God Loves… Himself

He that fears to see sin’s utmost vileness, the utmost hell of his own heart, he suspects the merits of Christ. Be you never such a great sinner (I John 2:1); try Christ to make Him your Advocate, and you shall find Him Jesus Christ the righteous. In all doubtings, fears, storms of conscience, look at Christ continually; do not argue with Satan, he desires nothing better; bid him go to Christ, and He will answer him. It is His office to be our Advocate ( I John 2:1). His office to answer law, as our Surety (Heb 7:22). His office to answer justice as our Mediator (Gal 3:20; I Tim 2:5). And He is sworn to that office (Heb 7:20-21). Put Christ upon it. If you will do anything yourself, as to satisfaction for sin, you renounce Christ the righteous, who was made sin for you (II Cor 5:21).    Thomas Willcox

The human heart is at enmity with God and hates the idea that it must be saved by grace alone. The proud hearts of human beings are full of self and the desire to be sufficient in and of the works and efforts of self. But the Scriptures are so clear that sinners are saved by grace alone and there is nothing the sinner can do to satisfy the wrath of God or earn the slightest bit of righteousness, but that is so hard for the proud heart to hear. Willcox makes the enormous statement that “If you will do anything yourself, as to satisfaction for sin, you renounce Christ the righteous, who was made sin for you.” Every human being must hear that message, yet every human heart that does not truly have Christ will rise and denounce that statement. But this is one of the points that people need to examine their hearts. The human heart is deceitful and there are many avenues that it will take to hide from its own eyes that desire to make satisfaction for sin in some way. When Satan throws a mist before the eyes or a fiery dart in trying to get the human soul from looking at Christ, take that opportunity to look to Christ alone.

One way human beings try to look to self rather than Christ alone is to be their own advocates. Yet Scripture sets it out quite clearly that Christ is the only true advocate, but despite that proud man wants to be his own wisdom and power. What can man argue before God or the devil? He can try to justify himself and his actions by excusing himself or giving reasons that make his sin less in his own eyes, but that is not to truly confess sin before God and look to Christ alone. Man will try to argue his case before God and the devil and yet there is nothing to argue. Man is a sinner and worthy of nothing but the wrath of God in and of himself. Christ alone is man’s advocate and man must quit all of his efforts to advocate for self and look to Christ alone and grace alone.

A second way that human beings try to look to self rather than Christ alone is to twist the law or argue that they have kept the law, or at least kept it in some way at some point. The Pharisees were masters at this in that they were extremely studious in their study of the law but they did not study it in light of the blinding holiness of God, but instead they studied it in order to find ways that it was possible for man to keep it in his own strength. After his conversion, Paul said that according to the law he was blameless. But that was because he studied the law as the Pharisees did rather than ask God to shine in his heart to see the real light and spiritual application to the soul of man. When men do this they are doing things according to the fleshly and natural man and that keeps men from looking at the sinfulness of their own hearts and as such keeps them from seeing the glory of Christ as the Surety of the law. When men think they can keep the law in their own strength, even somewhat or even in a large degree, they are not looking to Christ alone as their Surety in terms of the law. They are looking to self. The heart must be ransacked by the light of Scripture and the Spirit to see if it is finding ways to keep the law rather than look to Christ alone for its surety.

Another way men try to look to self rather than Christ alone is that even though they will say that Christ is the only Mediator, and that is theologically correct, in their hearts they are trying to go to God based on themselves and their belief that Christ is the only Mediator. As one is not justified by the belief that one is justified by grace alone, so one does not trust in Christ alone as the only Mediator because one believes Christ is the only Mediator. A person must be stripped of trust in self in order to truly look to Christ alone for every prayer and every approach to God in prayer. A person must be humbled and broken from that proud heart in order to go to God through Christ alone. A proud heart can believe the words and the doctrine that Christ is the only Mediator, but only those who are broken from self and pride really have Christ as their Mediator. This is once again something that the heart should be searched over with prayer and much effort. Does the heart have Christ as Mediator or just intellectually believe that He is the only Mediator? The humbled and broken heart will look to Christ alone because it has no hope or help from self.

