Am I under grace or under sin? In one of the epistles, sin is personified as a tyrant that keeps us under its cruel dominion. This tyrant is cunning enough to disguise the shackles that bind the sinner, so that we may imagine we have escaped when in reality we have never been set free to serve righteousness instead. In the following updated extract, Obadiah Sedgwick (who contributed to the Westminster Assembly) exposes six of the lies that we tell ourselves about our sin, which lull us into a false sense of freedom. It should make us highly value the divine work of making us free from sin to serve God, resulting in sanctification and eternal life.

People may delude their own hearts, and deceive themselves about the dominion of sin. Therefore it is convenient to test ourselves whether or not sin really has dominion. There are many things we may erroneously think are good signs, and so deceive ourselves that sin does not have dominion over us. Here are six.

I don’t feel my sin is very powerful

One is being unconscious of the power of sin. A man may feel no violent sinful inclination, no stirrings, no opposition, no commands, but there is a calm and quietness in his spirit and in his way, and he thinks this would not be possible if sin had dominion over him.

But this is a deceit. For one thing, it is most probable that sin has the strongest dominion, where the heart is least aware of the rule and demands of sin. When the strong man keeps the house, all is quiet, said our Saviour. Where subjection is peaceable, there the dominion is (in all likelihood) most absolute and complete. What is certain, is that where Christ sets up His sceptre (which casts down the dominion of sin) is the greatest stir. The law of the mind will war against the law of the members (Rom. 7:23), and the spirit will lust against the flesh (Gal. 5:17).

For another thing, this unawareness and quietness may arise, partly from the uniqueness of sin, and partly from our ignorance of our sinful condition, and partly from the habitual custom of sin. Whether the sun is shining or not, there is still the same number of motes flying in the room. There they are really, though we are not aware of them till the light comes in to make them manifest. So someone may be utterly unaware of sin for lack of saving light and the holy experience which arises from a new nature.

The hand which is used to iron, and nettles, does not feel them. So the frequent actings of sin may suppress the inward sense of sinning. Much sinning adds to the strength of sin, and disables the sense of the sinner, sears their conscience, and makes their mind reprobate, and as it were without feeling.

I don’t do many very sinful things

Another thing that may deceive us may be that we are free from many kinds of sinful behaviours. Someone may not live in all sorts of wickedness, and indeed, their ways may seem to keep clear of various iniquities.

Yet, though you do not do all evil, and your ways or patterns of behaviour are not universally spreading in all the kinds of sinning, still sin may rule in you, and have dominion.

Being subject in one detail is sufficient to establish that you are under dominion. A servant has only one master, and is not the servant of everyone in the parish, yet he is a true servant in respect of that one master. A subject does not obey every prince in the world, yet if he obeys any one, it is enough to prove that he is a subject. So, though the sinner is not at the command of every lust, yet if he is the servant of any one lust, sin has the dominion over him. It is not the multitude of sins which absolutely and necessarily concur to dominion, but subjection to the power of any one.

One person may do all the service to one sin which others do to many sins. That person may devise ways to fulfil it, cheerfully and greedily receive its commands, heartily love it, and go on in it, and for its sake oppose the sceptre and dominion of Christ, and consecrate all their strength to the obedience of it.

As in politics, there are several forms of government, such as democracy, and aristocracy, and monarchy. Sometimes the dominion is exercised by many, sometimes by one alone, yet subjection to any of them is true subjection, and sets up dominion. So though in some people, many sins rule, and in other people, one sin only, yet whether the heart obeys many, or few, or one, it is enough to say that sin has dominion. Subjection to no sin, indeed, denies dominion, but if the dispute is over many sins versus few sins, then either way, subjection to any shows that sin has dominion.

There are plenty sins I’m opposed to

Someone may also think, ‘I’m actually opposed to many sins — this cannot possibly be consistent with being under the dominion of sin.’

Yet there may be notable deceit in this also, for it is not so much the greatness of the sins as the power of sin which means it is reigning. The least sin granted house room, loved, served, is sufficient to mean that you are under sin’s dominion.

Also, there are different kinds of opposition to sin.

In your professional life you may be opposed to certain kinds of sin, but indulge them in private life. A justice of the peace may oppose many sins on the bench, yet lie in those same sins at home in his own house and dealings.

