God Loves… Himself

“But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them” (A. W. Tozer). The burden that Tozer is speaking of here is the burden of man’s “obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him acceptably.” When “man’s laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heavens, the inner pressure may become too heavy to bear.”

1 Timothy 1:11 “according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.”

The Gospel is of and all about the glory of God. The Gospel is all about a happy or blessed God. To present a message of a worried and something less than a God of perfect glory and blessedness is not the true Gospel. To present a message focused on man and his worth and ability is not the Gospel. The Gospel is not a canned message that can be presented in thirty minutes or less, it is about the glory of God in Christ. A low view of God destroys the truth of the Gospel because the Gospel is glorious and the God of the Gospel of glory is infinite in His glory.

We have become so focused on man’s “felt needs” and how man feels about things that we have forgotten that we are to love God with all of our beings and that what man really needs is the glory of God. Paul saw himself as being entrusted with the Gospel (I Tim 1:11) and he was not going to water it down to make anyone feel better about themselves. Not only should we not water the Gospel down to make man feel good about himself, we must try to show man his idolatry in wanting to feel good about himself. As one older writer put it, “the only self-esteem you have is that which you have stolen from Christ.” We are to love and esteem Christ with all of our beings.

2 Corinthians 3:8 “how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. 10 For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.”

The Gospel abounds in glory, but we have changed it to be a message that saves sinners from low self-esteem of from various other societal ills. Can the true ministry of the Spirit fail to be of even more glory than anything and everything else? Do we fail to realize that it is the Spirit that convicts of sin and it is the Spirit who opens minds to the glories of the Gospel? Could it be that we have become rationalists and are relying on the methods of men to try to convince people of some doctrinal truths (which is not all bad) instead of trying to use doctrine as a way to seek the Spirit who alone can show them the glory of God? God is far more than the human mind can comprehend and explain. We must repent of our low views of God and return to pointing toward the glory of God in dependence on the Spirit who alone can open minds to the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

When we get away from the Gospel of glory and simply speak of rational truths which they may indeed be truths, there will be nothing more than little spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is not about how much a person knows as such, because knowledge can lead to nothing more than pride (I Cor 8:1). If we only instruct people with knowledge, that puffs them up with information and makes them think that they know a lot. In reality, we must hold out the glory of God so that in beholding the glory of God they may be transformed more and more into the image of that glory.

Low views of God do not allow for glory to be taught with anything other than lip service. The Church must begin to groan and cry out to be delivered from its dishonoring views of God. The Church must return to teaching the greatness and majesty of God or it will perish in finality. God will not be mocked by religious services that take His name on lips with hearts that love the world and the glory of man. Simply put, once again, with the glory of God being dismissed as the primary issue in the Church the Gospel has been distorted virtually everywhere and has been lost in a lot of places. The Church must quit thinking of numbers and start thinking of God.

“But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them” (A. W. Tozer). The burden that Tozer is speaking of here is the burden of man’s “obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him acceptably.” When “man’s laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heavens, the inner pressure may become too heavy to bear.”

Man is born into sin and a state of spiritual death. The meaning of that is far beyond the scope of a blog, but we can note that part of that state is that man is born in a state of hostility and enmity toward God. Man thinks that he is the center of all things and so wants God to serve him. While it is true that man will be religious and act like he likes God, in reality man does for God only to get God to do things for him. The Gospel must always be understood in contrast to what man really is as opposed to what man thinks of himself. Fallen man wants things to be focused on him and to leave him at the center of it all in control of the situation.

The Gospel, on the other hand, is all about the glory of God. It declares the glory of God and how man must repent of his self-centeredness and self-love and turn to love God and His glory with all of his being. The essence of true repentance is that man must turn in his heart from his self-love and self-will. Man must repent from seeking his own honor to seeking the honor and glory of God. Man must repent of being centered upon himself and having no higher motives than himself to seeking God as the ultimate reason for all that he does.

The gospel that is proclaimed today does not demand man to repent from the heart of his self-love and self-centeredness. As presented it tells men that God loves them and simply wants them to pray a prayer. Or perhaps they are told that they need to stop some outward action and say a prayer and then start coming to church. Men are told that they have so much worth that God sent His Son to die for them. They are told that God could not stand to live in heaven without them so He sent Christ to the cross for them. There are many variations of these false teachings and all packaged in such a way that a person does not really hear the true Gospel of the glory of God and of what true repentance is. What is presented today sounds more like the glory of man instead of being about the glory of God. As long as man hears how good he is, he has not heard about God and the Gospel of the glory of God. It is that simple.