He that fears to see sin’s utmost vileness, the utmost hell of his own heart, he suspects the merits of Christ. Be you never such a great sinner (I John 2:1); try Christ to make Him your Advocate, and you shall find Him Jesus Christ the righteous. In all doubtings, fears, storms of conscience, look at Christ continually; do not argue with Satan, he desires nothing better; bid him go to Christ, and He will answer him. It is His office to be our Advocate ( I John 2:1). His office to answer law, as our Surety (Heb 7:22). His office to answer justice as our Mediator (Gal 3:20; I Tim 2:5). And He is sworn to that office (Heb 7:20-21). Put Christ upon it. If you will do anything yourself, as to satisfaction for sin, you renounce Christ the righteous, who was made sin for you (II Cor 5:21).        Thomas Willcox

The Psalmist cries out for God to search his heart and make known his heart, but that is not a popular thought in our day if indeed any day. It seems that if God knows the heart and a person loved God, that person would want God to open it and make it known so that s/he could cry out to repent of that sin. But as Willcox notes, perhaps one reason for not wanting to see the vileness of sin and hell in our own hearts is because we have a hard time thinking that the sufferings and merits of Christ are for such sinners. The real issue of knowing the darkness and blackness of our own hearts can be pride and the love of darkness, but also one that flees to self-righteousness. On the other hand, it can be of simply a weak faith in the glories of the sacrifice and righteousness of Christ.

Notice the biblical tone of Willcox in the second sentence. The tone is that no matter the greatness of your sin and how vile of a sinner you think you are (and actually are), look to Christ as your Advocate. It is not just that Christ can advocate for people based on a human legal system, but He functions within the Divine legal system as THE ADVOCATE. He does not plead the law to get the guilty off, but He has given Himself as the sacrifice that removes wrath from the guilty. It is not that He does an underhand trick to get the guilty off, but He takes the wrath of the Judge upon Himself and He is righteous to do so. He is Jesus Christ the righteous.

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2).

The sinner may be overwhelmed by one sin or several sins, so it makes no sense to the sinner to ask God to help him see more sin. It is hard for the sinner to think that his sin can be taken care of by Christ as it is. Oh sinner, look to Christ and the living Christ. He has died for sinners and has fully satisfied the wrath of the Father for all the sins of His people no matter how many they have committed. When He died for sin all of your sins were future to Him at that point and so sins that are future to you are no more future to Him than your earliest sins, not to mention your sinful nature. What is lacking in Christ that you are afraid to have your heart opened to Him? He sees all of those sins anyway. Christ is sufficient for your sin and all of your sin. If you think you can hide any sin from Him, you are mistaken. If you think that you might expose a sin that He has not suffered for, you are mistaken. Oh come to the throne of grace with boldness because there is the fullness of grace for sinners. A righteous Savior has saved sinners righteously and gives them a perfect righteousness.

Satan is smarter and wiser in a worldly sense than anyone in human flesh, so we must go to Christ who is our true wisdom. It is not a good idea to argue with all the evil thoughts and fiery darts of the evil one, so we send those arguments to Christ. If we are accused by the law of beings sinners, we can send that thought and doubt to Christ because He has fulfilled all the demands of the law in the place of all His people. The law has no demands upon those who have Christ. It cannot condemn them and it cannot give them righteousness. If it is argued against us that we have no right to go to God because of sin, we point those thoughts to Christ who is the Mediator between God and man. Oh sinner, don’t look to yourself to answer any of those accusations, but Christ is the One who has answered all of those accusations in fulfilling His offices perfectly. Whenever we try to answer those questions ourselves, in reality we are in some way trying to make satisfaction for our sin apart from Christ. It is Christ alone who can answer those objections fully and at all. Look to Christ in His many and glorious offices as the answer to all the objections that Satan can bring up through our doubting hearts.

When guilt is raised up, take heed of getting it allayed in any way but by Christ’s blood: that will tend to hardening. Make Christ your peace; “for He is our peace” (Eph 2:14); not your duties and your tears. Christ your righteousness, not your graces. You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins. Look at Christ, and do as much as you will. Stand with all your weight upon Christ’s righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on your righteousness, another on Christ’s. Till Christ come and sit on high upon a throne of grace in the conscience, there is nothing but guilt, terrors, secret suspicions; the soul hanging upon hope and fear, which is an ungospel-like state.       Thomas Willcox

The issue is when a person has guilt brought upon the conscience by the evil one or by a sensitive conscience. Either way, the guilt is a burden upon the soul. There is such a thing as guilt brought on the conscience when there is no real guilt, but whether it is real or whether perceived the place to look is to Christ and His righteousness. There is no cleansing for the soul apart from the blood of Christ and there is no hope for the soul apart from the perfect righteousness of Christ. When guilt is upon the soul, it is so easy to turn to duty and to make excuses, but Christ alone is the real answer. Sin brings real misery on the soul and the only real answer is Christ who alone can deal with the misery of sin.

