The World's Ruined: Confession: Loathing Our Sins and Ourselves

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Confession: Loathing Our Sins and Ourselves - the Sinner...

Confession of sins (see Here, Here, and Here) entails more than just listing and condemning our sins but also zeroing in on ourselves the sinner whose thoughts, words, and deeds always fall miserably short of the holiness required of us by God and so should always indict us. Indeed, amazingly we have been given the grace and mercy of God so that we can flee to Christ and there find our comfort and our remedy. Yet, our inherent fallen condition with which we daily struggle should always and increasingly humble us.

"We must know that our old state, with its evil principles, continues still in a measure, or else we shall not be fit for the great duties of confessing our sins, loathing ourselves for them, praying earnestly for the pardon of them, a just sorrowing for them with a godly sorrow, accepting the punishment of our sins and giving God the glory of His justice, and offering to Him the sacrifice of a glory and contrite spirit, being poor in spirit, working out our salvation with fear and trembling...

"You must make a good use of the whole matter and all the manner of prayer, as ordinary and extraordinary exigencies may require, to stir up grace in you by wrestling, and to bring your hearts into a holy frame. As in confession, you must condemn yourself according to the flesh, but not as you are in Christ. You must not deny that grace that you have, as if you were only wicked before, and now to begin again - which hinders praise for grace received in those that are already converted. In supplication, you must endeavour to work up your heart to a godly sorrow (Ps. 38: 18), and a holy sense of your own sin and misery, and lay before you the aggravations thereof (Ps. 51:3; 102). Complaint and lamentation are one great part of prayer, as the Lamentations of Jeremiah." Walter Marshall. The Mystery of Gospel Sanctification

From Calvin's Hosea commentary:

Grant, Almighty God, that as thou art pleased to invite us daily to thyself, we may respond to thy call in the spirit of meekness and obedience; and do thou also so seriously impress our minds, that we may not only confess our sins, but also so loathe ourselves on account of them, that we may without delay seek the true remedy, and, relying on thy mercy, may so repent, that thy name may hereafter be glorified in us, until we shall at length become partakers of that glory, which thy Son has obtained for us by his own blood. -- Amen. (John Calvin)

2 comments:

MarkFebruary 25, 2017 at 6:31 PM
Amen. Trivial confessions comes from our thinking we have only "trivial sins". But we deserve death for our sins, and our only hope is the substitution of Christ's death for elect sinners.

When we confess our sins, we confess that the forgiveness of our sins is not conditioned on our confessing sins. We confess both our sins and the gospel of God's great forgiveness.

I John 1: 8 If we habitually saying as a way of life that, “We have no habitual sin,” we are habitually deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 When we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to CLEANSE US from all unrighteousness. 10 When we say, “We don’t have any habitual sin,” we make God a liar, and His word is not in us.

They say that people can be both a judge and a forgiver. It's not the job of a judge to forgive. But in the case of those who are justified by Christ's death, God's judgment is forgiveness.
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Jack MillerFebruary 25, 2017 at 6:50 PM
Well said, Mark. Thanks!
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The Mere Mercy of God

This calling of Abram is a signal instance of the gratuitous mercy of God. Had Abram been beforehand with God by any merit of works? Had Abram come to him, or conciliated his favour? Nay, we must ever recall to mind that he was plunged in the filth of idolatry; and God freely stretches forth his hand to bring back the wanderer. He deigns to open his sacred mouth, that he may show to one, deceived by Satan's wiles, the way of salvation.

But this is done designedly, in order that the manifestation of the grace of God might become the more conspicuous in his person. For he is an example of the vocation of us all; for in him we perceive, that, by the mere mercy of God, those things that are not are raised from nothing, in order that they may begin to be something.

-John Calvin, Genesis, (Banner of Truth), p. 343

"Nor the faith also does not shut out the justice of our good works, necessarily to be done afterwards of duty towards GOD (for we are most bounden to serve GOD, in doing good deeds, commanded by him in his holy Scripture, all the days of our life): But it excludes them, so that we may not do them to this intent, to be made good by doing of them. For all the good works that we can do, be imperfect, and therefore not able to deserve our justification: but our justification doth come freely by the mere mercy of God..." (Thomas Cranmer - Homily of Justification)

Justification-Sanctification/Law-Gospel

In short, I affirm, that not by our own merit but by faith alone, are both our persons and works justified; and that the justification of works depends on the justification of the person, as the effect on the cause. (John Calvin, Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote)

The law guides, directs, commands, all things that are against the interest and rule of sin. It judgeth and condemneth both the things that promote it and the persons that do them; it frightens and terrifies the consciences of those who are under its dominion. But if you shall say unto it, “What then shall we do? this tyrant, this enemy, is too hard for us. What aid and assistance against it will you afford unto us? what power will you communicate unto its destruction?” Here the law is utterly silent, or says that nothing of this nature is committed unto it of God: nay, the strength it hath it gives unto sin for the condemnation of the sinner: “The strength of sin is the law.” But the gospel, or the grace of it, is the means and instrument of God for the communication of internal spiritual strength unto believers. By it do they receive supplies of the Spirit or aids of grace for the subduing of sin and the destruction of its dominion… (John Owen, A Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace)