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The Spirit Sealing by A. W. Pink

December 30, 2009 by ADMIN

The Spirit Sealing by A. W. Pink

Closely connected with the Spirit’s work of witnessing with the Christian’s spirit that he is a child of God, is His operation in sealing.  This appears clearly from 2 Corinthians 1:19-22 and Ephesians 1:13.  The riches of the Christian are found in the promises of God, and these are all “Yea and Amen” in Christ: unless, then, our faith he built upon them, it is worthless.  It is not sufficient that the promises he sure, we must he “established” upon them.  No matter how firm the foundation (be it solid rock), unless the house he connected therewith, actually built thereon, it is insecure.  There must he a double “Amen:” one in the promises, and one in us.  There must be an echo in the Christian’s own heart: God says these things, so they must be true; faith appropriates them and says they are for me. In order to have assurance and peace it is indispensable that we be established in and on the Divine promises.

The Christian’s riches lie in the promises of God: his strength and comfort in his faith being built upon them.  Now the same Divine power which delivered the Christian from the kingdom of Satan and brought him into a state of grace, must also deliver him from the attacks of the enemy upon his faith and confirm him in a state of grace.  Only God can produce stability: only He can preserve that spark of faith amid the winds and waves of unbelief, and this He is pleased to do—“He which hath begun a good work in you will finish it” (Philippians 1:6).

Therefore are we told “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ… is God.”  Observe carefully it is not “hath stablished,” but “stablisheth” — it is a continuous process throughout the Christian’s life on earth.  In what follows the apostle shows us what this “stablishing” consists of, or how it is accomplished: “and hath anointed us… who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our heart” (2 Corinthians 1:22).  Each of these figures refers to the same thing, and has to do with the “stablishing” or assuring of our hearts.  Under the Old Testament economy, prophets, priests, and kings were authorized and confirmed in their office by “anointing” (Leviticus 8:11; 2 Samuel 5:3; 1 Kings 19:16).  Again; contracts and deeds of settlement were ratified by “sealing” (Esther 8:8; Jeremiah 32:8-10).  And a “pledge” or “earnest” secured an agreement or bargain (Genesis 38:17, 18; Deuteronomy 24:10).  Thus the sure estate of the Christian is first expressed under the general word “stablisheth,” and then it is amplified under these three figurative terms “anointed, sealed, earnest.”  It is with the second of them we are now concerned.

It may be asked, But what need has the Christian of attestation or confirmation of his state in Christ—is not faith itself sufficient proof?  Ah, often our faith and the knowledge we have of our believing in Christ is severely shaken; the activities of indwelling sin stir up a thick cloud of doubt, and Satan avails himself of this to tell us our profession is an empty one.  But in His tender grace, God has given us the Holy Spirit, and from time to time He “seals” or confirms our faith by His quickening and comforting operations.  He draws out our hearts anew unto God and enables us to cry “Abba, Father.”  He takes of the things of Christ, shows them to us, and brings us to realize that we have a personal interest in the same.

The same blessed truth is found again in Ephesians 1:13.  It is important to note the order of the three things there predicated of saints: they “heard,” they “believed,” they were “sealed:” thus the sealing is quite distinct from and follows the believing, as the believing does the hearing.

There are two things, and two only, upon which the Spirit puts His seal, namely, two mighty and efficacious works: first, the finished work of Christ, whereby He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; and second, upon His own work in the hearts of those who believe.  In legal documents, the writing always precedes the witnessing and sealing: so here, the Spirit writes God’s laws on the heart (Hebrews 8:10), and then He seals the truth and reality of His own work to the consciousness of the recipient.

The main intent of “sealing” is to assure, to certify and ratify. First, the Holy Spirit conveys an assurance of the truth of God’s promises, whereby a man’s understanding is spiritually convinced that the promises are from God.  Neither the light of reason nor the persuasive power of a fellow-mortal can bring any one to rest his heart upon the Divine promises: in order to do that, there must be the direct working of the Holy Spirit—“Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance” (1 Thessalonians 1:5): the “much assurance comes last! Second, He gives the believer an assurance of his own personal interest in those promises: and this again is something which none but the Spirit can impart.  We do not say that this sealing excludes all doubting, but it is such an assurance as prevails over doubts.

There are many uses of a “seal” such as proprietorship, identification, confirmation, secrecy, security; but in Ephesians 1:13 the immediate thing stated is the sealing of an inheritance: we have obtained an inheritance by faith, and having believed we are “sealed.”  What is the specific use of a “seal” in connection with an inheritance?  It may either be the making of the inheritance sure to a man in itself, or making the man know that it is his—assuring him of the fact. Now it cannot be the former, for nothing is needed to make Heaven sure once a sinner truly believes—the moment he lays hold of Christ, the inheritance is certain.  So it must be the latter: to make us sure, to persuade our hearts the inheritance is ours.  It is this the Spirit accomplishes in His “seal.”

The Holy Spirit is never called a “Seal” as He is an “Earnest” (2 Corinthians 5:5): it is only in relation to an act of sealing that this figure is associated with Him; thus it is a distinct operation of His “in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:22).  It is not the stamping of God’s image upon the soul (as many of the Puritans supposed) that is referred to in Ephesians 1:13, for that is done before believing, and not after.  The order of truth in that verse is very simple and decisive: in the gospel salvation is offered—it may be mine; faith accepts that offer so as to make salvation mine; the Spirit seals or confirms my heart that salvation is mine.  Thus in “sealing” the Spirit authenticates, certifies, ratifies.

