4. “Sin” and “Sins”
4. “Sin” and “Sins”
Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.—Rom 6:11.
The nearer we live to God, the more sensitive we become to the presence of sin. Increasing light means increasing self-judgment; and things which were allowed in the twilight of the dawn, become abhorrent as the noontide light reveals their true character. You may gauge your growth in grace, and your increasing reception of the Holy Spirit, by the tenderness of your conscience with respect to sins which you once permitted without remorse, and almost without remark. In proportion as you comprehend the full beauty of Christ your Lord, you will find imperfections in your best moments, and discern blemishes in your holiest deeds. When we hear of God, we are self-satisfied; but when we see Him, we abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes.
In view of these facts it is impossible for any true child of God to be contented with himself. He cannot speak of himself as having attained, or as being already perfect. He is ever following after to apprehend or attain; and as he does so, he, who once described himself as the least of all saints, comes to call himself the chief of sinners. He is conscious of forgiveness; he knows that he is accepted in the Beloved; but, in proportion as he walks in the growing light, he feels his growing need of the precious blood, which cleanseth from all sin.
It is true that many claim to have attained to a condition of sinless perfectness; but they surely fail to discriminate between things which differ widely as the poles. They do not distinguish between the believer’s standing in Christ Jesus, in the sight of God, and the practical realization and appropriation of that standing, which can only be in proportion to his faith. According to our faith, so it is to us; and, as faith is ever growing towards perfect vision, is it not clear that there must also be a growth towards the perfect appreciation and enjoyment of our standing in Christ Jesus?
And is there not this also, that there is a whole world of difference between freedom from conscious sin and the attainment of the perfect glory of the stature of Christ? The one is negative; the other is positive. The one is according to the dim light of human consciousness; the other is according to the Divine standard of infinite excellence. The one is within the reach of the young disciple, and ranks among the elements of Christ; the other is still in advance of the holiest saint among the ranks of the redeemed, and always will be.
When we come short, we sin.
As soon as we put ourselves in the true relation to the Spirit of God, we may expect to be kept from conscious sin; but surely this is a very different thing from the perfection of the New Testament, which is the maturity of the fully developed man. Even if we have passed from the adolescence to the manhood of Christian development, there is still an infinite chasm between our uttermost attainment, and the surpassing loveliness of the One Perfect Man.
Who of us has not also had some such experience as this—that we condemn things which passed muster years ago? Is not this the law of growing excellence in all art, in all knowledge? Does not the singer, the painter, the writer, the poet, detect blemishes and flaws where once the judgment rested with entire acquiescence and content?
And then, too, must not this be always so, as long as there is progress in any direction along which the energies of the soul may work? And if this be so, is it not almost certain that we permit and harbor things to-day which we shall be the first to condemn when years have passed; just as we condemn things to-day which, for want of fuller light, seemed harmless enough in the days of our ignorance? But, under such circumstances, how can we say that we are perfect? How can we speak of ourselves as sinless? How can we ever get beyond the need of humbly confessing that we are sinners? How can we do without the constant washing in the laver of priests?
There are three matters which must be considered in connection with the believer’s inner experience of evil:—
I. The Tempter.
“Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist.” (1Pe 5:8-9)
It is not necessary to suppose that the prince of the power of the air is the author of temptation to every believer, the world over; for that would go near to investing him with the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence. But he is surrounded by legions of inferior spirits, the wicked spirits in heavenly places, as malignant in their hate as he is; and who are ever waiting to carry out his plans: and any one of these is sufficient to master the soul that has not learnt the secret of victory through faith in the Stronger than the strong man armed.
It is a commonplace in Christian ethics and yet it may not be realized by every reader of these lines—that temptation does not become sin to us, until the will assents to the suggestion of the Tempter. So long as the will is resolute, exclaiming with Joseph, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” there is no sin. Sin is the act of the perverted will. That temptation is not sin is proved by the fact that the Lord Jesus was tempted in all points, though without sin. Of course, there is a vast difference between Him and us: because there was nothing in Him, as there is in us, responsive to the tempter’s suggestions. It is difficult for us to listen to the suggestion of sin without contracting any stain; but still it may be accepted as broadly true that the fact of our being tempted does not necessarily involve us in sin.
