John Owen · 41 of 123

Chapter V. The filth of sin purged by the Spirit and the blood of Christ. · Part 3

5. But now the great inquiry is, How a sinful, defiled soul may come to have an interest in, or be partaker of, the purifying virtue and efficacy of the blood of Christ? Ans. 1. The purifying virtue and force of the blood of Christ, with the administration of the Spirit for its application to make it effectual unto our souls and consciences, is proposed and exhibited unto us in the promises of the covenant, 2 Pet. i. 4. This all the instances (which need not be recited) before produced do testify unto. 2. The only way to be made partaker of the good things presented in the promises is by faith. So Abraham is said to have “received the promises,” Heb. xi. 17; and so are we also, and to receive Christ himself. Now, this is not from their being proposed unto us, but from our believing of that which is proposed, as it is expressed of Abraham, Rom. iv. 19–21, x. 6–9. The whole use, benefit, and advantage of the promises depend absolutely on our mixing them with faith; as the apostle declares, Heb. iv. 2. Where they are “mixed with faith,” there they profit us — there we really receive the thing promised. Where they are not so mixed, they are of no use, but to aggravate our sins and unbelief. I know that by some men the whole nature and work of faith is derided; they say, “It is nothing but a strong fixing of the imagination upon what is said.” However, we know that if a man promise us any thing seriously and solemnly which is absolutely in his power, we trust unto his word, or believe him, considering his wisdom, honesty, and ability. This, we know, is not a mere fixing of the imagination, but it is a real and useful confidence or trust. And whereas God hath given unto us great and precious promises, and that under several confirmations, especially that of his oath and covenant, if we do really believe their accomplishment, and that it shall be unto us according to his word, upon the account of his veracity, divine power, righteousness, and holiness, why shall this be esteemed “a fanatical fixing of the imagination?” If it be so, it was so in Abraham, our example, Rom. iv. 19–21. But this blasphemous figment, designed to the overthrow of the way of life and salvation by Jesus Christ, shall be elsewhere more fully examined. God, as was said, gives unto us great and precious promises, that by them we might be made partakers of the divine nature. These promises he requireth us to receive, and to mix them with faith, — that is, trusting to and resting on his divine power and veracity, ascribing unto him thereby the glory of them, to believe that the things promised unto us shall be accomplished; which is the means, by God’s appointment, whereby we shall be really made partakers of them. Such was the faith of Abraham, so celebrated by our apostle; and such was all the true and saving faith that ever was in the world from the foundation of it. Wherefore, 3. This is the only way and means to obtain an interest in the cleansing virtue of the blood of Christ. God hath given this power and efficacy unto it by the covenant. In the promise of the gospel it is proposed and tendered unto us. Faith in that promise is that alone which gives us an interest in it, makes us partakers of it, and renders it actually effectual unto us; whereby we are really cleansed from sin. 4. There are two things which concur unto the efficacy of faith to this purpose:— (1.) The excellency of the grace or duty itself. Despise their ignorance who tell you this is but a deceitful fixing of the imagination; for they know not what they say. When men come to the real practice of this duty, they will find what it is to discard all other ways and pretences of cleansing; what it is sincerely and really to give unto God, against all difficulties and oppositions, the glory of his power, faithfulness, goodness, and grace; what it is to approve of the wisdom and love of God in finding out this way for us, and the infiniteness of his grace in providing it when we were lost and under the curse, and to be filled with a holy admiration of him on that account; — all which belong unto the faith mentioned, neither is it nor can be acted in a due manner without them. And when you understand these things, you will not think it so strange that God should appoint this way of believing only as the means to interest us in the purifying virtue of the blood of Christ. (2.) Hereby are we, as hath been shown, united unto Christ, from whom alone is our cleansing. He that declares another way must make another gospel.

6. Faith, in this case, will act itself in and by fervent prayer. When David had, by sin, brought himself into that condition wherein he stood in need of a new universal purification, how earnest is he in his supplications that God would again “purge and cleanse him!” Ps. li. And when any soul is really coming over to the way of God for his washing in the blood of Christ, he will not be more earnest and fervent in any supplication than in this. And herein and hereby doth Christ communicate of the purging efficacy of his blood unto us.

And these things may, in some measure, suffice for the direction and guidance of those who are yet wholly under the pollution of corrupted nature, how they may proceed to get themselves cleansed according to the mind of God. Not that this order or method is prescribed unto any; only, these are the heads of those things which, in one degree or other, are wrought in the souls of them whom Christ will and doth cleanse from their sins.