Observe that He does this in His special character as “the Spirit of promise.”  He is so designated because, first, the Spirit was the great and grand promise of the New Testament (John 14:26; 15:26, etc.) as Christ was of the Old Testament. Second, because He works by means of the promises.  Third, because in His whole work He acts according to the everlasting covenant, which, as it respects the elect, is a Covenant of Promise (Ephesians 2:12).  When He seals home a sense of the love of God and gives the soul a view of its interest in Christ, it is done by means of the Word of Promise.  It was so when He “sealed” Christ (John 6:27) and consecrated Him to the work of redemption.  The Father said by an audible voice from Heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased:” this was repeating what had been pronounced in the purpose of Jehovah the Father concerning the Mediator (Isaiah 42:1); this the Holy Spirit brought home in power or “sealed” upon the mind of Jesus at that time.

The “sealing” or assuring operations of the Spirit are known to the believer in two ways.

First, inferentially: by enabling him to perceive His work in the soul and from it conclude his regeneration.  When I see smoke I must infer a fire, and when I discern spiritual graces (however feeble) I reason back to the Producer of them.  When I feel a power within combating my corruptions, and often thwarting my intentions to indulge the lusts of the flesh, I conclude it is the Spirit resisting the flesh (Galatians 5:17).

Second, intuitively: by a Divine light in the heart, by a Divine authority felt, by the love of God shed abroad therein.  If I have any hope wrought in me, either by looking to Christ’s blood or perceiving grace in me, it is by the power of the Spirit (Romans 15:13).  The Spirit brings to the mind of the Christian the sacred promises.  He shows us the good contained in them, the grace expressed in them, the perfection and freeness of Christ’s salvation declared by them; and thereby He seals them on our mind and enables us to rest thereon.  He shows us the veracity and faithfulness of God in the promises, the immutability of the everlasting covenant, the eternity of God’s love, and that He hath by two immutable things (His word and His oath), in which it is impossible for Him to lie, given a firm foundation for strong consolation to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us in the gospel (Hebrews 6:18).  It is in this way that “the God of all grace” doth, by the Spirit, “stablish, strengthen, settle us” (1 Peter 5:10).  It is by the Spirit’s operations that the Christian’s fears are quietened, his doubts subdued, and his heart assured that a “good work” (Philippians 1:6) has been Divinely begun in him. The Spirit indwelling us is Christ’s seal (mark of identification) that we are His sheep; the Spirit authenticating His own blessed work in our souls, by revealing to us our “title” to Heaven, is His sealing us.

Posted in A. W. Pink, Reforming Reflections |

God, The Author of Evangelism by R. B. Kuiper

December 30, 2009 by ADMIN

God, The Author of Evangelism by R. B. Kuiper

The Triune God as Author of Evangelism

Evangelism has its roots in eternity.

Theologians speak of the pactum salutis, made from everlasting by the three persons of the Godhead.  The term pactum salutis may be translated either covenant of re­demption or council of redemption. The writer prefers the latter rendering because the term covenant is used gener­ally in theology to designate an agreement made by God with man and historically administered.  Be that as it may, the truth of the matter is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before the world was, unitedly planned the salvation of sinners.

In that plan, God the Father was to send His Son into the world to redeem it, God the Son was voluntarily to come into the world in order to merit salvation by His obedience unto death, and God the Holy Spirit was to apply salvation to sinners by the instilling of renewing grace within them.

Scripture plainly teaches the reality of this council of redemption.  Especially in the writings of John, the Father is repeatedly said to have sent the Son. For but one example, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).  Christ spoke of a commission given Him by the Father.  For instance, toward the close of His earthly ministry He reported, as it were, to the Father: “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).  In such a pas­sage, among others, as Isaiah 53:12 prominent mention is made of the reward given by the Father to the Son for His accomplished work: “Therefore will I divide him a por­tion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the trans­gressors.”  Just as clearly does Scripture teach that the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son.  Jesus promised His disciples “the Holy Ghost, whom,” he said, “the Father will send in my name” (John 14: 26), and He described the third person of the Trinity as “the Comforter, whom I will send you from the Father” (John 15: 26).

In short, before the world was, the Triune God formed a plan of salvation to be executed in its several reciproc­ally distributed parts by the Father as Sender and Prin­cipal, by the Son as Sent, Mediator, and Sender, and by the Holy Spirit as Sent and Applier.

It follows that the Triune God is the author of salva­tion.  And, inasmuch as He has executed in time the eternal plan of salvation, has revealed its execution in the gospel, and has ordained the gospel as the indispensable means of salvation, it is no less clear that the Triune God is the author of evangelism.

The Father as Author of Evangelism

God the Father is the author of evangelism.  He conceived evangelism in eternity.  Likewise in eternity He commissioned the Son to merit salvation for sinners by His substitutionary death on the accursed cross and by His rendering to the Father on behalf of sinners that perfect obedience the reward of which is eternal life.

He inspired prophets of old to foretell the coming of the Son of God in the flesh and to predict that through suffer­ing He would enter into His glory (Luke 24:26).  Through the evangelical prophet Isaiah, He depicted the suffering “servant of Jehovah” (Isa. 53), issued the universal gospel invitation, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isa. 45:22), and foretold the glorious day when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9).

He ordained the bloody sacrifices of the old dispensa­tion to foreshadow the Son’s saving sacrifice on Calvary’s cross.  “When the fulness of the time was come” he “sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law”, in order that His people “might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4: 4, 5).

At the beginning of the God-man’s public ministry the Father sent down upon Him the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove (Luke 3:22) and thus qualified Him for his media­tonal labors.  He anointed Him “to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18,19).

He gave, He surrendered, He sacrificed, His only be­gotten Son in order that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have life everlasting (John 3:16).

He sustained His Son in bearing the inestimable burden of the wrath of the holy and just God against the sin of all mankind so that, when the Son was forsaken of God and in that forsakenness suffered the anguish of very hell, He still clung to the Father as “my God” (Matt. 27:46).

By raising the Son from the dead the Father put the stamp of His unqualified approval on the finished work of the Son, for He was raised, not merely that we might be justified, but because we had been justified by His vicari­ous death (Rom. 4:25).

