Chapter 11
We can learn nothing of the gospel except by feeling its truths. No single truth of the gospel is ever truly known and really learned until we have tested and tried and proved it, and its power has been exercised upon us. I heard of a naturalist who thought himself to be exceedingly wise regarding the natural history of birds, yet he had learned all he knew in his office, and had never so much as seen a bird either flying through the air or sitting upon its perch. He was just a fool, although he thought himself to be exceedingly wise.
There are some men who, like him, think of themselves as great theologians. They might even claim to have a doctor’s degree in divinity. Yet, if we got to the root of the matter and asked them whether they ever saw or felt any of these things of which they talked, they would have to say, “No. I know these things in the letter, but not in the spirit. I understand them as a matter of theory, but not as part of my own consciousness and experience.”
Be assured that just as the naturalist who was merely the student of other people’s observations knew nothing, so the person who pretends to be pious but has never entered into the depths and power of its doctrines or felt the influence of them upon his heart knows nothing, and all the knowledge he pretends to have is just disguised ignorance. There are some sciences that can possibly be learned by the head, but the science of Christ crucified can only be learned by the heart.
No one can know the magnitude of sin until he has felt it, because there is no measuring rod for sin except its condemnation in our own conscience when the law of God speaks to us with a terror that may be felt.
Some people imagine that the gospel was devised, in some way or other, to soften the harshness of God towards sin. How mistaken is that idea! There is no more harsh condemnation of sin anywhere than in the gospel.
The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). There lies the darkness; here stands the Lord Jesus Christ. What will He do with it? Will He go and speak to it and say, “This is no great evil. This darkness is just a little spot”? No. He looks at it and says, “This is terrible wickedness, darkness that may be felt. This is an exceeding great evil.” Will He cover it up? Will He weave a mantle of excuse and wrap it around the iniquity? No. Whatever covering there may have been, He lifts it off, and He declares that when the Spirit of Truth is come, He will convince the world of sin, lay the sinner’s conscience bare, and probe the wound to the bottom. Then what will He do? He will do a far better thing than make an excuse or pretend in any way to speak lightly of it. He will cleanse it all away and remove it entirely by the power and meritorious virtue of His own blood.
Nor does the gospel in any way give us hope that the claims of the law will be in any way loosened. Some imagine that under the old dispensation God demanded great things of man – that He placed burdens upon them that were too heavy to carry. They think that Christ came into the world to put a lighter law upon the shoulders of men, something that would be easier for them to obey, a law that they can more easily keep, or that if they break, would not result in such terrible punishment.
This is not so. The gospel did not come into the world to soften down the law. For verily I say unto you, Until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law until all is fulfilled (Matthew 5:18). What God has said to the sinner in the law, He says to the sinner in the gospel. If He declares, The soul that sins, it shall die (Ezekiel 18:20), the testimony of the gospel is not contrary to the testimony of the law. If He declares that whoever breaks the sacred law will certainly be punished, the gospel also demands blood for blood, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, and does not relax a solitary jot or tittle of its demands, but is as severe and as intensely just as the law itself.
Do you reply that Christ has certainly softened down the law? I reply, then, that you don’t know the mission of Christ. That is no softening of the law. It is, as it were, the grinding of the edge of the dreadful sword of divine justice to make it far sharper than it seemed before. Christ has not put out the furnace; rather He seemed to heat it seven times hotter. Before Christ came, sin did not seem to be a big deal to me, but when He came, sin became exceedingly sinful to me, and all its dreaded ugliness became clear in the light.
Someone might say, “Surely the gospel, in some degree, removes the enormity of our sin. Doesn’t it soften the punishment of sin?” No. Ezekiel says, The soul that sins, it shall die, and his sermon is alarming and dreadful. He sits down. Now comes Jesus Christ, the man of a loving countenance. What does He say regarding the punishment of sin? Our Lord Jesus Christ was all love, but He was all honesty, too. Never has anyone spoken like this man, it was said of Jesus when He spoke of the punishment of the lost (John 7:46). No other prophet but Jesus was the author of such fearful expressions as these:
He will burn up the chaff with fire that shall never be quenched. (Matthew 3:12)
And they shall go away into eternal punishment. (Matthew 25:46)
Where their worm does not die, and the fire is never quenched. (Mark 9:44)
Stand at the feet of Jesus when He tells you about the punishment of sin and the effect of iniquity, and you will have far more reason to tremble there than you would have done if Moses had been the preacher and if Sinai had been in the background to conclude the sermon. No, the gospel of Christ in no sense whatsoever helps to make sin less. The proclamation of Christ is the same as the utterance of Ezekiel of old: The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great (Ezekiel 9:9).
Our sins are immense. Every sin is significant, but there are some that in our comprehension seem to be more substantial than others. There are crimes that an ordinary person could not mention. I could go to great lengths in describing the degradation of human nature in the sins that it has invented. It is amazing how the ingenuity of man seems to have exhausted itself in inventing fresh crimes. Surely there is not the possibility of the invention of a new sin, but if there is, man will invent it before long, for man seems to grow in his deceptiveness and is full of wisdom in the discovery of ways to destroy himself and in his attempts to offend his Maker.
There are some sins that show an evil extent of degraded thinking – some sins of which it is shameful to speak and disgraceful to think. But the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). There may be some sins of which we cannot speak, but there is no sin that the blood of Christ cannot wash away. Blasphemy, however profane; lust, however depraved; covetousness, however far it may have gone into theft and robbery; breach of the commandments of God, to whatever extent it may have run – all these may be pardoned and washed away through the blood of Jesus Christ. In all the long list of human sins, though that is as long as time, there stands only one sin that is unpardonable. No sinner has committed that one sin if he feels within himself a longing for mercy, because once that sin is committed, the soul becomes hardened, dead, and insensitive, and never afterward desires to find peace with God.
Therefore I declare to you, trembling sinner, that however serious your iniquity may be, whatever sin you may have committed, however far you may have exceeded all your fellow creatures, though you may have surpassed the Pauls and Magdalenes and all of the most wicked offenders in the wicked race of sin – the blood of Christ is still able to wash your sin away. I do not speak lightly of your sin, for it is exceedingly serious, but I speak more highly of the blood of Christ. As considerable as your sins are, the blood of Christ is greater still. Your sins are like great mountains, but the blood of Christ is like Noah’s flood. Upward this blood will prevail, and the top of the mountains of your sin will be covered.
Whatever I may not be, one thing I know I am – a sinner, guilty, consciously guilty, and often miserable on account of that guilt. The Scripture says, This is a faithful saying and worthy of acceptation by all, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).
“And when thine eye of faith is dim,
Still trust in Jesus, sink or swim;
Thus, at His footstool, bow the knee,
And Israel’s God thy peace shall be.”5
5 From “This Man Shall Be the Peace” by John Kent (1766-1843).
Let me put my entire trust in the bloody sacrifice which He offered on my behalf. I will not depend upon my prayers, my good deeds, my feelings, my tears, my sermons, my thinking, my Bible reading, nor any of that. I will desire to have good works, but I will not put a shadow of trust in my good works.
“Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling.”6
6 From “Rock of Ages” by Augustus M. Toplady (1740-1778).
If there is any power in Christ to save, I am saved. If there is an everlasting arm extended by Christ, and if that Savior who hung there was God over all things, blessed for all the ages (Romans 9:5), and if His blood is still displayed before the throne of God as the sacrifice for sin, then I cannot perish until the throne of God breaks and the pillars of God’s justice crumble.