Man must see that his sin is really pride and selfishness and be turned from that to be centered on God in all things. The Gospel of glory does not leave men loving themselves in idolatry, but reconciles man to God in such a way that man becomes the temple of the glory of God. As the temple of God, man must love the glory of God rather than himself or he is still an idolater. The Gospel of the glory of God should ravish the hearts of men in such a way that they see their own vileness and cry out to God for grace. But if the glory of God is not presented or talked about and man is the focus, then the Gospel of God has not been presented and the Gospel of the glory of God has been lost.

In the United States the focus has been on church growth and so the Gospel is seen as a product that needs to be sold. This is utterly idolatrous in conception. The Gospel is not a product, it is a proclamation from the God of glory that all men must repent of sin and love Him with all of their beings. The Gospel is all about how God enables men to do that through Christ. The Gospel declares the wondrous love and grace of God which is quite opposite of the self-centered message that men want to hear now. Man wants to hear that he is good and that he can remain in control of his life. But the Gospel of glory does not leave that as an option. It tells of the Lord Jesus Christ who is Lord in reality in the hearts and minds of those that He delivers. Man cannot remain in control but he must bow to the reign of the glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Christ came to vindicate the name of God and save sinners to the glory of God the Father. The Gospel is all about how God glorifies Himself in saving sinners and brings sinners who are dead in their sins of self-love and self-centeredness to a place where they now love and live for the glory of God and not themselves. That is a Gospel that has been lost in self-centered America and it is because man has turned from the true God to a low view of God.

“But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them” (A. W. Tozer). The burden that Tozer is speaking of here is the burden of man’s “obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him acceptably.” When “man’s laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heavens, the inner pressure may become too heavy to bear.”

The Gospel is the most precious message in the world. There is nothing more important than the message of the God of all glory loving and reconciling sinners to Himself through Christ moved by nothing within the sinner but all according to His own self-existent love and grace. With that in mind, the Gospel is far different than it is commonly thought of and presented in the modern day. The Gospel presented today for the most part is nothing but a truncated message that leaves men in their humanism of self-love and self-centeredness. But it is thought of as normal because we live in an age where the concept of God has been lowered almost beyond belief.

“Evangelical humiliation is a sense that a Christian has of his own utter insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousnesss, with an answerable frame of heart” (Jonathan Edwards). Where the concept of God has been lowered, man’s view of himself has risen to the point of self-exaltation. Man loves himself as he is told to do and that love is according to his fallen nature. Man thinks of himself as the measure of all things, even God. The worst thing that a person can do in modern America is to offend someone or wound his or her self-esteem. What is that but an exalted view of self? What is that but man loving himself more than God and others? Instead, a Christian must arrive at the point where he cannot be insulted concerning himself. The worst insult that one human can give to another is actually a compliment compared to what man really is in the sight of God. Instead of telling people of how sufficient and wonderful they are, we must be telling them how insufficient and despicable they really are in the sight of God in order that they may understand the Gospel of grace. The Gospel does not save sinners who are worthy, it saves sinners who are completely unworthy. Not only that, it saves sinners who are worthy of nothing but hell in and of themselves. Even their righteous actions are as menstrual cloths (Isa 64:6). God only justifies those who are ungodly and recognize that about themselves (Rom 4:3-5).

No one comes to the view of how vile he is in the sight of a thrice holy God without seeing something of the glory of that God. The Gospel does not come to people and tell them how worthy they are to be saved and so God will save them because He thinks so highly of them. No, no and a thousand times no. The Gospel is all about the grace of God and not how worthy man is. The Gospel tells man that God is worthy to save man and that He saves to the glory of His own name. How humbled man has to be to hear such teaching, but that is exactly why the Gospel has been virtually lost in our day.