There is only one way by which the Tempter can be met. He laughs at our good resolutions and ridicules the pledges with which we fortify ourselves. He has been dealing with these for sixty centuries, and well knows how to find their weakest point, and to sweep them away, as the tide does the child’s barricade of sand. There is only One whom he fears; One who in the hour of greatest weakness conquered him; and who has been raised far above all principality and power, that He may succor and deliver all frail and tempted souls. He conquered the prince of this world in the days of His flesh; and He is prepared to do as much again, and yet again, in each one of us, if only we will truly surrender ourselves to His gracious and mighty indwelling.
In the days of knightly chivalry it was supposed to be enough for the true soldier of the cross to make the sacred sign upon his person; and instantly the foul spirits that had gathered in the murky gloom to do him harm, fell back, and let him through. It was not all legend and myth. But there is a truth beneath the mediaeval setting. And that truth is ours to-day—that the best resource for the hardly-beset soldier of Jesus is to appeal, not to the cross, but to Him who on that cross bruised the serpent’s head, not for Himself only, but for us.
There are many forms in which that appeal may be made. Some utter the name of the tempted—the succoring—High Priest: “Jesus! Jesus!” Some cry in the triumphant assurance of victory, “Jesus saves me.” Some do better still, and claim that grace in Him, the lack of which is hurrying them into sin; so that temptation becomes a positive means of grace to them, by showing their deficiency, and leading them to strengthen the things which remain, but which may be languishing to death.
But whichever method you adopt, reader, be sure you do it in one way or another. Swift as the chick to the shelter of the mother’s wing, so do you betake yourself to the ever-offered protection of Jesus Christ whenever menaced by the Tempter. The Lord God is not only a sun, but a shield. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it and is safe.” He will “cover thy head in the day of battle.” (Psalm 84:11; Pro 18:10; Psa 140:7)
It may be that you have tried to do this, and have failed. You have entered upon the day’s life, fully intending to make Jesus your shield of faith, and to hide in Him when threatened by the Tempter. Yet you have found to your dismay, that you have been overcome before you have bethought yourself of your refuge and deliverer. But there is an easy remedy for this, in the aid of the Holy Spirit. He is the Divine remembrancer. It is his office to maintain the spirit in a state of holy recollectedness; and, if the attack be as a thunderclap, He will be as the premonitory lightning flash, crying, “Beware! Beware! ‘ turn you to your stronghold, O prisoner of hope.’” (Zecariah 10:12)
Be sure of this, that Satan cannot tempt you beyond what you have power to sustain or resist. Powerless in yourself, you can do all things in Christ that strengtheneth you. The Lord Jesus hath bought you; and you must trust him to keep you. “The Lord is thy keeper.” “ He will not suffer thy foot to be moved.’” “Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler.” (Psalm 121:5; Psalm 91:3)
II. The Sinful Tendency Within.
Regeneration is not the eradication of the principle of the old life, but the insertion beside it of the principle of a new life, the Christ life. And these two exist side by side; as the house of Saul and the house of David in the rent and distracted kingdom of Israel: but the one is destined to get weaker and weaker, whilst the other waxes stronger and stronger.
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and can never be anything else than flesh. It can never be improved into spirit. It can never be anything but abhorrent in the eye of the Holy God. So that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God;” and the flesh which is in us can never please God. The only thing to be done is to deny it; and to reckon it as a dead thing, which has no place in the Home of Life. “Bury thy dead out of thy sight.”
Self is the anagram of flesh. The flesh-principle is the self-principle, which so insidiously creeps into everything from which it is not rigorously excluded by the race of God. Before we are converted self is the sole motive-power of our lives: our kindest and best actions originate in this root. And after we are converted, it strives to insinuate itself into our religious life. Satan will not prohibit us from being religious—if only “self” is the mainspring of our devotion. Hence it is that Jesus Christ is so unrelenting in His demand for self-denial. And it has been the axiom of saintship in all ages—“Wheresoever thou findest thyself, deny thyself.” Sword in hand, we must pursue this evil thing—this self-hood—through all the disguises beneath which it hides itself. We must allow it no quarter. We must believe that it is never more near or more dangerous than when it causes a rumor to be set on foot that it is no more. In the self-congratulation which arises on the receipt of this happy intelligence, there is a new and striking evidence of its continued and vigorous existence.