Because the Son “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” the Father “hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:8-11).

At Pentecost God the Father imparted to the church the power of the Holy Spirit in order that it might witness of the things of Christ “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The Son as Author of Evangelism

God the Son is the author of evangelism.  Although “being in the form of God,” He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” yet, voluntarily “he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2: 6, 7), in order that He might accomplish the saving work which the Father had commissioned Him to do.  At His coming into the world He said: “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God” (Heb.10:7).

He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8).  Thus dying the death of an accursed one, He redeemed from the curse of God such as had not continued in all things which are written in the book of the law (Gal. 3:10, 13).   By so doing He brought into being the very heart of the gospel. As “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1: 29) He created the evangel.

He proclaimed the gospel through prophets of old in anticipation of His atoning death.  They were but His mouthpieces.  It was He who went and preached to Noah’s disobedient contemporaries when the longsuffering of God waited while the ark was being prepared (1 Peter 3:18-20).  When holy men of old “prophesied of the grace that should come,” it was “the Spirit of Christ” within them which “testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:10, 11).

In the days of His flesh, He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of God (Matt. 13), of the love of the heavenly Father for His wayward child (Luke 15:11-24), of “the Son of man,” the king, by appointment of the Ancient of days, of a universal and everlasting kingdom (Dan. 7:13, 14), who condescended “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10)—even publicans and sinners, the dregs of society.  And, although He bade the twelve, whom He sent forth to preach the gospel, to restrict their evangelistic activity to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6), He Himself brought the gospel to Samaritans (John 4).

Having died and risen again and thus ushered in a new dispensation, He charged His apostles and the church of all ages: “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”  And for their encouragement in the performance of so colossal a task He added: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:18-20).

It was the Son of God who, at the gate of Damascus, stopped Saul of Tarsus, turned him from a persecutor of the church into the greatest Christian missionary of all time, and said concerning him: “He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15).

At Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out.  He worked mightily both in those who spoke and in those that heard.  The disciples now received power to be Christ’s witnesses throughout the world (Acts 1:8).  And of those who heard, some three thousand were converted and baptized.  It was the Son of God who had merited the Spirit for the church and now poured Him out upon the church.  Said Peter in his Pentecostal sermon: “Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

Every preacher of the gospel today speaks in Christ’s name; rather, Christ preaches through him as his am­bassador.  All evangelists can say with Paul: “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Truly, “the Son of God, out of the whole human race, from the beginning to the end of the world, gathers, de­fends, and preserves for Himself, by His Spirit and Word, in the unity of the faith, a church chosen to everlasting life” (The Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day XXI, Answer 54).

In conclusion, let it be stressed that the Son of God not merely stands at the head of that class of men who are known as missionaries or evangelists, but that as mission­ary or evangelist, He is in a class entirely by himself.  He is incomparable.  He created the gospel.  He Himself is the central theme of the gospel.  In the final analysis, He is the one and only preacher of the gospel.  He applies the gospel efficaciously by the Holy Spirit.  And He Himself has no need of the gospel.  All that can be said of the Son of God alone.

The Holy Spirit as Author of Evangelism

God the Holy Spirit is the author of evangelism.  When holy men of old foretold the birth, the ministry, the death, and the resurrection of the Savior and com­mitted their prophecies to writing, so that the Old Testa­ment as well as the New is gospel, they were “moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21).

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowered a little band of insignificant, ignorant, and feeble, but believing, men and women to undertake the stupendous task of conquering the world for Christ, their Lord.  The power of the Spirit was appropriately symbolized by two of the greatest forces of nature–-wind and fire.  That power, let it be remem­bered, has never departed from the church and never will depart, for the Spirit was given, said Christ, “that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:16).  A second Pentecost is unthinkable.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is as unique and once-for-all an event as was the incarnation of the Son of God.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the church became a witnessing church. Not only was cowardly Peter converted into a courageous preacher, every disciple be­came an evangelist.  “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4).

There were present men “out of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), both “Jews and proselytes” (Acts 2:10).  Through the operation of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, some three thousand of them were converted.  These were received by baptism into the Christian church, as the first-fruits of the bountiful harvest that was to be gathered into the church in centuries to come out of “every kindred and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).


The Holy Spirit calls evangelists to their work and guides them in its performance. In the apostolic age, He called and guided them by special revelations.  To the church at Antioch in Syria, “The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2).  And Luke relates that Paul and his helpers “were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia” and that “the Spirit suffered them not” to go into Bithynia, but by a supernatural vision directed them to Macedonia (Acts 16: 6-9).  Now that special reve­lation is complete in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, the manner of the Spirit’s calling and leading is different; yet they are not a whit less real.  He calls and leads by divine providence and by His gracious influence on the minds and hearts of those whom He would have sow the seed of the gospel and bring in the harvest.  Jesus commanded the seventy, whom He sent into every city and place which He planned to visit: “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:1, 2).  “Now the Lord is that Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17).

The Holy Spirit opens doors for the spread of the gospel. By a marvelous providence He guided Paul to Rome, the capital of the pagan world, where, though a prisoner, he preached the kingdom of God and taught those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ “with all confidence, no man forbidding him” (Acts 28:31).  In consequence, members even of Caesar’s household were brought to faith in Christ (Phil 4:22).  Those who proclaim the gospel may be bound, and often are, “but the Word of God is not bound” (2 Tim. 2:9) because the Spirit of God cannot be bound.  And “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Prov. 21:1).  By His Spirit, God often bends the wills of His bitterest foes to do His bidding so that the wrath of man is made to praise him (Ps. 76:10).

