Sin

Killing Sin: Crucify and Mortify

Tony Reinke Mortification, Sanctification, Sin, Sin in the church

Killing Sin: Crucify and Mortify

“So bent is the great Apostle on our full salvation from all our sins that their mere crucifixion does not satisfy him. Nothing will satisfy him short of their full mortification. For crucifixion after all is only crucifixion. But mortification is more. Mortification is death. Mortification is absolute death. It is a complete and final and everlasting death. A crucified man may continue to live for hours and even for days after he has been nailed to his cross. But after he is dead, he is forever dead. And so it is with a sin. A sin may continue to live, and as a matter of fact is does continue to live for days and weeks and months and years after it has been crucified. But, when once it is dead, it is forever dead. Nailing a sin to its cross; denying it all its former freedom of action and all its former food and keeping it nailed on its cross, so that it cannot rob or murder anymore – that is its crucifixion. But all the time so to crucify a sin is not yet to mortify it, as Paul himself knew to his cost. For, if ever any man’s sins were crucified, it was the Apostle’s sins. But at the same time if ever any man’s sins were still alive and unmortified, to his unspeakable wretchedness, it was Paul’s sins. … while every saint’s self-crucifixion is his own immediate and ever-urgent duty, at the same time the full and final mortification of all crucified sin is the proper work of Almighty God alone.”

– Alexander Whyte, Thomas Shepherd: Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard (Reformation Heritage; Grand Rapids, MI) 1909/2007. Pp. 140-141.

Spiritual suicide and personal prayer

Tony Reinke Atheism, Prayer, Sin, Sin in the church

Spiritual suicide and personal prayer

“At the bottom and to begin with, there is some absolutely unaccountable alienation of our sinful hearts away from our Maker and our Redeemer. There is some utterly inexplicable estrangement from God that has, somehow, taken possession of your heart and mine. There is some dark mystery of iniquity here that has never yet been sufficiently cleared up. There is some awful ‘enmity against God,’ as the Holy Ghost has it: some awful malice that sometimes makes us hate the very thought of God. We hate God, indeed, much more than we love ourselves. For we knowingly endanger our immortal souls; every day and every night we risk death and hell itself [i.e. our greatest spiritual dangers] rather than come close to God and abide in secret prayer. This is the spiritual suicide that we could not have believed possible had we not discovered it in our own atheistical hearts. The thing is far too fearful to put into words. But put into words for once, this is what our everyday actions say concerning us in this supreme matter of prayer.

‘No; not tonight,’ we say, ‘I do not need to pray tonight. I am really very well tonight. My heart is much steadier in its beats tonight. And besides I have business on my hands that will take up all my time tonight. I have quite a pile of unanswered letters on my table tonight. And before I sleep I have the novel of the season to finish, for I must send it back tomorrow morning. And besides there is no such hurry as all that. I am not so old nor so frail as all that. Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.’

But even when it is not so bad with us as that, at our very best there is a certain backwardness in prayer to which all praying men have to confess … There is no worse sign of our spiritual danger than the backwardness we have to pray. So weary are we of the duty, so glad are we to have it over, and so witty are we to find an excuse to evade it.”

– Alexander Whyte, Thomas Shepherd: Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard (Reformation Heritage; Grand Rapids, MI) 1909/2007. Pp. 55-56.

What is sin?

Tony Reinke John Piper, Liberal Theology, Sin, Sin in Culture, What is sin, Wickedness of the heart

John Piper
Sin: The ultimate outrage of the universe

What makes sin sin is not first that it hurts people, but that it blasphemes God. This is the ultimate evil and the ultimate outrage in the universe.

The glory of God is not honored.
The holiness of God is not reverenced.
The greatness of God is not admired.
The power of God is not praised.
The truth of God is not sought.
The wisdom of God is not esteemed.
The beauty of God is not treasured.
The goodness of God is not savored.
The faithfulness of God is not trusted.
The promises of God are not relied upon.
The commandments of God are not obeyed.
The justice of God is not respected.
The wrath of God is not feared.
The grace of God is not cherished.
The presence of God is not prized.
The person of God is not loved.

The infinite, all-glorious Creator of the universe, by whom and for whom all things exist (Rom. 11:36) – who holds every person’s life in being at every moment (Acts 17:25) – is disregarded, disbelieved, disobeyed, and dishonored by everybody in the world. That is the ultimate outrage of the universe.

Why is it that people can become emotionally and morally indignant over poverty and exploitation and prejudice and the injustice of man against man and yet feel little or no remorse or indignation that God is so belittled? It’s because of sin. That is what sin is. Sin is esteeming and valuing and honoring and enjoying man and his creations above God. So even our man-centered anger at the hurt of sin is part of sin. God is marginal in human life. That is our sin, our condition.

– John Piper, Overview of Romans 1-7, 09/02/2001.

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HT: Tom Fluharty leading Sun. AM worship at SGF.

A battle-axe for the New Year’s Resolutions

Tony Reinke C.J. Mahaney, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Mortification, Sin

It’s an American tradition to make promises for the New Year and Christians sanctify the tradition by using this opportunity to commit themselves to bible reading, prayer and killing sin. This year I, like many of my friends, have resolved to kill (or ‘mortify’) personal sin. Spurgeon gives us a fitting reminder to focus on the mortifying power of the Cross.

