God Loves… Himself

Charity does not oblige us to think any man good, because Christ says, “there is none good.” (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Very few believe that no on is good, but none believe it about themselves much at all. We must believe it as a theological fact, but accepting that truth as true about ourselves is more than our pride and self-love can bear. We don’t have to think of anyone as good and we must not think of others as good if we want to be biblical. While many speak of people as being “a good man” or something of that order, at best it is not theologically accurate and at worst it build up the self-righteousness of others. We may think we have to believe that others are good in order to make it though the day or walk down the street feeling safe, but that shows how little we rest in the sovereignty of God. We would rather believe in what is not biblical (that man is basically good) than believe in the sovereignty of God in whom all that man does is under His perfect control.

Romans 3:12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

Titus 3:3 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.

Luke 18:19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.

The three texts of Scripture above do not equivocate and do not beat around the bush. No one does good as an unbeliever and in fact spends his or her life as slaves of lusts and pleasures while spending his or her “life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” Jesus specifically said that no one was good except for God alone. Perhaps He was meaning something different than Romans 3:12, as there is a distinction between doing good and being good, but the point should be driven home. No one is good but God. No unbeliever is good and no unbeliever can do good, but instead spends his or her life in slavery and hating others.

But speaking of believers, not one believer is good, but a believer can do good because He who is good can work that good in and through him or her. This should drive the believer to a deeper and deeper humility as he sees himself as he is which is not good, but also utterly unable to do one good thing from self and by self. The truth drives us to see ourselves as the Bible sets it out, but also to see others in that light. It is only when we see ourselves as having no good in us but needing to have each bit of good given to us that we begin to see our utter dependence on Christ each moment.

Charity or love not only has not demand on us to think of others as good, but the truth of love demands that we not think of others as good so that we may see the glory of the goodness of God as He works good in His people. The love for God and His glory should drive us to see that we have no goodness that can come from ourselves other than what we receive by grace from Him. Oh the horror of our deceptive hearts which deceive us about true goodness which is to deceive us about the true God. The world is based on building the esteem of ourselves and others based on the good they and we do in most cases, but in doing so it is a deceptive system that comes from the deceiver himself. God is infinitely glorious in His goodness and man has none of himself but what comes from God and that is to the glory of His name.

We can no more bear to be told of our faults by God than man; and if we durst think it, are in reality as much disgusted by the one as the other. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

This penetrating thought of Thomas Adam (above) can reveal a lot about our own hearts if we will take the time to think for a few moments on it. We know that we don’t like to be told bad things about ourselves whether they are true or not. We much prefer to go on deceived about ourselves rather than actually deal with our own hearts. It is painful to our pride and our self-love and horridly inflated self-esteem when someone points out something about us that is less than perfect. While Scripture speaks of a flattering tongue as working ruin and the wounds of a friend as being faithful, we will not listen to Scripture at that point and instead listen to our wounded pride. A person that speaks ill of us, even if it is in true kindness, is a person that we are disgusted by.

When Nathan the prophet confronted David with his sin concerning Bathsheba and Uriah, he pointed at him and said “you are the man.” David was immediately convicted of his sin and brought to a thorough and painful repentance. Something of his repentance is recorded in Psalm 51. In it David said that he had sinned against God and God alone, “So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” In other words, whatever God did with David God was justified in doing so and David admitted that.

On the other hand, there are so many who hate to go to a church where sin is mentioned and hardly anyone is able to endure what they used to call “close preaching.” People want to have their itching ears tickled even more rather than have the Word of the living God spoken and the Spirit convict them with it. Behind or underneath all of this is that people have an exalted opinion of themselves and down deep they see themselves as good and perhaps as righteous. Then the truth pokes at those false bubbles it shakes people to their very foundations. When this happens, people are disgusted by those who tell them or show them that they are sinners. They are disgusted by people who do this or by the living God when His perfect and righteous standards are set forth.

