use other people for itself, but God commands each person to love others and to seek their true good. The selfish heart wants to use God for itself and the things of God to obtain honor, but God will only do what is for His own glory. There has been, still is, and will always be enmity between God and the selfish heart.

When we think of how God created the world and all things in it for His own glory and pleasure, we can see how He would be at enmity with the selfish heart when the selfish heart wants all things for its own glory and pleasure. When God seeks His own glory this includes the greatest good for His people, yet those with selfish hearts are limited to their own good as their primary love and interest. All selfish hearts want all things for themselves and are restrained by God or they would all want to rule the world. Clearly and without question the selfish heart wants free-will to obtain what it can and will oppose God’s sovereign will. The selfish heart will set out free-will in the realm of salvation so it can control that as well (it thinks), but grace is sovereign or it is not grace at all.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

The selfish love of sinners has no moral goodness in it because it is no obedience to the divine law. The law requires them to love God with all the heart, and to love their fellow men as themselves. But when they love themselves because they are themselves, and love others only because they have received or expect to receive benefit from them, do they obey the divine law? Do they feel towards God as they would that He should feel towards them? Or do they feel towards others as they would that others should feel towards them? Does their selfish affection in the least degree answer the demands of that law which requires pure, disinterested love? It is morally impossible for sinners to love God supremely, and their fellow men impartially, from a selfish heart. Let their love to God or man rise ever so high, it can have no moral goodness in it, because it is not obedience to the divine law which requires nothing but pure, holy, disinterested love. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

In this BLOG I would like to focus on the last sentence from the quote above. It is true that some of this was covered or touched on in an earlier post, but this sentence is pointed and convicting. When understood, some major points of Scripture are seen in a different light and the horror of our own hearts can be made known if the Spirit opens our eyes to see. Now, the sentence before the last sentence was dealt with (to some degree) in the last post. It shows that those with a selfish heart (all are born with it) which is full of self-love and that sinful love cannot love God or man. The heart that loves self supremely (as all unregenerate human beings do) cannot love God supremely. Since the Great Commandments teach us to love God with all of our beings and our neighbor from that, and the Ten Commandments flow out of the Great Commandments, it should be evident that fallen human beings have no capacity for a pure and holy love.

When a soul begins to see this and the light begins to shine on the darkness of his or her own heart, the awful sense of the reality of the utter lack of righteousness and of the presence of a host of sins that have not seen before begins to sink in. All that which we saw as love in the past is now seen to be nothing other than vile idolatry. All the things that I thought (says the soul so self) were good are now seen as having no moral goodness in them at all. Now those proud thoughts and feelings come back to my heart and I see what I did not see before. I did not have love for God in those actions and I was proud of those actions which were sin. Oh, the soul cries out, how can it be that I was so proud of my heart that was so full of self-love and pride and did not love God at all? The soul sees that all of what it though was its righteousness had and has no moral goodness at all (at best) because the divine law requires “nothing but pure, holy, disinterested love.”

When the soul has its selfishness discovered to it that soul is now a soul that has nothing to boast about and nothing to cling to and its only hope is in the free-grace of God if He is pleased to show that. The divine law requires a pure love, not a selfish love. The divine law requires a holy unto the Lord love and not a selfish love which is as unholy and idolatrous as it can be. The divine law requires a disinterested love rather than the proud love of self that is as high as the natural man can go. A disinterested love is not that the sinner has no interest in the good of self at all, but that the sinner’s interest is not focused on self and the selfish heart. A disinterested love does not mean that there is not a high degree of interest in loving God and the neighbor and even the soul’s interest in his or her spiritual welfare, but it simply points to the opposite of the selfish love or selfish heart where all the soul’s interest is really self and the love of self.

