Man's Real Character Revealed

If you're like me, you find that it easy to go though each day thinking, “I'm okay. I'm not really such a bad person." Like most people, my tendency is to think of myself in a good light and forget what I really am, a dirty, rotten, vile, sinner, saved, justified and forgiven totally by the grace of God. Even though I’m a Christian, my human nature tends toward two wrong lines of thinking. Either I think of myself (excluding God) as something better than I really am, forgetting where I came from (dirty, rotten, sinner). Or, I remember that I’m a terrible sinner, dwelling on my horribleness, and I forget that what Christ did on the cross has removed the mark against me. I forget that God no longer sees me as His enemy but as His child, justified, forgiven and loved.

Jerry Bridges in his book "Respectable Sins" says that the only cure for this is to "preach the gospel to myself every day." because the gospel, is the only remedy for our sins. • It plows the ground of our hearts so we can see our sin and acknowledge it. • After confessing our sin, the gospel frees us up so that we can then begin to deal with the particular manifestations of sin we have first openly acknowledged. It does this by assuring us that we are forgiven, that God no longer holds our sin against us, He has already charged it to Christ. • Finally it motivates and energizes us to deal with our sin, "put it to death." "...this continuous day-by-day appropriation of the gospel, as it assures us of the forgiveness of our sins, is an important part of our dealing with sin in our lives."

I was reminded again of this when I read this morning’s Grace Gems entitled, “Deicide” from Arthur Pink's "Beholding the Crucified Christ" Here are a few excerpts:

Multitudes go through the form of paying homage to God--but it is a "god" of their own imagination. They hate the true and living God, and were it possible--they would rid the universe of His existence! This is clear from their treatment of Christ, for He was none other than "God manifest in flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). They hated and hounded Him to death--and nothing short of His cruel death by crucifixion would appease them!Here at Calvary the real character of man was revealed, and the desperate wickedness of his heart was laid bare. There it was shown, that man was capable of the blackest of all crimes! … In the treatment which the Son of God received at the hands of men--we see sin in its true colors, stripped of a disguise, exposed in its hideous reality; revealed in its true nature as contempt of God, and rebellion against Him. Here at Calvary we behold the climax of sin--and the fearful and horrible lengths to which sin is capable of going! That sin which germinated in Eden--culminated in the crucifixion! Here at Calvary, we see sin at it's apex--Deicide--in the slaying of the Lord of Glory!

Grace Gems
Friday, March 13, 2009