II Samuel 12:9 ‘Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. 10 ‘Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’

In the II Samuel 12 passage Nathan spoke very strongly to David. He told him that he had despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight. This is a very powerful passage when we break it down just a little. When a person does what is evil, that person despises the word of the LORD. The standard of evil, however, is not what man says about it, but what is evil in the sight of God. This is why human being must strive to know their own hearts and they must strive to discern and judge what is evil in accordance with what God says is evil. The Pharisees thought they were righteous because they practiced righteousness by their own standards, but the NT clearly shows that what they thought of as righteousness was actually wicked lawlessness by the standards of God.

The II Samuel 12 passage, however, goes just a bit deeper. Nathan tells David that not only had he despised the word of the LORD in doing the evil he had done, but he had actually despised God Himself (see v. 10). This is an aspect of sin that we don’t hear about very much. When people commit sin they despise the word of God and therefore God Himself. When others disgust us by their standards, if their standards are the standards of God then we are disgusted by God. Indeed our sin is so enormous that we cannot even begin to make the smallest dent in it. We desperately need a Savior who can save by grace alone and be moved out of love for God rather than us.

God may say to every self-righteous man, as he did in the case of Sodom, “Show me ten; yea, one perfect good action, and for the sake of it I will not destroy.” (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

As human beings try to hide their hearts from others and themselves they reflect so little on the smallness of their own righteousness. In all actuality, however, when a person looks in his own heart in truth as illumined by the Spirit, he will not find any righteousness at all. While Scripture speaks (Mat 5:3) of the blessed man as being one is utterly impoverished of spirit, that is, has no righteousness of his own and no way to obtain any either, human beings constantly want to find something good about themselves. So on the one hand Scripture says we are blessed if we are poor (utterly impoverished regarding righteousness) in spirit and yet that blessedness is seen in having Christ alone as our righteousness. Oh how the Reformation made justification by faith alone a common doctrine of the brain, but how hard it is for human beings to be brought to the point of believing that and living like it from the depths of their souls.

The heart that is filled with self-love and self-sufficiency does not want to hear that it has never fulfilled one command of God by love and it has never obeyed His law to its stringent and spiritual demands. O how the heart of man, and perhaps especially the religious folks, rebels and fights against the law being applied to the depths of the soul and stripping it of all righteousness and all good works. O how the heart does not want to be left naked with nothing but filth and wickedness to cover it before the searchlight of the Word of God. Nevertheless, Adam is right. If God did make the offer to human beings that if they could come up with one good work that had no sin in it, He would not find one person that could honestly make that claim if that person knew his or her heart.

Romans 3:12 may be read a fair amount, but it is not truly believed. The piercing words can be passed over by the eyes or go in one ear and out the other, but this passage of Scripture is utterly devastating to all who will take a few moments to pray for the Spirit to give them understanding. “ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” Humanity as a whole and each individual have become useless or worthless. They do nothing good, not even one of them. If not one human being does good, then that means that I have never done one thing good. A person that is dead in sin has no ability to comply with the law of God and cannot do one thing to please God in any way. A person that is dead in sin with an unbelieving heart cannot please God in anything he does because it takes faith to please God.

The heart that has arrived at the startling realization that it has no righteousness to claim for its own and nothing to point to but sin, is a heart that has started to realize the utter necessity of divine grace. The Divine Potter does not start with a few good deeds of ours and then work to make us better, but instead He starts with clay and forms it as He pleases to the glory of His own name and grace. While God will never make that offer that Adam spoke of above, perhaps it would be good to use that approach in evangelism. After all, until a person is broken from all hope in self how will s/he rest in grace alone? We are so easily satisfied in our day with professions of faith and knowledge in the head of grace. Until a person knows his sin and knows in the depths of his heart that he has no righteousness at all (none, zero, zip, nada), that person does not truly understand the glory of the grace of God in the Gospel of Christ alone.