What we see, then, is that the doctrine of sin as taught in Scripture is in perfect accordance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is wholly and only of free and sovereign grace. When men see by the Spirit that they have done nothing but loved self and served the idol of self they will be broken from any hope in their past actions. When men see by the Spirit that God only saves by free-grace they will see that they have no hope in themselves and no ability in themselves at all. They must have Christ alone and He must come by the sovereign grace of God alone or they will be unconverted for eternity. There is nothing in a selfish heart that can possibly earn anything but more damnation from God. There is nothing in a selfish heart that has any power of love for God and as such there is nothing that the soul can do to obtain salvation. All this soul can do is to find a faithful minister (very hard in our day) who will set forth free-grace and earnestly cry out to the Lord to show grace.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

The selfish love of sinners has no moral goodness in it because it is no obedience to the divine law. The law requires them to love God with all the heart, and to love their fellow men as themselves. But when they love themselves because they are themselves, and love others only because they have received or expect to receive benefit from them, do they obey the divine law? Do they feel towards God as they would that He should feel towards them? Or do they feel towards others as they would that others should feel towards them? Does their selfish affection in the least degree answer the demands of that law which requires pure, disinterested love? It is morally impossible for sinners to love God supremely, and their fellow men impartially, from a selfish heart. Let their love to God or man rise ever so high, it can have no moral goodness in it, because it is not obedience to the divine law which requires nothing but pure, holy, disinterested love. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

In this BLOG I would like to focus on the next to last sentence from the quote above, though some of it will be covering some of the same ground as earlier. However, this is utterly vital information and information that men and women should realize describes their moral and spiritual state, which is to be dead in sins and trespasses and by nature a child of wrath (Eph 2:1-3). It tells them that they have no ability to do the least thing that pleases God in their hearts. A selfish heart which is shorthand for a heart full of sinful self and pride and a heart that out of that self and pride is full of sinful and idolatrous love for self and as such does all out of sinful self-interest. The selfish heart loves itself and revolves around itself and does all and intends all to serve self. Clearly, then, a selfish heart cannot keep the Great Commandments nor any of the Ten Commandments.

The selfish heart is full of love for sinful self and self-centered self, so this selfish heart is devoid of the love of the true God who commands that all things be done out of love for Him and His glory. The selfish heart loves self rather than God. The selfish heart loves all for self and whatever it does in the realm of religion or in civil things is out of love for self rather than God. While this selfish heart may appear as righteous and good in the eyes of the world, this person is a gross idolater in the eyes of God and is at enmity with Him in all those outwardly good things that are done. The selfish heart may appear as righteous and good to those in the church, but once again that selfish heart does all its religious activities out of love for self and so it is attempting to use the things of God to build itself up in its own eyes as well as to gain the admiration and honor of others. Oh how wicked this selfish heart really and truly is.

We can now look at the first two of the commandments as examples. The selfish heart is in fact its own god and as such it always has another god in the presence of the true God. How wicked it is to do all for self rather than the true God. How wicked it is to serve the self-god in the presence of the living God. How utterly vile a person must appear in the eyes of God (who is a jealous God) to always be in the loving embrace of the idol of self and to bow down and worship self in all that a person does. We must see how our hearts appear to the true God in light of Scripture and the enlightening work of the Spirit or our self-love will blind us to our vicious idolatry. While a selfish heart is too proud to bow to a wooden idol or it may not bow to the idol of money in its own mind, a selfish heart is blinded to the idol of self as it serves self with love and adoration. This self has no true love to the true God and no true love to neighbors, but instead loves for its own good and honor.

The selfish heart is also at odds with the 2nd Commandment. It does not truly worship the living God, but instead it worships itself. As seen in the paragraphs above, the idol of self is indeed the idol that the selfish heart worships which is a direct violation of this command. It is also true that the selfish heart will “worship God” as it sees fit and in accordance with the desires and inclination of its own heart. We are to worship the true God as He sets out and when we change that to ways we like it is in reality a worship of self. When preachers preach what they want instead of the Word of God they are in reality guilty of false worship since God commands true preaching of the true God in worship.