Secondly, Instruction, also, may be hence taken for them concerning whom our apostle says, “Such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God,” 1 Cor. vi. 9–11; — such as are freed from the general pollution of nature “by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,” Tit. iii. 5; —those, I mean, who have been made partakers of that cleansing, purifying work of the Holy Ghost which we have described. Several duties are incumbent on them with respect hereunto; as, —

1. Continual self-abasement, in the remembrance of that woful defiled state and condition from whence they have been delivered. This consideration is one of them which principally doth influence the minds of believers unto humility, and hideth pride from them; for what should creatures of such a base and defiled extraction have to boast of in themselves? It is usual, I confess, for vile men of the most contemptible beginnings, when they are greatly exalted in the world, to outgo others in pride and elation of mind, as they are behind them in the advantages of birth and education. But this is esteemed a vile thing amongst men, though it is but one potsherd of the earth boasting itself against another. But when believers shall consider what was their vile and polluted state with respect unto God, when first he had regard unto them, it will cause them to walk humbly in a deep sense of it, or I am sure it ought so to do. God calls his people to self-abasement, not only from what they are, but from what they were and whence they came. So he ordained that confession to be made by him that offered the first-fruits of his fields and possessions, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father;” or, “A Syrian” (that is, Laban) “was ready to destroy my father, a poor, helpless man, that went from one country to another for bread. How is it of sovereign mercy that I am now in this state and condition of plenty and peace!” Deut. xxvi. 1–5. And, in particular, God wonderfully binds upon them the sense of that defiled natural extraction whereof we speak, Ezek. xvi. 3–5. And when David, upon his great sin and his repentance, took in all humbling, self-abasing considerations, here he fixeth the head of them: Ps. li. 5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” His original natural defilement was that which, in the first place, influenced him unto self-abasement. So our apostle frequently calls the saints to a remembrance of their former condition before they were purged, Eph. ii. 11–13; 1 Cor. vi. 9–11; and therewith are the minds of all true believers greatly affected and greatly humbled. When they consider what was their natural state and condition, — universally leprous and polluted, — with what remainders of it do still abide, it casts them on the earth, and causeth them to lay their mouths in the dust. Hence proceed their great and deep humiliations of themselves, and confessions of their own vileness in their prayers and supplications. Considering the holiness of God, with whom they have to do, unto whom they do approach, they are no way able to express what low thoughts and apprehensions they have of themselves. Even God himself doth teach them to use figurative expressions whereby to declare their own vileness by nature; which abound in the Scripture. It is true, all declarations hereof, in prayer and confession of sin, are derided and scorned by some, who seem to understand nothing of these things, yea, to glory that they do not. Whatever is spoken to express, as they are able, the deep sense any have of their natural defilement, with the remainder of it, their shame and self-abasement with respect unto the holiness of God, is reputed either as false and hypocritical, or that it containeth such things as for which men ought to be hanged. Such prodigious impudence in proclaiming a senselessness of the holiness of God and of the vileness of sin have we lived to see and hear of! But when we have to deal with God, who puts no trust in his servants, and chargeth his angels with folly, what shall we say? What lowliness becomes them “who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, and who are crushed before the moth!”

2. That initial deliverance which believers have from their original pollution of sin is a matter and cause of everlasting thankfulness. When our Lord Jesus Christ cleansed the ten lepers, he manifests how much it was their duty to return unto him with their thankful acknowledgement, though nine of them failed therein, Luke xvii. 17. And when of old any one was cleansed from a carnal defilement, there was an offering enjoined him, to testify his gratitude. And, indeed, the consideration hereof is that which in an eminent manner influenceth the minds of believers in all their grateful ascriptions of glory, honour, and praise to Jesus Christ. “Unto him,” say they, “that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever,” Rev. i. 5, 6. And there are three things which concur to this duty:— (1.) A due valuation of the causes and means of our purification, — namely, the sprinkling of the blood of Christ in the sanctification of the Spirit. As these alone have affected this great work, so they alone were able so to do. Had we not been washed in the blood of Christ, we must have lived and died in our pollutions, and have lain under them to eternity; for the fire of hell will never purge the defilements of sin, much less will the fictitious fire of purgatory cleanse any from them. How ought we then to prize, value, and admire, both the virtue or efficacy of the blood of Christ, and the love from whence it was given for us and is applied to us! And because this valuation and admiration are acts of faith, the very work itself, also, of cleansing our souls is carried on by them; for by the exercise of faith do we continually derive virtue from Christ to this purpose, as the woman did by touching of his garment for the stopping of her issue of blood. (2.) Inward joy and satisfaction in our freedom from that shame which deprived us of all boldness and confidence in God. This internal joy belongs unto the duty of thankfulness; for therein is God glorified when we are graciously sensible of the effects of his love and kindness towards us. Every grace then glorifies God, and expresseth our thankfulness for his love, when a soul finds itself really affected with a sense of its being washed from all its loathsome defilements in the blood of Christ, and, being thereby freed from discouraging, oppressing shame, to have filial boldness in the presence of God. (3.) Acknowledgement in a way of actual praise.

