"Miserable Sinner Christianity"
(The History of Augustinian Theology in the Church)
(The History of Augustinian Theology in the Church)
by Benjamin B. Warfield
It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continually unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center every else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we can never be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever altar, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies with Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners: saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude that the Reformers took, and that is the attitude that the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.There is emphasized in this attitude the believers “continued sinfulness in fact and in act”; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner. But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said. It is also gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether. The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitence indeed, but not overmastering exultation. The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it. It is an attitude of exultant joy. Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior. We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves. But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives tone to our lives, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill deserts; for it is to he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much. Adolph Harnack declares that this mood was brought into Christianity by Augustine. Before Augustine the characteristic frame of mind of Christians was the racking unrest of alternating hopes and fears. Augustine, the first of the Evangelicals, created a new piety of assured rest in God our Savior, and the psychological form of this piety was, as Harnack phrases it, “solaced contrition.” – affliction for sin, yes, the deepest and most poignant remorse for sin, but not unrelieved remorse, but appeased remorse. There is no other joy on earth like that of appeased remorse: it is not only in heaven but on earth also that the joy over one sinner that repents surpasses that over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.The type of piety brought in by Augustine was pushed out of sight by the emphasis of human graces that marked the Middle Ages. Luther brought it back. His own experience fixed ineradicably in his heart the conviction that he was a “miserable sinner” deserving of death, and alive only through the inexplicable grace of God. What we call his conversion was his discovery of this bitter-sweet fact. He had tried to think highly of himself. He found that he could not do so. But he also found that he could not possibly think too highly of Christ. And so it became his joy to be a “miserable sinner” resting solely on the grace of Christ; and to preach the Gospel of the “miserable sinner” to the world. This is the very hinge on which the Reformation turns, and of course, Luther gave endless expression to it endlessly in those documents in which his Reformation-work has been preserved to us.He is never weary of setting the two aspects in which the “miserable sinner” may be viewed side by side. “These things,” he says ion one place, “are diametrically opposed – that the Christian is righteous and loved of God, yet is at the same time a sinner. For God cannot deny His nature, that is, cannot but hate sin and sinners, and this He does necessarily, for otherwise He would be unjust and would love sin. How then are these two contradictions both true: I am sinful and deserve divine wrath and hatred; and the Father loves me? Nothing at all brings it about except Christ the Mediator. The Father, Christ says, loves you, but not because you are worthy of love but because you have loved Me and believe that I came forth from Him. Thus the Christian remains in pure humility, deeply sensible of his sin, and acknowledging himself, on its account, to be deserving of God’s wrath and judgment and eternal death … He remains also at the same time in pure and holy pride, in which he turns to Christ and arouses himself through Him against the sense of wrath and the divine judgment, and believes not only that the remainders of sin are not imputed to him, but also that he is loved by the Father, not on his own account but on account of Christ the Beloved.”“A Christian,” says Luther again, “is at the same time a sinner and a saint; he is at once bad and good. For in our own person we are in sin, and in our own name we are sinners. But Christ brings us another name in which there is forgiveness of sin, so that for His sake our sin is forgiven and done away. Both then are true. There are sins … and yet there are no sins. The reason is that for Christ’s sake, God will not see them. They exist for my eyes, I see them, and feel them too. But Christ is there who bids me preach that I am to repent … and then believe in the forgiveness of sin in His name … Where such faith is, therefore, God no longer sees sin. For thou standest there before God not in thy name but in Christ’s name; thou dost adorn thyself with grace and righteousness although in thine own eyes and in thine own person, thou art a miserable sinner (armer Sunder) … Let not that owever scare you to death … speak rather thus: Ah, Lord I am a miserable sinner (armer Sunder), but I shall not remain such; for Thou has commanded that forgiveness of sins be preached in Thy name … Thus our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the garment of grace that is put upon us, that God our Father may not look upon us as sinners but receive us as righteous, holy, godly children, and give us eternal life.”