In his classic work, Human Nature In Its Fourfold State, Thomas Boston describes the Christian's struggle with sin:
Many a groan is heard from a sick bed, but never from a grave. In the saint, as in the sick man, there is a mighty struggle; life and death striving for the mastery: but in the natural man, as in the dead corpse, there is no noise, because death bears full away.
Our struggle with sin, in fact, gives us assurance that we are indeed saved. We are like sick men, getting better, and not dead men.
JTR
2 comments:
Jeff,
That is a wonderful quote.
Thanks
Steve
One of the parodoxical blessings of walking with Christ is the Spirit's "raising of the curtain" to our despicable sin pattern. The irony is that when we accept Christ as our savior, we begin to increasingly become aware and convicted of the NEED for that redeemer as our spiritual eyes are opened to the debauchery of our heart. Jerry Bridges, in his classic work Pursuit of Holiness, captures this paradox perfectly as he visually illustrates in Ch. 10 that as we respond in obedience in dying to sin and thus growing in holiness, we also grow in awareness of the true magnitude and breadth of our sin. While our journey towards the image of Christ begins an upward trajectory upon salvation, as Boston describes, the slope of our awareness of sin is that much faster. In other words, the gap expands when you are meditating on the awesome holiness of Jesus Christ.
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