Again; we have declared not only that there is in our natural frame and spiritual constitution a discrepancy to the holiness of God, and consequently a universal defilement, but that there is, from its pravity and disorder, a pollution attending every actual sin, whether internal of the heart and mind only, or external in sin perpetrated, averse to holiness, and contrary to the carrying on of the work of sanctification in us. And sundry things believers, whose concernment alone this is, may learn from hence also; as —

1. How they ought to watch against sin and all the motions of it, though never so secret. They all of them defile the conscience. And it is an evidence of a gracious soul, to be watchful against sin on this account. Convictions will make men wary where they are prevalent, by continual representations of the danger and punishment of sin; and these are an allowable motive to believers themselves to abstain from it in all known instances. The consideration of the terror of the Lord, the use of threatenings both of the law and gospel, declare this to be our duty. Neither let any say that this is servile fear; that denomination is taken from the frame of our minds, and not from the object feared. When men so fear as thereon to be discouraged, and to incline unto a relinquishment of God, duty, and hope, that fear is servile, whatever be the object of it. And that fear which keeps from sin, and excites the soul to cleave more firmly to God, be the object of it what it will, is no servile fear, but a holy fear or due reverence unto God and his word. But this is the most genuinely gracious fear of sin, when we dread the defilement of it, and that contrariety which is in it to the holiness of God. This is a natural fruit of faith and love. And this consideration should always greatly possess our minds; — and the truth is, if it do not so, there is no assured preservative against sin; for together with an apprehension of that spiritual pollution wherewith sin is accompanied, thoughts of the holiness of God, of the care and concernment of the sanctifying Spirit, and of the blood of Christ, will continually abide in our minds, which are all efficaciously preservative against sin. I think that there is no more forcible argument unto watchfulness against all sin, unto believers, in the whole book of God, than that which is managed by our apostle, with especial respect unto one kind of sin, but may in proportion be extended unto all, 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17, vi. 15–19. Moreover, where this is not, where the soul hath no respect to the defilement of sin, but only considers how it may shift with the guilt of it, innumerable things will interpose, partly arising from the abuse of grace, partly from carnal hopes and foolish resolutions for after-times, as will set it at liberty from that watchful diligence in universal obedience which is required of us. The truth is, I do not believe that any one that is awed only with respect to the guilt of sin and its consequents doth keep up a firm integrity with regard to inward and outward actings of his heart and life in all things. But where the fear of the Lord and of sin is influenced by a deep apprehension of the holiness of the one, and the pollution that inseparably attends the other, there is the soul kept always upon its best guard and defence.

2. How we ought to walk humbly before the Lord all our days. Not withstanding our utmost watchfulness and diligence against sin, there is yet “no man that liveth and sinneth not.” Those who pretend unto a perfection here, as they manifest themselves to be utterly ignorant of God and themselves, and despise the blood of Christ, so for the most part they are left visibly and in the sight of men to confute their own pride and folly. But to what purpose is it to hide ourselves from ourselves, when we have to do with God? God knows, and our own souls know, that more or less we are defiled in all that we do. The best of our works and duties, brought into the presence of the holiness of God, are but as filthy rags; and man, even every man, of himself “drinketh in iniquity like water.” Our own clothes are ready to defile us every day. Who can express the motions of lusts that are in the flesh; the irregular actings of affections, in their inordinate risings up to their objects; the folly of the imaginations of our hearts and minds, which, as far as they are not principled by grace, are only evil, and that continually; with the vanity of our words, yea, with a mixture of much corrupt communications; all which are defiling, and have defilements attending of them? I confess I know not that my heart and soul abhors any eruption of the diabolical pride of man like that whereby they reproach and scoff at the deepest humiliations and self-abasements which poor sinners can attain unto in their prayers, confessions, and supplications. Alas! that our nature should be capable of such a contempt of the holiness of God, such an ignorance of the infinite distance that is between him and us, and be so senseless of our own vileness, and of the abominable filth and pollution that is in every sin, as not to tremble at the despising of the lowest abasements of poor sinners before the holy God! “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith,” Hab. ii. 4.

