The Sorcery of Self-Justification
Fallen man, who is born in putrefaction, and whose every thought is contrary to the holiness required in the law is not content merely to disobey God and live wholly opposed to His counsels. His corruption is much deeper, and infinitely more insidious: in addition to rebellion, he attributes to himself the peculiar powers and prerogatives of God. That is that he would call himself holy while opposing holiness, and demand that the world submit to this judgment of himself and others. He would determine good and evil according to his own wisdom; pronounce clean what God has called unclean; justify whom God has not justified; and, even create spiritual life where God alone can raise the dead.
The most obvious manifestation of this usurpation is justification by works. The sinner will not receive righteousness as the free gift of another. He will produce it from himself. He will not stand before God clothed in the obedience of Christ; he will bring some fragment of his own obedience, enlarge it in his imagination to the utmmost, and demand that God account it sufficient or even perfect. He will be his own lawgiver, priest, sacrifice, advocate, and judge. He will commit the offence, appoint the satisfaction, perform the remedy, and pronounce the absolution.
This is why justification by works is not merely an egregiously erroneous calculation concerning the comparative value of faith and obedience. It is an attempted seizure of the divine throne. It makes man the author of the righteousness by which he is accepted, and therefore gives to man the glory that belongs to God alone.
Luther condemns this in his commentary on Galatians. He notes that the doctrine of free will produces a monster in which man imagines himself to be both creator and matter—the first mover who initiates his own renewal, and the material upon which his own will operates. He is the agent who reshapes, and also the thing reshaped. Grace may assist, advise, reward, or complete him, but man reserves to himself the decisive movement by which he passes from death to life.
This is the great monster: the creature becomes his own creator.
Luther accordingly describes human reason and self-righteousness as detestable, and declares that men who seek to merit grace by their exertions effectively pull God from His throne and place themselves upon it. Elsewhere in the same commentary he says that those who seek righteousness by their own efforts do not openly say, “I am God; I am Christ,” yet this is exactly what their doctrine amounts to: they assume the office of Christ, saving themselves and others. Those who hold to free will are not innocent men who are simply misguided in their approach to theology, but enemies to free grace and the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are not Christian simply because the world calls them so, but imposters, monsters and the most subtle and damnable of heretics.
I. The Monster of Free Will
The doctrine of free will in conversion does not merely diminish grace; it abolishes grace. Man possesses a will. We grant this. He is not a stone, a beast, or an unwilling machine. He thinks, desires, chooses, refuses, loves, and hates. He sins voluntarily and without outward compulsion. But the question is not whether man wills or even wills in agreement with God in conversion and repentance. The question is whether man’s will as fallen possesses within itself the spiritual power to turn from enmity against God to saving faith in Christ.
If the decisive movement begins in man, then grace is no longer grace. It becomes an offer awaiting human ratification. God proposes, man disposes. God makes salvation a potential, but man makes it actual. God holds out his hand to a drowning sinner, but the sinner must choose to take the hand and be saved. God provides the seed, but the dead ground gives itself life and receives it.
In such a system, the difference between the saved and the lost lies finally not in the discriminating mercy of God as the scripture everywhere teaches, but in the better use one sinner makes of a faculty possessed equally by both. One believes because he has exercised his will rightly; another perishes because he has exercised the same will wrongly. Grace may inform the decision, persuade the decision, or assist the decision, but the final cause of the difference is found in man.
Thus man becomes the prime mover of his own salvation. He supplies the first holy motion of the will before the will has been made holy. He produces a good desire from a heart in which Scripture says no spiritual good dwells. He creates willingness out of unwillingness, faith out of unbelief, love out of enmity, and life out of death.
This is not regeneration. It is self-creation.
The gospel declares precisely the contrary. God does not find the sinner spiritually moving towards Christ and then assist his progress. He finds him dead and makes him alive. He does not reward the first motions of a good will; He creates a new will. He does not merely place Christ before the understanding and await the verdict of unrenewed reason; He opens the heart, enlightens the mind, bends the will, and draws the sinner effectually to the Son.
The sinner does indeed come. He believes. He repents. He receives Christ willingly. But he does so because God has first wrought in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure. The renewed man moves towards Christ because the Spirit has moved him. He chooses Christ because grace has delivered his choice from the dominion of sin. He lives because God has raised him.
Luther therefore understood that the controversy over free will was not a peripheral dispute about philosophical terminology. It concerned whether salvation belongs wholly to God or whether man may retain some part of the glory. In his Commentary on Galatians, he contrasts the world’s doctrine of free will and works with the doctrine of grace, declaring from scripture that we are not delivered by our own will, wisdom, or strength, but by the mercy and love of God.
II. From Justification by Works to Justification by Profession
Yet this militant depravity of man must be further inquired into. For man does not only attempt to justify himself by his works. He will also attempt to justify himself by his word. The first is an offense of the righteousness of Christ, the second to the truth of Christ. By the first offense man abolishes the meritorious cause of salvation, by the second the instrument by which men are saved.
He will be a Christian because he has said that he is a Christian.
He will be regenerate because he has professed regeneration.
He will be forgiven because he has declared that he believes himself forgiven.
He will possess faith because he has applied the word faith to something within himself.
He will make the judgment, pronounce the sentence, and then forbid either man or Scripture to examine the grounds upon which that sentence rests.
Here the sinner imitates, in a blasphemous and counterfeit manner, the creative power of the word of God. See Psalm 33:9-11, Heb. 4:12. God speaks, and it is done. God calls the things which are not as though they were. God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light. God declares the ungodly righteous through faith in the imputed obedience of Christ, and His judgment alone constitutes the sinner’s legal standing before Him.
Fallen man takes this divine pattern and attempts to reproduce it by his own utterance:
“I have said that I believe; therefore I possess saving faith.
I have called myself a Christian; therefore I am born of God.
My pastor and elders have pronounced me converted; therefore heaven must receive the judgment.
My family believes me sincere; therefore God cannot reject me.
My congregation acknowledges me; therefore none may ask any further question.”
This is the sorcery of false profession.
Man imagines that by a form of words he may bring into existence a spiritual reality which God has not wrought. His profession becomes an incantation. He names himself a Christian and supposes that the name has created the thing. He repeats the accepted formula, and assumes that the formula has power in itself to change his state before God.
“I said so; they said so; therefore it is so.”
Thus fallen man becomes a wizard in his own imagination, conjuring salvation by a magic word.
III. God Creates Christians by His Word
The true order is wholly otherwise. A man is not born again by his own word concerning himself, but by the living and abiding Word of God concerning Christ.
Peter writes:
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
1 Peter 1:22–25
The contrast is absolute. “All flesh is as grass.” This includes the judgment of the flesh concerning itself. Man’s opinion withers. His profession withers. The reputation given him by others withers. The approval of his minister, family, and congregation, considered merely as human judgment, withers. But the Word by which God begets His people endureth for ever.
James speaks in the same manner:
“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
James 1:21–25
The man who approves the Word outwardly but does not continue in gospel obedience is “deceiving” himself. His false assurance is not ordinarily imposed upon him from without. He is both deceiver and deceived. He speaks the lie, receives the lie, and then treats his own testimony as sufficient evidence that the lie is true.
The Word, therefore, does not merely supply language by which a man may call himself converted. It enters as seed. It is engrafted. The Spirit employs it to illuminate the understanding, break the stony heart, reveal Christ, produce faith, and bring forth the fruit of obedience.
The human profession follows the divine work; it does not create it.
IV. The Pastoral Presumption of Universal Conversion
This error appears with peculiar subtlety in much mainstream evangelical ministry. A pastor may scarcely entertain the possibility that any settled member of his congregation remains unregenerate. The people have professed faith. They attend worship. They speak the accepted language. They perform those works which the local religious culture approves. They may serve, give, volunteer, avoid public scandal, and express sincere affection for the congregation.
The pastor therefore assumes their salvation.
He would regard it as uncharitable to question them. He is unwilling to accuse them of lying, and therefore concludes that their profession must be spiritually true. But this confuses two entirely different questions.
The first question is:
Is this person consciously lying when he professes Christianity? i.e. is this person religiously sincere?
The second is:
Does this person have genuine faith? The faith of the apostles, patriarchs and father? The faith of the Reformers and Puritans? Belief in free grace and a life agreeable to the doctrine?