Finally, the only thing that can deliver sinners from such wicked hearts is God Himself and He only does this by free-grace. This is why Arminian preachers and professing Reformed preachers don’t preach free-grace as they are always leaving room for sinners to have something to do. Leaving sinners something to do in their own power is a false gospel and as such is false worship and leads to a false god. Selfishness, then, destroys all morality, the true God, and the true Gospel in its own mind and heart as it grasps and clings to the throne of the self-god. Self is a hideous and wicked sin that is far more evil than we can imagine, but it is to be like the devil rather than the living God who made men as His own image.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

The selfish love of sinners has no moral goodness in it because it is no obedience to the divine law. The law requires them to love God with all the heart, and to love their fellow men as themselves. But when they love themselves because they are themselves, and love others only because they have received or expect to receive benefit from them, do they obey the divine law? Do they feel towards God as they would that He should feel towards them? Or do they feel towards others as they would that others should feel towards them? Does their selfish affection in the least degree answer the demands of that law which requires pure, disinterested love? It is morally impossible for sinners to love God supremely, and their fellow men impartially, from a selfish heart. Let their love to God or man rise ever so high, it can have no moral goodness in it, because it is not obedience to the divine law which requires nothing but pure, holy, disinterested love. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

It is vital to understand the nature of selfishness if we are to understand sin and true holiness. It is also vital if we are going to understand what Christ saves sinners from and of the nature of assurance. When sinners have nothing but selfish love in their hearts, which is the case with all unregenerate human beings, they have no moral goodness in them which means they have no love for God or their neighbor and as such they have no obedience to the divine law at all. While it is true that we hear warning of those who only keep the law in the externals of it, apart from understanding the selfishness of the fallen heart a person can keep some aspects of the law out of selfishness and have some selfish love in his or her heart and be deceived into thinking that s/he is keeping the law to some degree.

In the 8th commandment we are commanded not to steal, but the Great Commandments teach us that we are not to steal because we love God and our neighbor. The difference is simply huge and has eternal consequences. It is possible not to steal because we don’t want to go to jail or because we are concerned that if we are caught it will ruin our reputation. It is possible not to steal because we are proud of our self-righteousness and as such we want to consider ourselves as keepers of the law. But all of those reasons can simply be nothing but the products of a selfish heart who does what it does and does not do what it does not do out of love for sinful self. That is without question, then, idolatry. It is not the external refraining from stealing that is at the heart of the 8th commandment, but instead it is love for God and our neighbor. If we do not steal out of love for self and a selfish heart, then we have not kept the commandment out of love for God. Instead, we are stealing the obedience we owe God and the absolute devotion to Him and give it to self.

This is the real issue of the heart. All human beings are born dead in sins and trespasses and their hearts are born in selfishness and self-love. This is a terrible bondage and yet part of that bondage is that sinners are blind to their own bondage. They do on their way in their self-love and selfishness just doing all out of self-love not realizing that they are under the wrath of God and are violating His holy commandments moment after moment. As Emmons notes, it is utterly impossible for those who are in the bondage of selfish hearts to love God supremely (above themselves) and their fellow man impartially (without regard to their own selfishness). Those two things are completely and diametrically opposed to the Greatest Commandments. These people live their whole lives violating and breaking the Greatest Commandments in all they do, even their most religious actions.

When we view things in that light, the enormity of a selfish heart should be clear to all. It should also be clear that a selfish heart cannot be overcome by trying to be better, but instead it must be made new. Why would God save such vile wretches? He will only save them to the glory of His grace. He will only save them for the sake of His own name. In other words, the only thing that can move God to save such wretches is Himself. Sinners are saved by free-grace alone or they will not and cannot be saved. Behold the grace of God in saving such wretches! Behold the fierceness of the proud hearts which oppose Him in saving them. Behold Christ who saves sinners because He loved the Father and went to the cross so that the Father would be glorified in the salvation of sinners.

Luke 6:31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

The selfish love of sinners has no moral goodness in it because it is no obedience to the divine law. The law requires them to love God with all the heart, and to love their fellow men as themselves. But when they love themselves because they are themselves, and love others only because they have received or expect to receive benefit from them, do they obey the divine law? Do they feel towards God as they would that He should feel towards them? Or do they feel towards others as they would that others should feel towards them? Does their selfish affection in the least degree answer the demands of that law which requires pure, disinterested love? It is morally impossible for sinners to love God supremely, and their fellow men impartially, from a selfish heart. Let their love to God or man rise ever so high, it can have no moral goodness in it, because it is not obedience to the divine law which requires nothing but pure, holy, disinterested love. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

We see and hear encouragement for men to be moral based on selfish reasons. We see and hear encouragement for men to make a decision for Christ based on selfish reasons. A professing Christianity that is based on sinful self-love and selfishness is not Christianity at all. Jesus told Nicodemus (the very religious Jew) that he must be born from above. The same is true of all who will be saved. The heart must be changed from a selfish and self-centered heart that does all out of self-love to a heart that does what it does out of love for God. This is not just a mere outward or external change; it is a change of nature.