“In accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (I Tim 1:11). In reality, this text is better translated as “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” God will not share His glory with another and so any glory that the Gospel has it is reflecting the glory of God. When we combine this text with John 1:14-18 which tells us that Christ was and is the tabernacle of the glory of God and Hebrews 1:3 which tells us that Christ is the very outshining of the glory of God, we can see that the Gospel is all about Christ who is the glory of God. But what is preached today? In reality, to cut to the heart of it, the gospel preached today is about the glory of man. In other words, that is a different Gospel. If someone tells others of a message called the Gospel and it is nothing but what Christ did for man and how man needs to make a decision, that is a truncated gospel that has nothing to do with the glory of God. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (II Cor 4:4). It is hard to see the glory of the true Gospel when man’s glory is so willingly held out to people. It is a message that goes down smooth and tastes good at first, but it is sheer and utter poison to the soul that drinks it. May God deliver us all from such travesties of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when the true Gospel is all about the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

“But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them” (A. W. Tozer). The burden that Tozer is speaking of here is the burden of man’s “obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him acceptably.” When “man’s laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heavens, the inner pressure may become too heavy to bear.”

The Gospel comes to sinners and people do not really know what sin is until they see their sin as against God. Moralism has swept the Church away and people think that by keeping some outward commands which even those have been lowered by a low view of God, that they are being good and moral. Man must see God and His standard (Himself expressed in the Law) to even begin to really understand what sin is. Man walks around being his own measuring stick and so in pride he thinks that he is good. But what man must see is that God commands men to perfectly love Him with all of their beings. The Church has simply dropped the ball on teaching about sin in its awfulness and so the Gospel has been destroyed for all intents and purposes.

As Tozer points out, behind the problem of such low views of sin is the problem of the low view of God. The book that these quotes are being taken from is entitled The Knowledge of the Holy and is a book on the attributes of God. Tozer has a burden for lifting people’s eyes up and focusing them on the glory and majesty of God. Until that happens, man will not have a sense of sin. There is no real sense of sin until it is seen that all sin is directly against the majesty and glory of God Himself. There will be no anguished cry from the heart of man until he sees the hideous nature of his sin as against the living and holy God each and every moment of His life. Do people today really have the remotest understanding that their sin is in not loving God with their every thought? Do people today understand that sin is simply doing things without a real consideration of loving God? Do people understand that the holiness of God demands and commands that everything they think, desire, and do is to be done out of love for Him and His glory? Do we really understand what it means to be holy and what the standards of perfect love really are? Clearly we do not.

We have movements such as a new version of New Covenant Theology that is really denigrating the law by saying that Christ should be preached and not the Law. But the Law is the Law of God and shows His great holiness in His commandments. Without the Law there is no understanding of sin. So people are told to go to Christ without any real understanding of sin. Without any real understanding of sin, there is no real going to Christ. Without the glory of God being preached as seen in the Law man will not see his sin and will not understand the Gospel. Without God being lifted up, there is no burden in the soul of man. He will go on thinking that he has done some wrong but not really all that bad. In fact, it is an infinite wrong done to God.

Why has the Church for the most part lost the Gospel today? As Tozer sets out, “low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.” Low views of God necessarily lead to low views of sin and therefore of the Gospel. What can the propitiation of God by Christ on the cross mean with a light view of sin? What can the imputed righteousness of Christ mean with a light view of sin? What can the humility of Christ mean in the incarnation and then in going to the cross with a light view of sin? What can the blood of the cross mean with a light view of sin? What can a Gospel mean that consists of grace alone when sin is thought to be almost nothing? What is the love of God in sending His Son to the cross to be a substitutionary sacrifice for sin if sin is but a little thing? As Tozer said, low views of God destroy the Gospel. While many may be in buildings across the land preaching something they call the Gospel, many of those same people have destroyed the Gospel as to the truth of it by having low views of God. No one should misunderstand the gravity of what it means to hold a low view of God. It destroys souls because it blinds them to God’s glory, their own sin, and the Gospel itself. If the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ is the Gospel (II Cor 4:4-6), then low views of God destroy the Gospel. There can be no glory in the face of Christ with low views of God and as such the Gospel of the glory of God is destroyed in that sense.

“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).

“The trend of modern theology-if theology it can be called-is ever toward the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the Creator, and the leaven of present-day Rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christendom. The malevolent effects of Darwinism are more far reaching than most are aware. Many of those among our religious leaders who are still regarded as orthodox would, we fear, be found to be very heterodox if they were weighted in the balances of the Sanctuary. Even those who are clear, intellectually, upon other truth, are rarely sound in doctrine. Few, very few, today, really believe in the complete ruin and total depravity of man. Those who speak of man’s “free will,” and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam’s fallen children. And if there are few who believe that, so far as he is concerned, the condition of the sinner is entirely hopeless, there are fewer still who really believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God” (A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God).