As the Spirit of truth, the third person of the Holy Trinity preserves the gospel. But for this activity of His, the gospel would long ago have been lost.  The church itself would have destroyed it.  The history of the church is replete with corruptions and rejections of the evangel.  But the Spirit, who was poured out upon it at Pentecost, was to abide with it and in it for ever (John 14:16).  For that reason, and only for that reason, has the church con­tinued, and will it continue, as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).  To the end of time, there will be a body of true believers proclaiming the true evangel.

Of the many who received the gospel as proclaimed by Peter at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost not one was converted by the apostle’s eloquence.  Nor was anyone converted by the exercise of his own unregenerate will.  Everyone that received the Word did so because of the operation within him of the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit.  Likewise at Philippi Lydia gave heed to the things spoken by Paul only because the Lord opened her heart (Acts 16:14).  He did it by the working of His Spirit.  In all history, every true convert to Christianity was converted by the regenerating grace of the Spirit of God and the efficacious application of the evangel by the same Spirit.  “No one can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor. 12: 3).  Here, too, the divine dictum applies: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zech. 4:6).

The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the author both of salvation and of the gospel of salvation.  He is indeed the author of evangelism.

Edited and excerpted from R. B. Kuiper, God-Centered Evangelism (Baker, 1961; Banner of Truth, 1966, 1978).  For copies of this excellent book on evangelism, please contact Banner of Truth Trust.

Posted in R. B. Kuiper, Reforming Reflections |

The Resurrection Credible by C. H. Spurgeon

December 30, 2009 by ADMIN

The Resurrection Credible by C. H. Spurgeon

“Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” — Acts 26:8.

Concerning the souls of our believing friends who have departed this life we suffer no distress, we feel sure that they are where Jesus is, and behold his glory, according to our Lord’s own memorable prayer.  We know but very little of the disembodied state, but we know quite enough to rest certain beyond all doubt that —

“They are supremely blest,

Have done with sin,

and care, and woe,

And with their Savior rest.”

Our main trouble is about their bodies, which we have committed to the dark and lonesome grave.  We cannot reconcile ourselves to the facts that their dear faces are being stripped of all their beauty by the fingers of decay, and that all the insignia of their manhood should be fading into corruption.  It seems hard that the hands and feet, and all the goodly fabric of their noble forms, should be dissolved into dust, and broken into an utter ruin.  We cannot stand at the grave without tears; even the perfect Man could not restrain his weeping at Lazarus’ tomb.  It is a sorrowful thought that our friends are dead, nor can we ever regard the grave with love.  We cannot say that we take pleasure in the catacomb and the vault.  We still regret, and feel it natural to do so, that so dreadful a ban has fallen upon our race as that it should be “appointed unto all men once to die.”  God sent it as a penalty, and we cannot rejoice in it.

The glorious doctrine of the resurrection is intended to take away this cause of sorrow.  We need have no trouble about the body, any more than we have concerning the soul.  Faith being exercised upon immortality relieves us of all trembling as to the spirits of the just; and the same faith, if exercised upon resurrection, will with equal certainty efface all hopeless grief with regard to the body; for, though apparently destroyed, the body will live again — it has not gone to annihilation.  That very frame which we lay in the dust shall but sleep there for a while, and, at the trump of the archangel, it shall awaken in superior beauty, clothed with attributes unknown to it while here.  The Lord’s love to his people is a love towards their entire manhood, he chose them not as disembodied spirits, but as men and women arrayed in flesh and blood.  The love of Jesus Christ towards his chosen is not an affection for their better nature merely, but towards that also which we are wont to think their inferior part; for in his book all their members were written, he keepeth all their bones, and the very hairs of their head are all numbered.  Did he not assume our perfect manhood?

He took into union with his Deity a human soul, but he also assumed a human body; and in that fact he gave us evidence of his affinity to our perfect manhood, to our flesh, and to our blood, as well as to our mind and to our spirit.  Moreover, our Redeemer has perfectly ransomed both soul and body.  It was not partial redemption which our kinsman effected for us.  We know that our Redeemer liveth, not only with respect to our spirit, but with regard to our body; so that though the worm shall devour its skin and flesh, yet shall it rise again because he has redeemed it from the power of death, and ransomed it from the prison of the grave.

The whole manhood of the Christian has already been sanctified.  It is not merely that with his spirit he serves his God, but he yields his members to be instruments unto righteousness to the glory of his heavenly father.  “Know ye not,” says the apostle, “that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost,’ surely that which has been a temple of the Holy Ghost shall not be ultimately destroyed.  It may be taken down, as the tabernacle was in the wilderness, but taken down to be put up again: or, to use another form of the same figure, the tabernacle may go, but only that the temple may follow.  “We know that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”  My brethren, it would not be a complete victory over sin and Satan, if the Savior left a part of his people in the grave; it would not look as if he had destroyed all the worlds of the devil if he only emancipated their spirits.  There shall not be a bone, nor a piece of a bone, of any one of Christ’s people left in the charnel house at the last.  Death shall not have a solitary trophy to show: his prison-house shall be utterly rifled of all the spoil which he has gathered from our humanity.  The Lord Jesus in all things shall have the pre-eminence, and even as to our materialism he shall vanquish death and the grave, leading our captivity captive.  It is a joy to think that, as Christ has redeemed the entire man, and sanctified the entire man, and will be honored in the salvation of the entire man, so our complete manhood shall have it in its power to glorify him.

The hands with which we sinned shall be lifted in eternal adoration; the eyes which have gazed on evil shall behold the King in his beauty.  Not merely shall the mind which now loves the Lord be perpetually knit to him, and the spirit which contemplates him will delight for ever in him, and be in communion with him; but this very body which has been a clog and hindrance to the spirit, and been an arch rebel against the sovereignty of Christ, shall yield him homage with voice, and hand, and brain, and ear, and eye.  We look to the time of resurrection for the accomplishment of our adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.

How, this being our hope, though we believe and rejoice in it in a measure, we have, nevertheless, to confess that, sometimes, questions suggest themselves, and the evil heart of unbelief cries, “Can it be true?  Is it possible?”  At such times the question of our text is exceedingly needful, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?”