Once again Emmons strikes at the very heart of what modern people think of as Christianity. They think of it as Christianity because they have been deceived and pastors and elders have been deceived about this for many years. A few hundred years ago the ministers would seek to show men their hearts and try to help them see that they were sinners by nature and that their sinful self-love and self-seeking was to be a child of the devil rather than a child of the living God. But today we have professing Christian ministers who try to use the sinful hearts of men as a basis for them to make choices. It is what they use to entice men to pray prayers and it is what they use to entice men to make better moral decisions. It truly boggles the mind when one comes to the realization of this. What men used to think of as the very nature of sin men now try to use to get men to be moral or even for them to choose Christ for salvation. This should never have happened, but it has.

Augustine battled with Pelagius over these same issues sixteen hundred years ago. Pelagius thought it was in the power of man to be moral and to be involved in his own salvation. Luther and the Reformers fought the same idea in the time of the Reformation. Charles Finney also thought that he could talk men and use rational arguments to get men to make decisions for Christ in the 1800’s. We live in a day where that type of thinking has virtually swallowed up the professing Church. Where can one go to hear the clear preaching of the glory of God’s sovereign grace in salvation? Where can one go to hear preaching that exposes the sinfulness of the heart and leaves men without any hope but in the sovereign work of Christ? Where can one go to hear men stripped of all hope in themselves and to hear that their best efforts at morality and religion is based on selfishness and as such their best efforts are sinful? Where does one go to hear that men must look to God to give them a new heart so that they can truly believe?

The selfish love of sinners that sinners are encouraged to is not the Gospel at all, but rather is the opposite of it. The background of the Gospel is such that sinners should see that they are unable to perform any part of it and need Christ to deliver them from their best efforts at keeping the law, but instead at the very least sinners think that they have some love for God and their neighbor in them. The very best effort that unconverted men make toward God and others is in direct violation of the Great Commandments. It is a terrible deception to tell men only of the good things of God and then try to get them to pray a prayer as that does nothing but deceive them. It is to use the sinful heart that men must be delivered from in order to be saved to try to get them to save themselves. It is the anti-Gospel.

Luke 6:31 “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It remains to inquire, why there is no moral goodness in the love which sinners exercise towards themselves and others. Christ supposes that they all know the nature of their love, and that there is nothing virtuous or praiseworthy in it…Is there any thing truly virtuous or amiable in men’s loving themselves, or in loving others from mere selfish, mercenary motives? All men in the world know that there is no moral goodness in such selfish affections, and they are always unwilling to acknowledge that they are actuated by mercenary motives. Who is willing to allow that he loves himself merely because he is himself? Or that he loves others merely because they love him? Or that he does good to others only when he thinks it will be for his private advantage?…Who is willing to be seen in doing any act of selfishness? Who ever thanked another for doing him a benefit only for the sake of gaining a much greater benefit? We never thank men for loving themselves, nor for loving us merely for their own sake. It is the unanimous sentiment of mankind that there is no virtue in that love which flows entirely from mercenary motives. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

If it is true that there is no moral goodness in the love which sinners exercise towards themselves and others, then we should know that there is nothing righteous in our acts. This must sink into our hearts that this is true of us and not just of others. If I looked at the acts of another and could know for sure that they proceeded from a selfish heart, I could know that those acts were sinful and without the least shred of righteousness. I must take that truth to my own heart as well, which means that I should seek the Lord to send His Spirit in my heart to enlighten me and drive this truth into the depths of my soul. The judgments that we pass on others should tell us that we believe those things to be true and that I must see that it is true of myself as well.