Or, it is one thing to be opposed to sin simply because it is sin, and another thing to be opposed to sin because it is shame. This latter may well befall someone who is under the dominion of sin.

Once more, it is possible to be opposed to sin because it is against God’s will, rather than because it is against another sinful way and inclination. All sin has a contrariety to the law of God, yet some sins have a contrariety among themselves; prodigality is contrary to covetousness, for example. It is possible for someone to oppose a sin, not on account of its natural vileness, but on account of his own personal inclination, because it is a way of sinning that would overthrow that other sin which he loves, and in which he is resolved to walk.

In a word, it is not opposition to particular sins, but universal opposition to all known sin, which shows that you are not under the dominion of sin.

I have grievous heart-trouble after I commit a sin

Something else that may deceive us depends on the troubles which we may feel after some sinful actings. A person’s soul may be grievously heavy and perplexed, and on this basis he may conclude that sin does not have dominion over him, because he thinks that the dominion of sin excludes all trouble for sin.

Nevertheless, although hardness of heart after sin is just as bad a symptom of wickedness as impudence before sin, yet trouble for committing sin is not an infallible argument of sin’s dominion.

Even the worst of men may have after-troubles for former sinnings, and partake of great anguishes and troubles of conscience. I refer you to Ahab and to Judas, and to those of whom he speaks in Job, that “the terrors of God did drive them to their feet.”

Trouble for sin in respect of the conscience only, is only a judicial act, part of the wages of sin. Trouble in the affections (which theologians call ‘godly sorrow’) is indeed an effect of grace, but not mere trouble in the conscience, which consists in the sense and accusation that God brings on the sinner for his transgressions. God awakens the conscience after sin to accuse for sinning, even though the directions and checks of conscience could not avail to prevent that person from sinning. This is how a person whose heart is in no measure changed by grace (and is therefore of necessity under sin’s dominion) may be filled with extreme bitterness; the very terrors of hell may shake and confound his soul. Although grace is required to raise godly sorrow, yet conscience, awakened and actuated only by light and divine command, is abundantly sufficient to accuse, condemn, vex and trouble the sinner.

I only sin occasionally

There may be spaces, or interim periods, between sinning. People do not every moment, or every day, indulge in their sin, but there are often some pauses and distances of time between sinning and sinning. They may therefore conjecture that sin does not have dominion over them, thinking that where sin has dominion, then the person sells himself to sin, and wallows in sinning, and makes it his trade, at which he spends his life and strength.

But sin may yet have dominion, though there are some respites between sinning and sinning. Some respites do not arise from a nature which refuses to subject itself to sin, but only from lack of opportunities to sin. A thief may not steal because he is sick, and there is nothing convenient to take.

So we cannot identify the dominion of sin by an uninterrupted propagation of sinful acts — the drunkard is under the power of drunkenness, although he is sober from time to time — but by the disposition of the heart. If sin is the main thing you intend, and what you yield up your heart to, then it is immaterial whether you are always or only sometimes committing it.

In fact, to give no respite to your sinful actings would go against the wisdom of the flesh. Though the propensity to sin is constant, and the love of sin is great, yet the actings of sin may often vary, and depend on private reasons and considerations (such as safety, or quiet, or profit, or pleasure, etc).

I do plenty things which are good

Finally, someone may practice some actions which are contrary to all outwards sinnings. Let’s say a man is perhaps a constant church attender, and has a course of duties (such as they are) in his family, and makes many vows, and can condemn sin effectively. Surely sin has lost its dominion in that man?

Not necessarily, because the dominion of sin is inward. It may coexist with many visible acts of piety. A hypocrite may step out into all outward conformities, yet there is no visible act of impiety which a hypocrite either does not, or may not, perform.

Although acts which are materially good are formally opposite to sinful acts, yet we identify a Christian and a sinner alike more from the affections than from the actions. Indeed, it is the disposition of the heart which defines and decides what has dominion — the heart may be really rotten and false, and the true harbour of a sin, though the person manages to perform some visible duties of piety. There must be more than external performances in duty to show that sin does not have dominion over you.