How are we to meet the demands of the case?

We would REMOVE THE DIFFICULTY.  We make no empty boast, the matter is simple.  Read the text again with due emphasis, and it is done.  “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that GOD should raise the dead?”  It might seem incredible that the dead should be raised, but why should it seem incredible that GOD, the Almighty, the Infinite, should raise the dead?  Grant a God, and no difficulties remain.  Grant that God is, and that he is omnipotent: grant that he has said the dead shall be raised, and belief is no longer hard but inevitable.  Impossibility and incredulity — both vanish in the presence of God.

I believe this is the only way in which the difficulties of faith should be met: it is of no use to run to reason for weapons against unbelief, the Word of God is the true defense of faith.  It is foolish to build with wood and hay when solid stones may be had.  If my heavenly Father makes a promise, or reveals a truth, am I not to believe him till I have asked the philosophers about it?  Is God’s word only true when finite reason approves of it?  After all, is man’s judgment the ultimatum, and is God’s word only to be taken when we can see for ourselves, and therefore have no need of revelation at all?  Far from us be this spirit.  Let God be true, and every man a liar.  We are not staggered when the wise men mock at us, but we fall back upon “thus saith the Lord.”  One word from God outweighs for us a library of human lore.  To the Christian, God’s spoken word stands in the stead of all reason.  Our logic is, “God has said it,” and this is our rhetoric too.  If God declares that the dead shall be raised, it is not a thing incredible to us.

Difficulty is not in the dictionary of the Godhead.  Is anything too hard for the Lord?  Heap up the difficulties, if you like, make the doctrine more and more hard for reason to compass, so long as it contains no self-evident contradiction and inconsistency, we rejoice in the opportunity to believe great things concerning a Great God.

When Paul uttered our text he was speaking to a Jew, he was addressing Agrippa, one to whom he could say, “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?  I know that thou believest!”  It was, therefore, good reasoning to use with Agrippa, to say, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?”  For first, as a Jew, Agrippa had the testimony of Job — “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.”

He had, also, the testimony of David, who, in the sixteenth Psalm, says, “My flesh also shall rest in hope.”  He had the testimony of Isaiah in the twenty-sixth chapter and the nineteenth verse, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.  Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

He had the testimony of Daniel in his twelfth chapter, second and third verses, where the prophet says, “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”  And then again, in Hosea 8:14, Agrippa had another testimony where the Lord declares “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”  Thus God had plainly promised resurrection in the Old Testament Scriptures, and that fact should be quite enough for Agrippa.  If the Lord has said it, it is no longer doubtful.

To us as Christians there has been granted yet fuller evidence.  Remember how our Lord has spoken concerning resurrection: with no bated breath has he declared his intention to raise the dead.  Remarkable is that passage in John 5:28, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”  And so in chapter 6:40, “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The Holy Ghost has spoken the same truth by the apostles.  In that precious and most blessed eighth chapter of the Romans, we have a testimony in the eleventh verse, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”  I read you just now the passage from the first of Thessalonians, which is very full indeed, where we are bidden not to sorrow as those that are without hope; and you have in the Philippians the third chapter and twenty-first verse, another proof, “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”  I scarcely need remind you of that grand chapter of massive argument, Corinthians the fifteenth.  Beyond all doubt the testimony of the Holy Ghost is that the dead shall rise; and granted that there is an Almighty God, we find no difficulty in accepting the doctrine and entertaining the blessed hope.

At the same time it may be well to look around us, and note what helps the Lord has appointed for our faith.  I am quite certain, dear friends, that there are many wonders in the world which we should not have believed by mere report, if we had not come across them by experience and observation.  The electric telegraph, though it be but an invention of man, would have been as hard to believe in a thousand years ago as the resurrection of the dead is now.  Who in the days of packhorses would have believed in flashing a message from England to America?  When our missionaries in tropical countries have told the natives of the formation of ice, and that persons could walk across frozen water, and of ships that have been surrounded by mountains of ice in the open sea, the water becoming solid and hard as a rock all around them, the natives have refused to believe such absurd reports.  Everything is wonderful till we are used to it, and resurrection owes the incredible portion of its marvel to the fact of our never having come across it in our observation — that is all.  After the resurrection, we shall regard it as a divine display of power as familiar to us as creation and providence now are.  I have no doubt we shall adore and bless God, and wonder at resurrection forever, but it will be in the same sense in which every devout mind wonders at creation now.  We shall grow accustomed to this new work of God when we have entered upon our longer life.  We were only born but yesterday, and have seen little as yet.  God’s works require far more than our few earthy years of observation, and when we have entered into eternity, are out of our minority, and have come of age, that which astounds us now will have become a familiar theme for praise.

Will resurrection be a greater wonder than creation?  You believe that God spoke the world out of nothing.  He said, “Let it be,” and the world was.  To create out of nothing is quite as marvelous as to call together scattered particles and refashion them into what they were before.  Either work requires omnipotence, but if there be any choice between them, the resurrection is the easier work of the two.  If it did not happen so often, the birth of every child into the world would astound us.  We should consider a birth to be, as indeed it is, a most transcendent manifestation of divine power.  It is only because we know it and see it so commonly that we do not behold the wonder-working hand of God in human births and in our continued existence.  The thing, I say, only staggers us because we have not become familiar with it as yet: there are other deeds of God which are quite as marvelous.

Remember, too, that there is one thing which, though you have not seen, you have received on credible evidence, which is a part of historic truth, namely, that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.  He is to you the cause of your resurrection, the type of it, the foretaste of it, the guarantee of it.  As surely as he rose you shall rise. He proved the resurrection possible by rising, nay, he proved it certain because he is the representative man; and, in rising, he rose for all who are represented by him.  “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”  The rising of our Lord from the tomb should forever sweep away every doubt as to the rising of his people.  “For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised,” but because he lives, we shall live also.

