SECTION THIRD THE REGENERATION AND ETERNAL LIFE OF MAN CHAPTER I CONVICTION, REPENTANCE, AND CONVERSION 1. Salvation a Fact of Experience. Having seen that man is a moral and religious being, and that he has fallen under the dominion of sin, our next step is to point out the way of his salvation from sin, and from the spiritual death which results from sin. This great salvation is a fact of human experience, as open to investigation as is the fact of sin, and our inductive method leads us to an examination of these matters of personal knowledge before we inquire more deeply into the character and the redeeming work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The man blind from his birth submitted to the treatment of Jesus, obeyed his command to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, and came back seeing. He knew very positively what had occurred to him, and others witnessed the indisputable facts, while as yet he knew little of him who had opened his eyes. So we may know and witness to the facts of the consciousness of sin, repentance, and the blessedness of a new spiritual life before we "attain unto the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge (niyvwois) of the Son of God" (Eph. iv, 13). His divine person and mediation are full of mystery, and they open many questions which are better deferred until after we shall have first examined the actual facts of regeneration. The facts of our sinfulness we know. The teaching of Paul that the power of God is manifest in the things which he has made, and that his "wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men" (Rom. i, 18), cannot be reasonably questioned. And God has written his law so deeply in the heart of man that there is no escape from the self-condemnation of wrongdoing. With some men the sense of self-reproach and guilt is at times so pungent as to break out in the cry of despair; with others it is comparatively light and transient. There are many forms and degrees of sinfulness. But whenever the soul of man, convicted of sin and also of the righteousness of God, begins to yearn for freedom from the power of "all ungodliness and unright eousness of men," there is to be seen in the personal experience of such convictions and desires the mighty inworking of some heavenly force. Our present study is with these facts of human experience as they have been verified in actual life and illustrated in the biblical writings. 2. Blameless Childhood and Youth. It is often seen that pious example in the home and a careful training turn the tender heart toward God, inculcate the habit and sentiments of prayer, and instill a feeling of opposition to sin as soon as the child is able to distinguish between good and evil. Such childhood piety may blossom into beautiful young manhood and womanhood, attain in time an admirable maturity, and through all the stages of its growth exhibit a remarkable separateness from sin and sinners, and a pure devotion to truth and righteousness. And this would seem to be the true ideal of a Christian life. Why should not every member of the Christian home be so "nurtured in the chastening and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. vi, 4) as, like the child Jesus, to advance continuously with the years "in wisdom and in favor with God and men"? (Luke ii, 52.) We would not venture to affirm that any other human life was so holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin as that of Jesus Christ. Only omniscience could assure us of the fact and number of such blameless lives, and of not one of them could it be said as of Jesus that he was "without sin." But it may be said, with some confidence, that there have been, by the grace of God, thousands of beautiful and noble lives, early consecrated, kept apart from the ways of sin, disciplined unto righteousness and purity, and attaining a glorious old age "unspotted from the world." At the same time we must note the fact that thousands of those who have shown from childhood a remarkable freedom from sin confess their consciousness of blameworthy shortcomings and manifold transgressions. The most eminent saints of history were sometime slaves of sin, and many of them have made confession of their deep sense of guilt as well as of their deliverance from the same. 3. Conviction of Sin. We shall, accordingly, begin our inquiry into the origin and development of spiritual life in the individual with a due recognition of his personal consciousness of sin. The sense of guilt, awakened in the soul by a revelation of God's truth and of his "wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Rom. i, 18), is properly among the very first experiences of the sinner who would have peace with God, and it is appropriately called conviction of sin. It arises from a vivid perception of the nature of sin and of the holiness of God. A living, moving contact of the Spirit of God with the heart of his human offspring flashes strong light upon his understanding, and in that light he sees and feels his personal alienation from Him that is holy and just and good, and he becomes deeply troubled. Such contact of God's Spirit and truth with our spiritual nature may be effected in many unseen ways; we cannot discern the process; but the result is always to compel the man to see himself a sinner before God. The power of this conviction will naturally vary according to the measure of guilt. (1) Expressed in the Penitential Psalms. Some of the clearest expressions of the sense of sinfulness and guilt found in the Old Testament scriptures appear in the penitential psalms. Not infrequently the anguish bewailed appears to be intensified by the belief that the bitter sufferings of mind and body are direct judgments of God, the rebukes of his hot displeasure and chastenings on account of sins. Thus in Psa. xxxviii, 1-4, an agonizing penitent exclaims: O Jehovah, rebuke me not in thy wrath, Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure, For thine arrows stick fast in me, And thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation; Neither is there any peace in my bones because of my sin. As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. In Psa. li, 1-3, we note the humble acknowledgment of transgressions, iniquity, and sin. The three terms may be here regarded as possessing distinctive significance. The first denotes actual trespasses, deliberate acts of sin, among which was some terrible "bloodguiltiness" mentioned in verse 14. The second suggests the inbred corruption of a depraved nature, which the supplicant conceives as cleaving to him from his birth (ver. 5). The third is a more generic word (non), and may here refer not only to the idea of failure, a missing of the mark, but also to the accumulated sinfulness of an impure heart and a long course of wicked conduct. How the awakened conscience abhors such a hideous load! It looks like a mass of broken bones (ver. 8). But the most terrible fact in this poetic picture of a crushed and broken heart is the sinner's knowledge that he has done all this evil in the very eyes of God. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned" (ver. 4). The most profound conception and conviction of the exceeding sinfulness of sin is that which sees it as open opposition to the Holy One. So in his deep contrition David cried: "I have sinned against Jehovah" (2 Sam. xii, 13). (2) Described in Romans vii. The most remarkable description of conviction of sin found in the New Testament is that which is given by Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans. Verses 7-13 inform us how the law of God operates as a holy revealer of sin, and verses 14-25 are a vivid word picture of the inner struggles of an awakened sinner. The real meaning and purpose of this remarkable passage have been greatly obscured by the bare question of its fitness or unfitness to represent the experiences of a regenerate man. It serves rather to show the power of the holy law of God to reveal the knowledge of sin to human consciousness. This is so obvious in verses 7-13 that no one calls it in question. The statement of verse 9 is suggestive: "I was alive apart from law, once; but the commandment coming (like that which prohibits coveting, ver. 7), sin sprung up into life, and I died." That is to say: There was a former time (TOTÉ), which seems now like a far-off blessed memory of childhood innocence, when I had no sense of sin and guilt; but the law said to me, "Thou shalt not covet"; whereupon sin found a base of operation (¿pooμýv), a great opportunity, and "through the commandment wrought in me all manner of coveting" (ver. 8); and so, to the same extent that "sin sprung up into life," my better nature died. "Did then the good become death to me?" he asks in verse 13. No, no, he answers, but by the operation of the good and holy law sin itself has been displayed as preeminently sinful. Its true nature, its deadly working, is thus brought to light, and the law of God in its inmost essence is recognized as spiritual, divine, possessing the power and character of the Holy Spirit for the work of conviction of sin (comp. John xvi, 8). In verse 14 we notice a change of tense from past to present. It serves the purpose of rhetorical emphasis, and aims to set as in a living picture before the reader's eye the life and death struggle of an awakened sinner. The writer continues the use of the first person, for he undoubtedly is giving his own personal experience as memory and deep emotion combine to make it very present to his thought. The three words employed in verses 15, 18, and 21-"I understand not" (ov yivwoW), "I know" (olda), "I find" (evpíoxw), are suggestive of various aspects of the struggle, and may perhaps be regarded in their connection as involving an enslavement of the understanding, the affections, and the will. For in verses 14-17 he represents his understanding as in some sort of bonds; in 18-20 he shows how the fleshly nature has dominion over him; and in 21-24 the law in his members which wars against the law of his mind keeps bringing him into such a bitter consciousness of captivity to the law of sin that he cries out in agony of spirit: "O wretched man that I am!" He conceives himself bound fast to a dead body, the body of a sinful human nature, which he has already, in vi, 6, spoken of as "our old man" and "the body of sin." (3) Experienced by Millions. Such an analysis of the conviction of sin in a human soul could be made only by a mind of deep spiritual insight. It is a diagnosis of personal experience which only the most gifted and spiritual among men can fully appreciate. But a similar conviction of sin, wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God, yet varying greatly with different individuals, has been the experience of millions. To some extent it is manifest in the little child when he first comes to know good and evil; it is often very powerful in the wayward youth, when arrested by some call of God and brought to acknowledge his sin and folly; it is sometimes overwhelming in a hardened sinner, who has long stifled convictions of truth and right, and at last comes to genuine repentance. Such great varieties of personal experience are capable, however, in the last analysis, of such a portrayal as that found in Rom. vii. 4. Repentance. When such conviction of sin is accompanied by a real sorrow of heart and strong desire to escape from its condemnation and turn unto God it becomes what is called repentance. This term is commonly defined as a godly sorrow for sin, a definition warranted by the language of 2 Cor. vii, 10: "Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation"; although in this statement the apostle has prominently in mind the sadness (AvπŃ) and mourning (odvouós) which his former epistle had caused the Corinthians. The New Testament word for repentance is μɛtávola, and means a change of mind; but in usage it means more than a mere change of opinion or sentiment. It is a moral change, and involves not only a deep sorrow for sin, but also an abhorrence of it; a loathing of its guilt and shame, and a yearning to be delivered from its power. In fact, the usage of the word in the New Testament seems to presuppose that the truly penitent soul always turns to God and finds forgiveness of sin. It may, then, be inferred that as a rule every sinner, in whom God's holy law reveals the damning power of sin, and who truly repents of his sins, experiences a change of mind and of spiritual character. To use words peculiar to John, he "passes out of death into life" (1 John iii, 14; John v, 24). Therefore the change is spoken of in Acts xi, 18, as a "repentance unto life," and in 2 Tim. ii, 25, as "repentance unto a full knowledge of truth." It is a change of heart that at once tends toward life, and leads unto the knowledge of God's truth and love. 5. Conversion. Such turning unto God which accompanies |