“Some, I fear, use the precious blood of Christ only as a quietus to their consciences. They say to themselves, ‘He made atonement for sin, therefore let me take my rest.’ This is doing a grievous wrong to the great sacrifice. … A man who wants the bloodaxe.jpg of Jesus for nothing but the mean and selfish reason, that after having been forgiven through it he may say, ‘Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry: hear sermons, enjoy the hope of eternal felicity, and do nothing’ — such a man blasphemes the precious blood, and makes it an unholy thing. We are to use the glorious mystery of atoning blood as our chief means of overcoming sin and Satan: its power is for holiness. See how the text puts it: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 12:11): these saints used the doctrine of atonement not as a pillow to rest their weariness, but as a weapon to subdue their sin. O my brothers, to some of us atonement by blood is our battle-axe and weapon of war, by which we conquer in our struggle for purity and godliness — a struggle in which we have continued now these many years. By the atoning blood we withstand corruption within and temptation without. This is that weapon which nothing can resist.”

– C.H. Spurgeon sermon The Blood of the Lamb the Conquering Weapon (#2,043, Sept. 9, 1888)

A slave beaten … a Son killed: Illustrating the weight of Sin (John Owen)

Tony Reinke Banner of Truth, Christ, Gospel, John Owen, Sin, Slavery

“To see a slave beaten and corrected, it argues a fault committed; but yet perhaps the demerit of it was not very great. The correction of a son argues a great provocation; that of an only son, the greatest imaginable. Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation, than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God. God having made his Son, the Son of his love, his only begotten, full of grace and truth, sin for us, to manifest his indignation against it, and how utterly impossible it is that he should let the least sin go unpunished, he lays hand on him, and spares him not.”

– John Owen, Communion with God from The Works of John Owen (Banner of Truth), 2:96.

“Go as a sinner”: Bonar on humbly approaching Christ

Tony Reinke Come to Jesus, Evangelism, Faith, Horatius Bonar, Sin, Unbelief

“Go as a sinner”: Bonar on humbly approaching Christ

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13) were the words that brought me to saving faith in the Fall of 1999. To this day, those simple words and others like them (i.e. “Just as I am”) are so profound that I simply don’t fully grasp the depth of God’s mercy that He would invite me to come to Him, honestly, with all my sin. I naturally seek to please God through self-improvement and compare myself to other worse sinners. I naturally want to appease Him by being good and doing good. This is Cross-neglecting legalism!

God wants us to press close to Him in the honest truth – I am a sinner, empty of righteousness and undeserving of everything but hell forever and that I don’t typically feel like it.

We need to impress our friends, our hearers, our congregations to come to Jesus. Be honest, sincere and open. Even if you cannot feel your sin, take that honesty to Him. And even there, in the honesty of ignorance and in spiritual numbness, you may find truth and rest for your souls in the everlasting righteousness of Christ!

O, that we would stop trying to appease ‘seekers’ with scientific proofs and stop trying to appease legalists with more duties. Let us press everyone we know to go to Jesus honestly, just as they are, in the soiled garments of sin and ignorance. Let sinners come in their tattered rags!

On this topic, yet another gem from Horatius Bonar (1808-1889):

Faith may seem a slight thing to some; and they may wonder how salvation can flow from believing. Hence they try to magnify it, to adorn it, to add to it, in order that it may appear some great thing, something worthy of having salvation as its reward. In so doing, they are actually transforming faith into a work, and introducing salvation by works, under the name of faith. They show that they understand neither the nature nor the office of faith. It saves, simply by handing us over to the Saviour. It saves, not on account of the good works which flow from it, not on account of the love which it kindles, not on account of the repentance which it produces, but solely because it connects us with the Saving One. Its saving efficacy does not lie in its connection with righteousness and holiness, but entirely in its connection with the Righteous and Holy One …

The blood of the cross is that which has ‘made peace;’ and to share this peace God freely calls us. This blood of the cross is that by which we are justified; and to this justification we are invited. This blood of the cross is that by which we are brought nigh to God; and to this blessed nearness we are invited. This blood of the cross is that by which we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace; and this redemption, this forgiveness, is freely set before us. It is by this blood that we have liberty of entrance into the holiest; and God’s voice to each sinner is, ‘Enter in.’ It is by this blood that we are cleansed and washed; and this fountain is free, free as any of earth’s flowing streams, free as the mighty ocean itself, in which all may wash and be clean.

These are good news concerning the blood, — news which should make every sinner feel that it is just what he stands in need of. Nothing less than this; yet nothing more.

And these good news of the blood are no less good news of Him whose blood is shed. For it is by this blood-shedding that He is the Saviour. Without this He could not have been a Redeemer; but, with it, He is altogether such a Redeemer as suits the sinner’s case. In Him there is salvation, — salvation without a price, — salvation for the most totally and thoroughly lost that this fallen earth contains. Go and receive it.

Do you ask, How am I to find salvation, and how am I to go to that God, on the blood of whose Son I have trampled so long? I answer, Go to Him in your proper and present character — that of a sinner. Go with no lie upon your lips, professing to be what you are not, or to feel what you do not. Tell Him honestly what you are, and what you feel, and what you do not feel. ‘Take with you words;’ but let them be honest words, not the words of hypocrisy and deceit. Tell Him that your sin is piercing you; or tell Him that you have no sense of sin, no repentance, no relish for divine things, no right knowledge of your own worthlessness and guilt. Present yourself before Him just as you are, and not as you wish to be, or think you ought to be, or suppose He desires you to be …

Appear before Him, taking for granted just that you are what you are, a sinner; and that Christ is what He is, a Saviour; deal honestly with God, and be assured that it is most thoroughly impossible that you can miss your errand. ‘Seek the Lord while He may be found;’ and you will see that He is found of you. ‘Call upon Him while He is near;’ and you will find how near He is.

–Horatius Bonar, The Christian Treasury in The Life and Works of Horatius Bonar (CD-Rom, Lux Publications) pp. 584-585. (Posted with permission from publisher.)