“we, however, teach,” he says again, “that we are to learn to know and regard Him, as Him who sits there for the poor, stupid conscience, if so be that we believe on Him, not as a judge … but as a gracious, kind, comforting mediator between my frightened conscience and God; and says to me – You are a sinner, and afraid that the Devil will drag you by the law before the judgment seat; come then and hold fast to me, and fear no wrath. Why? Because I sit here for the very purpose that if you believe in Me, I can come between you and God so that no wrath or evil can touch you. For if wrath and punishment go over you, they must first go over Me and that is not possible … Therefore, through faith we are altogether blissful and safe, so that we shall abide uncondemned, not for the sake of our own purity and holiness, but for Christ’s sake, because, through such faith, we hold on to Him as our mercy-seat, assured that in and with Him no wrath can remain, but pure love, indulgence, forgiveness.”Embedded in the Protestant formularies, both doctrinal and devotional, this “miserable sinner” conception of the Christian life has molded the piety of all the Protestant generations. Throughout the Protestant world believers confess themselves to be, still as believers, wrath deserving sinners; and that not merely with reference to their inborn sinful nature as yet incompletely eradicated, but with reference also to their total life-manifestation which their incompletely eradicated sinful nature flows into and acts out. Their continued sinning, indeed, is already confessed whenever they repeat the Lord’s Prayer, since, among the very few petitions included in it, is the very emphatic one: “Forgive us our trespasses.” Naturally therefore, the exposition of this prayer, designed for the instruction of the several churches in their attitude toward God, are the special depository of pointed reminders to believers of their continual sinning. Luther, for example, incorporates a very full and searching exposition of “the Fifth Petition” into his Large Catechism, in which he affirms that “we sin daily in words and deeds, by commission and omission,” and he warns us that “no one is to think that so long as he lives here below he can bring it about that he does not need such forgiveness:; that, in fact, “unless God forgives without cessation, we are lost.” It is by his Short Catechism of 1529, however, that Luther has kept his hand most permanently on the instruction of the churches. In it he teaches the catechumens to say that “God richly forgives me and all believers every day, all our sins,” “for we sin much every day and deserve nothing but punishment.” In the instructions for the confessional coming from the hand of Luther which were soon incorporated into his shorter catechism, the believing penitent accordingly is told to say “I, miserable sinner, confess myself before God guilty of all manner of sins …” the hold which this teaching has taken of the devotional expressions of the Lutheran Churches may be illustrated by the presence in the new Agenda of the National Prussian Church of a Confession of Sin for the whole congregation which runs thus: “We confess … that we were conceived and born in sin; and, full of ignorance and heedlessness of Thy divine word and will, always prone to all wickedness and slack to all good, we transgress Thy divine commandments unceasingly in thoughts, words and deeds.” Naturally it retains its place in the forms of service adopted for “the three bodies” of American Lutherans. In the German form the Confession of Sin takes this form: “I, poor sinful man, confess to God, the Almighty, my Creator and Redeemer, that I not only have sinned in thoughts, words and deeds, but also was conceived and born in sin, and so all my nature and being is deserving of punishment and condemnation before His righteousness. Therefore I flee to His gratuitous mercy and seek and beseech His grace. Lord, be merciful to me, miserable sinner.” The English form is to the same effect.It is the same in the Reformed churches as in the Lutheran: catechisms and liturgies alike embody the confession of the continued sinfulness of the Christian, and his continued dependence on the forgiving grace of Christ. In Calvin’s Catechism the catechumen is made to declare that there is no man living so righteous that he does not need to make request for the forgiveness of his sins, that Christ has therefore prescribed a prayer for forgiveness of sins for the whole church, and he who would exempt himself from it,: refuseth to be of the company of Christ’s flock: and in very deed the Scriptures do plainly testify, that the most perfect man that is, if he would allege one point to justify him self before God, should be found with fault in a thousand things.” “It is meete therefore,” it concludes, “that every man have a recourse continually unto God’s mercy.” When expounding at an earlier point the clause in the Creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” it is said that God “doth freely forgive all the sins of them that believe in Him,” the comprehensiveness of the language is intended to include in the declaration sins committed after as well as before the inception of faith. And therefore, when good works come to be treated of, it is said that they are “not worthy of themselves to be accepted,” “because there is mixed some filth through the infirmity of the flesh, whereby they are defiled.” They are accepted by God therefore “only because it pleaseth God of his goodness to love us freely, and so