Down sinner, down - Looking Up Unto JESUS
"For
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
-ROMANS
3:23 [KJV]
What
is it to "come short of the glory of God?" It is to
act without a view to His glory. Now everything that we have ever
done, which has not been done with a single eye to God's glory, has
the brand of sin stamped on it. But who in an unregenerate state,
who, as the fallen son of a fallen parent, ever had an eye to the
glory of God? Did such a thing ever enter into man's natural heart as
to speak to God's glory, act to His glory, consult His glory, and
live to His glory? Before ever such a thought, such a desire can
cross our breast, we must have seen Him who is invisible; we must
have had a view by faith of the glory of the Three-One God; we must
have had a single eye given us by the Holy Ghost to see that glory
outshining all creature good.
Every movement, then, of the selfish heart, every desire to gratify, please and exalt self, is a coming short of the glory of God. This stamps all natural men's religious services with the brand of sin. It leaves the religious in the same awful state as the irreligious; it hews down the professing world with the same sword that cuts down the profane world. When men in a state of nature are what is called "religious," is their religion's end and aim the glory of God, the glory of free grace, the glory of the Mediator between God and man, the glory of the Holy Ghost, the only Teacher of God's people?
Every movement, then, of the selfish heart, every desire to gratify, please and exalt self, is a coming short of the glory of God. This stamps all natural men's religious services with the brand of sin. It leaves the religious in the same awful state as the irreligious; it hews down the professing world with the same sword that cuts down the profane world. When men in a state of nature are what is called "religious," is their religion's end and aim the glory of God, the glory of free grace, the glory of the Mediator between God and man, the glory of the Holy Ghost, the only Teacher of God's people?
Take
it in its best, its brightest shape, is it not another form of
selfishness, to exalt their own righteousness, and climb to heaven by
the ladder of their own doings? And is not this a coming short of the
glory of God? But besides that, the very glory of God requires that
every one accepted in His sight should be without spot, speck, stain
or blemish. A pure God cannot accept, cannot look upon, cannot be
pleased with impurity; and just in proportion to the infinite purity
and ineffable holiness of Jehovah, must all impurity, all carnality,
all unholiness, and the slightest deviation from absolute perfection
be hateful and horrible in His sight.
Now this all the election of grace are brought more or less to feel. It is the solemn and indispensable preparation of the heart for mercy; it is the introduction by the hand of the Spirit into the antechamber of the King of kings. It is the bringing of the soul to that spot, that only spot, where grace is felt, received, and known. It is, therefore, utterly indispensable for the election of grace, for all the ransomed and quickened family of God, to have this felt in their conscience, that they "have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
Now this all the election of grace are brought more or less to feel. It is the solemn and indispensable preparation of the heart for mercy; it is the introduction by the hand of the Spirit into the antechamber of the King of kings. It is the bringing of the soul to that spot, that only spot, where grace is felt, received, and known. It is, therefore, utterly indispensable for the election of grace, for all the ransomed and quickened family of God, to have this felt in their conscience, that they "have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802–1869 A.D.)
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