Each human being that has ever been born (other than Christ) has been born into a state of sin and misery. What this means is that each human being has guilt upon the conscience and that means some misery on the conscience. When human beings have misery, they will do something to try to ease their misery. This inward pain drives them to focus on self and most of the time a way that self can take care of the misery. Many will turn to all sorts of sinful activities in order to dull the inward pain. Others will do religious duties. The soul must learn to look away from self for ways to handle this inward misery and look to Christ. When there is guilt and misery in the soul it is at that point that a believer is most likely to look to duties as a form of confidence for salvation. How difficult it is for the soul to look to Christ alone when Christ appears far away as the soul is in misery and guilt.

The soul has to learn that it is a sinful soul and it will sin, but Christ does not refuse to save sinners because they are less than perfect. He saves sinners for the glory of His own name and by grace alone. The worst of sinners have a ground by which they may plead to God for and that ground is Christ. He died for the worst of sinners and took all their sins upon Himself while on the cross. When Christ went to the cross He knew all the sin of each sinner that He was going to die for and He did not miss one of them. He fully satisfied the wrath of the Father for every sin that the sinner committed before the sinner came to Christ, but He also fully satisfied the wrath of the Father for every sin the sinner committed after the sinner came to Christ.

Yes, it is true, saved sinners are different than they were before and they have new hearts. But they are far from perfect and they will fall far short of the glory of God many times a day. But instead of this driving them to despair, this should drive them to a crucified and risen Savior. Oh how sinners have a fountain of blood opened to them and why will they not flee there for cleansing? Usually it is because of doubt thinking that their sins are too great. Why do they think that? In their despair and misery they begin to doubt and have serious doubts. In their misery the evil one fires his darts at their conscience. Sinner, look to Christ. There is no other way to deal with sin but Christ. Your repentance will not satisfy your conscience, though it may be needed. Only Christ will satisfy that inner pain and misery.

Do you want to believe on Christ but your misery clouds your vision? Don’t look to your faith and don’t look to your duties and your repentance as help for your conscience. Look to Christ. Christ sits upon the throne of grace and this must become true in your conscience as well. It is true that this is not something that happens once and then it is over, but your misery will not go away until Christ is on the throne of grace in your conscience. This guilt will weight on your conscience until you bow to Christ as the only hope. Your sufferings and your misery will never pay for one sin, so look to Christ alone and grace alone. We are told to go to the throne of grace boldly, but what do we go for? We go to obtain grace. Those with burdened consciences and misery in their souls need Christ and His grace alone. They can bring nothing but their misery and their sin to Him because they have nothing else to bring. But Christ came to save sinners like you from their guilt and misery. There is no hope but Christ, so be turned from all that binds you and fall on your face in utter helplessness before Him. He saves the helpless and those who have nothing left.

When guilt is raised up, take heed of getting it allayed in any way but by Christ’s blood: that will tend to hardening. Make Christ your peace; “for He is our peace” (Eph 2:14); not your duties and your tears. Christ your righteousness, not your graces. You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins. Look at Christ, and do as much as you will. Stand with all your weight upon Christ’s righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on your righteousness, another on Christ’s. Till Christ come and sit on high upon a throne of grace in the conscience, there is nothing but guilt, terrors, secret suspicions; the soul hanging upon hope and fear, which is an ungospel-like state. Thomas Willcox

There is so much Gospel truth in the statement above. How difficult it is for new believers and those with tender consciences to grab this truth, though it is also part of the spiritual battle for all. All people fall short of the glory of God constantly and so this raising of guilt can happen at any moment. Oh how far we fall short of this glory and how hard it is to see ourselves as so vile and wicked, but by the eye of faith we are enabled to look to the blood of Christ and know that this guilt was and is taken away by Christ. It is by beholding Christ, His blood, and His righteousness that the fight of faith is fought in victory. This faith, which is given by God in Christ, must grow stronger as it is faced with an increasing knowledge of its own sinfulness and weakness. It is Christ in the soul dwelling there that is working in the soul and causing it to persevere in the face of trials and afflictions, but also an increasing knowledge of the heart of self. It must grow if it is a true faith and it will grow because of Christ. But this faith is accompanied with a dying to self which makes people think that their faith is decreasing as they don’t feel like they are trusting Christ. What they are decreasing in is their faith in self when faith in Christ grows.