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Most of the time Christians are actively living out their faith, looking upwards to serve God and around themselves to serve others. Yet there should also be periods for quiet reflection and self-analysis, when we put our hearts under the microscope and see how we measure up to God’s requirements. Knowing that we will never be perfect in this life, we still need to ascertain that we are honest, upright, and sincerely walking with integrity. Whereas a Christian genuinely pursues God’s interests rather than their own, with a hypocrite, it’s the other way round. In the following updated extract, the Westminster divine Obadiah Sedgwick takes an unflinching look at the ways our own hearts betray us, yet ends on the conviction that sincerity is truly attainable. Warning us against hypocrisy he offers eight considerations which should stir us up to test the uprightness of our hearts.

The danger of deceiving yourself about yourself

There is no deceit or error in the world which has more dangerous consequence, than to deceive yourself and err about the calibre of your soul. You may make mistakes about the depth of your riches, or the altitude of worldly friendship, or the latitude of your intellectual qualifications and abilities – you may think yourself rich, and popular, and learned, when perhaps you are not. But these mistakes are about nostra, not about nos – ours, but not ourselves, and the danger may be only a tempest, but not a shipwreck.

But to deceive yourself about your heart, about your soul – what more do you have? what do you have that are like them? This is a fundamental error. If a builder lays a rotten foundation instead of a sound, all his building eventually sinks into the ground. If a traveller sets out in a beautiful ship, whose bottom is unsound and leaking, he loses himself in the voyage.

Maybe you’ve spent many years in a form of godliness, in respectable behaviour, in courting God by some external performances. Then you come to die, and then your conscience rises up and opens up the secrets of your heart and life, and makes you to know and feel that notwithstanding all your claims and conceits, your heart had continually harboured many known lusts, and you weren’t thinking of God but basely thinking of yourself in all that you did.

What a fearful day that will be! How it will make your soul tremble, when you have no more time left now, except to see, and to eternally bewail your own errors and deceits! “O Lord, I have deceived my own soul, I thought myself to be this or that, but my heart has deceived and beguiled me!”

Hypocrisy is a very natural and common thing

Secondly, consider that hypocrisy is a very natural and common thing.

There are three sorts of persons in the world.

• The openly profane. They go wrong both in the matter and in the manner. They are neither really good, nor do they look like it. They are really wicked, and declare themselves so to be.
• The hiddenly hypocritical. They don’t go wrong so much in the matter as in the manner. They are wicked but seem good. They perform some good, but love more wickedness.
• The truly upright, who are upright both in the matter and manner of God’s worship.

Now I say that hypocrisy is very natural, and it has been and is a very common sin. Job 15:34 speaks of a congregation of hypocrites, as if there were whole assemblies of them, or at least some of them in every congregation. Isaiah complains that in his time, everyone is a hypocrite – scarce a man but he dissembled with God (9:17; likewise 29:13). David tells us often that the Israelites flattered God Himself with their mouths – gave Him (in their distress) mournful, submissive, promising words (O what would they be! and what would they do! if God would deliver them!) and yet their heart was not right in them. Jeremiah accuses the people of his time of this very thing too. Many, indeed, most, of them cried, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” and yet committed adultery and lies. When Christ was in the world His greatest contestation was with scribes and pharisees, hypocrites. Paul speaks bitterly against those who took on them the form of godliness, but denied the power thereof, and in 2 Timothy 4:12 he foretells of much lying hypocrisy in the latter times.

Take us in the general tenor of our best ways. The good God be merciful to us, what a distance there is many times, when we profess to serve God, between our tongues and our hearts, between our eyes and our hearts, between our ears and our hearts, between our bodies and our hearts! Our tongues are praying, and our mouths singing, and our eyes are looking at the minister, and at the same moments our hearts are plotting, projecting, arranging our own domestic affairs, or (which is worse) basely contemplating and practicing some abominable lust within us. Do you call this uprightness? If this is not hypocrisy, I don’t know what is.

Go a little further. Take us in our best performances, when we bring our thoughts and intentions, and some affections, and some workings to our work. Yet tell me seriously whether in it you are not looking besides God. You pray long and with much emotion in company, though when you are alone, a little is good enough. Are you not somewhat like the chameleon? Aren’t you a bit like Jehu, “Come and see my zeal!” Isn’t it the pharisaical spirit of vain-glory, “to be seen of men”? And is this not hypocrisy, directly and intentionally jostling God aside, to serve our own praise in a pretence of serving Him, so that others would admire us, and speak well of us?