The heart of man pants everlastingly after distinction; and our pride only changes its appearance. Mine, I find, is grown to a goodly size, under the show of humility (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Many thoughtless people who have never taken the time to examine their own hearts may read the quote above or something like it and know that it does not describe them. This simply shows that they are in darkness and have not seen their own hearts in the light. The heart is like an attic or a basement that is full of spiders, mice, and all kinds of animal life but is not seen because it is in the dark. But if someone turns on the light, all the things that were invisible in the dark become visible.

John 3:19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

John 8:43 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.
44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.”

John 12:42 “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, 43 for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”

It was judgment on the people of that day that the Light Himself came into the world and yet men loved the darkness rather than Him. Why did they love the darkness rather than the Light Himself? Because their deeds were evil and they did not want them exposed. The religious people of that day wanted to keep their positions of power and their distinctions among the people because they loved the honor they received from the people. It was to these religious people that Jesus said that because He spoke the truth they did not believe Him. Their hearts were the problem, not Jesus. He was truth and light Himself and His words and deeds shone the truth to and in these religious elite of the day and they hated Him because of that.

The Pharisees were born in sin and they were of their father the devil. They could not understand what Jesus taught because they could not hear Him, that is, hear Him as to what He said and desire what He said. The devil lies and has no truth in him and so that is how his children are. The Pharisees, again, were the religious elite of the day and Jesus said to them very clearly that they were children of the devil. Their hearts desired distinction among the people of that day and they were able to obtain that distinction in religion. But when Jesus came and spoke Truth to them, they could not hear Him and would not hear Him or believe Him precisely because He spoke the truth and they were not of the truth.

Oh how deceptive the heart of man is and how man is so deceived by his heart and he is so deceived that he loves being deceived. Man is born in sin and his father is the father of lies and has no truth in him, yet his children are like him in that way. So when someone with the truth comes and proclaims it, just like it happened with the Pharisees, they are deceived by their own hearts which have no truth in them. As the proud hearts of the Pharisees did not want to admit that they were sinners and so needed a Savior because they would lose their distinction among the people, so people today don’t want to admit that they are helpless sinners. Many of them may be pastors or men of distinction in churches, but when they hear about sin they won’t listen to it or believe it. When they hear that Christ is the only way, they won’t hear about it and refuse to believe it. Indeed under the show of humility they think that their humility earns them distinction. Proud hearts are a judgment from God and it takes omnipotent power and grace to bring a proud sinner to true humility.

The heart of man pants everlastingly after distinction; and our pride only changes its appearance. Mine, I find, is grown to a goodly size, under the show of humility (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

This comment by Adam is very insightful and frightfully true. We see this in the way teens dress and the way they behave. We see this in the way adults dress and the way they behave. Human beings, since they are both social creatures and very proud and self-centered creatures by nature, want to stand out and be distinguished in some way. But of course this does not fail to be noticed by some, so their pride of wanting to be different can be hidden by not wanting to be like all those other people who desire distinction by dressing in weird outfits or doing weird things. As noted before, the proud heart of man does not want to be known as proud so it tries to put on humility in order to hide its pride. The outward appearance of humility, however, is nothing but a show of pride as well.

It would appear that there are many who seek their distinction by the things of religion. These can be innovative in worship, evangelism, or preaching. They say that they are there to preach Christ and to see souls saved, but in the depths of their hearts they are just proud men seeking after distinction. Their pride may hide this from them and so they will try to put on the appearance of humility, but God sees the heart. 2 Corinthians 4:5 shows us that Paul saw this as a problem and perhaps many others were doing this as well: “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” We see the same thing in Philippians 2:21 where Paul was writing to them and saying why he had no minister to send them: “For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.” There were even some who preached Christ for the purpose of causing Paul discomfort: “The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment” (Phil 1:17).

How horrible and idolatrous the human heart is that it would have the desire to boast in itself and preach Christ in such a way for the motives of self, but then again what a horrible and idolatrous thing it is to live in such a way as to try to distinguish self. The religion of the Pharisees appeared to be a practice where they were in competition with each other to see who could get the most attention in prayer, in fasting, and the giving of alms (see Matthew 6:1ff). They prayed in order to be seen by men and they fasted in order to be seen by men. They gave alms in order to be seen by men. In other words, these men were proud in their religion and sought to distinguish themselves in the things of religion. In the eyes of God these things are an abomination.

