[Sept. 20th, 1863.]
I. What is conviction of sin? II. What is the sin of which men must be convinced? III. How is the Spirit the author of that conviction?
The word (kosmos) means 1. Order, proper and harmonious arrangement. 2. The universe as thus arranged. 3. The earth. 4. The inhabitants of the earth, mankind, men. 5. The wicked, unrenewed, as opposed to the Church or believers. Here it means men, considered as unrenewed; not all men, but the class or order who are the subjects of this conviction.
I. What is conviction of sin? The word means, 1. To reprove, censure, or upbraid. 2. To convict, prove to be guilty. 3. To render manifest. Here it is used in the two latter senses. The people of the world are to be convicted at the bar of their own conscience of being sinners. That act is to be manifest to their own consciousness; and as sin includes two elements, viz.: guilt and pollution, the one expressing the relation of sin to justice and the other its relation to holiness, conviction of sin includes, a. The conviction of just exposure to the wrath of God on account of our character and conduct. And this includes the conviction that we deserve punishment, and secondly that we ought to be punished, and thirdly that we certainly shall be punished, unless in some way our guilt be removed. b. The conviction of moral defilement or pollution: that is, that we are in fact and in our own eyes offensive, degraded, and the proper objects of loathing.
The effects of conviction flow from these two sources, and are, a. Terror or dread of the wrath of God. b. Self-condemnation. c. Remorse, which includes both the consciousness of ill-desert, sorrow for the offense, and craving after satisfaction. It is stilled by punishment or adequate atonement. d. Self-abhorrence. e. Shame and confusion of face. There is nothing holy in all this.
II. The sin of which men are to be thus convinced is the sin of not believing on Christ.
This presents three points: 1. What is it to believe upon Christ? 2. What is included in the conviction of the sin of not thus believing? 3. Why is unbelief so great a sin?
First. What is it to believe on Christ? This includes, 1st. The belief that he is what he claimed to be, viz.: the Son of God, or God manifest in the flesh; the Messiah; the Prophet, Priest and King of his people, and therefore the Redeemer of men. This involves the recognition or the conviction and acknowledgment of the truth of all his doctrines. This faith, to be genuine, must not rest merely on external evidence, but on the revealing and testifying influence of the Holy Spirit. 2d. It includes reliance on Christ, in his propitiation, on his saving, sanctifying and protecting power. 3d. It includes, not exactly in its nature as faith, but as its inseparable adjunct and necessary effects, adoring love for his person, zeal for his glory, devotion to his service, and submission to his will. As we cannot separate in fact, or even in consciousness, the apprehension of beauty from the delight in it, so we cannot separate from faith in Christ, love, zeal, devotion and submission. The want of all these is unbelief. And men are convinced of sin when convinced that want of faith in Christ deserves the wrath and curse of God, and degrades and pollutes the soul.
III. Why is unbelief in Christ, or want of faith in him so great a sin and the greatest of all sins?
That it is so is directly asserted in John 3:18. “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,” and elsewhere as is distinctly implied in this verse. It is so great a sin, 1. Because it is the manifestation, exercise and effect of the greatest depravity. The disbelief of speculative truth is not sinful except where some moral obligation is violated in rejecting the evidence by which it is supported. But the rejection of moral truth is in its nature sinful because it implies moral blindness and perversion of moral feeling. To call evil good and good evil, to approve of those who do evil, implies greater corruption than the mere commission of sin. Unbelief of the moral truth differs in the degree of its sinfulness according to the importance of the truth and the amount and kind of evidence with which it is attended. That the heathen are sinful and without excuse because they do not believe God as revealed in nature, is asserted by Paul. But this sin is slight compared with those who rejected God as revealed in the Old Testament, and their guilt again is small, compared to that of those who reject Christ. He is God in the clearest and most attractive revelation ever made of the Divine Being. The rejection of him implies the greatest blindness and depravity. It is therefore the greatest of all sins, and implies Satanic blindness of the eyes.
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Because it involves the greatest conceivable ingratitude. It is not only the rejection of God, but it is the rejection of God humbling himself to be found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, out of love to us and for our salvation.
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Because it involves a preference and deliberate choice of evil instead of good, of Satan and the kingdom of darkness instead of the kingdom of God. “He who does not bow to Christ, has bowed to me,” as the Poet makes Satan say.
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Because it is the rejection of eternal life for ourselves, and doing what we can to render certain the perdition of others.
IV. The Holy Spirit alone can convince men of this sin.
- It is certain that human reason or our own nature, as it is, will not do it. 2. That flesh and blood cannot do it. 3. The Holy Spirit alone can do it because he alone can open our eyes to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 4. It is his office to take the things of Christ and show them unto us.
Inferences
- That it is our first and greatest duty to repent of this sin and to believe on Christ in the sense above stated. 2. Our next great duty is to labor to convince the world of this sin, (for the Spirit produces this conviction through the truth), and to lead them to receive, acknowledge, love, worship, serve and trust the Son of God.
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