A man may be sincere in the first sense and yet deceived in the second. He may sincerely believe himself converted without possessing the faith of God’s elect. He may sincerely approve a false gospel. He may sincerely rest upon an unscriptural conversion experience. He may sincerely mistake conviction for regeneration, religious affection for love to God, temporary reformation for sanctification, historical belief for saving faith, or attachment to a Christian community for union with Christ.
Religious sincerity is not necessarily gospel sincerity.
Good intentions are not regeneration.
Freedom from deliberate hypocrisy is not proof of saving grace.
The issue is not merely whether the professor means what he says. The issue is whether what he says is true according to the judgment of God.
A man may sincerely call counterfeit money genuine. His sincerity does not alter the currency. He may sincerely misdiagnose his illness. His confidence does not heal him. He may sincerely imagine himself reconciled to an offended king, but unless the king himself has granted the pardon, his persuasion changes nothing.
So also in salvation. A man may sincerely say, “I know Christ,” while his doctrine, affliations, affections, and life reveal that he does not know Him. His sincerity may establish that he is not consciously pretending. It cannot establish that he is spiritually alive.
V. Gospel Sincerity Is a Grace
Gospel sincerity on the other hand is not the mere absence of conscious fraud. It is a genuine work of the Holy Spirit: an honest, undivided, and prevailing regard for God and His truth.
The gospel-sincere man does not merely intend well according to his own light. He comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest. He desires to know whether his faith is true. He is willing to have his hope examined by Scripture. He does not exempt his favourite sins, his cherished doctrines, his family traditions, or his ecclesiastical loyalties from the judgment of God.
False sincerity says:
I mean well; therefore God must accept me.
Gospel sincerity says:
Search me, O God, and show me whether my intentions themselves are corrupt.
False sincerity appeals from Scripture to the heart:
Whatever the Bible may appear to say, God knows that I am sincere.
Gospel sincerity brings the heart before Scripture:
Whatever I may feel concerning myself, the Word of God is true.
False sincerity makes intention the judge of obedience. Gospel sincerity submits intention, doctrine, affection, and obedience alike to the judgment of God.
This distinction is commonly admitted in the abstract and denied in every particular application. Men will readily confess that hypocrites exist. They will preach that the heart is deceitful above all things. They will acknowledge that many will say, “Lord, Lord,” and be rejected. They will warn against false doctrine, false assurance, and counterfeit faith.
But the doctrine is seldom permitted to approach their own households, their intimate friends, their established church members, or themselves.
Hypocrites exist—but never among us.
False assurance is possible—but not in our family.
Church members may be unregenerate—but not those whom we know and esteem.
Professors may deceive themselves—but not those whose sincerity we have personally observed.
Why is this conclusion drawn? Have their doctrine and life been searched by the whole counsel of God? Have their graces been tried according to Scripture? Have they demonstrated repentance from secret as well as public sins? Do they receive all the truth, including those parts which condemn their most beloved errors?
Often no such examination has occurred. The final argument is simply this:
They say that they are Christians, and I believe them.
Thus human testimony takes the place of divine judgment.
VI. “I Have No Pleasure in You”
The Prophet Malachi exposes the dreadful insufficiency of outward religious performance. The priests possessed the office, the altar, the sacrifices, the ceremonies, and the language of covenant religion. They did not renounce the worship of Jehovah in name. They continued the external forms of priestly service.
Yet the Lord declares from heaven:
“A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.
And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts.
And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the LORD of hosts.
Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.”
Malachi 1:6–10
Strictly speaking, the priests did not offer everything exactly as God had commanded, for the blind, lame, and sick sacrifices were themselves violations of the law. Yet they retained the commanded category of action. They had priests, an altar, fire, bread, sacrifice, and solemn religious service. The outward structure remained; the spiritual reality was despised.
This makes our point even stronger. They did not abandon religion. They corrupted it while practising it. They performed recognisable acts of worship, but without reverence, faith, love, and sanctified obedience. Their own judgment was that they were serving God. God’s judgment was:
“I have no pleasure in you.”
They did not perceive their corruption. When accused, they answered:
“Wherein have we despised thy name?”
“Wherein have we polluted thee?”
