God Loves… Himself

If nature had been left to contrive the way of salvation, it would have rather put it into the hands of saints or angels to sell it, than of Christ who gives it freely, whom therefore it suspects. It would have set up a way to purchase by doing; therefore it abominates the merits of Christ, as the most destructive thing to it. Nature would do anything to be saved rather than go to Christ, or close with Christ. Christ will have nothing, the soul would force something of its own upon Christ. Here is that great controversy. Consider, did you ever yet see the merits of Christ, and the infinite satisfaction made by His death? Did you ever see this when the burden of sin and the wrath of God lay heavy on your conscience? That is grace. The greatness of Christ’s merit is not known but to a poor soul in the greatest distress. Slight convictions will but have slight prizings of Christ’s blood and merits.   Thomas Willcox

What an insightful thought it is to think of how nature would work to come up with a way of salvation. But of course selfish man would think of this from two different ways. One, how can man do something to obtain this for himself? Two, how can man profit from this? Willcox thinks of it from the first question, but the second question points to the heart of man as well as men would sell it if they could and so they think that they must do something in order to obtain it. Oh how the freeness of grace and the singularity of grace is beyond the natural man’s way of thinking and doing.

When one reads the statement by Willcox above the system of Roman Catholicism comes to mind, but of course the application is far broader than that as well. Essentially one can think of Roman Catholicism as having salvation for sale. If one has enough money, one can pay to have priests constantly pray and do what they do for souls in purgatory and so they souls who had or families who have enough money can actually get their relatives out of purgatory a lot faster than those without money. One can also give money to the “Church” and receive greater blessings from the priests. But this simply points out how men always want to think that salvation is something that they can buy or do something to obtain.

The freeness of the Gospel of grace alone in Christ despite the ill-merits of sinful men is beyond the selfish nature of man and his way of thinking. Man, in great pride and the power of self-love, has an impossible time (apart from grace) coming to the point of accepting that he can do nothing to obtain righteousness and that all he does is unrighteous in the heavenly accounting system. Man thinks he can do something and that he can make it more likely that he can obtain merits. Men think that by an act of their “free-will” that they can do something to receive this Gospel, but that is part of their sinful heart that is opposed to a Gospel that is free of cost and free of cause as far as they are concerned.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ provides a perfect righteousness free of cost and free of causation within men, but men hate that and wants salvation to be in his own control and wants to do something to control it in some way. The natural man wants something to do and wants to cause and control, but the Gospel of grace alone does not work in that way. The Gospel of grace alone requires men to be turned by grace in order that men would not trust in self or anything that self has done, can do, or will ever do. Nothing good has ever come from the sinful heart of man and will never do so either. The Gospel is all about what Christ has done and will do in the sinful hearts of men.

But the natural man hates grace alone. The natural man will do anything to be saved in his own way or at least where he can do something and have some control of the situation. While some think of man as having free-will and having to do this one small thing, that one small thing is really man retaining control of the situation in his own mind and putting the grace of God at the disposal of his own will. But Christ will only give grace as He pleases and as such man’s free-will is at war with the grace of God over who will dispense grace at his or His pleasure.

The hearts of people must be examined so man will see what s/he is really trusting in. It is so easy to use the language of grace in a way that overlooks the sinful and selfish heart of man who will fight to the death with tenacity to retain some control and some sufficiency in the matter of salvation. Man will do everything in order to avoid doing nothing. Man will fight with great tenacity in order to avoid resting in Christ alone. Man will do one work or many in order to avoid grace alone. How the heart should be examined to see what is in our own hearts.

When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients, or any previous qualifications of our own, will poison and corrupt faith. He that builds upon duties, graces, etc., knows not the merits of Christ. This makes believing so hard, so far above nature. If you believe, you must every day renounce as dung and dross (Phil 3:7-8) your privileges, your obedience, your baptism, your sanctification, your duties, your graces, your tears, your meltings, your humblings, and nothing but Christ must be held up. Every day your workings, your self-sufficiency must be destroyed. You must take all out of God’s hand. Christ is the gift of God (John 4:10). Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). Pardon, a free gift (Isa 45:22). Ah, how nature storms, frets, rages at this, that all is of gilt [superficial brilliance or gloss] and it can purchase nothing with its actings and tears and duties, that all workings are excluded, and of no value in heaven.   Thomas Willcox

The selfish and proud heart of man does not like to be undone. It will fight and fume against the teaching of how undone it is, but even when it bows to the teaching of Scripture as true it will still fight as darling sins are exposed by the Spirit of God. How the nature of man will utterly rage at those who teach him that he cannot do one good thing unless it comes from Christ first. How man will rage at those who teach him that all of his works and tears and religious actions and motions of heart are nothing but a bad heart glossed over.

