Chapter Nine: Conviction Of Sin

We saw in the preceding chapter that the gospel, when believed, produced a certain effect upon the sinner; and we noticed especially the effect produced by believing the first proposition of the gospel proclamation, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” We attempted to show that there was an immediate and causal connection between the fact stated and the result; or, in other words, that the death of the Son of God was naturally fitted by its very meaning to produce the effect; and it will be remembered that we characterized this effect as “reconciliation.” It may be necessary here, however, in order to avoid any possible misconstruction, to state explicitly that this primary “reconciliation” comes far short of that complete restoration to friendship and fellowship exhibited in the life and character and conduct of a Christian. This latter is reconciliation in fact—in practical relations—and is the goal towards which the former begins to lead the believing sinner. But at present we are considering him at the starting point, when he first perceives and recognizes, in the sending and the sacrifice of Christ, a manifestation of God’s true character and attitude. This overcomes his own feeling of estrangement and enmity. He sees that he has been acting upon a false view, and that consequently his whole past course of rebellion was wrong. He sees God in Christ, and in the history of Christ; and so for him the prayer of the Saviour is answered: “That the world may believe that thou didst send me” (John 17:21.)

And this brings before us a question which however simple in itself, and however clearly answered in the Scriptures, has been so complicated by polemic discussions that, to the popular mind, it seems confused and difficult. I refer to the proper and natural effect of faith. Many persons think of faith as being a sort of arbitrary appointment, important because God has prescribed it, but having no vital and necessary connections with the blessings which succeed it. These blessings are thought of very much like the child in a school thinks of the prize offered by the teacher for diligence in study. He well knows that there is nothing in his diligence which tends to produce the prize; that it is in no sense causative, but only conditional; and conditional merely because the teacher has so appointed and declared. The natural effect diligence upon the mind and upon the character and attainments of the scholar in one thing, and the reward or prize, coming in ab extra, is a totally different one. Now I do not think that any of the blessings ascribed to faith in the New Testament are given as a prize, or as an independent reward; they all come through it and out of it as a normal effect. Faith is calculated and fitted in the very nature of things to bring to pass certain results; and these are what we shall find in the Scriptures ascribed to it.

When we thus look upon faith as something grounded in the very nature of God and of man and of their relations to each other—as something, therefore, which was not made true by being revealed, but which was revealed because it is true—we shall not be surprised to find that the very first effect of this faith is one which seems to be conducting the soul away from salvation. We are not surprised, I say, because we see at once that this effect is normal and natural. The recognition and belief of the truth concerning God and Christ, so far from comforting and gladdening the heart, fill it with distress and anguish. But unfortunately, instead of a proper interpretation of this fact, instead of looking upon it as a necessary result of true belief, most of us have been taught to regard it as indicating something wrong or defective in the belief itself; and the believing sinner is gravely told in his distress that what he needs, and all that he needs, is to believe! But I am obliged to think that the man’s faith is all right. He believes in God and Christ, and in all that has been done and 4 8 suffered for him — believes it truly and heartily; and it is just because he does thus believe it that he is unhappy. What he needs, therefore, is not faith, for he has that; he has enough of it, and it is the right faith, and it is exercised in the right way, and it is having its right effect. What he needs, and what he feels in his soul that he needs, is to get into the right practical relations with God. The distressed state of mind which is called conviction, and which is implied rather than expressed in the commission, is brought clearly and formally to our attention in John 16:8-9 : “And he *the Comforter] when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me” (Revised Version). There are several points connected with this result which call for special notice:

1. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, or Advocate. He generates in the heart this profound sense of guilt and sin. It is not something that rises spontaneously in the consciousness; it is a product, the effect of an efficient cause, and that cause is the Divine Spirit. We may hence conclude that without the presence and operation of that cause the effect would never be.

2. This efficient cause operates to produce the effect stated, primarily through the apostles, and secondarily through the church and ministry. These, as stated in a previous chapter, constitute his organs, or the medium of communication between himself and the world; and it is through this medium, which he fills with his own light and truth and power, that he operates upon the world.