Remember also, my brethren and sisters, that you who are Christians have already experienced within yourselves as great a work as the resurrection, for you have risen from the dead as to your innermost nature.  You were dead in trespasses and sins, and you have been quickened into newness of life.  Of course the unconverted here will see nothing in this.  The unregenerate man will even ask me what this means, and to him it can be no argument, for it is a matter of experience which one man cannot explain to his fellow.  To know it ye must yourselves be born again.  But, believers, ye have already passed through a resurrection from the grave of sin, and from the rottenness and corruption of evil passions and impure desires, and this resurrection God has wrought in you by a power equal to that which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.  To you the quickening of your spiritual nature is an assured proof that the Lord will also quicken your mortal bodies.

The whole matter is this—that our persuasion of the certainty of the general resurrection rests upon faith in God and his word.  It is both idle and needless to look elsewhere.  If men will not believe the declaration of God, they must be left to give an account to him of their unbelief.  My hearer, if thou art one of God’s elect, thou wilt believe thy God, for God gives faith to all his chosen.  If thou dost reject the divine testimony, thou givest evidence that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and thou wilt perish in it unless grace prevents.  The gospel and the doctrine of the resurrection were opened up to men in all their glory to put a division between the precious and the vile.  “He that is of God,” saith the apostle, “heareth God’s words.”

True faith is the visible mark of secret election.  He that believeth in Christ gives evidence of God’s grace towards him, but he that believes not gives sure proof that he has not received the grace of God.  “But ye believe not,” said Christ, “because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”  Therefore this truth and other Christian truths are to be held up, maintained, and delivered fully to the whole of mankind to put a division between them, to separate the Israelites from the Egyptians, the seed of the woman from the seed of the serpent.  Those whom God has chosen are known by their believing in what God has said; while those who remain unbelieving perish in their sin, condemned by the truth which they wilfully reject.

Taken from a sermon delivered on August 25th, 1872.

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon, Reforming Reflections |

Lessons from Jacob’s Prayer (Genesis 32:9-12) by A. W. Pink

December 30, 2009 by ADMIN

There is not a little in the prayer of Jacob which is worthy of close attention, the more so as it was a prevailing prayer, and that it is the first recorded real prayer in the Bible.

“And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee; I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” (Genesis 32:9-12.)

First, the God to whom he prayed.  He approached God not merely as God the Creator, but as “the God of his father Abraham and the God of his father Isaac.”  It was God in Covenant relationship. This was laying hold of the Divine faithfulness; it was the prayer of faith.  It means much to approach God thus; to appeal to Him on the ground of a sure and established relationship.  We come before God not as the God of our forefathers, but as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore our “God and Father.”  It is as we plead this relationship He is pleased to bless us.

Second, Jacob cast himself on the sure Word of Jehovah, pleading before Him His promise.  He humbly reminded the Lord how He had said, “Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.”  Here again we do well to learn from Jacob.  The Scriptures contain many promises given to believers in general, and it is our individual privilege to plead them before God in particular, the more so when, like our patriarch, we encounter difficulties and opposition in the way wherein He has directed us to walk.  Jacob pleaded a definite promise; so must we.  In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we read, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”  Come to the Throne of Grace at the beginning of each day, reverently and believingly remind the Lord of this declaration of His, and then say with one of old, “Do as Thou hast said” (2 Samuel 7:25). Again, we read in Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply all your need.”  Tell the Lord of this in the hour of emergency, and say, “Lord, do as Thou hast said.”

Third, Jacob fully acknowledged his own utter lack of desert [worthiness]. He confessed that the Lord was in no wise his debtor.  He took a lowly place before the Most High.  He owned that “he was not worthy of the least of all God’s mercies.”  Mark this well, dear reader, for very little teaching is heard in these days that leads to self-abasement.  It has become a rarity to hear a saint of God confessing his unworthiness.  There is so much said about living on a high plane of spirituality, so much Laodicean boasting, that many are afraid to acknowledge before other believers that they are “not worthy of the least of God’s mercies.”  One sometimes wonders if this is the chief reason why so few of us have any real power in prayer today.  Certain it is that we must get down into the dust before God if we would receive His blessing.  We must come before Him as empty-handed supplicants, if He is to fill us.  We must own our ill deserts, and be ready to receive from Him on the ground of grace alone if we are to have our prayers answered.

Finally, notice the motive which actuated Jacob in presenting the petition he did.  That for which he made request was expressed as follows: “Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.”  At first glance, it would appear that our patriarch was moved by nothing higher than the natural affections of the human heart.  It would seem that this was the petition of a kind husband and a tender father.  But as we re-read this request of Jacob in the light of the closing words of his prayer, we shall discover he was prompted by a far worthier and higher motive.  He at once added, “And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.”  In this conclusion to the prayer, we may see not only a further pleading of God’s promise, but an eye to God’s glory. Jehovah had promised to make Jacob’s seed as the sand of the sea, but if his wife and children were slain how then could God’s promise be fulfilled!  Now it is natural, and by no means wrong, for us to be deeply concerned over the salvation of our loved ones; but our chief concern must center itself not in the well being of those who are united to us by the ties of blood or intimate friendship, but for the glory of God.  “Whatsoever ye do (in prayer, as in everything else) do all to the glory of God” — to this everything else must be subordinated.  Here, then, is a searching test: Why am I so anxious to see certain ones saved? — Simply because they are near and dear to me?  Or that God may be glorified and Christ magnified in their salvation?  May Divine grace purge us of selfishness and purify our motives in prayer.  And may God use these few words and cause both writer and reader to cry, with ever increasing fervor, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Editing and format by Jim Ehrhard, Teaching Resources International, 2001. You are free to make copies to be distributed freely.