It has been noted by others that men are so proud that they try to hide their pride behind a show of humility. Perhaps this deceives others, but it can also deceive self. But it will never deceive God. To put it bluntly, when men try to hide their pride behind a fake or feigned humility, that is a growing pride. Nothing but a proud heart that is deceiving itself could ever think that it could fool God or hide its pride from God with a feigned or pretend humility. It is an act of atheism itself. How we need to fall on our faces before God and ask Him to deliver us from pride rather than try to cover up our hearts by it.

Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

Part of the reason that people do not know their own hearts is because they walk in great darkness and part of that great darkness is that they walk according to self-love rather than the love of God. One aspect of walking in self-love is self-flattery, and in fact self-love leads one to view self in a self-flattering way. Since the heart is unknown to the person who is dead in the sin of self-love, this person is virtually always living in the flattery of self. All things must be judged by the truth and justice of God rather than the standards of a self-flattering and fallen human being. As seen in Proverbs 16:2, “all the ways of a man are clean in his own sight”. In contrast to that, however, the motives are weighed by the LORD. In Proverbs 21:2 it says “but the LORD weighs the hearts.” In other words, the man does not know his own heart and so does not take into consideration his sinful and selfish motives. He has flattered himself by looking at the outward action through the eyes of self-love and does not notice the wickedness of his own heart.

In much the same way we see in Proverbs 16:25 that “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” So men have ways that seem right to them, but in fact those ways lead to death. Why do they seem right to men when in fact those ways lead to death? One reason is because men flatter themselves in their own eyes that they know what is right and that they wouldn’t do what is wrong. It seems right to men because they judge on the basis of what is good for themselves or on the basis of what they want to be right. But they don’t know their own hearts and so what they do leads to death.

Proverbs 26:28 sets out very clearly that “A lying tongue hates those it crushes, And a flattering mouth works ruin.” What the verse does not state is that a lying tongue can hate the liar because lying can end up crushing the liar. It is also true that “a flattering mouth works ruin” to those it flatters, but the flattering mouth can also ruin the one doing the flattering when that person is flattering himself in his own eyes. The one driven by self-love (all those who don’t love Christ in truth) is one who flatters himself and as such works ruin to himself. In much the same way we see that Proverbs 29:5 tells us that “A man who flatters his neighbor Is spreading a net for his steps.” But it would also be true that the man who flatters himself is spreading a net for himself.

The person who is full of self-love judges all things by his self-love and so “is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12). While walking in sin those who are guided by self-love flatter themselves by telling themselves that they are pure. It is flattery of self and working ruin to self because they are nothing but filthiness and sin. Psalm 36:1, a Psalm of David, says that “Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart; There is no fear of God before his eyes. 2 For it flatters him in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.” How devastating it is to those who refuse to look at their own hearts and seek a full discovery of it. Not only does a person flatter himself regarding sin, Psalm 36:1 says that the transgression itself speaks to the ungodly within his heart. Because the transgression speaks within the heart, the sinner does not fear God because of the sin. The text tells us that this is because the transgression flatters him “in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.”

Those who live in self-love live in self-flattery and as such they are crushing themselves, ruining themselves, and spreading traps (nets) for their own feet. But what is hidden from these people who deceive themselves is that it is sin itself which is deceiving them about being discovered and hating it. Sin does not want to be discovered and it does not want to be hated, because it does not want to die. But when we see that sin is essentially self-love working in the heart we see that it is self-love that does not want to deny self and die to self. Self-love and self-flattery are ruining souls because it does not want sin to be discovered and hated. How terrible it is to be in the grip of a deceitful person, but how more terrible to have our own hearts be so deceptive toward us. How utterly helpless we are to discover our own sin and how desperately we must have the Spirit open our eyes to it.

Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

One of the most deceitful things about the human heart is self-love. The windings of the hearts and the deep crevices that hide the motives and intents of the heart are full of the love of self rather than the love of God. It seems so right to the human heart that all things should revolve around self, its own interests, and its own desires. So when the human makes excuses for sin because it is what self desired and what self wanted, it makes perfect sense to the human and it wonders why others don’t accept its excuses.

II Tim 3:2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

Philippians 2:21 For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.

In the first passage (II Tim 3:2-3) the love of self is seen as the first bookend and not lovers of God is the other. Why do men love money? It is because they love what money does for self rather than being lovers of God. Whey do men boast? It is because they are lovers of self rather than lovers of God. Each of the points in that passage demonstrate what happens when the love of self is ruler of the soul rather than the love of God.

In the second passage above, we see why ministers fail so much regardless of the numbers involved. The context of the passage (Philippians 2:21) is that Paul was wanting to send them a minister, but he had no one to send. He then spoke of the many who sought after the things of self rather than the things of Christ. When a person seeks after the things of self in the ministry rather than the things of Christ, that person is not fit to be a minister. But then again, that person is not fit to think of him or herself as living as a Christian. A minister that lives after the things of self can be a lover of money rather than a lover of God. This can include raising money for so-called ministry, but that can be for a building that the minister wants as part of his name and honor. It can include being boastful of being conservative or many things, but the person is not truly seeking the things of Christ.

The heart that loves self rather than Christ, which is to also say that it may love Christ for self rather than self for Christ, is capable of almost anything. The list in Philippians speaks of those who love self rather than God as unloving, brutal, and treacherous. How unknown to self is that heart that is driven by self-love. How deceptive to self is that heart that is driven by self-love. The self can be very and even extremely religious, but it is religious because of self rather than because of Christ. So the core love has never changed and will not change. This is one reason why so many religious people are so deceived. They are deceived into thinking that they are lovers of Christ because they are devoted to morality and religious activity. But when the interests of self come into conflict, for example, with things like money and sex, self will win one way of the other. The interests of self may be seen as being found in the money or sex, or the interests of self may be seen as resisting those things. Either way, however, the choice will be made on the basis of self rather than on the basis of love for Christ and His glory.

This shows how so many people are deceived in terms of knowing their own hearts and how they are so easily deceived by sin and most anything else. They view all things through the lenses of self rather than the lenses of His glory. They are religious and moral out of love for self and as such they are deceived by their religion and morality because it is all for self. Many are deceived about the nature of sin and don’t see that all of their religious activity is nothing but idolatry because it is done for self rather than the glory of God. They don’t see that their love for self is to make them an enemy of God and a violator of the Great Commandment in all they do. That horrible love of self is actually strengthened in religion that is not truly focused on God and His glory. Instead of denying self to follow Christ, they follow what they think of as Christ and the self is strengthened. Instead of dying to self they live more and more out of love for self as they follow a religious path. How horrible it will be on judgment day when people like that see their own hearts and their deception is brought to light and it becomes known.

Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

It is a sickening thing for a person to come to see his or her heart in the light of the nature of God and His Word. This is one reason why people flee from the sight of their own hearts. A sight of the heart, much like Isaiah did in chapter 6 of Isaiah, will cause all of a person’s supposed righteousness to unravel and that person will see that s/he is a vile creature in the sight of a thrice holy God. So many in the modern day work hard to keep up their self-esteem and self-worth, yet one sight of their own hearts in the light of the holiness of God will shatter that delusion. The heart is so deceitful that it deceives a lies people from seeing just how desperately sick it really is.

The verses in Romans 3:4 and 9-18 are clear that all men are liars, unrighteous, without understanding, and do not seek God. Yet so many claim to be truthful, righteous, have a lot of understanding, and seek God with all of their being. What is the problem? It could be that they have no idea of what it means to seek God, but that again just shows how deceived they are that they would say they seek God when in fact they do not. It is part of the great deception. So people are deceived by their own hearts that they seek God when in fact they hate the true God. So many will claim to love the god of their own imaginations and seek him out of love while they hate the true God and true Christianity. They do this while being very religious.