cover and forget our faults.”The teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism is to the same effect. We increase our guilt daily, we are told; our whole Christian life is occupied with a conflict against sin and the Devil; and our best works in this life are imperfect and defiled with sin. To the question whether those have been converted can keep God’s law perfectly, it is answered explicitly, “No, but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience, yet so that with earnest purpose they begin to live, not only according to some but according to all the commandments of God.” As in Calvin’s Catechism, the most comprehensive language is employed, however, in expounding the clause of the Creed on the forgiveness of sins. “I believe, that God for the satisfaction of Christ.” We read, “hath quite put out of His remembrance all my sins, and even that corruption also, wherewith I must strive all my life long.” And naturally the exposition of “the Fifth Petition” of the Lord’s Prayer is the occasion for repeating that we are “miserable sinners” burdened not merely with the evil which always still clings to us, but also with numerous transgressions.Perhaps this series of truths never received crisper statement, however, than at the hands of John Craig in his larger Catechism (1581), on the basis whether of the article of the Creed or the petition of the Prayer. “Why is remission of sins put here? Because it is proper to the church and members of the same. Wherefore is it proper to the church only? Because in the church only is the spirit of faith and repentance …How often are our sins forgiven us? Continually, unto the ends of our lives. What need is there of this? Because sin is never thoroughly abolished here.” What is it we seek in this fifth petition? Remission of our sins, our spiritual debts … Should every man pray this way continually? Yes, for all believers are subject to sin. But sometimes men do good things, don’t they? But yet they sin in the best things they do.”The Calvinistic liturgies naturally also reflect this universal Reformed doctrine. The Confession of Sins contained in the liturgy which was published by Calvin in 1542 and which passed into the use of all the French speaking Reformed churches, has been universally admired. Its beauty, says E. Lacheret, has been proclaimed with one voice; Christian sentiment finds in it one of the purest and strongest expressions: “brief, sober, solemn, it expresses in a grave style and penetrating tone, the grief of the penitent soul, its appeal to the divine mercy, its desire for a new and holy life.” Its opening prayer in the form in which it has long been used in the English speaking French Protestant church of Charelston, S.C., runs thus: “O Lord God! Eternal and almighty Father! We confess before thy Divine Majesty that we are miserable sinners, born in corruption and iniquity, prone to evil, and of ourselves incapable of any good. We acknowledge that we transgress in various ways thy holy commandments, so that we draw down on ourselves, through thy righteous judgment, condemnation and death.” …It has not always been easy through the Protestant ages to maintain in its purity this high attitude of combined shame of self and confidence in the mercy of God in Christ. But even in the worst of times it has not been left without witness. There is Zinzendorf, for example. It was an evil day of abounding Rationalism that he discovered for himself and for his followers a “miserable sinner Christianity.” …In those same bad days of the eighteenth century “miserable sinner Christianity” was rediscovered also by the English Evangelicals. We may take Thomas Adam as an example. His like minded biographer, James Stillingfleet, tells us how, having been awakened to the fact that he was preaching a work-religion, he was at last led to the truth, not without some reading of Luther, it is true, but particularly by prayerful study of the Epistle to the Romans. “He was,” writes his biographer, “rejoiced exceedingly; found peace and comfort spring up in his mind; his conscience was purged from guilt through the atoning blood of Christ, and his heart set at liberty to run the way of God’s commandments without fear, in a spirit of filial love and holy delight; and from that hour he began to preach salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone, to man by nature and practice lost, and condemned under the law, and as his own expression is, always a sinner.” In this italicized phrase, Adam had in mind of course our sinful nature, a very profound sense of the evil which colored all of his thought. In one of those piercing declarations which his biographers gathered out of his diaries and published under the title of “Private Thoughts on Religion” Adam tells us how he thought of indwelling sin. “Sin is still there, deep in the center of my heart, and twisted about every fiber of it.” But he knew very well that sin could not be in the heart and not also in the life. “When have I not sinned?” he asks, and answers, “The reason is evident, I carry myself about with me.” Accordingly he says: “When we have done all we ever shall do, the very best state we shall ever arrive at, will be so far from meriting a reward, that it will need a pardon.” Again, “If I was to live to the world’s end, and do all the good that a man can do, I must still cry ‘mercy!’” This is very much in accordance with Zinzendorf’s and his hymn “Christ’s Blood and Righteousness.” So far from balking at the confession of daily sins, he adds to that the confession of universal sinning, “I know with infallible certainty,” he says, “That I have