When this guilt rises up in the soul (and it will) we must not look to our duties (which is the natural human response). Our duties are things we should do anyway, but even the best of our duties are tainted with sin and as such they can never make up for the slightest of sin. That is like trying to pay for sin with more sin. Oh no, the soul must look to Christ alone. The soul must know that its duties can never stand before God as righteousness and so the soul must not try to put any weight on its duties for righteousness. The soul is saved by grace alone and by the gift of a free and perfect righteousness imputed to it. That righteousness is perfect and cannot be added to, so the soul must rest on it and it alone.

As Willcox notes, we must not try to one foot on the righteousness of Christ and another foot on our own righteousness (duties, value). What we must beware of, however, is that this is not just a stand on your own righteousness with the whole weight or the righteousness of Christ with the whole weight. Instead, it tells us to put all the weight on the righteousness of Christ and put no weight at all on self. It is so easy for the soul to put 99% (or some less) of the weight on the righteousness of Christ and the remaining weight on self while it deceives itself that it is trusting in Christ alone. The soul can even think it is trusting in Christ alone and instead be trusting in itself to trust in Christ. The soul can think it trusts in Christ alone for justification while trusting in itself for some of its sanctification. This is very dangerous as well. The soul must constantly look to Christ alone for its justification even as it grows in faith and holiness. At no point is the soul to trust in its works and duties.

We can get a picture of this by the Old Testament sacrificial system. A person that brought an animal to be sacrificed was to lay hands on the animal. The person was actually to have leaned on that animal which pictured the soul leaning on a sacrifice and the guilt of the person being transferred to the animal. What would have happened if the person would have leaned on the animal mostly and then leaned partially on an idol? Even if the person would have leaned almost exclusively on the animal and just a tiny bit on the idol, as is very clear, that would have been a wicked act. But modern sinners are guilty of that same wicked act of idolatry when they lean (even a little) on the righteousness of duties and self. All of our weight must be upon the righteousness of Christ or we are idolaters. How we must be humbled and broken from our open sin and from depending on our duties.

When guilt is raised up, take heed of getting it allayed in any way but by Christ’s blood: that will tend to hardening. Make Christ your peace; “for He is our peace” (Eph 2:14); not your duties and your tears. Christ your righteousness, not your graces. You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins. Look at Christ, and do as much as you will. Stand with all your weight upon Christ’s righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on your righteousness, another on Christ’s. Till Christ come and sit on high upon a throne of grace in the conscience, there is nothing but guilt, terrors, secret suspicions; the soul hanging upon hope and fear, which is an ungospel-like state.       Thomas Willcox

The shorter sentence just above the center of the quote above is quite powerful. It does not mean that a person can destroy Christ Himself, but instead destroy the hope of Christ alone for salvation for that person. This is a very weighty sentence and in the context has a very weighty meaning and one that does not appear to be taught much in the modern day. After all, we think, we must get people to living a moral life and involved in the church. Those things may be true, but we should not mix those things with the Gospel.

We can see how a person that pursues a life of open sin does not truly have a new heart and have Christ as Lord and Savior. That much, at least in terms of Scripture, is obvious. However, what is not so obvious to modern folks is the great truth that our duties and our morality can also destroy any hope of having Christ as Savior. The soul is to trust/rest/lean on Christ alone for salvation. When the soul thinks it has trusted in Christ and starts certain duties, it can easily look to those duties rather than Christ or at least along with Christ. But the soul must look and rest on Christ alone. The duties, then, though good in and of themselves must never be used to take the soul’s place in any percentage of leaning on Christ. The duties can be a way the soul takes its eyes off of Christ and this is a terrible thing to do to the soul which was made to feed and drink Christ. The duties are to flow from the life of Christ in the soul, but they must never take the place of Christ in any way.

What an insightful statement that each person should take to heart. “You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins.” This sounds so much like the words of Jesus in Matthew 7: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’” There were those who prophesied (preached as part of that) and those who cast out demons and performed miracles. Could the act of preaching take a man’s eyes off of Christ? Could the doing of miracles take a person’s eyes off of Christ? It appears that our most religious duties and actions have the possibility of taking our eyes off of Christ. When any action we do, and perhaps especially religious actions, are not from looking at Christ and His grace, we will look off of Christ and to the actions.

While some read things like the above and have the idea that people will sit around and do nothing, that is far from the point. People are to look at Christ and receive grace from Him and then do what they do, but they must never look to their works and duties as a way to obtain Christ. All that the believer does is to be from God and through Christ to the glory of God. Many people think that they will be accepted because of their good works and many say they are accepted by Christ because they believe in Him and do what they do because they believe in Him. They can say these things while their hearts are deceived which is the same thing as looking to their duties rather than Christ alone and grace alone. People don’t think that they are the ones who are deceived because their theology is correct, they are moral, and they are doing their religious duties. But people are declared just on the basis of Christ and Christ alone and not because they have correct theology, morality, and do religious duties.