I could add one thing more (which perhaps may make some of our hearts to tremble). There are some who explicitly and deliberately, with much studious art, take to themselves a look, a way of speaking, a facade of holiness, for no other end in the world, but to blind their secret sins from the eyes of the world. This is a most execrable kind of hypocrisy, yet some do abuse the name of Christianity only to satisfy their own beastly and damnable lust.

You can go far in religion without being truly saved

Thirdly, a hypocrite may go very far. In general there is no external part of religion into which the hypocrite may not only step, but perhaps (for show) exceed the sincerest and most upright Christian.

Does the true Christian hear? So do I, says the hypocrite. Does the true Christian pray? So do I. Does he shed tears? So do I. Does he fast? So do I. Does he give alms? So do I. Does he show respect to the minister by greetings and invites? So do I! Is he forward? I am zealous. Does he reprove? I thunder. Does he speak some words in prayer? I speak many. Does he do any good? I do more, in hearings more, in fastings more, in discoursings more, in outward actions more, every way more!

List and categorise duties every which way – for object, for place, for time – still the hypocrite keeps up religious duties, praying privately, praying publicly, hearing, reading, preaching – and in all these he may even have some joy. The hypocrite may be as sociable, as just, as fair, ingenuous, affable, generous, compassionate as any one I know. The Pharisees were the most punctilious of their times. No person living was more exact. Hear one of them speaking for all the rest, blessing and commending himself, “I am no extortioner, no adulterer, not like this publican, I fast twice in the week, I give alms of all that I possess …”

An impressive appearance may hide a rotten heart

Yet there is some secret lust which coexists and persists notwithstanding all this. Perhaps Herod’s sin, or Demas’s sin, filthiness or worldliness; or the wondrous covetousness of the Pharisees.

And the hypocrite’s ends are base. A pirate may rig and trim and steer, and order his ship as skilfully and exquisitely as any pilot who is the king’s most faithful servant, only their hearts and their ends are different. One is disloyal and the other is true. One goes out to catch a prey and a booty, a prize for himself; and the other sails for his master’s honour and service.

Lack of integrity is utter folly

It is certain that you cannot be a hypocrite without putting some effort into it. You need to be very officious in pretences and duties. It has to cost you some money to give alms, and much time to pray, etc. Yet when all is done, nothing comes of it.

The hypocrite has no reward with God. There is no reason to give wages to someone who bestows no service on us: but the hypocrite serves himself and not God, his own praise and not God’s glory, and therefore he can expect no reward from Him. He cannot say, “I prayed for grace so that I would honour Thee, and for abilities so that I would glorify Thee.”

And if someone is known to be a hypocrite, then he loses on all hands. The wicked hate him simply for the show of goodness, and the good scorn him for his base dissimulation and rottenness.

Or if he can conceal his hypocrisy, then all the reward he ever gets from other people is just an airy applause (Matt. 6:5). They get what they look for, the applause of men, and that’s all. Isn’t this a sad thing, when someone’s reward is only from man? – when all his reward is in this life, and no rewards are reserved for him hereafter?

Insincerity deserves greater misery

Hypocrisy is a most perilous sin. “You shall receive the greater damnation,” said Christ. Damnation! That is the eternal grave of the soul! That is misery enough – everlasting separation from God, and everlasting flames of wrath in hell. Yet that is the portion of the hypocrite (Isa 33:14). An ordinary hell is not enough for a hypocrite. The lowest and deepest punishment shall fall on the one who presumes to put on the fairest show with the foulest heart.

And do not think this strange, for what is hypocrisy but a mocking of God? The hypocrite tries to trick God, and thinks to deceive omniscience, and has such a low opinion of Him that he thinks mere shows would satisfy Him. In fact, he jostles God out of His prime place, by referring all his services to himself, and not to God, and so adores his own name above the name of God. Hypocrisy is so diametrically opposite to uprightness.

Uprightness is difficult

Again consider, that it is a very difficult thing to be upright.

Partly because the deceitfulness which is in our heart is “above all things” (Jer. 17:9). There is nothing so cunning thing as our heart, not a thing in all the world which can delude us so easily or so often as our own hearts. It is not easy to do good just because God commands it, or only because He may be glorified.