Their profession stood against the divine accusation. They imagined the continued performance of religious actions sufficient proof of their acceptance. God searched the nature, manner, motive, and substance of their worship and rejected it.
The modern professor reasons in the same manner:
Have I not prayed?
Have I not attended?
Have I not served?
Have I not professed Christ?
Have I not given money?
Have I not opposed certain sins?
Have I not performed those works which my congregation regards as Christian?
But the question is not merely whether some commanded actions have been outwardly performed. The question is whether they have proceeded from a purified heart, true faith, love to God, submission to the whole Word, and a sincere regard for His glory.
God does not accept works merely because they bear the names of religious duties. Prayer without faith remains sin. Worship without reverence is provocation. Profession of a creed without love of truth becomes an instrument of pride. Service performed for reputation has already received its reward. An outwardly correct act may be corrupted by an unbelieving principle, an unlawful manner, or a self-exalting end.
The enemies of free grace will usually admit this proposition. They confess that works without a sanctified heart cannot please God. Yet they continually fail to apply it. When judging themselves and those near to them, they return at once to the very works they have admitted cannot prove acceptance unless they proceed from grace.
They reason in a circle:
We know the heart is sanctified because the person performs these works.
We know the works are acceptable because they proceed from a sanctified heart.
But the sanctified heart itself is never examined according to the marks given in Scripture. The conclusion was assumed before the evidence was heard.
VII. “Thus It Is Written” Against “We Say We Are So”
This was one of the great points of conflict between Christ and the religious rulers. They rested upon their own declaration of identity. They were Abraham’s children. They were Moses’ disciples. They possessed the temple, the law, circumcision, religious office, national descent, and public reputation. Their argument was essentially:
How canst thou say that we are not the people of God, when we and all other men say that we are?
Christ answered by distinguishing name from nature, descent from likeness, profession from truth, and office from spiritual life. They claimed Abraham, but did not the works of Abraham. They claimed God as Father, but did not love the Son whom the Father sent. They possessed the Scriptures, yet refused to come to Him of whom the Scriptures testified. Their declaration concerning themselves could not stand against the judgment of the incarnate Word.
This conflict continues in every age:
“We are Christians,” says man.
“Thus it is written,” answers God.
“We believe,” says man.
“Show me thy faith,” answers Scripture.
“We are sincere,” says man.
“The heart is deceitful,” answers Scripture.
“We have performed many works,” says man.
“I never knew you,” answers Christ.
“We are the children of the covenant,” says man.
“They are not all Israel, which are of Israel,” answers the apostle.
“Our congregation acknowledges us,” says man.
“The Lord knoweth them that are his,” answers the Word.
The perfect Word of God will therefore remain perpetually opposed to the deceived profession of hypocrites. A false professor assumes himself forgiven but cannot furnish a scriptural warrant for that assurance. He possesses confidence, but not evidence; presumption, but not the testimony of a purified conscience; religious language, but not the fruits of the Spirit; the name of faith, but not its substance.
VIII. “Though a Man Say He Hath Faith”
James directs his accusation precisely against salvation by profession:
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
James 2:14–26
James does not say, “Though a man have faith.” He begins, “Though a man say he hath faith.” The profession is that which is under trial. The man has but spoken. He has identified something within himself as faith. But the apostle James refuses to accept the label without the proof.
“Can faith save him?” That is, can the abstract which exists merely in his own mind save him? Can a profession without living fruit justify its claim to be the faith which unites a sinner to Christ? James answers that such faith is dead. It is not weak saving faith, nor immature saving faith, nor saving faith temporarily without opportunity. It is a carcass: the outward form of faith without the living principle.
The works by which faith is demonstrated are not a small collection of culturally approved evangelical activities. They are not merely attendance, volunteering, conservative speech, financial giving, public prayer, opposition to selected social evils, or participation in congregational life.
True obedience receives the whole authority of God.