When Pink speaks of the complete ruin and total depravity of man, he is simply speaking of the historical doctrine of the Christian Church since the time of the Reformation. It is also the doctrine of Holy Scripture. Now, for a more complete picture of what Pink means by this, he wrote a volume entitled Gleanings from the Scriptures with the subtitle of “Man’s Total Depravity.” This 350 page volume is divided into two parts with one on “The Doctrine of Human Depravity” and the second on “The Doctrine of Man’s Impotence.” In this volume he sets out with devastating clarity and a voluminous amount of Scripture he sets out what Scripture teaches the total depravity of man. So it is not without some background that Pink says that those who speak of man’s free will and his inherent power to accept or reject Christ are simply voicing their ignorance of the real condition of man.

If we take what Pink says at face value, we can simply note that this should have a huge impact on evangelism and sanctification.. If man has no inherent power in terms of receiving or serving Christ, then this must impact the way we do evangelism. If the sinner is entirely hopeless in and of himself and God is absolutely sovereign, then indeed modern theology has deified man and stripped the Creator of His essential glory in terms of the conception it has of Him. If we are getting men to make decisions for Christ that they believe is coming from their power to decide, is that really biblical evangelism? Do men really believe in the total depravity of man today? We must tread carefully here and be sure to think with care. If man is indeed hopeless because of his depravity, then it is virtually a different religion to assert something else. If God is indeed absolutely sovereign, then at what point is He a different God over a different religion than the non-sovereign gods that are so widely asserted in our day?

Pink thought that there were few in his day that believed what he said. While there appears to be a growing movement of those who at least call themselves “Reformed,” there are perhaps fewer people now who believe Pink’s words than when he wrote. In one sense we can see how the failure to believe in total depravity influences what man believes and practices concerning God’s sovereignty. These two doctrines go together and cannot be separated. This is perhaps one of the major reasons that Tozer’s words ring so true today when he speaks of how decadent the Christian conception of God was in his time. While Tozer did not believe in the sovereignty of God as Pink did, he did believe in the sovereignty of God and had an exalted view of God. But we must grapple with these men that God used greatly in their own time as well as the present. They believed that the way that man views God and the way man views himself were linked. In fact, the way man sees himself is determined by the view he has of God. It is also true that the way man sees God is determined in some degree by his own pride and view of himself.

The moral calamity that is going on with modern man’s view of God is directly related to his exalted views of himself and his own freedom. As theology moves toward a deification of man rather than a glorification of God, man’s view of himself has grown greater and his idea of God’s sovereignty has lessened. What is needed is for man’s pride to be broken so that he will not be puffed up with his arrogance and be able to see that God is sovereign and not man. The Church is to be salt and light in the world but it has absorbed the thoughts of the world and its concept of God has gone down as its concept of man has gone up. Until our theology is informed by Scripture, the world will not be. The Church needs the old teachings on God and man so the Church can exalt God in Truth before the watching world. At the moment, the Church is too much like the world in its conception of God to say anything to it. “Darwin loves you” is a popular bumper sticker these days. At the risk of being offensive, does it really mean much more than a sticker that tells us that “Jesus loves you” on the bumper? As we reflect on those two statements, the modern view of Jesus is so low that it means little more if as much to most people as the one about Darwin. The Church must repent in order to declare that a sovereign God reigns.

“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).

“The trend of modern theology-if theology it can be called-is ever toward the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the Creator, and the leaven of present-day Rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christendom. The malevolent effects of Darwinism are more far reaching than most are aware. Many of those among our religious leaders who are still regarded as orthodox would, we fear, be found to be very heterodox if they were weighted in the balances of the Sanctuary. Even those who are clear, intellectually, upon other truth, are rarely sound in doctrine. Few, very few, today, really believe in the complete ruin and total depravity of man. Those who speak of man’s “free will,” and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam’s fallen children. And if there are few who believe that, so far as he is concerned, the condition of the sinner is entirely hopeless, there are fewer still who really believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God” (A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God).