Also uprightness is difficult because it requires spirituality. The very soul itself must act, if the heart or way is upright. Not only your lips but your spirit must pray. Not only your ear but your heart must hear. You must not only speak against sin, but your soul must hate and abhor it. All this must be spiritual and not carnal, from God and for God.

Uprightness is attainable

Nevertheless, to be upright is a possible thing. It is possible to attain it. Indeed, everyone who is good does attain it. Noah was upright and walked with God, Abraham was upright before Him, David served the Lord in uprightness of heart, Hezekiah walked before Him with an upright heart, Paul served God in all good conscience, willing to live honestly in all things.

Though no one can say that he does all that God’s commands require, yet he may say he has respect to them all. Though no one can say that he has nothing, or does nothing, which the law of God forbids, yet he may say, “I hate every false way,” and, “Search me, O Lord, if there be any way of wickedness within me.” This is uprightness.

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It makes big news when a prominent leader in church, business or politics is exposed for committing sins behind closed doors. Inappropriate relationships, misuse of funds and bullying all thrive under cover of secrecy. Technology now offers everyone many previously unimagined opportunities to sin without anyone else needing to know what we’re doing. Sinning in secret also includes the sins which remain in our thoughts or our attitudes. Unspoken they may always remain, but they are not unseen from God’s vantage point. Nor are they innocuous simply because they do not come to outward expression. As the Westminster divine Obadiah Sedgwick points out, secret sins are sometimes more harmful to our souls than what we do openly. In the following updated extract from a set of sermons he preached on Psalm 19 (“Cleanse me from secret faults”), Sedgwick offers seven suggestions for what we can do to combat our secret sins. Although we cannot change our own nature and give ourselves integrity, this is something that God can and does do in regeneration and sanctification.

Sins may be called secret either when they are disguised with some semblance of virtue, or when they are kept out of public view, or when they are kept within the thoughts or the heart so that they are not visible to anyone.

Beloved, there are two sorts of people. Some are dissembling and evasive: their concern is not not to sin, but to be cunning in sin. Others are conflicting and agonizing against inward impulses, outward opportunities, and strong temptations: the desire of their soul is to fear the Lord and to do no iniquity.

Secret sins are in some ways more dangerous than open sins. By artfully keeping your sin hidden, you deprive yourself of help for your sinfulness, like someone who keeps their wound covered, or who bleeds inwardly. Help does not come because the danger is neither described nor known. If someone’s sin breaks out openly, there is a minister at hand, or a friend near, and others to reprove, to warn, to direct. But if a person sins inwardly, they prevent all public remedy and work towards their own damnation by covering their secret sins with some plausible varnish.

But, you will say, it is fearful to sin in this way! What means can be used to get and keep my soul away from secret sins?

What I would commend to you are the following.

Be humbly penitent for what you’ve done

If you have been guilty of secret sins, be humbled and repent. You will hardly stave off a new sin, if you have not been humbled for an old sin of the same kind. Future carefulness seldom manifests itself without former sorrow. If you have been a secret adulterer, fornicator, thief, backbiter, oppressor, liar, drunkard, then, O hasten, hasten in by speedy sorrow, by speedy repentance. Bewail your secret wickedness deeply – to the extent of tears of blood, if that were possible! if you do not judge yourself, God will surely judge you, and don’t think that because your sinnings were secret, therefore your compunctions can be small. You ought rather to abound in self-reproach, and be in more floods of tears, and of bitter contrition, considering you dared to provoke God in this way.

Avoid opportunities to keep sinning

Why are you saying, “O this bad nature of mine, O this heart I’ve got, O that wicked tempter Satan”? Yes, you’ve shed many tears, you’ve felt many sorrows and troubles, you’ve made many vows and resolutions, you’ve put up many prayers and petitions. Yet you are still continuing in your secret sinnings. Why? What could be the reason? Do prayers do nothing against sin? Do tears do nothing? Troubles? Vows? All of these will indeed achieve something, as long as something else be added: if the leak is stopped, if the windows are shut and the doors are locked. I mean, if occasions and provocations are conscionably and carefully avoided. Otherwise they are pointless. If you pray and then test your strength against what draws you into your secret sin, what are you doing in effect but seeking God one minute, and the next rising up and tempting Him? Keep close to heaven, and keep away from the opportunities, and then tell me whether God will not keep you from your sinnings.

