Heavenly Springs

Holding Fast The Doctrines of Grace

Confessing Sin

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For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. – (Psalm 51:3-5 ESV)

“We are often like Adam. He sinned along with his wife in eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But when God came to him in the garden demanding, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (Gen. 3:11), Adam did not confess his transgression. Instead he began to shift the blame to other people and eventually to God himself. He said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (v. 12).

It was the same with Cain. Cain killed his brother. But when God came demanding, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain answered, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9).

And what about Abraham? Abraham lied about his wife, Sarah, saying she was his sister, because he feared that the men of the Negev would kill him for her. When he was found out he excused himself, saying that it was not an outright lie: “Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife” (Gen. 20:12).

This is not how David prayed. David acknowledged his sin, laying it out and confessing it utterly. This is the significance of verse 4: “Against you, you only, have I sinned.” Many commentators have pointed out that this was not strictly true. David had sinned against Bathsheba and against Uriah, her husband. He sinned against the armies of Israel, who lost their battles during the time of David’s sin. He sinned against the nation. But in the sight of the perfection and majesty of God, David knew that these wrongs fell into relative insignificance. The greatest of all problems with sin is that it is an offense against God. It would make a vast difference in many lives if people could only see this. David did see it. Therefore, he did not try to cover sin up, but confessed it, saying, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”

Another aspect of David’s confession is his acknowledgment that it is not only that he sinned once, but that his whole nature was permeated with sin: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (v. 5). This verse says nothing about sex being wrong. This is the way it has been interpreted in some sectors of the Roman Catholic Church as the result of an asceticism that became a goal of Catholic piety during the early and late Middle Ages. But this is not what David is talking about. He is saying that there was never a moment in his life when he was free from sin and no part of his being escaped sin’s contamination. It is the same with us. By ourselves we have never done anything to please God; everything we have done is contaminated by sin. But God can cleanse us. He can begin a work that will enable us to live victoriously.”

While I regarded God as a tyrant, I thought sin a trifle; but when I knew him to be my father, then I mourned that I could ever have kicked against him. When I thought that God was hard, I found it easy to sin; but when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against one who loved me so, and sought my good. – Charles Spurgeon

Boice, J. M. (1998). Genesis: An expositional commentary (928–929). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Encouragement to Christians who fail in obedience

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“For encouragement to regenerate persons. Though you fail in your obedience, and cannot keep the moral law exactly, yet be not discouraged.

What comfort may be given to a regenerate person under the failures and imperfections of his obedience?

That a believer is not under the covenant of works, but under the covenant of grace. The covenant of works requires perfect, personal, perpetual obedience; but in the covenant of grace, God will make some abatements; he will accept less than he required in the covenant of works. (1) In the covenant of works God required perfection of degrees; in the covenant of grace he accepts perfection of parts. There he required perfect working, here he accepts sincere believing. In the covenant of works, God required us to live without sin; in the covenant of grace he accepts of our combat with sin. (2) Though a Christian cannot, in his own person, perform all God’s commandments; yet Christ, as his Surety, and in his stead, has fulfilled the law for him: and God accepts of Christ’s obedience, which is perfect, to satisfy for that obedience which is imperfect. Christ being made a curse for believers, all the curses of the law have their sting pulled out. (3) Though a Christian cannot keep the commands of God to satisfaction, yet he may to approbation.

How is that?

(1) He gives his full assent and consent to the law of God. ‘The law is holy and just:’ there was assent in the judgement. Rom 7:12. ‘I consent unto the law;’ there was consent in the will. Rom 7:16.

(2) A Christian mourns that he cannot keep the commandments fully. When he fails he weeps; he is not angry with the law because it is so strict but he is angry with himself because he is so deficient.

(3) He takes a sweet complacent delight in the law. ‘I delight in the law of God after the inward man.’ Rom 7:22. Greek: ‘I take pleasure in it.’ ‘O! how love I thy law.’ Psa 119:97. Though a Christian cannot keep God’s law, yet he loves his law; though he cannot serve God perfectly, yet he serves him willingly.

(4) It is his cordial desire to walk in all God’s commands. ‘O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes.’ Psa 119:5. Though his strength fails, yet his pulse beats.