People may deny that Rationalism is still with us, but it is alive and well. It has permeated Christendom in various forms. Many within the Reformed camp are guilty of stressing scholarship over the Spirit in understanding Scripture. Others within the Reformed camp are guilty of stressing history in the study of theology and the Bible over the works of the Spirit. Both of these approaches lead to a focus on the Scriptures (when they are studied) from an intellectual point of view or perhaps a point of view which focuses on the externals. Either view leads us to a exchanging the glory of God for an idol. The Scriptures declare the glory of God and not just information to the mind. This is part of the modern Christian conception of God that is so decadent. God is not understood, seen, or felt as an infinite glory of utter majesty that is absolutely sovereign. Rationalism in its various forms is a deification of man and his intellect and a bringing God down so He can be understood. Man is to stand far off in one sense and bow to the majesty of God instead of making Him to be nothing but the theological statements of man. It is only when God is seen far above man that grace is really seen for what it is in bringing man closer to God. Love is then seen as the property of an infinite God who loves His own glory above all and brings sinners close so that they may share in His love for Himself and His own glory.

While many think of Rationalism as really a type of philosophy, it takes on different forms. It can take on the form of being dismissive of the affections and of the Lord’s ability to communicate Himself to a human being apart from intellectual rigor and academic methods. Christianity has and will always have a touch of the mystical element to it because God works through more than just the academic models that have been produced. God is not limited to the academic models that are limited by the human intellect. This is not a knock on all academic processes and academia as a whole, it is just noting that no one or no method has God and the way He works all figured out. We should also note that the glory of God is something that He alone can show. The glory that He shines through Christ cannot be discovered by an academic process, but is in His sovereign hands to do so.

We live in a day when Christians are trying to be respectable in many areas of life. Many want respectability in the academic circles and that is certainly understandable. However, at some point the cross and the glory of God will not and cannot be understood by unbelievers regardless of the name and title that they wear. Those who believe that the mind must approve and make acceptable all that we are to accept will find the teachings of Christianity unacceptable. God is not bound by intellectual greatness, and in fact in His wisdom he makes the wisdom of the wise foolishness. There are few noble and few wise who are converted. Why is that? Because a person must become a fool (in the eyes of the world) in order to have true wisdom. The truths of the Christian faith will never be acceptable or glorious in the eyes of the wise of the world because they do not and cannot see the glory of God shining in what they see as foolishness. Believers are to walk by a faith that sees the glory of God and not by the wisdom of the world which is real foolishness.

True theology must always strive to see the glory of God and declare it at the expense of the accolades of the world. While the Truth may appear irrational to the world, if we don’t declare that glory we will continue in our moral calamity. That is to remain in a decadent form of religion without power. It is also idolatry.

“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).

“The trend of modern theology-if theology it can be called-is ever toward the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the Creator, and the leaven of present-day Rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christendom. The malevolent effects of Darwinism are more far reaching than most are aware. Many of those among our religious leaders who are still regarded as orthodox would, we fear, be found to be very heterodox if they were weighted in the balances of the Sanctuary. Even those who are clear, intellectually, upon other truth, are rarely sound in doctrine. Few, very few, today, really believe in the complete ruin and total depravity of man. Those who speak of man’s “free will,” and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam’s fallen children. And if there are few who believe that, so far as he is concerned, the condition of the sinner is entirely hopeless, there are fewer still who really believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God” (A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God).

It is amazing that Pink noticed the trend of theology (so-called) in his day was headed toward the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the Creator. Again, things have gotten nothing but worse. Theology in the modern day (so-called) appears to be almost a decided attack on the glory of God. The character of God is being impugned and dragged down to the level of fallen man. Indeed it appears as if man is the measure of all things, even God Himself. Theologians are trying to be winsome and politically correct, but in doing so they are also deifying the creature and not being faithful to the living God. The same thing is true in the pulpits across the land. Man and his wonder is being declared while God is essentially thought of as being the servant of man. How utterly repugnant that is to those who have breathed in the pure air of the glory of a self-existent God who created all things for His own glory and therefore does all things for His own glory.

The Gospel (gospel?) is thought of in terms of the love God has for man so that He could not live without doing something in order to bring man to heaven to be with Him. The Gospel (gospel?) is presented as something that man must choose to do in order to save himself and that God is waiting in heaven wringing His hands hoping that man will find Him to be acceptable. As Lloyd-Jones pointed out, the Gospel is all about the vindication of God. The cross was all about the glory of God in declaring His own righteousness and thus is able to save men. The Gospel is not about the worth of man and the lengths God went to save such a noble creature, because the Gospel is all of grace. God displayed the glory of His grace in saving sinners who were not worthy of being saved. That is why salvation is all of grace. If man is worthy to be saved, then the Gospel is not all about grace but simply in the equality of what God did in giving His Son as an even trade for men. Have we forgotten about depravity?