continued to sin ever since I could discern between good and evil; in thought, word and deed; in every period, condition, and relation of life; every day against every commandment.” …“Justification by sanctification,” says Adam, “is man’s way to heaven … Sanctification by justification is God’s, and He fills the soul with His own fullness.” …And even more plainly he says, “Sanctification is a gift; and the business of man is to desire, receive and use it. But he can by no act or effort of his own produce it in himself. Grace can do everything; nature nothing.” “I am resolved,” he therefore declares, “to receive my virtue from God as a gift, instead of presenting Him with a spurious kind of my own.” … Thus in complete dependence upon grace, and in never ceasing need of grace (take “grace” in its full sense of goodness to the undeserving) the saint goes onward in his earthly work…It is clear that “miserable-sinner Christianity” is a Christianity which thinks of pardon as holding the primary place in salvation. To it, sin is in the first instance offense against God, and salvation from sin is therefore in the first instance pardon, first not merely in time but in importance. In this Christianity, accordingly, the sinner turns to God first of all as the pardoning God; and that not as the God who pardons him once and then leaves him to Himself, but as the God who steadily preserves the attitude toward him of a pardoning God. It is in this aspect that he thinks primarily of God and it is on the preservation of God’s part of this attitude towards him that all his hopes of salvation depend. This is because he looks to God and to god alone for his salvation, and that in every step of salvation – since otherwise whatever else it may be, it would not be salvation. It is of course only from a God whose attitude to the sinner is that of a pardoning God, that the saving operation can be hoped. No doubt, if those transgressions which we class together as the process of salvation are our own work, we may not have so extreme a need of a constantly pardoning God. But that is not the point of view of that of “miserable-sinner Christianity” The miserable sinner understands that God alone can save, and he depends upon God alone for salvation; for all of salvation in every step and stage of it. He is not merely the man then, who emphasizes justification as the fundamental saving operation; but also the man who emphasizes the supernaturalness of the whole saving process. It is all of God; and it is continually from God throughout the whole process. The “miserable-sinner Christian” insists that salvation is accomplished not all at once (in our flesh) but in the process of a growth through an ever-advancing forward movement. It occupies time and space; it has a beginning and middle and end. And just because it is in this way progressive in its accomplishments, it is always incomplete – until the end. As Luther put it, Christians, here below, are not “made” but in the “making.” Things in the making are in the hands of the Maker, are absolutely dependent upon Him, and in their remnant imperfection require His continued pardon as well as His continued forming. We cannot outgrow dependence upon the continued pardoning grace of God, then, so long as the whole process of our forming is not completed; and we cannot feel satisfaction with ourselves of course until that process is fully accomplished. To speak of satisfaction in an incomplete work is a contradiction in terms. The “miserable-sinner Christian” accordingly, just as strongly emphasizes the progressiveness of the saving process and the consequent survival of sin and sinning throughout the whole of its as yet unfinished course, as he does justification as its foundation stone and its true supernaturalness throughout. … It is a structure which is adapted to the needs of none but sinners, and which, perhaps, can have no very clear meaning to any but sinners. And this is in reality the sum of the whole matter: “miserable-sinner Christianity” is a Christianity distinctively for sinners. It is fitted to their apprehension as sinners, addressed to their acceptance as sinners, and meets their claimant needs as sinners. The very name which has been given it bears witness to it as such.Naturally, therefore, to those who are not preoccupied with a sense of their sinfulness, “miserable-sinner Christianity” makes very little appeal. It would indeed be truer to say that it excites in them a positive distaste. It does not seem to them to have any particular fitness for their case, which they very naturally identify with the case of men in general. It appears to them to foster a morbid preoccupation with faults which are in part at least only fancied. It does scant justice, as they think, to the dignity of human nature, with its ethical endowments and capacities for self-improvement. It presents, as they view it, insufficient and ineffective motives for moral effort, and tends therefore to produce weak and dependant characters prone to acquiesce in an imperfect development, merely because they lack the vigor to go forward. Men turn away from it in proportion as they are inclined to put a high estimate on human nature as it manifests itself in the world, and especially upon its moral condition, its moral powers, its present and possible moral achievements. It is a Gospel for sinners, and those who do not think of themselves as sinners find no attraction in it. It has accordingly been in every age the shining mark of attack for men of what is commonly spoken of as the Rationalistic temperament. It should not surprise us, therefore, that in our own age also it should have been made an object of assault. …
