C. From the experience of the Christian.
Christian experience is a testing of Scripture truth, and therefore is not an independent source of knowledge. It may, however, corroborate conclusions drawn from the word of God. Since the judgment of the Christian is formed under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we may trust this more implicitly than the general sense of the world. We affirm, then, that just in proportion to his spiritual enlightenment and self-knowledge, the Christian
(a) Regards his outward deviations from God's law, and his evil inclinations and desires, as outgrowths and revelations of a depravity of nature which lies below his consciousness; and
(b) Repents more deeply for this depravity of nature, which constitutes his inmost character and is inseparable from himself, than for what he merely feels or does.
In proof of these statements we appeal to the biographies and writings of those in all ages who have been by general consent regarded as most advanced in spiritual culture and discernment.
“Intelligentia prima est, ut te noris peccatorem.” Compare David's experience, Ps. 51:6—“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: And in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom”—with Paul's experience in Rom. 7:24—“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?”—with Isaiah's experience (6:5), when in the presence of God's glory he uses the words of the leper (Lev. 13:45) and calls himself “unclean,” and with Peter's experience (Luke 5:8) when at the manifestation of Christ's miraculous power he “fell down at Jesus' [pg 556]knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” So the publican cries: “God, be thou merciful to me the sinner” (Luke 18:13), and Paul calls himself the “chief” of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). It is evident that in none of these cases were there merely single acts of transgression in view; the humiliation and self-abhorrence were in view of permanent states of depravity. Van Oosterzee: “What we do outwardly is only the revelation of our inner nature.” The outcropping and visible rock is but small in extent compared with the rock that is underlying and invisible. The iceberg has eight-ninths of its mass below the surface of the sea, yet icebergs have been seen near Cape Horn from 700 to 800 feet high above the water.
It may be doubted whether any repentance is genuine which is not repentance for sin rather than for sins; compare John 16:8—the Holy Spirit “will convict the world in respect of sin/” On the difference between conviction of sins and conviction of sin, see Hare, Mission of the Comforter. Dr. A. J. Gordon, just before his death, desired to be left alone. He was then overheard confessing his sins in such seemingly extravagant terms as to excite fear that he was in delirium. Martensen, Dogmatics, 389—Luther during his early experience “often wrote to Staupitz: ‘Oh, my sins, my sins!’ and yet in the confessional he could name no sins in particular which he had to confess; so that it was clearly a sense of the general depravity of his nature which filled his soul with deep sorrow and pain.” Luther's conscience would not accept the comfort that he wishedto be without sin, and therefore had no real sin. When he thought himself too great a sinner to be saved, Staupitz replied: “Would you have the semblance of a sinner and the semblance of a Savior?”
After twenty years of religious experience, Jonathan Edwards wrote (Works 1:22, 23; also 3:16-18): “Often since I have lived in this town I have had very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness, very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping, sometimes for a considerable time together, so that I have been often obliged to shut myself up. I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness and the badness of my heart than ever I had before my conversion. It has often appeared to me that if God should mark iniquity against me, I should appear the very worst of all mankind, of all that have been since the beginning of the world to this time; and that I should have by far the lowest place in hell. When others that have come to talk with me about their soul's concerns have expressed the sense they have had of their own wickedness, by saying that it seemed to them they were as bad as the devil himself; I thought their expressions seemed exceeding faint and feeble to represent my wickedness.”
Edwards continues: “My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable and swallowing up all thought and imagination—like an infinite deluge, or mountains over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite on infinite and multiplying infinite by infinite. Very often for these many years, these expressions are in my mind and in my mouth: ‘Infinite upon infinite—infinite upon infinite!’ When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell. And it appears to me that were it not for free grace, exalted and raised up to the infinite height of all the fulness and glory of the great Jehovah, and the arm of his power and grace stretched forth in all the majesty of his power and in all the glory of his sovereignty, I should appear sunk down in my sins below hell itself, far beyond the sight of everything but the eye of sovereign grace that can pierce even down to such a depth. And yet it seems to me that my conviction of sin is exceeding small and faint; it is enough to amaze me that I have no more sense of my sin. I know certainly that I have very little sense of my sinfulness. When I have had turns of weeping for my sins, I thought I knew at the time that my repentance was nothing to my sin.... It is affecting to think how ignorant I was, when a young Christian, of the bottomless, infinite depths of wickedness, pride, hypocrisy, and deceit left in my heart.”
Jonathan Edwards was not an ungodly man, but the holiest man of his time. He was not an enthusiast, but a man of acute, philosophic mind. He was not a man who indulged in exaggerated or random statements, for with his power of introspection and analysis he combined a faculty and habit of exact expression unsurpassed among the sons of men. If the maxim “cuique in arte sua credendum est” is of any value, Edwards's statements in a matter of religious experience are to be taken as correct interpretations of the facts. H. B. Smith (System. Theol., 275) quotes Thomasius as saying: “It is a striking fact in Scripture that statements of the depth and power of sin are chiefly from the regenerate.” Another has said that “a serpent is never seen at its whole length until it is dead.” Thomas à Kempis (ed. Gould and Lincoln, 142)—“Do [pg 557]not think that thou hast made any progress toward perfection, till thou feelest that thou art less than the least of all human beings.” Young's Night Thoughts: “Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight—a naked human heart.”