Posted in A. W. Pink, Reforming Reflections |

Charity and Self-Love by Jonathan Edwards

December 30, 2009 by ADMIN

Charity . . . seeketh not her own. 1 Corinthians 13:5

The doctrine of these words plainly is, that the spirit of charity, or christian love, is the opposite of a selfish spirit.

The ruin that the fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in his losing the nobler and more benevolent principles of his nature, and falling wholly under the power and government of self-love.  Before, and as God created him, he was exalted, and noble, and generous; but now he is debased, and ignoble, and selfish.  Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness and expandedness, to an exceeding smallness and contractedness; and as in other respects, so especially in this.  Before, his soul was under the government of that noble principle of divine love, whereby it was enlarged to the comprehension of all his fellow creatures and their welfare.  And not only so, but it was not confined within such narrow limits as the bounds of the creation, but went forth in the exercise of holy love to the Creator, and abroad upon the infinite ocean of good, and was, as it were, swallowed up by it, and became one with it.

But so soon as he had transgressed against God, these noble principles were immediately lost, and all this excellent enlargedness of man’s soul was gone; and thenceforward he himself shrank, as it were, into a little space, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of all things else.  Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken, and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself, and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles and feelings.  Self-love became absolute master of his soul, and the more noble and spiritual principles of his being took wings and flew away.  But God, in mercy to miserable man, entered on the work of redemption, and, by the glorious gospel of his Son, began the work of bringing the soul of man out of its confinement and contractedness, and back again to those noble and divine principles by which it was animated and governed at first.  It is through the cross of Christ that he is doing this; for our union with Christ gives us participation in his nature.  And so Christianity restores an excellent enlargement, and extensiveness, and liberality to the soul, and again possesses it with that divine love or charity that we read of in the text, whereby it again embraces its fellow creatures, and is devoted to and swallowed up in the Creator.  Thus charity so partakes of the glorious fullness of the divine nature, that she “seeketh not her own,” or is contrary to selfish spirit.

In dwelling on this thought, I would, first, show the nature of that selfishness of which charity is the opposite; then how charity is opposed to it; and then some of the evidence in support of the doctrine stated.

I. The nature of the selfishness of which charity is the opposite. — And here I would observe,

1. Negatively, that charity, or the spirit of Christian love, is not contrary to all self-love.

It is not a thing contrary to Christianity that a man should love himself, or, which is the same thing, should love his own happiness.  If Christianity did indeed tend to destroy a man’s love to himself, and to his own happiness, it would therein tend to destroy the very spirit of humanity.  But the very announcement of the gospel, as a system of peace on earth and goodwill toward men (Luke 2:14), shows that it is not only not destructive of humanity, but in the highest degree promotive of its spirit.  That a man should love his own happiness, is as necessary to his nature as the faculty of the will is.  It is impossible that such a love should be destroyed in any other way than by destroying his being.  The saints love their own happiness.  Yea, those that are perfect in happiness, the saints and angels in heaven, love their own happiness; otherwise that happiness which God hath given them would be no happiness to them; for that which anyone does not love he cannot enjoy any happiness in.

That to love ourselves is not unlawful, is evident also from the fact, that the law of God makes self-love a rule and measure by which our love to others should be regulated.  Thus Christ commands (Mat. 19:19), “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” which certainly supposes that we may, and must, love ourselves.  It is not said more than thyself, but as thyself.  But we are commanded to love our neighbor next to God; and therefore we are to love ourselves with a love next to that which we should exercise toward God himself.  And the same appears also from the fact, that the Scriptures, from one end of the Bible to the other, are full of motives that are set forth for the very purpose of working on the principle of self-love.  Such are all the promises and threatenings of the Word of God, its calls and invitations, its counsels to seek our own good, and its warnings to beware of misery.  These things can have no influence on us in any other way than as they tend to work upon our hopes or fears.  For to what purpose would it be to make any promise of happiness, or hold forth any threatening of misery, to him that has no love for the former or dread of the latter?  Or what reason can there be in counseling him to seek the one, or warning him to avoid the other?  Thus it is plain, negatively, that charity, or the spirit of Christian love, is not contrary to all self-love.  But I remark still further,

2. Affirmatively, that the selfishness which charity, or a Christian spirit, is contrary to is only an inordinate self–love.

Here, however, the question arises—in what does this inordinateness consist?  This is a point that needs to be well stated and clearly settled; for the refutation of many scruples and doubts that persons often have, depends upon it.  And therefore I answer,

First, that the inordinateness of self-love does not consist in our love of our own happiness being, absolutely considered, too great in degree.

I do not suppose it can be said of any that their love to their own happiness, if we consider that love absolutely and not comparatively, can be in too high a degree, or that it is a thing that is liable either to increase or diminution.  For I apprehend that self-love, in this sense, is not a result of the fall, but is necessary, and what belongs to the nature of all intelligent beings, and that God has made it alike in all; and that saints, and sinners, and all alike, love happiness, and have the same unalterable and instinctive inclination to desire and seek it.  The change that takes place in a man, when he is converted and sanctified, is not that his love for happiness is diminished, but only that it is regulated with respect to its exercises and influence, and the courses and objects it leads to.  Who will say that the happy souls in heaven do not love happiness as truly as the miserable spirits in hell?  If their love of happiness is diminished by their being made holy, then that will diminish their happiness itself; for the less anyone loves happiness, the less he relishes it, and, consequently, is the less happy.