Crush temptations at the root

Although you can turn away from opportunities and the things which prompt you to sin, yet you cannot get rid of your self. There is something in the self which can fetch in an opportunity to sin by representation, by inclination, by contemplation. Sometimes someone else provokes you to sin, which happens when you are in company. Sometimes your own heart provokes you to sin, which is when you are solitary. One moment the thoughts steal out, now imaginations confer with your mind, with your will, with your affections. So if you want to free yourself from secret actings, you must free yourself from secret thinkings. David prays, “Let the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).

Two strategies will never fail you in your attack on secret sinnings. One is to dig up the root of all sinnings. The other is to stifle the first conception of sins.

Beloved, to tie Samson’s arm was pointless, because his strength didn’t lie there. It was only if the hair of his head was cut off that his strength would be gone, and he became weak. To tamper only with the acts of sin is not the way to be rid of sinful acts. The one and only way to be rid of bad acts is to be rid of a bad nature.

If you could only get a holy nature, which would be at defiance with sin in its throne! Don’t you realise that a new nature and daily combat will greatly help against secret sinnings? The sin which is most of all combated within the heart is the sin which is least lively of all, for sin has least practise where it has most opposition, of all oppositions those that are inward are most weakening to sin.

Hate sin

Get a hatred of sin, the kind of hatred which will oppose sin in all kinds, and all times, and in all places.

Fear the sin-avenging God

Get the fear of God implanted in your heart. This fear will preserve you against three kinds of sins. (1) Pleasant sins, which entrap your senses with delight. (2) Profitable sins, which entrap the heart with gain. (Although, what shall it profit me to win the whole world and lose my soul?) (3) Secret sins of either kind. Joseph was tempted to a sin that could have been kept secret, and which could have resulted in him being promoted. But he didn’t dare to sin that great sin of uncleanness, and why? Because the fear of God kept him away from it. He had an awe-filled regard for God, he knew the greatness of His holiness and His power. “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).

Brothers and sisters, if we fear the Lord, it is not the night which the thief takes that will prevail with us, nor the twilight which the adulterer takes, nor seasons of secrecy or places of obscurity. Instead our prevailing principle will be, “But God sees me.” “The great judge of heaven and earth, the holy one, the God who hates all sin, whose eyes are brighter than the sun and purer than to behold sin, who is mighty in power and just in his threatenings – He sees and beholds, therefore I dare not.”

Believe in God’s omniscience

Believe God’s omniscience and omnipresence. Believe that the Lord is everywhere, and that all things are naked and open to His eye. You can’t intend to think – you can’t whisper out your thoughts – you can’t finger the closest bribes – you can’t incline yourself to the most abstracted kind of secrecy in the world – but God sees you clearly, perfectly.

If you could believe that God is always right here with us, and that there are two which constantly go around with us, both the judge and the recorder, God and conscience, and that God is acquainted with all our thoughts, paths, ways, this would put an awe on you. Would a wife cheat on her husband in his sight and presence? would a servant filch out of the box if he saw his master’s eye on his hand?

Be upright in your heart

Get your heart to be upright. Uprightness is an inward temperament, while hypocrisy is an outward complexion. Psalm 119:2–3: “Blessed are they that seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity …” Sincerity makes the inward self its business, it employs itself in forming and fashioning the heart. Sincerity knows that God delights in truth, and indeed truth in the inward parts: it endeavours to please God in all things, and to be most to God in the very place where others can observe the least, that is, in the secret and hidden frame.

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Because of the various ways we are out of harmony with the law of God, something in us always chafes when we encounter God’s law. Sometimes people respond to God’s law as if it’s a challenge – they feel they would be able to keep it adequately, if they just try harder. Other people respond to God’s law as if it is irrelevant – they assume that because they cannot keep it, therefore they don’t have to keep it. In this updated extract from his commentary on 1 Timothy, the Puritan Anthony Burgess mainly tackles this second type of response. Burgess refers to Paul’s paradoxical statements about how the law is not made for the righteous, yet only the righteous can use the law rightly. What did Paul mean when he said that the law was not made for believers? What relationship does God’s law have to the believer? What is the role of love in the believer’s attempt to live to God’s glory?