The proud heart of man is so loathe to turn from all the good he has done and bow to God as the reality sinks home that all he has ever done is sinful and his best of works is as filthy rags. The heart of man will fight the sinking feeling as it comes to the knowledge that the best of works that he has ever done is vile and unclean before God as it came from an idolatrous heart that was full of pride and self. Oh the horror of the realization of religious man to realize that all of his religious duties and actions, though they may have been many, were nothing but religious pride and vile in the sight of a thrice holy God.

Imagine a man that was a leader in his church or perhaps even a minister. He might have thought of himself in many ways, but he never understood before how vile all of his preaching and his teaching was. He thought of his preaching and his teaching as orthodox, and perhaps they were, but if they did not come from Christ alone then they came from his flesh. How utterly destitute that man would be upon his eyes being opened to that. But we can also a Sunday School teacher or a regular church attendee or a very moral person when their eyes are opened to behold their vile and wicked hearts and to see that all of their religious actions and their moral actions were nothing but dung glossed over. How they would want to vomit as they fell in agony of soul in seeing all of their self-righteousness in what they had done.

But man must come to this. He must come to see that all of his tears and his works that did not come from Christ have utterly no value in heaven at all. Everything must come from Christ or it is sin. It does not matter what it is or how religious it is, if it did not come from Christ first it has no value in heaven. Even more, if the person does not have Christ in truth and in reality that person will suffer for eternity for such vile sins.

But again, all the works of men and all the praise of man’s lips and all the high feelings man thinks that he had for God are vile and wretched works of the flesh if they did not come from Christ by grace. The living God looks down and it is Christ alone that He is pleased with. All who have Christ and are in Christ then God is pleased with them because they are united to Christ. But all those who don’t have Christ there is nothing they can do that will do anything but bring the wrath of God upon their heads.

How our hearts must be examined to see if we are indeed united to Christ or not. It is so vital to do this as if we are not united to Christ, then we are doing nothing but treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath on judgment day. The heart, being quite deceitful and proud, will rage at this and be angry, but that does not negate the truth of it. On that day only those who are truly married to Christ will enter into the presence of the living God. All others, regardless of their good works and regardless if they were preachers or very moral, will perish forever because of their sin and especially their religious sin. There is no eternal value in anything we do apart from Christ and instead it brings eternal wrath. But if we have Christ, even a cup of cold water in His name will not lose its reward.

When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients, or any previous qualifications of our own, will poison and corrupt faith. He that builds upon duties, graces, etc., knows not the merits of Christ. This makes believing so hard, so far above nature. If you believe, you must every day renounce as dung and dross (Phil 3:7-8) your privileges, your obedience, your baptism, your sanctification, your duties, your graces, your tears, your meltings, your humblings, and nothing but Christ must be held up. Every day your workings, your self-sufficiency must be destroyed. You must take all out of God’s hand. Christ is the gift of God (John 4:10). Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). Pardon, a free gift (Isa 45:22). Ah, how nature storms, frets, rages at this, that all is of gilt [superficial brilliance or gloss] and it can purchase nothing with its actings and tears and duties, that all workings are excluded, and of no value in heaven.    Thomas Willcox

Not only must man die to his own workings and self-sufficiency, but He must take all He obtains in the spiritual realm from the hand of God as grace alone. While it is also true that God gives man gifts in the physical realm as well, for the moment we will be directing our thoughts to the spiritual realm. All spiritual gifts, all spiritual blessings, and all spiritual riches are in Christ and only in Christ. They will only come to those who are in Christ and they only come by grace and grace alone. Grace cannot be dispensed by anyone but by Christ and grace is not in the hands of any man to give to another.

It seems so common in the modern day for men to think that they are sufficient to obtain faith by the power of their own wills. It is also common for men to think that by coming up with faith by their own power that they can have Christ and pardon of sin. But men must die to their own sufficiency in these matters as well as all else if they are to live by grace alone. How can man be said to rely on Christ alone if man has the power to obtain Christ by an act of his own will? How can man be said to rely on Christ alone if man has the power to obtain faith by his own will and so get Christ and pardon for sin? No, all of these things must come to the soul by grace or they come to the soul by the power of the soul itself.