Indeed it appears that we have forgotten about depravity. Man is pictured as free rather than being in bondage to sin. Man is thought of a rather noble rather than as a degraded creature full of the vomit of hell that the Bible calls sin. Man is now a victim rather than the enemy of God. Man now commits mistakes rather than being guilty of heinous crimes against the living God. Man now is worthy of being saved rather than unworthy of anything but eternal damnation in hell. Man is now thought to have good in him rather than to be filled with nothing good. Man is thought to have the noble faculty of rationality rather than to see that man uses his rational faculties to commit cosmic hate crimes against God. Man is said to have such freedom that he can do as he wants rather than being ridden by Satan to do his filthy will.

On the other side of the issue, God is no longer absolutely sovereign and is now said not to know the future. God is not free to do as He pleases which is an assertion against His power and His wisdom. God is not thought to be good or loving unless He serves man and saves man at the good pleasure of man. Indeed, as Pink points out, man is being deified. As Tozer points out, our conception of God is decadent and utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God. What are we to do? We must cry out to the real God who is really sovereign to open our eyes to His glory and to our own depravity and unworthiness. We must “undeify” ourselves and bow to the utter supremacy and sovereignty of the God who created all things for His glory and pleasure. We must step off of the throne we have stolen and bow to the One we have relegated to servant hood in our minds and conceptions. We must repent.

“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).

“Learn then this basic truth, that the Creator is absolute Sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasure, and considering nought but His own glory. “The Lord hath made all things FOR HIMSELF” (Prov 16:4). And had He not a perfect right to? Since God is God, who dare challenge His prerogative? To murmur against Him is rank rebellion. To question His ways is to impugn His wisdom. To criticize Him is sin of the deepest dye. Have we forgotten who He is? Behold, “All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God?” (Isaiah 40:17,18.)” (Pink, The Sovereignty of God)

The deep and absolute truth that God is absolute Sovereign should sink deeply into our hearts. We must learn that He executes His will, not ours. When we pray, we should not be trying to change God’s will but discover His will and be changed ourselves. Perhaps I should have said that true prayer has those things as its goal. Humanistic prayer is to pray wanting God to change and to do my will. God-centered prayer is to pray asking God to show us His will and change us in accordance with that. Prayer should never be an attempt to change the will of God or it is blasphemous in reality. Who does man think that he is in trying to change the will of a sovereign, eternal, perfectly wise God? God does all for His own pleasure. This should inform the prayers and the lives of human beings. We are to seek God and all other things for the pleasure of God, not God for our pleasure. God does not consider anything but His own glory, not even what I may want that is not for His own glory. If the above two paragraphs hit you in the pit of your stomach, then it may be that your conception of God has led you to the brink of a moral calamity if it has not already cast you over the edge of that brink.

Does mankind really understand that he has been made for God since God made all things for Himself? Does it change man’s conception of God and of himself? Does it change the way that man lives? If God made man for Himself, then man has the right to live for the glory of God and nothing else. God has the right to create man for His own glory and a right over man for man to live for that same glory. If all the nations are as nothing and even less than nothing before God, then how great and glorious our God really is. If all the nations are indeed less than nothing, then what does that say about one puny human being? No, not another human being, but me. What does it say about me? Who do I think I am before such a supreme majesty that declares all the nations together as less than nothing and complete vanity? If all the nations are less than nothing before Him, then what am I in reality?

Man wants to judge himself by animals and inanimate objects. But that only makes man think of himself as great. Man should judge himself by God. Then he will be able to see himself more accurately, but in truth man needs to see the glory of God in order to even begin to see himself as he really is. But what is it when a speck of dust on the earth which is a speck of dust in the universe lifts itself up against the Creator and Potter of it all and challenges His prerogatives? What does it mean when human beings murmur against God? What does it mean when human beings impugn His wisdom and question His ways? What can it be but utter blasphemy to criticize the living God? However, within the churches today all of these things are being done. Within Reformed churches these things are being done. How dare we do this?