In verses 8 and 9 of 1 Timothy 1, Paul joins together two things which seem to be contradictory. Augustine put the conundrum like this. “If the law is good when used lawfully, and none but the righteous can use it lawfully, how then is it not made for the righteous?” According to Augustine, when Paul writes like this, he is provoking the reader to find out the answer to this puzzle. Using these words, “we know” and “knowing,” Paul implies what understanding all Christians ought to have in the nature of the law.

What law does he here speak of? Some have understood it as the ceremonial law. Because of Christ’s death the ceremonial law was to be abolished, and all the ceremonies of the law were convictions of sins, and hand-writings against those who used them. But this cannot be what Paul intends, for circumcision was commanded to Abraham, a righteous man (and likewise to all the godly under the Old Testament), and the persons who are contrasted with the righteous are those who transgress the moral law. Instead we may understand it of the moral law generally.

What kind of person is “righteous”?

We must not interpret the “righteous man” as someone who is absolutely righteous, but one who is righteous as to effort and as to desire. The people of God are called righteous because of the righteousness that is in them, although they are not justified by it.

Even secular writers say this much of the righteous man – he does what is righteous for love of righteousness, not for fear of punishment. Aristotle says that a righteous man would be good even supposing there was no law. Seneca and Plato said similar things. Their sayings are not altogether true, yet they have some kind of truth in them. Some of the Church Fathers said similar things. Chrysostom speaking in hyperbole said, “A righteous man does not need the law, no, not teaching or admonishing …” It is like a musician, who has his art within him – he scorns to go to look at the rules. But of course this is a hyperbolic way of speaking. What godly man does not need the Word as a light? Who does not need it as a goad? Of course in heaven the godly will not need the law, but then again they will not need the gospel, or the whole Word of God.

How do the righteous relate to the law?

There are three interpretations which come very near one another, and all help to make clear what the apostle means.

1. The law is not a burden to the righteous

Some learned men lay an emphasis on the word “made.” They take Paul’s words to mean, “The law is not made to the godly as a burden, they have a love and a delight in it; it’s not like a whip to them.” The wicked wish there was no law. They say, “I wish this was not a sin!” The righteous man is more in the law then under it.

Of course this is to be understood as far as he is righteous, for in another sense the things of God are many times a burden to a godly man. Yet let us not think the works of the law [done by the godly] are in conflict with the works of the Spirit, grace and gospel. The same actions are the works of the law in respect of the object, and the works of the Spirit in respect of the efficient.

2. The law has no power to curse the righteous

The second interpretation is of the damnatory and cursing part of the law. Then the meaning would be, “The law is not made to the believer so as he should abide under the cursing and condemning power of it.” In this sense the Scriptures frequently deny that believers are under the law. It’s true that the godly deserve the curse and condemnation of the law, but they are not under the actual curse and condemnation. Note too that it does not follow that there is no law [to the believer], because it does not curse [the believer]. The law is not there to curse or condemn the righteous.

3. The law was given to expose the unrighteous

The third interpretation is, “the law was not made because of the righteous, but unrighteous.” If Adam had continued in innocence, there would not have been such solemn declaration of Moses’s law, for it would have been engraved on their hearts. Although God gave Adam a positive law, in order to test his obedience and so that he could show his homage, yet He did not give him the moral law by outward prescript (though it was given to him in another sense). This interpretation renders Paul’s phrase like the proverb, “Good laws arise from evil manners.” Or as the Roman politician Tacitus said, “Excellent laws are made because of other men’s delinquencies.” Certainly laws, in their restraining and changing power on people’s lives, are not for those who are already holy, but those who need to be made holy.

The righteous delight in the law

These three interpretations come very much to the same thing. There are also some parallel places of Scripture, such as Galatians 5:23 and Romans 13:3. These expressions show that that the godly, so far as they are regenerate, delight in the law of God, and it is not a terror to them.

We cannot literally say that because the godly have an ingenuous free spirit to do what is good, they do not need the law to direct or regulate them. Then it would follow as well that they did not need Scripture as a whole, or that they did not need the gospel that calls them to believe, because there is faith in their heart! Chrysostom, who spoke so hyperbolically about the law, speaks just as highly about the Scriptures themselves. “We ought to have the Word of God so engraven in our hearts that there should be no need of Scripture!”

The law directs the righteous

There are two things which make it apparent that the law must needs have a directive, regulating, and informing power over the godly.