John 12:35 points to this when Jesus said this: “he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.” He said this in the context of Himself as the Light. How many things of our hearts are simply covered over with the darkness of ignorance and the blindness of our minds? Believers are said to be children of Light while unbelievers are in darkness (Eph 5:8). So (as seen in previous BLOGS) the hearts of men are like deep abysses with deep crevices and dark corners. There are so many places to fall and to be tripped up that no one can follow his or her own heart and come out unscathed. Dealing with the heart is not for beginners or for very religious people who are in the dark. Dealing with the heart is such serious business that there is only One who can truly deal with such a vile and blind object as the human heart. It is the Christ Himself who is Light and who is Life. He alone can give Light and Life to the human heart.

Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD.

Proverbs 28:26 He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,

Just before the passage of Jeremiah 17:8 which teaches us how deceptive the heart is, there verse 5 gives us reasons why the heart is so deceptive. The fallen human heart will trust in mankind, make flesh his strength, and in doing so this is a person whose heart turns away from God. As Proverbs 28:26 states so clearly, the person that trusts in his own heart is a fool. The human heart wants to trust in itself, but at times it sees that this is foolish and will not work. So it resorts to trusting in itself to trust in God. Such is the folly of the free-will arguments. It ends up trusting in self to trust in God. How utterly hideous this is to the all-seeing eye of God who sees the darkness of the heart that trusts itself which is really a heart that is deceiving itself into thinking that it is trusting in God.

It is not just that it is a bad thing that the heart does not know itself, but that the heart does not know eternal things and does not know the depths of sin in it which deceives it into trusting itself rather than God. It does not know that it is not trusting in God but instead in itself. The heart that does not know itself does not know that self-deception is at work in it at all times and in all things so that it is a fool in all things as well. The deceived heart, however, is not free from criminality for its deception, but it is a greater criminal because it is deceiving itself. How horrible it will be on judgment day when sinners will see that their crimes of breaking God’s laws is only increased by their deceiving themselves about it.

One has to see at least four things in order to behold the glorious truth of God’s love for God. First, one has to understand some basic things concerning the Trinity. Second, one must understand that the Father loves and shines His glory in and through the Son and the Son loves the Father. According to Hebrews 1:3, the Son is the very shining forth of the glory of God. Third, that Jesus Christ is very God of very God even when clothed in human flesh, which is to say that the second Person of the Trinity was united to a human body in such a way that the human body manifested the glory of God as the Spirit worked in the humanity of Christ. Four, the Holy Spirit is at the very least the power behind all acts of love. A fifth part could be added and that is all the evidence from Scripture that God does all for Himself, His name’s sake, and His own glory. When the fifth part is seen in light of the nature of the Trinity, it is inescapable that God loves Himself and does all things out of that love for Himself. So the four things are necessary to see this great truth, but the fifth adds luster and more weight to the case.

In the previous Blog we looked at how there is in fact only one God. This is a basic truth which must not be denied and cannot be denied in terms of truth and Christianity. The only real questions in this have to do with how we are to know this true God and how this one God exists within Himself. The doctrine of the Trinity is a necessary doctrine in order to consistently understand all the biblical data that God has given in revealing Himself. John 3:35 teaches us that the Father is a Person and the Son is also a Person and that the Father loves the Son: “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. A few more verses on this are listed below.

Isaiah 42:1 “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.

John 5:20 “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. 15:9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love

John 17:23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. 26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Matthew 3:17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” 17:5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”

Colossians 1:13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

The verses listed above show several things, but at least it seems undeniable that the Father does in fact love the Son. It is really very simple in one sense. God the Father loves God the Son, but there is only one God. Therefore, the one God exists in at least two Persons (just from the verses above) and this God loves Himself. However, if we look a little closer at Isaiah 42:1 we see that God’s Servant (who is Christ) is delighted in by God and that the Spirit is given to Him. In John 17:25-26 we see that there was a love “with which” the Father loved the Son. It was not just that the Father loved the Son, but that there was a love with which the Father loved the Son and which the Son prayed would be in His people (them). The Holy Spirit is this love, which is to say that the fruit of the Spirit is love and that He is the love that flows between the Father and the Son. This pictures the fellowship of the Spirit in II Corinthians 13:14 and the love of God in and by the Spirit seen in I John 4.