This fact must be driven home to sinners over and over again. Sinners have no sufficiency in themselves and sinners have no power to obtain faith for themselves. Sinners are utterly unable to obtain anything in the spiritual realm by their own power and it must come to them by grace alone. This is a hard teaching according to many, but in reality it is a message that will free sinners from bondage to self and sin. The whole of salvation is by grace and grace alone. The Gospel is all of grace and that from beginning to end. The Gospel is all of Christ and nothing but Christ and Him alone.

The soul must die to its own sufficiency in order that it may receive all by grace and that purchased by Christ. This cannot be repeated too much and cannot be stressed too much. The ability of man cannot stand in the presence of Christ and His grace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not part Christ and part man, but it is all of the Person and works of Christ. Man must give up his sufficiency and all of his own ability in order to receive faith, grace, Christ and the pardon of sin.

But can man give up this sufficiency in his own power? No, it is the grace of Christ that must free man from his own self-sufficiency as well. It is the grace of Christ that must take man who is in bondage to the devil, self, and pride and free him from those self-sufficient things and cast him at the foot of the cross. It is the grace of Christ that takes sinners and teaches them in the inner man that they must die to all of their own ability and look to Christ and Christ alone. It takes grace to deliver man from self to grace. Man has no power to do that.

In all of this man must examine his own heart. The heart will hide behind and underneath religious language to maintain self and its own sufficiency. The deceitful heart is always looking for ways to bring the self-sufficiency of self in and make room for it. But man must be on the alert and constantly crying out to God to open his eyes to those little vipers in his own heart that love self and pride and want to hide so that it will not have to die to its darling sin. Oh how humbling it is to realize that when I am weak in faith I must obtain more faith from Christ rather than work it up in self. How humbling it is to realize that I cannot repent unless it is granted me from Christ. How the soul must look to grace to examine it in that light rather than any other light,

When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients, or any previous qualifications of our own, will poison and corrupt faith. He that builds upon duties, graces, etc., knows not the merits of Christ. This makes believing so hard, so far above nature. If you believe, you must every day renounce as dung and dross (Phil 3:7-8) your privileges, your obedience, your baptism, your sanctification, your duties, your graces, your tears, your meltings, your humblings, and nothing but Christ must be held up. Every day your workings, your self-sufficiency must be destroyed. You must take all out of God’s hand. Christ is the gift of God (John 4:10). Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). Pardon, a free gift (Isa 45:22). Ah, how nature storms, frets, rages at this, that all is of gilt [superficial brilliance or gloss] and it can purchase nothing with its actings and tears and duties, that all workings are excluded, and of no value in heaven.   Thomas Willcox

How difficult it is for proud and self-sufficient man to hear that all of his workings and all of his self-sufficiency must be destroyed. Man would prefer to do all he can and have Christ do the rest, or perhaps man would prefer to do all he can and have grace make up for what he lacks. But that is not biblical grace and that is not the Gospel nor is it biblical sanctification. The truth of the matter is that self must not just be denied a few things here and there, but self must be denied all rights and its right to have a voice in anything. Self must be denied the right to live at all.

Galatians 2:19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

The Law, when rightly understood, brings man to see that he cannot earn any righteousness before God at all and that he must die to the Law as a way of righteousness. Man must die to the Law “so that” he “might live to God.” Until the Law has worked in the heart of man to the degree that man has died to the Law as a way of righteousness and all of his ability to keep it, he will not be living to God. Man must die in order that he may live to God. This is such a profound statement by Paul that should be declared to every professing church under the sun. Man is not sufficient to earn the slightest merit or righteousness before God by the Law and so man should die to his pride and self-sufficiency. Until man has died to the Law he cannot life to God. This has tremendous ramifications for justification, of course, but also sanctification.

Each day, Willcox tells us, our workings and our self-sufficiency must be destroyed. In the language of Paul, each day we must die to the Law so that we may live to God. It must be noted that self-sufficiency and keeping the Law go hand in hand. As long as the soul thinks it can obtain merit and righteousness by keeping the Law, it will look to its own sufficiency. But when the self dies to keeping the Law, it will look to Christ and live to God by living on what God feeds the soul by grace. It is when we die to the Law that we can say that in some way we have been crucified with Christ “and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” When the soul is crucified with Christ and dies to the Law, then it lives to God because now Christ lives in that soul. That soul is now able to live by faith in the Son of God because it no longer attempts to live by the Law as a means of obtaining life.