3. How we ought continually to endeavour after the wasting of sin in the root and principle of it. There is a root of sin in us, which springs up and defiles us. “Every man is tempted” (that is, chiefly and principally) “of his own lust, and seduced;” and then “when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.” It is “the flesh that lusteth against the Spirit,” and which bringeth forth corrupted and corrupting, polluted and polluting fruits. This principle of sin, of aversion from God, of inclination unto things sensual and present, however wounded, weakened, dethroned, impaired, yet still abides in all believers; and it is the foundation, the spring, the root, the next cause of all sin in us, which tempts, enticeth, draws aside, conceives, and brings forth. And this hath in us all more or less degrees of strength, power, and activity, according as it is more or less mortified by grace and the application of the virtue of the death of Christ unto our souls; and according to its strength and power, so it abounds in bringing forth the defiled acts of sin. Whilst this retains any considerable power in us, it is to no purpose to set ourselves merely to watch against the eruptions of actual sins in the frames of our hearts, in the thoughts of our minds, or outward actions. If we would preserve ourselves from multiplying our defilements, if we would continually be perfecting the work of holiness in the fear of the Lord, it is this we must set ourselves against. The tree must be made good if we expect good fruit; and the evil root must be digged up, or evil fruit will be brought forth; — that is, our main design should be, to crucify and destroy the body of the sins of the flesh that is in us, the remainders of the flesh or indwelling sin, by the ways and means which shall afterward be declared.

4. Hence also is manifest the necessity there is of continual applications to Jesus Christ for cleansing virtue from his Spirit, and the sprinkling of his blood on our consciences, in the efficacy of it, to purge them from dead works. We defile ourselves every day, and if we go not every day to the “fountain that is open for sin and for uncleanness,” we shall quickly be all over leprous. Our consciences will be filled with dead works, so that we shall no way be able to serve the living God, unless they are daily purged out. How this is done hath been at large before declared. When a soul, filled with self-abasement under a sense of its own defilements, applies itself unto Christ by faith for cleansing, and that constantly and continually, with a fervency answering its sense and convictions, it is in its way and proper course. I am persuaded no true believer in the world is a stranger unto this duty; and the more any one abounds therein, the more genuine is his faith evidenced to be, and the more humble is his walk before the Lord.

But it may justly be inquired, after all that we have discoursed upon this subject concerning the defilement of sin, how, if it be so, believers can be united unto Jesus Christ, or be members of that mystical body whereof he is the head, or obtain fellowship with him; for whereas he is absolutely pure, holy, and perfect, how can he have union or communion with them who are in any thing defiled? There is no fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, no communion between light and darkness, and what can there be between Christ and those that are defiled with sin? and because he is “holy, harmless, and undefiled,” he is said to be “separate from sinners.”

Many things must be returned unto this objection, all concurring to take away the seeming difficulty that is in it; as, —

1. It must be granted that where men are wholly under the power of their original defilement, they neither have nor can have either union or communion with Christ. With respect unto such persons the rules before mentioned are universally true and certain. There is no more communion between them and Jesus Christ than is between light and darkness, as the apostle speaks expressly, 1 John i. 6. Whatever profession they may make of his name, whatever expectations they may unduly raise from him in their own minds, he will say unto them at the last day, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” No person, therefore, whatever, who hath not been made partaker of the washing of regeneration and the renovation of the Holy Ghost, can possibly have any union with Christ. I do not speak this as though our purifying were in order of time and nature antecedent unto our union with Christ, for indeed it is an effect thereof; but it is such an effect as immediately and inseparably accompanieth it, so that where the one is not, there is not the other. The act whereby he unites us unto himself is the same with that whereby he cleanseth our natures.