Oh how people need to examine their hearts and how ministers need to open the hearts of people to themselves in their sermons. It is not enough to say a word or two about sin here and there, but the hearts must be opened and exposed by truth so that people can see what they are truly standing on. Poor sinners are deceived by their own hearts and the evil one and they must see that they have no ground in themselves and in any works and duties that they can perform. Sinners need to have anything that they are resting on yanked out from under them that they can see that there is nothing solid to rest on but Christ alone. How many are in the path of damnation in churches with orthodox creeds? How many are headed to hell and going there through an orthodox pulpit? How many are under the wrath of God as they do their Christian duties? The examination of the heart is not an option.

When guilt is raised up, take heed of getting it allayed in any way but by Christ’s blood: that will tend to hardening. Make Christ your peace; “for He is our peace” (Eph 2:14); not your duties and your tears. Christ your righteousness, not your graces. You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins. Look at Christ, and do as much as you will. Stand with all your weight upon Christ’s righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on your righteousness, another on Christ’s. Till Christ come and sit on high upon a throne of grace in the conscience, there is nothing but guilt, terrors, secret suspicions; the soul hanging upon hope and fear, which is an ungospel-like state.     Thomas Willcox

The heart is so deceitful that it will find rest in Christ plus about any good thing. This is because of the way the heart is, yes, but also because of the lack of discriminating teaching and preaching. The heart will think it is resting in Christ alone unless someone is used by God to teach the person the subterfuges of the heart and how it trusts and rests in so many things while using differing words about it. The Gospel of Christ is all about grace alone and nothing a man does can contribute and how man is not to contribute anything to the Gospel. But the heart is always looking for something that it can do.

The danger of resting in Christ plus something is that we will always be looking to that something else and in reality that is what we are really trusting in. It hardens the heart because it is a great sin of unbelief not to look to Christ alone when one has the guilt of sin upon it. What other place should a person look when one has the guilt of sin upon his or her soul? Can anything but the blood of Christ wash that sin away? Can anything or anyone but Christ actually take that guilt away?

An external repentance cannot actually take the guilt of sin away. An act or acts of religious activity cannot take the guilt of sin away. No amount of works can take the guilt of sin away. No amount of belief or faith can take the guilt of sin away. Only Christ, the propitiation for sin set forth by God, can take away the guilt of sin. All the duties in the world and all the tears and sorrows in the world cannot take the guilt of sin away. There is no peace in the soul with the guilt of sin other than by hardening (not a true peace, but a pseudo peace) or a real peace by Christ. The hardened soul can sleep at night by drowning his or her guilt in the pleasures of the world or by religious activity, but that does not take it away. It only hides it from the eyes of the soul long enough for the soul to be hardened by sin.

This is such a danger in both justification and sanctification. The depravity of the heart is such that it is constantly wanting to trust in something that it can do for self rather than Christ alone. It is so easy for the person that is truly converted to begin to look to the graces received and lived rather than Christ alone. The soul must learn to examine itself and be brutal in one sense to itself in an effort to expose all of the idols of the heart that it is trusting in. It is so easy to go from seeking a grace being an evidence of life to trusting in a grace or gift itself. It is easy for a person to trust in a gift of speaking as if that is the same thing as a gift of preaching and so trust in that as an evidence for salvation. It seems easy for people to trust in themselves that they are kind and good and make those things out to be evidence for true love.

It must become a habit of the heart to distrust itself and how it views itself and its gifts and graces. Those things are to be used as instruments in the hand of God to glorify Him and manifest Christ, but they are not to be used as stools upon which we rest our salvation or sanctification. The deceitful heart, once again, will twist and turn in an effort to take the eyes of the soul off of Christ and His righteousness. The deceitful heart is driven by self and pride will always want to look to itself and trust in something of that self, but this must not be. The heart must learn to take the side of God and cry out to God against itself and the things it is trusting in. The heart must learn to ask God to open his or her eyes to the deceptions of self and cry out for grace to repent of them rather than excuse those things away. The deceptive heart not only wants to excuse itself for sin it carries out in deeds and in the thoughts, but also excuse itself in the things it trusts rather than Christ. It is so difficult to be broken off of the things of self and the things that self trusts in that this is a Divine work in the soul. However, one of the deceptions that many fall for is that the soul can get by without this examining work. One that has truly repented will be one that keeps repenting his or her whole life. It is a necessary work.