It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continually unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center every else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we can never be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever altar, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies with Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners: saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude that the Reformers took, and that is the attitude that the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.There is emphasized in this attitude the believers “continued sinfulness in fact and in act”; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner. But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said. It is also gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether. The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitence indeed, but not overmastering exultation. The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it. It is an attitude of exultant joy. Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior. We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves. But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives tone to our lives, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill deserts; for it is to he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much. Adolph Harnack declares that this mood was brought into Christianity by Augustine. Before Augustine the characteristic frame of mind of Christians was the racking unrest of alternating hopes and fears. Augustine, the first of the Evangelicals, created a new piety of assured rest in God our Savior, and the psychological form of this piety was, as Harnack phrases it, “solaced contrition.” – affliction for sin, yes, the deepest and most poignant remorse for sin, but not unrelieved remorse, but appeased remorse. There is no other joy on earth like that of appeased remorse: it is not only in heaven but on earth also that the joy over one sinner that repents surpasses that over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.The type of piety brought in by Augustine was pushed out of sight by the emphasis of human graces that marked the Middle Ages. Luther brought it back. His own experience fixed ineradicably in his heart the conviction that he was a “miserable sinner” deserving of death, and alive only through the inexplicable grace of God. What we call his conversion was his discovery of this bitter-sweet fact. He had tried to think highly of himself. He found that he could not do so. But he also found that he could not possibly think too highly of Christ. And so it became his joy to be a “miserable sinner” resting solely on the grace of Christ; and to preach the Gospel of the “miserable sinner” to the world. This is the very hinge on which the Reformation turns, and of course, Luther gave endless expression to it endlessly in those documents in which his Reformation-work has been preserved to us.He is never weary of setting the two aspects in which the “miserable sinner” may be viewed side by side. “These things,” he says ion one place, “are diametrically opposed – that the Christian is righteous and loved of God, yet is at the same time a sinner. For God cannot deny His nature, that is, cannot but hate sin and sinners, and this He does necessarily, for otherwise He would be unjust and would love sin. How then are these two contradictions both true: I am sinful and deserve divine wrath and hatred; and the Father loves me? Nothing at all brings it about except Christ the Mediator. The Father, Christ says, loves you, but not because you are worthy of love but because you have loved Me and believe that I came forth from Him. Thus the Christian remains in pure humility, deeply sensible of his sin, and acknowledging himself, on its account, to be deserving of God’s wrath and judgment and eternal death … He remains also at the same time in pure and holy pride, in which he turns to Christ and arouses himself through Him against the sense of wrath and the divine judgment, and believes not only that the remainders of sin are not imputed to him, but also that he is loved by the Father, not on his own account but on account of Christ the Beloved.”“A Christian,” says Luther again, “is at the same time a sinner and a saint; he is at once bad and good. For in our own person we are in sin, and in our own name we are sinners. But Christ brings us another name in which there is forgiveness of sin, so that for His sake our sin is forgiven and done away. Both then are true. There are sins … and yet there are no sins. The reason is that for Christ’s sake, God will not see them. They exist for my eyes, I see them, and feel them too. But Christ is there who bids me preach that I am to repent … and then believe in the forgiveness of sin in His name … Where such faith is, therefore, God no longer sees sin. For thou standest there before God not in thy name but in Christ’s name; thou dost adorn thyself with grace and righteousness although in thine own eyes and in thine own person, thou art a miserable sinner (armer Sunder) … Let not that owever scare you to death … speak rather thus: Ah, Lord I am a miserable sinner (armer Sunder), but I shall not remain such; for Thou has commanded that forgiveness of sins be preached in Thy name … Thus our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the garment of grace that is put upon us, that God our Father may not look upon us as sinners but receive us as righteous, holy, godly children, and give us eternal life.”