3. In effecting this work he uses, through the agency of these same organs, the gospel of Christ, in all the length and breadth of its facts, and in all the height and depth of their meaning. This gospel thus preached, with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, and with all the accumulated and cumulative testimonies in its support, produces in given cases faith, or a deliberate and heartfelt assurance that it is the truth; and, consequently, that God himself is, in very deed, what he is there represented to be, but what the sinner has never before believed that he really was. And thus in this very faith is revealed to him the enormity of the sin and guilt of his past life. He is “convicted of sin.” He realizes his desperate wickedness, and wakes up to the fact that he is lost! — lost because he is out of proper relations with God, the only source of life and salvation.

But some one may say that my whole argument here is directly opposed to the teaching of the text upon which I have assumed to base it; that while I urge that the Spirit convicts men of sin through faith, the text declares that it does so because of their want of faith. This objection, if viewed simply upon the surface, and without reference to explanatory Scriptures, would seem plausible. The text certainly does declare that “he shall convict the world of sin. . . because they believe not on me.” And now, whatever this means is the truth.

It is scarcely necessary for me to say that I fully believe not only that unbelief is somehow connected with the “conviction,” but that it is the ground and cause of it. This is expressly stated, and puts the fact beyond controversy; but it does not settle the question as to the location of that fact. At what period of the sinner’s history can unbelief be predicated of him? Shall we say it is after he believes the gospel or before! It seems to me that to ask this question is to answer it. Surely, after the Holy Spirit has brought the sinner to believe in Christ, he will not convict him of sin because of his then unbelief. There would be no ground for it. The existing fact would not justify it. It would really be convicting a man of sin for having yielded to the Spirit’s influence. But the accumulation of guilt and sin, resulting from the whole previous life of unbelief, is a present fact and all-sufficient ground for conviction.

The usually accepted doctrine of two faiths, each before justification, the one “historical,” the other “saving,” confuses the intellect, while it makes dark many an otherwise luminous passage of holy writ. In this particular case, for example, the text is viewed through the medium of what is thought of as saving faith, and it is supposed to be the absence of this that constitutes the ground of conviction — as though the Holy Spirit would convict a man of sin for not exercising the kind of faith which is thought by those who teach it to be the immediate gift of Heaven, which the Saviour never mentions, and which an apostle mentions only to repudiate. I beg to suggest that if, instead of the phrase “saving faith,” we were to accustom ourselves to speak of “the faith of the saved” in distinction from that of the “unsaved,” we should point out a difference that is important and scriptural; while at the same time we should avoid the expression of any preconception as to the process of transition from the one to the other. The faith of the unjustified or unsaved would then uniformly be understood to be the “belief of the truth,” the belief of the word, the belief of the gospel. That is what it is, and that is all that it is. If that does not save the sinner—and of course it does not—it is not because the faith is not of the right sort, but because he needs something else besides faith. And in my judgment if, instead of pointing to him to that something else, we put him to looking for a different kind of faith, which he does not know where to find, nor how to get, we are misleading him.

But to return to the meaning of the text which is under review, we have, happily, recorded examples of the performance of this very work of the Spirit. The first instances give—found in the second chapter of Acts—is at once luminous and conclusive. In brief, the Apostle Peter preached the gospel — the Holy Spirit using him for that purpose; he bore witness to its fundamental facts, confirming his testimony by the Scriptures, and thus proved it to be the truth. Those who heard became satisfied that it was the truth; they recognized it as such; they believed it; and at that very moment, and in consequences of that very fact, they were cut to the heart—“convicted of sin.” But why? Manifestly not because of any defect or error in their present belief, for that was produced by the Spirit, and of course it was all right; but they were painfully distressed and conscience-stricken because in their previous unbelief they had rejected and crucified their own Messiah. And now, what is to become of them? What shall they do? What shall any sinner do who is in the same condition? The great commission of the Saviour, as interpreted by the Holy Spirit will answer. If what is wanted at this point is more faith, or a different sort of faith, it will tell us so. Or if something else besides faith is needed, it will tell us that, and tell us what; and its answers will be authoritative and final.