If there is nothing morally virtuous about love from mercenary motives, and indeed we would say harsh things about others in that regard, then we must seek the Lord to show us our own hearts in this matter. My mercenary motives are sinful and wicked as well. All the so-called love that I show that comes from love for self is nothing but an abomination before God. This too must be driven into the depths of our hearts by the Spirit. Our very love for ourselves makes us want to deny this or remain blind to it, but we must cry out to the Lord to give us eyes to see our own hearts and the depths of our own sin.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;

Here we see the great truth that Paul teaches in Romans 7 and yet has applications beyond that. We must see that the Law teaches us about sin, but the Law has to come into the depths of our souls and the righteousness we think we have and we must die to our own righteousness. Oh how easy it is to be full of pride and not see that pride. Oh how easy it is to be a slave of self-righteousness and be blind to our self-righteousness. From what Emmons wrote above, it should be without question that multitudes walk around proud of their righteous deeds when in fact those deeds were moved by a mercenary law that they themselves would condemn in others. This should cause terror in our own hearts, or at least some sense of what we have done and to some degree are still doing. When Christians just cruise on auto-pilot (so to speak) and just go about their outwardly good lives, they need to see that auto-pilot is the pilot of self or it is self-pilot. We must be piloted by grace and we are to seek grace rather than just assume it is there. We must seek the death of self in ourselves so that we would no longer love from mercenary motives and seek the Lord to work the fruit of His Spirit in us which is love. We must seek Him to do this not because we deserve it in the slightest, but we should seek it in the way of free-grace. We should seek it because it glorifies Him and seek Him to show it to us for that reason and no other.

Luke 6:31 “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

It remains to inquire, why there is no moral goodness in the love which sinners exercise towards themselves and others. Christ supposes that they all know the nature of their love, and that there is nothing virtuous or praiseworthy in it…Is there any thing truly virtuous or amiable in men’s loving themselves, or in loving others from mere selfish, mercenary motives? All men in the world know that there is no moral goodness in such selfish affections, and they are always unwilling to acknowledge that they are actuated by mercenary motives. Who is willing to allow that he loves himself merely because he is himself? Or that he loves others merely because they love him? Or that he does good to others only when he thinks it will be for his private advantage?…Who is willing to be seen in doing any act of selfishness? Who ever thanked another for doing him a benefit only for the sake of gaining a much greater benefit? We never thank me for loving themselves, nor for loving us merely for their own sake. It is the unanimous sentiment of mankind that there is no virtue in that love which flows entirely from mercenary motives. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

We are told by modern evangelists that all a person has to do to be saved is to pray a prayer or make a choice. When we read the text above and the writings of Emmons just above we can see that the modern evangelists are simply wrong. There is no way that a selfish person can pray a prayer or make choice that is not from a selfish heart. When Paul wrote that sinners are saved by grace and not works and instead of being saved by works sinners are saved for good works. Surely it is clear, then, that sinners cannot be saved for good works unless they are saved from their selfish hearts. As long as a person has a selfish heart that person cannot do one good work in the eyes of God. The only true salvation is when God changes the sinner’s heart by free-grace and then Christ dwells in that person. Salvation is by a holy and righteous choice, but only God can do that.

What moral goodness can there be in the choice of a sinner who loves all things for himself? What moral choice can sinners make when all that they do is out of love for self? How is it that God would regard the choice of sinner when that sinner would be choosing the idol of self out of enmity to God? If it is the case that few if any human beings in the world would consider that a person only loving others for mercenary reasons would be a moral person, then why does anyone even begin to consider that the mercenary choice of sinners would move God to respond to them in salvation? It is not just that sinners have no power to do things that are morally good, which they don’t, but all that a sinner does is out of love for self and as such is idol worship. The very best that a sinner can do is done out of enmity toward God.

God sees the heart of men and knows why men do what they do. Since He is omniscient (all-knowing) He sees the motives and intents that are hidden from the eyes of men, perhaps hidden to the eyes of those who have the motives and intents. There is no reason for God to save a sinner based on a selfish choice made out of heart that loves self with the motive of self-love. This is another point at which Arminian theology suffers a great problem. Sinners cannot love God until they have new hearts and as such there is no way the choices of a will that is determined, guided by, and with intent for can be anything but thoroughly sinful in all ways. When sinners think that God will save them because of their wicked and selfish choices, they are (by implication) saying that God saves sinners as a result of a sinful choice. This simply cannot be. God saves sinners by free-grace of they will not be saved at all.