It does not choose certain commandments by which it may establish a favourable reputation while leaving the rest undone. It does not obey the doctrines which exalt man while rejecting those which humble him. It does not condemn the sins of the world while sparing the sins of the church. It does not practise visible morality while retaining secret lust, envy, covetousness, malice, vanity, or unbelief. It does not maintain fellowship with denominations, churches, congregations and peoples at enmity with God and with His gospel. The mainstream denominations are corrupted, therefore those who attend these places of idolatry are still at enmity with God despite their profession. They regard the last century’s heretics as true men and guides and know not that the Reformed churches have been coasting on human tradition for the last two-hundred years. They call the religious frenzy and emotional manipulation of congregations, a “great awakening” and revere those whose doctrine is absolutely contrary to the gospel declared in holy scripture. They will swear that men such as R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Joel Beeke, Cornelius Van Til, J. Gresham Machen, Charles Spurgeon, J. C. Ryle, Isaac Watts, and Richard Baxter are sincere, since they are or were so zealous in their religion and the profession of religion. But this is exactly the lie we aim to destroy. Their doctrine is corrupt, and their ministries were plagued by money, religious fanaticism, and the praise of men. A monk is not a Christian because he ascends 1,000 steps until his knees bleed. A theologian is not a Christian because he writes 1,000 volumes of religious material. All will be judged by their works, whether it was true and whether it was the real and genuine product of grace.
The same God who commands mercy commands purity. The same Lord who requires generosity requires sound doctrine. The same Christ who commands love commands separation from error. The same Scripture which requires outward duty requires inward truth.
The believer does not fulfil these things perfectly in this life. Were perfect personal obedience the evidential standard of regeneration, none could stand. But true faith produces a universal principle of obedience and consent to a most perfect doctrine. The regenerate man acknowledges the holiness of every divine command. He desires conformity to the whole law. When convicted of deviation, he does not defend the deviation as his rightful possession. He neither turns to the right hand nor to the left.
His obedience may be imperfect, but his faith is fixed on a perfect Savior.
IX. The Christian Does Not Confuse Charity with Omniscience
The Christian must avoid the contrary error of pretending to know the hidden decree of God or the secret state of every soul. Ministers are not called to treat all professors as probable hypocrites. We speak of those in gospel churches and not in heretical congregations. The church receives those who make a credible profession of the true religion and whose lives are not scandalously contrary to it. Christian charity does not accuse without evidence, nor does it delight in suspicion.
Yet charitable ecclesiastical judgment is not the same as an infallible declaration of regeneration.
A minister may receive a man as a visible saint without claiming certain knowledge that the man is united to Christ. He may admit him to fellowship upon a credible profession while continuing to preach self-examination, repentance, perseverance, and the necessity of inward grace. He may act towards all the members of the church with pastoral care while remembering that the Lord alone searches the heart.
The Westminster Confession preserves both truths. The visible church consists of those who profess the true religion and their children; yet the purest churches remain subject to mixture and error. It also expressly warns that hypocrites and unregenerate men may deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favour of God and in an estate of salvation.
The minister must therefore neither condemn without warrant nor assure without warrant.
He must not say:
Because you are outwardly orderly, I know that you are regenerate.
Nor should he say:
Because I cannot see your heart, no meaningful judgment is possible.
He judges ministerially by the Word. He examines doctrine, profession, conduct, repentance, perseverance, and fruit. He encourages the weak believer, warns the secure professor, comforts the broken-hearted, rebukes the presumptuous, and directs all away from confidence in their own declaration to Christ as He is set forth in the gospel.
X. Faith Is Precious Because Faith Is Miraculous
The true Christian knows that faith is not common merely because professions of faith are common.
Faith is precious.
It is the gift of God.
It is produced by the same power which raised Christ from the dead.
It apprehends things invisible.
It receives a righteousness which reason could never invent.
It loves a Christ whom the bodily eye has never seen.
It submits to a Word which condemns the natural heart.
It endures when temporary affections wither.
It brings forth repentance, holiness, love, patience, zeal, humility, and perseverance.
Because faith is miraculous, the Christian does not assume that every use of evangelical language proves its presence. Those in the church may imitate the speech, customs, affections, and approved behaviours of the godly. They may enter unnoticed, as the apostles warn, not always because every one of them deliberately plans deceit, but because counterfeit religion often deceives its possessor before it deceives others.
The Christian therefore distinguishes between the show of grace and the substance of grace.
The show may be visible:
- an orthodox phrase;
- a moving testimony;
- an outward reformation;
- an admired ministry;
- a clean reputation;
- an accepted place in the congregation.
