Read
this more than once. This has really blessed me I hope it blesses you.
"We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be
accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It
is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as
long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing;
nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to
God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian
graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be.
It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.
There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His
place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy,
and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.
Though
blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we
are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners”
saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in
ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the
Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has
learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to
Christ.
There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s
continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his
sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of
unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived
fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner. But that is not all
that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said.
It is therefore gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable
sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful
penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and
that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful
penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the
emphasis altogether.
The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitent indeed, but overmastering exultation.
The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair;
it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or
doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it. It is an attitude of
exultant joy. Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our
Savior.
We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves.
But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone
to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense
we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who
loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much." B.B. Warfield (1851–1921),
from his essay, “’Miserable-Sinner Christianity’ in the Hands of the
Rationalists,”
No comments:
Post a Comment