“we, however, teach,” he says again, “that we are to learn to know and regard Him, as Him who sits there for the poor, stupid conscience, if so be that we believe on Him, not as a judge … but as a gracious, kind, comforting mediator between my frightened conscience and God; and says to me – You are a sinner, and afraid that the Devil will drag you by the law before the judgment seat; come then and hold fast to me, and fear no wrath. Why? Because I sit here for the very purpose that if you believe in Me, I can come between you and God so that no wrath or evil can touch you. For if wrath and punishment go over you, they must first go over Me and that is not possible … Therefore, through faith we are altogether blissful and safe, so that we shall abide uncondemned, not for the sake of our own purity and holiness, but for Christ’s sake, because, through such faith, we hold on to Him as our mercy-seat, assured that in and with Him no wrath can remain, but pure love, indulgence, forgiveness.”Embedded in the Protestant formularies, both doctrinal and devotional, this “miserable sinner” conception of the Christian life has molded the piety of all the Protestant generations. Throughout the Protestant world believers confess themselves to be, still as believers, wrath deserving sinners; and that not merely with reference to their inborn sinful nature as yet incompletely eradicated, but with reference also to their total life-manifestation which their incompletely eradicated sinful nature flows into and acts out. Their continued sinning, indeed, is already confessed whenever they repeat the Lord’s Prayer, since, among the very few petitions included in it, is the very emphatic one: “Forgive us our trespasses.” Naturally therefore, the exposition of this prayer, designed for the instruction of the several churches in their attitude toward God, are the special depository of pointed reminders to believers of their continual sinning. Luther, for example, incorporates a very full and searching exposition of “the Fifth Petition” into his Large Catechism, in which he affirms that “we sin daily in words and deeds, by commission and omission,” and he warns us that “no one is to think that so long as he lives here below he can bring it about that he does not need such forgiveness:; that, in fact, “unless God forgives without cessation, we are lost.” It is by his Short Catechism of 1529, however, that Luther has kept his hand most permanently on the instruction of the churches. In it he teaches the catechumens to say that “God richly forgives me and all believers every day, all our sins,” “for we sin much every day and deserve nothing but punishment.” In the instructions for the confessional coming from the hand of Luther which were soon incorporated into his shorter catechism, the believing penitent accordingly is told to say “I, miserable sinner, confess myself before God guilty of all manner of sins …” the hold which this teaching has taken of the devotional expressions of the Lutheran Churches may be illustrated by the presence in the new Agenda of the National Prussian Church of a Confession of Sin for the whole congregation which runs thus: “We confess … that we were conceived and born in sin; and, full of ignorance and heedlessness of Thy divine word and will, always prone to all wickedness and slack to all good, we transgress Thy divine commandments unceasingly in thoughts, words and deeds.” Naturally it retains its place in the forms of service adopted for “the three bodies” of American Lutherans. In the German form the Confession of Sin takes this form: “I, poor sinful man, confess to God, the Almighty, my Creator and Redeemer, that I not only have sinned in thoughts, words and deeds, but also was conceived and born in sin, and so all my nature and being is deserving of punishment and condemnation before His righteousness. Therefore I flee to His gratuitous mercy and seek and beseech His grace. Lord, be merciful to me, miserable sinner.” The English form is to the same effect.It is the same in the Reformed churches as in the Lutheran: catechisms and liturgies alike embody the confession of the continued sinfulness of the Christian, and his continued dependence on the forgiving grace of Christ. In Calvin’s Catechism the catechumen is made to declare that there is no man living so righteous that he does not need to make request for the forgiveness of his sins, that Christ has therefore prescribed a prayer for forgiveness of sins for the whole church, and he who would exempt himself from it,: refuseth to be of the company of Christ’s flock: and in very deed the Scriptures do plainly testify, that the most perfect man that is, if he would allege one point to justify him self before God, should be found with fault in a thousand things.” “It is meete therefore,” it concludes, “that every man have a recourse continually unto God’s mercy.” When expounding at an earlier point the clause in the Creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” it is said that God “doth freely forgive all the sins of them that believe in Him,” the comprehensiveness of the language is intended to include in the declaration sins committed after as well as before the inception of faith. And therefore, when good works come to be treated of, it is said that they are “not worthy of themselves to be accepted,” “because there is mixed some filth through the infirmity of the flesh, whereby they are defiled.” They are accepted by God therefore “only because it pleaseth God of his goodness to love us freely, and so cover and forget our faults.”The teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism is to the same effect. We