It is to this evil principle, which is very susceptible to the least suggestion from without, that the Tempter appeals. His attacks would be less formidable if it were not for this traitor within the citadel of the soul. But, we may well fear the bombshells thrown in from without, when we remember the magazines of gunpowder within, awaiting the spark that shall hurry them into explosion, and shatter the rest of the soul.
There is no evidence, then, that the flesh shall ever be eradicated, because it is ourselves; and the Apostle clearly tells us that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” And in those who most earnestly asseverate its eradication in their own experience, there are frequent indications of its presence still. (Gal 5:17)
But this is possible. The Holy Spirit is the deadly antagonist of, and all-sufficient antidote to, the self-life. When He dwells in blessed fulness within the surrendered heart, He sets it free from the law of sin and death: He annihilates the power of the self-life; as an antiseptic cancels the death-dealing germs which proceed from the body of a patient who is stricken by an infectious disease.
When the Holy Spirit resides in power in the heart, He keeps the self-life so utterly in the place of death that temptation has no fascination, no power. The appeals of hell are flung against the ear of death: there is no response, no motion of obedience. Try it, reader: be not content to have the Holy Spirit within thee; see that He fills thee; and thou wilt experience that blessed condition in which the sparks of temptation shall seem to be quenched in an ocean of water, as they touch thy heart.
But remember the evil thing is there still; not eradicated, not destroyed, only kept in the place of death by the Spirit of life. And if ever thou shalt quench or limit His gracious operation, so that He relaxes His restraining power, that accursed principle will arise with all its pristine force, join hands with the tempter, and hurry thee into sin. Watch and pray, therefore; keep in with the Holy Ghost; walk warily; that thou mayest never have to retrace thy steps, shedding tears of blood.
III. Sins.
Through neglect of watching and prayer—or by reason of carelessness in the walk and conversation—it is quite possible to break that holy connection between ourselves and heaven which is the secret of deliverance, and the talisman of victory. There is always a Delilah ready to sheer off the locks of our strength, if we allow ourselves to sleep in her lap. And out strength may be gone ere we know it. “He wist not that the Lord had departed from him.” (Judges 16:20)
And when we put ourselves outside those sacred influences which are intended to deliver us from the power of evil, there is no alternative but that we should break out again into acts of sin. But there is a difference. They are not now the normal state of the soul. They are committed in opposition to the judgment and the conscience. They are the sins of a child for which it will be chastened, until it gets back into the old blessedness again. An old divine says: “A sheep and a sow may each fall into the same quagmire; but the sow will wallow in it, whilst the sheep will bleat piteously, until she is extricated and cleansed.” Such is the difference between the ungodly and the children of God. “Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not”; that is, sin can never become his normal and habitual state. (1 John 3:6)
If ever this should be your unhappy lot, do not despair. The true test of Christian character does not consist in the inability to fall, but in the quick agony of repentance, and in the immediate restoration to the ways which had been left. Directly you are conscious of sin, turn at once to your compassionate Lord. Do not wait for the fever of passion to subside, or for the agony of your shame to die down; but, there and then, in the crowd or the street, lift up your heart, and ask Him to touch you with that finger before which uncleanness cannot abide: ask Him to wash you as he did the feet of His disciples, soiled by jealousy and strife for mastery: ask Him to restore your soul to the place it occupied before you fell.
You may not be able to forgive yourself: but He will forgive you instantly; the stain will be at once extracted from the spirit’s robes; the foulness will immediately flee from the blemished dress; and the forgiven one shall occupy again the place which for a moment had been vacated, the place in the heavenlies, side by side with its Redeemer. Oh, do not doubt the Saviour’s willingness, or the Saviour’s power, to forgive; or the efficacy of His blood to wash out each stain, as it may become manifest to the quickened conscience. Remember that His blood ever cleanseth from all sin, as the stream is ever flowing over the pebble, and as the tear-water is ever removing from the eye the motes that alight for a moment upon its surface.
It is not an easy world for any of us to traverse; it is no friend to grace: but it is possible to walk through it with clean and stainless robes. Sin may assail; but it will be as the waves that beat outside the goodly ship without finding admittance within its walls. And out of the pure and guileless heart shall spring all the loveliness of unselfish and helpful deeds, such as shall make this sad world happier, and dark hearts bright with the light of heaven.
O souls, weary and sin-sick, hand yourselves over to the tender mercies of the Good Physician, sure that He will undertake the most desperate case; and “ give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” (Isa 6:13)