This should also teach us a lot about sanctification as well. As Jesus taught us, apart from Him we can do nothing. Even those with new hearts cannot do one spiritual and/or good action apart from Christ working it in them. There are only two motives possible in the entire world. We either have motives (what we love and intend) for self or we have motives for the glory of God. Our motives will either be moved by our fleshly hearts or they will be moved by the grace of God. Our motives will either be moved by love for sinful self or for the glory of God. We have no other options in the matter. We are left in the hand of God’s sovereign grace to do with as He pleases. We should seek Him asking Him to break our hearts from our fleshly self and grant that we would be guided by His grace.

Luke 6:31 “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

We are to consider why sinners love others. Our Savior said to His disciples, that if they were of the world, the world would love them. And He said in the text that sinners love those that love them. Though the love of sinners always centers in themselves, yet it may extend to others, and take in a large circle of mankind, and even God Himself. Sinners loved Christ, and cried, “Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The whole people of Israel loved the God of Moses when He carried them through the Red Sea, delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh, and gave them manna from heaven. But the question before us is, why do such selfish creatures love others? The answer is easy. It is because they have received, or expect to receive, benefit from them…For the same reason that sinners love themselves, they naturally love those that love them and are disposed to their own good, so they love every person or object which serves to increase or preserve their own interest…So they love their fellow men, not on their own account, but because they deem them in some way or other subservient to their private, separate interest. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

The Scriptures are powerful in what they say, but in the hands of a man of God they seem to be applied by the Spirit in deeper ways. It is still the Spirit using the Scriptures, but it is also the Spirit using men who are used to give understanding to the people of God. Why do sinners love other sinners when I John 4:7-8 tells us that unbelievers do not truly love? It is not from a love for God, but a love for themselves. This is a devastating point for those who hope to obtain righteousness by religion and good works. This shows with great clarity that those who are being nice are being nice for the sake of self. We like it when people are nice to us, so we are nice to them so they will be nice to us. When people are not nice, we don’t try to be nice either. Of course being nice is simply a custom of civility and is not the same thing as love, though it seems to have replaced true love in our day.

When people give a gift, they want something back in return despite their protestations. They want to be appreciated, they want to get an even bigger gift back, or perhaps they want some honor for the gift. The point, though, is that all that sinners do for others is to get something in return that is fitting for their love for self. The unbelieving sinner has no ability to do anything apart from self-interest and self-love. This is a profound teaching by Emmons and it would behoove us to spend time thinking on this point. When sinners make a profession of faith based on self-love, they have not been truly converted. When sinners only love the god they believe gives them good things and intends no discomfort for them, they can love (as such) that god.

As men in the days of Christ loved Him for what He did but not for who He was in and of Himself, so people today will love the Christ that is preached in our day. As long as the truth of God is kept out of the churches, the people may not recognize the enmity that is in their hearts toward God and His true people. Unbelievers can live quite well and get along with their neighbors as long as they think that they are doing things for each other. Unbelieving husbands and wives can get along well with each other as long as both serve each other in a way where the self-love each has is able to be stroked. When the self-love of each is able to be balanced, they can get along and be quite proud that they are still married.

This should give us insight into why so many false churches can get along and yet why true churches cannot. The false churches are filled with unbelievers and as long as they can keep the false teaching of the false god going, they can all be happy. One can be part of a true church (at least by appearance and creed) and yet there can be many unbelievers, so when some love God and others love themselves as the chief love, there will be problems. Then we have those who have made professions out of sinful self-love and out of that same sinful and natural (as opposed to spiritual) self-love they become very religious. While liberalism is far from Christianity, so are the self-righteous who do all out of self-love. How this teaching brings light to the professing churches and our own hearts!