increase our guilt daily, we are told; our whole Christian life is occupied with a conflict against sin and the Devil; and our best works in this life are imperfect and defiled with sin. To the question whether those have been converted can keep God’s law perfectly, it is answered explicitly, “No, but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience, yet so that with earnest purpose they begin to live, not only according to some but according to all the commandments of God.” As in Calvin’s Catechism, the most comprehensive language is employed, however, in expounding the clause of the Creed on the forgiveness of sins. “I believe, that God for the satisfaction of Christ.” We read, “hath quite put out of His remembrance all my sins, and even that corruption also, wherewith I must strive all my life long.” And naturally the exposition of “the Fifth Petition” of the Lord’s Prayer is the occasion for repeating that we are “miserable sinners” burdened not merely with the evil which always still clings to us, but also with numerous transgressions.Perhaps this series of truths never received crisper statement, however, than at the hands of John Craig in his larger Catechism (1581), on the basis whether of the article of the Creed or the petition of the Prayer. “Why is remission of sins put here? Because it is proper to the church and members of the same. Wherefore is it proper to the church only? Because in the church only is the spirit of faith and repentance …How often are our sins forgiven us? Continually, unto the ends of our lives. What need is there of this? Because sin is never thoroughly abolished here.” What is it we seek in this fifth petition? Remission of our sins, our spiritual debts … Should every man pray this way continually? Yes, for all believers are subject to sin. But sometimes men do good things, don’t they? But yet they sin in the best things they do.”The Calvinistic liturgies naturally also reflect this universal Reformed doctrine. The Confession of Sins contained in the liturgy which was published by Calvin in 1542 and which passed into the use of all the French speaking Reformed churches, has been universally admired. Its beauty, says E. Lacheret, has been proclaimed with one voice; Christian sentiment finds in it one of the purest and strongest expressions: “brief, sober, solemn, it expresses in a grave style and penetrating tone, the grief of the penitent soul, its appeal to the divine mercy, its desire for a new and holy life.” Its opening prayer in the form in which it has long been used in the English speaking French Protestant church of Charelston, S.C., runs thus: “O Lord God! Eternal and almighty Father! We confess before thy Divine Majesty that we are miserable sinners, born in corruption and iniquity, prone to evil, and of ourselves incapable of any good. We acknowledge that we transgress in various ways thy holy commandments, so that we draw down on ourselves, through thy righteous judgment, condemnation and death.” …It has not always been easy through the Protestant ages to maintain in its purity this high attitude of combined shame of self and confidence in the mercy of God in Christ. But even in the worst of times it has not been left without witness. There is Zinzendorf, for example. It was an evil day of abounding Rationalism that he discovered for himself and for his followers a “miserable sinner Christianity.” …In those same bad days of the eighteenth century “miserable sinner Christianity” was rediscovered also by the English Evangelicals. We may take Thomas Adam as an example. His like minded biographer, James Stillingfleet, tells us how, having been awakened to the fact that he was preaching a work-religion, he was at last led to the truth, not without some reading of Luther, it is true, but particularly by prayerful study of the Epistle to the Romans. “He was,” writes his biographer, “rejoiced exceedingly; found peace and comfort spring up in his mind; his conscience was purged from guilt through the atoning blood of Christ, and his heart set at liberty to run the way of God’s commandments without fear, in a spirit of filial love and holy delight; and from that hour he began to preach salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone, to man by nature and practice lost, and condemned under the law, and as his own expression is, always a sinner.” In this italicized phrase, Adam had in mind of course our sinful nature, a very profound sense of the evil which colored all of his thought. In one of those piercing declarations which his biographers gathered out of his diaries and published under the title of “Private Thoughts on Religion” Adam tells us how he thought of indwelling sin. “Sin is still there, deep in the center of my heart, and twisted about every fiber of it.” But he knew very well that sin could not be in the heart and not also in the life. “When have I not sinned?” he asks, and answers, “The reason is evident, I carry myself about with me.” Accordingly he says: “When we have done all we ever shall do, the very best state we shall ever arrive at, will be so far from meriting a reward, that it will need a pardon.” Again, “If I was to live to the world’s end, and do all the good that a man can do, I must still cry ‘mercy!’” This is very much in accordance with Zinzendorf’s and his hymn “Christ’s Blood and Righteousness.” So far from balking at the confession of daily sins, he adds to that the confession of universal sinning, “I know with infallible certainty,” he says, “That I have continued to sin ever since I could discern between good and evil; in thought, word and deed; in every period, condition, and