The focus for the moment, however, is to note that God the Father loves God the Son and that this is consistent with the biblical teaching that there is one God. John 1:1 teaches us that the Word (Logos) was face to face with the Father and John 1:18 speaks of “the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father.” One who is really God is not born God and so this is looking at some eternal generation that happens within the Godhead. It is the only begotten God that is in the bosom of the Father and as such is beloved of the Father. One who is eternally in the bosom of another is loved eternally by the other. So this clearly and specifically shows us one way that Jesus revealed God to us. Not only was Jesus God in human flesh, He was the eternally loved second Person of the Trinity in terms of His divine nature. Part of the very essence of God, then, is that His oneness consists of at least the Father and the Son. This shows that God lives in love for Himself and it is a glorious teaching that God loves Himself. In fact, it is the basis for prayer and for all that He does.

Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

While it is true that nothing is more unknown to man than himself and that because his heart is deceitful and desperately sick, the Scripture does set out ways by which we can know more of our own hearts. A great book on this subject is A Treatise of Sin: The Deceitfulness of Sin Unmasked by Anthony Burgess. While most of modern humanity appears to be in a mad dash to fulfill themselves at any expense, Burgess’ volume teaches us something about our hearts that is very important. However, it is brutally honest and it will lead to people becoming sick of themselves as they begin to see what lurks in the corners and crevices of their own hearts. In other words, while it will never be a best seller, it will still be one of the best things for a person to do.

When the heart is said to be more deceitful than all else and then desperately sick or wicked (KJV), we should not just look at that verse as a collection of propositions and because we can understand something about it in our brain just go on. Until this verse and its truth has sunk into the depths of our own soul and we begin to see that truly we don’t know our own hearts to a small degree as to its corruption and wickedness, we will not even begin to understand this verse. Burgess says that this verse implies a depth in the soul that we cannot discern or discover, but also many secret recesses and hidden cavities in those depths. As Hebrews 4:12 puts it, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” It takes the word of God in the hands of the Spirit to pierce into the depths of the soul. If a person really wants to understand his or her heart, that person must go to God with the Scriptures crying out for understanding. It is beyond the natural power of any human being to understand the things of God which includes the things of God concerning our own hearts.

Burgess says another reason that the heart is so deceitful is because it is so inconstant and mutable. It will love what it once hated and hate what it once loved and may do that rather quickly. Romans 3:4 says that every man is a liar, but that may not mean that all men are bold in their lying. It can also include those whose hearts are deceitful and so they lie to themselves in order to avoid what they don’t want to see. If we are to believe Jeremiah 17:9 and Romans 3:4, then we cannot avoid the conclusion that each one of us has to deal with a compulsive liar each moment of the day. It is our own heart. Our own hearts will lie to us about what is good or evil and can change the lie depending on the moment. Our hearts will lie to us about the need to have our own hearts exposed to the light. Our hearts will lie to us about our pride and our self-centeredness. Our hearts will lie to us about our sin and will tell us that we were right when in fact we were wickedly wrong.

Scripture tells us that several things are needed to happen in a heart before it can be converted. It must be convicted of sin and it must repent. It must be born again and it must believe. It must be turned and a person become like a child before s/he can enter the kingdom. But a lying and deceptive heart will deceive a person as to whether those things have happened or not. A lying and deceptive heart that is full of self and pride will not want to be discovered and so will fight to keep the light out of its lying and deceptive corners. It will lie to people about what regeneration is and about the nature of true faith. It will lie to people in order to get them to think that they are in fact believers and beloved of God. This is to say it is utterly vital that a person takes time and effort to discover his or her own heart or it will deceive him or her all the way to eternal hell. While the pains of self-discovery may be immense, they are nothing compared to the pains of hell.