Luke 6:31 “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 “If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

Let us consider why sinners love themselves. It is plainly supposed in the text that sinners love themselves…In other passages of Scripture, they are said to be lovers of their own selves, to seek after their own things and not the things of others. But this is too evident from experience and observation to need any proof. Sinners certainly love themselves. But why? Not for the same reason that saints love themselves; if they did, they would be saints. Nor do they love themselves from mere instinct, as the lower species of animals do. But they love themselves because they are themselves, which is neither a true love nor a mere animal affection, but proper selfishness…Sinners love themselves, not because the general good requires them to regard their personal happiness, but because they are themselves. They love their own interest because it is their own, in distinction from the interest of all other created or uncreated beings. This is a free, voluntary exercise, which is contrary to their reason and conscience, and which they know to be in its own nature wrong. To love themselves, therefore, because they are themselves, is to love themselves from a motive peculiar to selfish creatures. (Nathaniel Emmons, 1745-1840, Selfishness, International Outreach, 2009)

Within these words is a profound teaching if one will take the time to think and meditate on it. Self-love is thought to be the root of all love in the modern world, but the Scriptures tell us that we are to love God with all of our being. If the older writers were correct (such as Emmons and Edwards and so on) then self-love is the true root of all the evil that we do and all that flows from this sinful self-love is sinful regardless of the action. While saints (all true believers) love themselves out of a love for God, the unbeliever loves all things out of love for self (self-centered self). When the believer loves self it is out of love for God and as such that love takes others into consideration. But the sinful self loves self as the center and the goal and as such it is not concerned about others if they get in the way of the love for self.

The saint/believer loves self (self as distinct to other beings, the “me” or “I”) out of love for God and loves (takes care of things like food and drink and health) himself because that is necessary to love God and others. The unbeliever loves self (sinful self) because that is all he desires and longs for. The unbeliever will step on others to fulfill the desires of self. It is important to realize these things in order to get at the real sin of loving self.

It can be quite confusing since for God it is a holy thing to love Himself and for believers who love God their love of self is not sinful. However, for the unbeliever their love of self is the root and essence of sin. The word “self” is used somewhat in an equivocal way, which means we have to think to keep issues straight. For example, we can use the word “bald” and means several things by it. There is the bald eagle, there is a bald tire, we speak of bald meanings, and we speak of people as having bald heads. The word “self” is also used with different meanings and we must keep those things in mind or we will be very confused.

The word “self” can mean that a person is speaking of himself or herself rather than other people. It is one way of distinguishing “me” from others in language. The word “self” can also mean the sinful self which Jesus instructs us to hate that self and that we must deny that self. It is that self that is the center of sinful self-love and the horrible self-focus of the heart. It is that self that is the idol of the sinful self and is what sinful self serves and loves in all that it does. It is that self that the unbeliever does all that s/he does whether sin or be religious. It is that self that the common criminal and the serial killer serves, but also it is that self that some who are very religious serve. It is also that self that a person must die to in order to truly follow Christ.

For the regenerate person the word “self” can be used to refer to the spiritual self. The spiritual self is the inner part of the soul that is the real “me” and yet is united to Christ. As Christ told us that what we do unto the least of them we have done unto Him, so there is a sense in which how we treat ourselves is how we treat Christ. That should not be taken too far, but we are to love our souls in the sense that we are to feed them with Christ for His glory. We should love our souls in the sense that we should flee from sin in order not to dishonor Christ. For the believer, then, they must love their own souls if they are going to love Christ. But this is far different than the unbeliever who loves the sinful and self-centered self at the expense of all. The believer loves the Christ in him or her and that is out of love for God and is for the good of others.

The sinful self is the very heart of sin. It is to be like the devil (and unbelievers are said to be his children) in walking around doing as our sinful hearts desire rather then seeking the Lord to please Him. This sinful self is what unbelievers are enslaved to. They follow the raging lusts and desires of self whether it is in open and gross sin or whether it is being extremely religious. Sinners sin for the sake of self and sinners are religious for the sake of self. Either way the person lives for self and does all for self. Only free-grace in Christ can deliver a person from this horrible bandage to self and sin a bring them to love God and others. Only free-grace can open our eyes to see just how sinful our righteous acts really are apart from Christ. Only free-grace can give us love in our hearts that we may love even our enemies because love for God is the basis and not love for sinful self.