relation of life; every day against every commandment.” …“Justification by sanctification,” says Adam, “is man’s way to heaven … Sanctification by justification is God’s, and He fills the soul with His own fullness.” …And even more plainly he says, “Sanctification is a gift; and the business of man is to desire, receive and use it. But he can by no act or effort of his own produce it in himself. Grace can do everything; nature nothing.” “I am resolved,” he therefore declares, “to receive my virtue from God as a gift, instead of presenting Him with a spurious kind of my own.” … Thus in complete dependence upon grace, and in never ceasing need of grace (take “grace” in its full sense of goodness to the undeserving) the saint goes onward in his earthly work…It is clear that “miserable-sinner Christianity” is a Christianity which thinks of pardon as holding the primary place in salvation. To it, sin is in the first instance offense against God, and salvation from sin is therefore in the first instance pardon, first not merely in time but in importance. In this Christianity, accordingly, the sinner turns to God first of all as the pardoning God; and that not as the God who pardons him once and then leaves him to Himself, but as the God who steadily preserves the attitude toward him of a pardoning God. It is in this aspect that he thinks primarily of God and it is on the preservation of God’s part of this attitude towards him that all his hopes of salvation depend. This is because he looks to God and to god alone for his salvation, and that in every step of salvation – since otherwise whatever else it may be, it would not be salvation. It is of course only from a God whose attitude to the sinner is that of a pardoning God, that the saving operation can be hoped. No doubt, if those transgressions which we class together as the process of salvation are our own work, we may not have so extreme a need of a constantly pardoning God. But that is not the point of view of that of “miserable-sinner Christianity” The miserable sinner understands that God alone can save, and he depends upon God alone for salvation; for all of salvation in every step and stage of it. He is not merely the man then, who emphasizes justification as the fundamental saving operation; but also the man who emphasizes the supernaturalness of the whole saving process. It is all of God; and it is continually from God throughout the whole process. The “miserable-sinner Christian” insists that salvation is accomplished not all at once (in our flesh) but in the process of a growth through an ever-advancing forward movement. It occupies time and space; it has a beginning and middle and end. And just because it is in this way progressive in its accomplishments, it is always incomplete – until the end. As Luther put it, Christians, here below, are not “made” but in the “making.” Things in the making are in the hands of the Maker, are absolutely dependent upon Him, and in their remnant imperfection require His continued pardon as well as His continued forming. We cannot outgrow dependence upon the continued pardoning grace of God, then, so long as the whole process of our forming is not completed; and we cannot feel satisfaction with ourselves of course until that process is fully accomplished. To speak of satisfaction in an incomplete work is a contradiction in terms. The “miserable-sinner Christian” accordingly, just as strongly emphasizes the progressiveness of the saving process and the consequent survival of sin and sinning throughout the whole of its as yet unfinished course, as he does justification as its foundation stone and its true supernaturalness throughout. … It is a structure which is adapted to the needs of none but sinners, and which, perhaps, can have no very clear meaning to any but sinners. And this is in reality the sum of the whole matter: “miserable-sinner Christianity” is a Christianity distinctively for sinners. It is fitted to their apprehension as sinners, addressed to their acceptance as sinners, and meets their claimant needs as sinners. The very name which has been given it bears witness to it as such.Naturally, therefore, to those who are not preoccupied with a sense of their sinfulness, “miserable-sinner Christianity” makes very little appeal. It would indeed be truer to say that it excites in them a positive distaste. It does not seem to them to have any particular fitness for their case, which they very naturally identify with the case of men in general. It appears to them to foster a morbid preoccupation with faults which are in part at least only fancied. It does scant justice, as they think, to the dignity of human nature, with its ethical endowments and capacities for self-improvement. It presents, as they view it, insufficient and ineffective motives for moral effort, and tends therefore to produce weak and dependant characters prone to acquiesce in an imperfect development, merely because they lack the vigor to go forward. Men turn away from it in proportion as they are inclined to put a high estimate on human nature as it manifests itself in the world, and especially upon its moral condition, its moral powers, its present and possible moral achievements. It is a Gospel for sinners, and those who do not think of themselves as sinners find no attraction in it. It has accordingly been in every age the shining mark of attack for men of what is commonly spoken of as the Rationalistic temperament. It should not surprise us, therefore, that in our own age also it should have been made an object of assault. …
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
Post a Comment