In reading Thomas Watson's "The Doctrine of Repentance" today, the God-centeredness of the puritans, and particularly of Thomas Watson jumped out at me again. Watson (as with all the puritans) had such a beautiful way of getting to the heart into the thoughts and motives. This book reminds me of Owen's "Mortification of Sin" in the way that he wields the sword to cut through to the heart like a great surgeon of the soul. Watson shows that God is the ultimate motivation to true repentance and I saw that in a major way today. In talking about sorrow over sin (one essential element of true repentance), Watson talks about the reason for sorrowing over sin. These two quotes were very convicting and Biblical:
"Question 2: But how great must sorrow for sin be in all?
Answer: It must be as great as for any worldly loss. "I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10) Sorrow for sin must surpass worldly sorrow. We must grieve more for offending God that for the loss of dear relations. Therefore in that day the Lord GOD of hosts called you to weeping, to wailing, To shaving the head and to wearing sackcloth. (Isaiah 22:12): this was for sin. But in the case of the burial of the dead we find God prohibiting tears and baldness (Jeremiah 22:10; 16:6), to intimate that sorrow for sin must exceed sorrow at the grave; and with good reason, for in the burial of the dead it is only a friend who departs, but in sin God departs."
"We usually weep for the loss of some great good; by sin we have lost the favour of God. If Micah did so for the loss of a false god, saying, 'Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more?' (Judges 18:24) then well may we weep for our sins which have taken away the true God from us."
May we share the same radical, God-centeredness in all our dealings with sin. Oh, for more puritans today!
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4 comments:
Vinnie, great thoughts. Thanks for sharing them.
I was just thinking - as we increase in our understanding of God, this should help us to flee sin more. With greater knowledge comes greater conviction, because our knowledge of God deepens our remorse for sin. Therefore, those who know much take heed lest they fall and grieve much!
Yeah. I have often thought about the fact that people who downplay theology and doctrine are missing out on a lot because the power to "flee sin" comes from loving God more. We cannot love God more if we don't know Him more. The Spirit uses the word to deepen our devotion to Him and, therefore, make it harder for us to sin without conviction. This should, once again, drive us back into the word for the renewing of our mind and for our transformation (Romans 12:1-2) Thanks!
Hey Vinnie, It's Jacob. Just want to say awesome blog! I'll be checking in on it frequently. There's so much to say about all the post...I'll just e-mail you.
-Jacob
Hi Vinnie, I just finished catching up on reading all your entries. The only musing I would offer (as a general comment on all of them) is this: All of our sin is a misplacing of our affections, even after being saved; the stuggle is to either fulfill our God-given desires with Him, or to pursue infinitely lesser tresures found here. I think of our addictions to even good things like hobbies, sex within marrage, and even ministry goals can get in the way of desiring, yes worshiping God Himself. Sometimes I find myself, not in the gutter of fornication or drunkeness, but in the gutter of my self determination to do this, or do that for God, when all the while, I am delighting in my accomplishments alone, and not delighting in the one who accomplished those things through me...God. Furthermore, it is sad to see Godly men teach that we are saved into a sort of neutrality of affections, perhaps having adopted some degree of stoicism. But we are saved into having right desires rather than being saved into a desireless, passionless orthodoxy.
jAsOn
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