But the substance includes realities which the world cannot manufacture:
- a true apprehension of Christ;
- sorrow for sin as sin against God;
- love of holiness;
- submission to uncomfortable truth;
- hatred of secret corruption;
- joy in God Himself;
- perseverance under trial;
- sincerity without self-flattery;
- zeal governed by knowledge;
- obedience arising from gratitude rather than self-justification.
These are spiritual graces. Their fruits become visible, but their root is hidden. They cannot be produced by ecclesiastical machinery, social pressure, emotional excitement, or pastoral declaration. God must create them in the soul and cultivate them by His own power and grace through the ministry of the word.
XI. The Work of the True Minister
The true minister, therefore, knows that only God gives the increase, and labours through the appointed means for the cultivation of real grace.
He does not merely ask whether his people have made professions. He asks whether they understand the gospel they profess.
He does not merely count baptisms, memberships, decisions, attendance, and activities. He seeks his sheep’s repentance towards God and true faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ.
He does not assure men that they are going to heaven because they are useful, respectable, affectionate, loyal, or sincere according to human judgment. He directs them to the promises of God, the finished righteousness of Christ, the fruits and evidences of grace, and the testimony of the Spirit through the Word.
He does not build assurance upon the unstable foundation:
You said it; therefore it must be true.
He teaches the believer to say:
God has spoken concerning His Son. I believe that testimony through grace. The Spirit has brought forth faith, love, repentance, and obedience in me. Therefore my assurance rests not upon the magical power of my profession, but upon the promise of God in Christ, confirmed by the evidences which His grace produces.
The false minister assumes spiritual life and then occupies himself chiefly with maintaining the appearance of it.
The minister who assumes that all is well because no public scandal has appeared is not charitable at all. He is merely negligent. True pastoral love does not flatter men into hell. It does not mistake quietness for holiness, doctrinal familiarity for saving knowledge, or congregational conformity for regeneration.
The true shepherd knows that invisible realities are at stake. He therefore seeks to cultivate true belief, gospel sincerity, devotion, zeal, spiritual joy, humility, reverence, mortification, and love. He knows that these cannot be commanded into existence by his authority, yet he also knows that God ordinarily produces them through the faithful preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, prayer, discipline, and pastoral oversight.
Conclusion
The full corruption of fallen man is seen not merely in his desire to earn salvation, but in his determination to create salvation.
By free will, he makes himself the first mover of regeneration.
By works, he makes himself the author of righteousness.
By profession, he makes himself the creator of faith.
By pastoral presumption, he makes human approval the seal of heaven.
By selective obedience, he makes his own standard the measure of sanctification.
By false assurance, he makes his own word more authoritative than the Word of God.
Thus fallen man is a wizard and sorcerer in his own conceit. He stands over the emptiness of his spiritual death and says, “Let there be life.” He names his natural conviction faith, his religious excitement regeneration, his chosen morality sanctification, and his confidence assurance. Then, having spoken these names, he imagines that he has created the realities.
But no incantation of profession can raise the dead.
No human declaration can impute righteousness.
No pastoral approval can open the kingdom of heaven.
No collection of outward duties can sanctify an unclean heart.
No sincerity born merely of nature can produce gospel sincerity.
God alone justifies. God alone regenerates. God alone gives faith. God alone sanctifies. God alone knows infallibly them that are His.
The Christian therefore does not rest upon the sentence, “I have said that I am saved.” He rests upon the sentence God has pronounced in the gospel concerning His Son. He does not despise profession, but subjects profession to proof. He does not despise works, but receives them as fruits and evidences rather than causes of acceptance. He does not despise assurance, but distinguishes the assurance of faith from the presumption of the flesh.
Against every magical word of self-creation stands the living and abiding Word of God.
Man says, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.”
Christ says, “Thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
Man says, “We have Abraham to our father.”
Christ says, “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.”
Man says, “Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works?”
Christ says, “I never knew you.”
Man says, “I have faith.”
Scripture answers, “Show me thy faith.”
The controversy, therefore, is finally between two words: the self-creating word of deceived man and the life-giving Word of Almighty God.
The first can produce only presumption. And it leadeth to death.
The second raises the dead.