But, one might say, “I don’t see these being done.” These things are being done by the way the churches practice what they practice. Instead of following Scripture in what is important in how the practice of the church is to be carried out, men have left the Word of God and have gone to their own devices. The churches are inundated with programs and ideas that are new. But aren’t these things simply ways of impugning the wisdom of God? Isn’t it the case that people are choosing their own ways and wisdom over the clear teachings of Scripture? Isn’t it true that the churches are doing what they are doing in an effort to gain more human members rather than seek the living God for His presence? Do the Reformed people of today really believe in the sovereignty of God any more than others in the way they try to find people to attend church and they way they practice evangelism? Do we really believe in the sovereignty of God if our evangelism is the same as those who do not believe in the sovereignty of God? Do we really believe in the sovereignty of God if our churches practice the same things as all the other churches do? Do we really believe in a sovereign God in our day or not? Is our conception of God decadent?

“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).

“The sovereignty of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, infinite. When we say that God is sovereign we affirm His right to govern the universe, which He has made for His own glory, just as He pleases. We affirm that His right is the right of the Potter over the clay, i.e., that He may mould that clay into whatsoever form He chooses, fashioning out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. We affirm that He is under no rule or law outside of His own will and nature, that God is a law unto Himself, and that He is under no obligation to give an account of His matters to any” (A. W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God).

We continue using some statements of Arthur Pink to illustrate to some degree some of what A. W. Tozer has written. What Pink has written is shocking to the modern mind, though it was written 75 years ago. The view of God in the present time is so utterly beneath the dignity of God that man thinks that what Pink wrote then is an archaic and perhaps vulgar view of God. Man much prefers to think of God as helping him be better and do good rather than the God who is Potter and man as being the clay. Man would not have control in that case and his vaunted free will would disappear as a vapor. Man does not like for God to be sovereign in fact because of the traumatic results it has on the way man perceives himself.

But God is indeed sovereign. God is not under any obligation to anyone to give an account of who He is and what He does. God is not obligated to do anything for anyone but what He has said He will do. In that case He has obligated Himself. However, to fulfill the conditions for these things is under the sovereign hand of God. God does obligate Himself to bless those who are poor in spirit, but it is not in the power of a man to make himself poor in spirit. God is the Potter and man is the clay. Man must realize that he must seek God in order to be poor in spirit.

God has also promised to give grace to the humble. But can man make himself humble in order to force God to give grace? Grace is always to the unworthy and ill-deserving or it is not grace. So can humility be something that man can do in order to earn grace and make grace to be no grace at all? Not at all, for if humility can be obtained by the works of man how can it be that works can obtain humility which is necessary for grace? No, humility itself is worked in man by God. Man must humble himself by realizing that he cannot humble himself and so turn himself over to the Potter who alone can work humility in the soul. God has the right to humble if He desires or not humble if He so desires and give no account to any because of that. How widespread is the view that man has the power to humble himself and so obligate God to give grace. What a dishonoring view of God and of His grace.

Does believing in the sovereignty of God earn anything before God? No, it is just admitting or confessing what is the truth. There is no merit in simply admitting the character of God as it really is. So does believing in the Reformed doctrines show that man is saved or that men who believe those things are being used in a mightier way by God? Well, this is a touchy point and needs another question or two to be asked. Can one believe in the Reformed teachings and not love the God of the teachings? Can one believe that the Reformed teachings are true and still not really believe from the heart that God is sovereign and glorious in that sovereignty? Can it be the case that some hold to Reformed theology as a way of figuring out God and having Him controlled to some degree? I think that it is possible and is true in many cases.

The above paragraph may shock people if they really read it. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty that is written on paper and believed as such is a different thing than God’s sovereignty in action in the human soul. How many Reformed people really believe from the heart when something hard happens to them that God is the Potter and that they are the clay? How many believe that in regard to their churches that they are pastors of, and will tell those things with kindness and gentleness to their parishioners? How many of us practice evangelism without shame of the sovereignty of God over the souls of all human beings? How many of us have wrestled with God’s absolute sovereignty over us? It is one thing to teach a creed or a doctrine, but it is quite another to submit to and love that same doctrine in the hard things in life. We have so much self-love and self-rule left in us that we don’t even recognize what rubbish is in our hearts hiding our true beliefs. God is sovereign over Reformed people too.