When God brings a soul out of a miserable state and condition into a happy state, by conversion, he gives him happiness that before he had not, but he does not at the same time take away any of his love of happiness.  And so, when a saint increases in grace, he is made still more happy than he was before; but his love of happiness, and his relish of it, do not grow less as his happiness itself increases, for that would be to increase his happiness one way, and to diminish it another.  But in every case in which God makes a miserable soul happy, or a happy soul still more happy, he continues the same love of happiness that existed before.  And so, doubtless, the saints ought to have as much of a principle of love to their own happiness, or love to themselves, which is the same thing, as the wicked have.  So that, if we consider men’s love of themselves or of their own happiness absolutely, it is plain that the inordinateness of self-love does not consist in its being in too great a degree, because it is alike in all.  But I remark,

Secondly, that the inordinateness of self-love, wherein a corrupt selfishness does consist, lies in two things: — in its being too great comparatively; and in placing our happiness in that which is confined to self. In the first place, the degree of self-love may be too great comparatively, and so the degree of its influence is inordinate.  Though the degree of men’s love of their own happiness, taken absolutely, may in all be the same, yet the proportion that their love of self bears to their love for others may not be the same.  If we compare a man’s love of himself with his love for others, it may be said that he loves himself too much — that is, in proportion too much.  And though this may be owing to a defect of love to others, rather than to an excess of love to himself, yet self-love, by this excess in its proportion, itself becomes inordinate in this respect, viz. that it becomes inordinate in its influence and government of the man.  For though the principle of self-love, in itself considered, is not at all greater than if there is a due proportion of love to God and to fellow creatures with it, yet, the proportion being greater, its influence and government of the man become greater; and so its influence becomes inordinate by reason of the weakness or absence of other love that should restrain or regulate that influence.

To illustrate this, we may suppose the case of a servant in a family, who was formerly kept in the place of a servant, and whose influence in family affairs was not inordinate while his master’s strength was greater than his; and yet, if afterward the master grows weaker and loses his strength, and the rest of the family lose their former power, though the servant’s strength be not at all increased, yet, the proportion of his strength being increased, his influence may become inordinate, and, from being in subjection and a servant, he may become master m that house. And so self-love becomes inordinate. Before the fall, man loved himself, or his own happiness, as much as after the fall; but then, a superior principle of divine love had the throne, and was of such strength, that it wholly regulated and directed self-love.  But since the fall, the principle of divine love has lost its strength, or rather is dead; so that self-love, continuing in its former strength, and having no superior principle to regulate it, becomes inordinate in its influence, and governs where it should be subject, and only a servant.  Self-love, then, may become inordinate in its influence by being comparatively too great, either by love to God and to fellow creatures being too small, as it is in the saints, who in this world have great remaining corruption, or by its being none at all, as is the case with those who have no divine love in their hearts.  Thus the inordinateness of self-love, with respect to the degree of it, is not as it is considered absolutely, but comparatively, or with respect to the degree of its influence. In some respects wicked men do not love themselves enough — not so much as the godly do; for they do not love the way of their own welfare and happiness; and in this sense it is sometimes said of the wicked that they hate themselves, though, in another sense, they love self too much.

It is further true, in the second place, that self-love, or a man’s love to his own happiness, may be inordinate, in placing that happiness in things that are confined to himself.  In this case, the error is not so much in the degree of his love to himself as it is in the channel in which it flows.  It is not in the degree in which he loves his own happiness, but in his placing his happiness where he ought not, and in limiting and confining his love.  Some, although they love their own happiness, do not place that happiness in their own confined good, or in that good which is limited to themselves, but more in the common good — in that which is the good of others, or in the good to be enjoyed in and by others.  A man’s love of his own happiness, when it runs in this last channel, is not what is called selfishness, but is the very opposite of it.  But there are others who, in their love to their own happiness, place that happiness in good things that are confined or limited to themselves, to the exclusion of others.  And this is selfishness.  This is the thing most clearly and directly intended by that self-love which the Scripture condemns.  And when it is said that charity seeketh not her own, we are to understand it of her own private good — good limited to herself.  The expression, “her own,” is a phrase of appropriation, and properly carries in its signification the idea of limitation to self.  And so the like phrase in Phil. 2:21, that “all seek their own,” carries the idea of confined and self-appropriated good, or the good that a man has singly and to himself, and in which he has no communion or partnership with another, but which he has so circumscribed and limited to himself as to exclude others.  And so the expression is to be understood in 2 Tim. 3:2, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves;” for the phrase is of the most confined signification, limited to self alone, and excluding all others.

A man may love himself as much as one can, and may be, in the exercise of a high degree of love to his own happiness, ceaselessly longing for it, and yet he may so place that happiness, that, in the very act of seeking it, he may be in the high exercise of love to God; as, for example, when the happiness that he longs for, is to enjoy God, or to behold his glory, or to hold communion with him.  Or a man may place his happiness in glorifying God.  It may seem to him the greatest happiness that he can conceive of, to give God glory, as he may do; and he may long for this happiness.  And in longing for it, he loves that which he looks on as his happiness; for if he did not love what in this case he esteemed his happiness, he would not long for it; and to love his happiness is to love himself.  And yet, in the same act, he loves God, because he places his happiness in God; for nothing can more properly be called love to any being or thing, than to place our happiness in it.  And so persons may place their happiness considerably in the good of others — their neighbors, for instance — and, desiring the happiness that consists in seeking their good, they may, in seeking it, love themselves and their own happiness.  And yet this is not selfishness, because it is not a confined self-love; but the individual’s self-love flows out in such a channel as to take in others with himself.  The self that he loves is, as it were, enlarged and multiplied, so that, in the very acts in which he loves himself, he loves others also.  And this is the Christian spirit, the excellent and noble spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is the nature of that divine love, or Christian charity, that is spoken of in the text.  And a Christian spirit is contrary to that selfish spirit which consists in the self-love that goes out after such objects as are confined and limited — such as a man’s worldly wealth, or the honor that consists in a man’s being set up higher in the world than his neighbors, or his own worldly ease and convenience, or his pleasing and gratifying his own bodily appetites and lusts.

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Posted in Jonathan Edwards, Reforming Reflections |

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