Christ died in order to purchase grace for His people and all sinners are left to obtain life from the Law by their own works or from Christ by grace alone. For those who seek to obtain some righteousness of their own from the Law, that is to say that Christ died needlessly. There are two polar opposites set out here as ways to obtain righteousness and life. One is by the Law, whether totally or in part, and the other way is by Christ alone. Each and every day man must die to his ability to work righteousness in accordance with the Law and he must die to self-sufficiency. It is only when he thus dies that he is able to live by faith in Christ and live to God.

When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients, or any previous qualifications of our own, will poison and corrupt faith. He that builds upon duties, graces, etc., knows not the merits of Christ. This makes believing so hard, so far above nature. If you believe, you must every day renounce as dung and dross (Phil 3:7-8) your privileges, your obedience, your baptism, your sanctification, your duties, your graces, your tears, your meltings, your humblings, and nothing but Christ must be held up. Every day your workings, your self-sufficiency must be destroyed. You must take all out of God’s hand. Christ is the gift of God (John 4:10). Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). Pardon, a free gift (Isa 45:22). Ah, how nature storms, frets, rages at this, that all is of gilt [superficial brilliance or gloss] and it can purchase nothing with its actings and tears and duties, that all workings are excluded, and of no value in heaven.        Thomas Willcox

True faith is above nature because nature believes in self and though it might believe in Christ in some way, it will believe in Christ to give it things that are according to nature which is always self-love. A person which is in the grip of nature or self-love will not give up all hope in self and the things of self unless they are in words only. Giving up self in words is according to self since they are to convince self or others about things that are according to self-love. But to really and truly renounce as dung and dross the privileges of self, the obedience of self, the baptism of self, the sanctification of self, the duties of self, the grace of self, the tears of self, the meltings of self, and the humblings of self in order to have Christ alone is far beyond the ability of self. But that is precisely what true faith does. It is faith in Christ alone with no faith in self.

The general thought in America (and beyond) is that the self must renounce self and then must take hold of Christ. This may not be stated in words, but it is said that you must do this and you must do that. What is it that can renounce self? Will self ever renounce self? As long as self is renouncing self there is still life to self. As long as it is self taking hold of Christ, it is still the act of self and self is the fleshly nature of man. As long as self is renouncing self and self is taking hold of Christ, that soul is not resting and trusting and receiving Christ by grace alone. Oh how hard this is for the human heart to realize. This is not just some distinction between some theological camps, this is the distinction between Christianity and non-Christianity. The basic doctrines and morality of Christianity can be held by non-believers and used to deceive self and others, but the true Christian is one that renounces self by grace and takes hold of Christ by grace. There is a huge difference.

It is one thing for the soul to believe some facts and then to take action by its own strength, but that taking action by its own strength is really proof that one does not have true faith. A true faith beholds Christ for who He really is and it looks to Him to work in the soul by grace. True faith receives Christ by grace alone rather than looking to itself to do anything. The nature of true faith is to receive grace alone (Romans 4:16) which means to receive apart from works of the soul or any action the soul takes in its own strength. This is where the soul begins to discover the strength of self. Self wants something to do and self wants some of the credit, though indeed self will cling to orthodox doctrine and language. Self will hide self under the language of responsibility and do that without renouncing self. If we use the word “responsibility” as a synonym for “obligation”, then that is what was originally meant by the word “obligation.” But if we use the word “responsibility with the meaning of “to respond with ability”, we have moved from orthodoxy to something other than grace alone.

For the soul to renounce its own obedience is to realize and bow to the teaching of Scripture that all good works come from grace and what the self does is sinful. For the soul to renounce all of its goodness, works, and religious duties and inward meltings in order to hold up Christ is what a soul that lives by grace alone will do, but the soul that is holing on to self cannot do in reality though it may say that in words. But the soul that holds on to Christ and Christ alone must do this in reality and not just with words. The soul that holds on to Christ looks and rests in the cross and blood of Christ to take away all of its guilt and sin. The soul that holds on to Christ looks and rests in the righteousness of Christ for all of its righteousness. When the soul truly holds on to Christ in this way and lifts up and exalts Christ in this way, it will renounce all of its religious acts as dung and dross in relation to self and as nothing for them being done by the flesh but as acts of grace they do glorify Christ. But they will never add to the justification of the sinner in the slightest. They are renounced thoroughly in terms of justification.