2. Whatever our defilements are or may be, he is not defiled by them. They adhere only unto a capable subject, which Christ is not. He was capable to have the guilt of our sins imputed to him, but not the filth of one sin adhering to him. A member of a body may have a putrefied sore; the head may be troubled at it and grieved with it, yet is not defiled by it. Wherefore, where there is a radical, original cleansing by the Spirit of regeneration and holiness, whereby any one is meet for union and communion with Christ, however he may be affected with our partial pollutions, he is not defiled by them. He is able συμπαθῆσαι, “compati, condolere;” he suffers with us in his compassion; — but he is not liable συμμολύνεσθαι, to be defiled with us or for us. The visible mystical body of Christ may be defiled by corrupt members, Heb. xii. 15; but the mystical body cannot be so, much less the head.

3. The design of Christ, when he takes believers into union with himself, is to purge and cleanse them absolutely and perfectly; and therefore the present remainders of some defilements are not absolutely inconsistent with that union. “He gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish,” Eph. v. 25–27. This he aims at, and this he will, in his own way and in his own time, perfectly accomplish. But it is not done at once; it is a progressive work, that hath many degrees. God did never sanctify any soul at once, unless by death. The body must die by reason of sin. Every believer is truly and really sanctified at once, but none is perfectly sanctified at once. It is not, therefore, necessary unto union that we should be completely sanctified, though it is that we should be truly sanctified. Complete sanctification is a necessary effect of union in its proper time and season. See John xv. 1–5.

4. Where the work of sanctification and spiritual cleansing is really begun in any, there the whole person is, and is thence denominated, holy. As, therefore, Christ the head is holy, so are all the members holy according to their measure; for although there may be defilements adhering unto their actions, yet their persons are sanctified: so that no unholy person hath any communion with Christ, no member of his body is unholy, — that is, absolutely so, in such a state as thence to be denominated unholy.

5. Our union with Christ is immediately in and by the new creature in us, by the divine nature which is from the Spirit of holiness, and is pure and holy. Hereunto and hereby doth the Lord Christ communicate himself unto our souls and consciences, and hereby have we all our intercourse with him. Other adherences that have any defilement in them, and consequently are opposite unto this union, he daily worketh out by virtue hereof, Rom. viii. 10. The whole body of Christ, therefore, and all that belongs unto it, is holy, though those who are members of this body are in themselves oft-times polluted, but not in any thing which belongs to their union. The apostle describeth the twofold nature or principle that is in believers, the new nature by grace and the old of sin, as a double person, Rom. vii. 19, 20; and it is the former, the renewed (and not the latter, which he calls “I” also, but corrects as it were that expression, calling it “sin which dwelleth in him”), that is the subject of the union with Christ, the other being to be destroyed.

6. Where the means of purification are duly used, no defilement ensues, on any sin that believers fall into, which doth or can totally obstruct communion with God in Christ, according to the tenor of the covenant. There were many things under the Old Testament that did typically and legally defile men that were liable unto them; but for all of them were provided typical and legal purifications, which sanctified them as to the purifying of the flesh. Now, no man was absolutely cut off or separated from the people of God for being so defiled; but he that, being defiled, did not take care that he might be purified according to the law, he was to be cut off from among the people. It is in like manner in things spiritual and evangelical. There are many sins whereby believers are defiled; but there is a way of cleansing still open unto them. And it is not merely the incidence of a defilement, but the neglect of purification, that is inconsistent with their state and interest in Christ. The rule of communion with God, and consequently of union with Christ, in its exercise, is expressed by David, Ps. xix. 12, 13, “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret sins. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” The design of psalmist is, to be preserved in such a state and condition as wherein he may be upright before God. To be upright before God is that which God requireth of us in the covenant, that we may be accepted of him and enjoy the promises thereof, Gen. xvii. 1. He that is so will be from that great transgression, or that abundance of sin which is inconsistent with the covenant love and favour of God. And hereunto three things are required:— (1.) A constant, humble acknowledgement of sin: “Who can understand his errors?” (2.) Daily cleansing from those defilements which the least and most secret sins are accompanied withal: “Cleanse thou me from secret sins.” And, — (3.) A preservation from “presumptuous sins,” or wilful sins committed with a high hand. Where these things are, there a man is upright, and hath the covenant-ground of his communion with God; and whilst believers are preserved within these bounds, though they are defiled by sin, yet is there not any thing therein inconsistent with their union with Christ.