(5) He really endeavours to obey God’s law perfectly; and wherein he comes short he runs to Christ’s blood to supply his defects. This cordial desire, and real endeavour, God esteems as perfect obedience. ‘If there be a willing mind, it is accepted.’ 2 Cor 8:12. ‘Let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice.’ Cant 2:14. Though the prayers of the righteous are mixed with sin, yet God sees they would pray better. He picks out the weeds from the flowers; he sees the faith and bears with the failing. The saints’ obedience, though short of legal perfection, yet having sincerity in it, and Christ’s merits mixed with it, finds gracious acceptance. When the Lord sees endeavours after perfect obedience, he takes it well at our hands; as a father who receives a letter from his child, though there be blots in it, and false spellings, takes all in good part. Oh! what blotting are there in our holy things; but God is pleased to take all in good part. He says, ‘It is my child, and he would do better if he could; I will accept it.’ “

Thomas Watson, Westminster Shorter Catechism Project, Body of Divinity Contained in Sermons Upon the the Assembly’s Catechism

Louis Berkhof on the origin of sin in the human race

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“With respect to the origin of sin in the history of mankind, the Bible teaches that it began with the transgression of Adam in paradise, and therefore with a perfectly voluntary act on the part of man. The tempter came from the spirit world with the suggestion that man, by placing himself in opposition to God, might become like God. Adam yielded to the temptation and committed the first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit. But the matter did not stop there, for by that first sin Adam became the bond-servant of sin. That sin carried permanent pollution with it, and a pollution which, because of the solidarity of the human race, would affect not only Adam but all his descendants as well.

As a result of the fall the father of the race could only pass on a depraved human nature to his offspring. From that unholy source sin flows on as an impure stream to all the generations of men, polluting everyone and everything with which it comes in contact. It is exactly this state of things that made the question Job so pertinent, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one.” Job 14:4. But even this is not all. Adam sinned not only as the father of the human race, but also as the representative head of all his descendants; and therefore the guilt of his sin is placed to their account, so that they are all liable to the punishment of death. It is primarily in that sense that Adam’s sin is the sin of all.

That is what Paul teaches us in Rom. 5:12: “Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned.” The last words can only mean that they all sinned in Adam, and sinned in such a way as to make them all liable to the punishment of death. It is not sin considered merely as pollution, but sin as guilt that carries punishment with it. God adjudges all men to be guilty sinners in Adam, just as He adjudges all believers to be righteous in Jesus Christ.

That is what Paul means, when he says, “So then as through one trespass the judgement came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous,” Rom 5:18,19.”

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2005 edition, pages 221-222

God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up

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“But before you can speak peace to your heart, you must be brought to see that God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought to see that all your duties all your righteousness as the prophet elegantly expresses it put them all together, are so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor soul, that he will see them to be filthy rags, a menstruous cloth that God hates them, and cannot away with them, if you bring them to him in order to recommend you to his favor.

My dear friends, what is there in our performances to recommend us unto God? Our persons are in an unjustified state by nature, we deserve to be damned ten thousand times over; and what must our performances be? We can do no good thing by nature: `They that are in the flesh cannot please God.’ You may do many things materially good, but you cannot do a thing formally and rightly good; because nature cannot act above itself. It is impossible that a man who is unconverted can act for the glory of God; he cannot do anything in faith, and `whatsoever is not of faith is sin.’

After we are renewed, yet we are renewed but in part, indwelling sin continues in us, there is a mixture of corruption in every one of our duties; so that after we are converted, were Jesus Christ only to accept us according to our works, our works would damn us, for we cannot put up a prayer but it is far from that perfection which the moral law requireth. I do not know what you may think, but I can say that I cannot pray but I sin I cannot preach to you or any others but I sin. I can do nothing without sin; and, as one expresseth it, my repentance wants to be repented of, and my tears to be washed in the precious blood of my dear Redeemer. Our best duties are as so many splendid sins.

Before you can speak peace in your heart, you must not only be made sick of your original and actual sin, but you must be made sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances. There must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of our heart. The pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

But if you never felt that you had no righteousness of your own, if you never felt the deficiency of your own righteousness, you cannot come to Jesus Christ. There are a great many now who may say, Well, we believe all this; but there is a great difference betwixt talking and feeling. Did you ever feel the want of a dear Redeemer? Did you ever feel the want of Jesus Christ, upon the account of the deficiency of your own righteousness? And can you now say from your heart, Lord, thou mayst justly damn me for the best duties that ever I did perform? If you are not thus brought out of self, you may speak peace to yourselves, but yet there is no peace.”

George Whitfield, The Method of Grace