We need the law to direct us how to live to God’s glory

We cannot, for example, discern the true worship of God from superstition and idolatry except by the first and second commandment. It is true, many places in Scripture speak against false worship, but to let us know when it is a false worship, the second commandment is a special director. How do the orthodox prove that images are unlawful? how do they prove that setting up any part or means of worship which the Lord hath not commanded is unlawful? Only by the second commandment. Certainly it is the lack of exact knowledge in the breadth of this commandment that has brought in all idolatry and superstition. The decalogue is not only Moses’s ten commandments, but it’s Christ’s ten commandments – and the apostles’ ten commandments as well as Christ’s.

We need the law to discern our own sinfulness

We must compare the depth of the law and the depth of our sin together. There is a great deal more spiritual excellency and holiness commanded in the law of God, the decalogue, than we can attain. That is why we must study it and delve into it more and more. “Open mine eyes, that I may understand the wonderful things of thy law,” David prayed, though he was already godly, and his eyes were in a great measure already opened by the Spirit of God. And as there is a depth in the law, so there is a depth in our sin. There is a great deal more filth in us than we can or do discover. “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret sins” (Psalm 19). When there is such a world of filth in my carnal heart, what need there is of the spiritual and holy law, to make me see myself so polluted and abominable! The godly grow partly by discovering the pride, the deadness, the filth in their soul that they never thought of.

How the righteous use the law

The practical use that we are to make of this Scripture is to pray and labour for such a free, heavenly heart that the law of God and all its precepts would not be a terror to us, but sweetness and delight. “Oh how I love thy law!” David cries. He could not express it! And again, “My soul breaketh in the longing after thy judgements.” In another place, he and Job value God’s law more than their necessary food. You do not drag a hungry or thirsty man to his bread and water! We ought to have such filial and child-like affections to God and His will that we would love and delight in His commandments, because they are His.

There is this difference between a spontaneous motion and a coerced motion: the spontaneous is done for its own sake; the coerced comes from an external principle, without the person helping it forward at all. Well, do not let praying, believing, loving God, be coerced out of you. Where faith works by love, all duties will be relished, for faith working by love overcomes all difficulties. Pray therefore that the love of God would be shed abroad in your heart.

And consider these two final things.

When the law was laid on Christ to die and suffer for you, it was not a burden or a terror to him. Think with yourself then, “If Christ had been as unwilling to die for me, as I am to pray to him, to be patient, to be holy – what would have become of my soul?” But if Christ said, to be a mediator for you, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, thy law is within mine heart,” how much the more should you show willingness in anything thou might do for him! You do not have as much to part with for him, as he had to for you. What is your life and wealth, compared to the glory of his God-head, which he laid aside for a while?

Sinners love lusts for lusts’ sake – they love the world because of the world. Now evil is not so much evil, as good is good. Sin is not so much sin, as God is God, and Christ is Christ. If therefore a profane man, because of his carnal heart, can love his sin, although it costs him hell, because of the sweetness in it, will not the godly heart love the things of God, because of the excellency in them?

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Taking some time each day to pray is a familiar expectation for Christians. Jesus actually gave His disciples something to pray for “this day”. What are some of the reasons why He might have done this? Thomas Manton gives some suggestions in the following updated extract.

When Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer to pray for our daily bread, He teaches us at least two things. One, that we are permitted to pray for temporal things as well as spiritual things. And two, that we are to do this every day.

What is the reason Christ says, “Give us this day”?

1. Every day God wants to hear from us

It is not, “Give us this month, or year,” but “this day,” because every day God wants to hear from us. God does not want to have us too long out of His company, but by frequent interactions He wants us to be acquainted and familiar with Him. This is required, that you should not let a day pass over your head but God must hear from you. Your patent lasts only for a day; you have a lease from God of your comforts and mercies, but it expires unless you renew it again by prayer. It is very different from the heart of God’s children, to be contented to come to the mercy-seat only once a year! The Lord wants us to come every day to the throne of grace.

2. Every day there should be family prayer

All who eat their food together are to come, and say to God, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is not, “Give me,” but “Give us.” Therefore you see how little of love and fear of God is there, where, week after week, they do not call on God’s name.

3. Every day makes way for our thankfulness

Our mercies do not flow from God all at once, but some today, and some tomorrow, and we take them day by day. All together, they are too heavy for us to wield and manage. “Who daily loadeth us with benefits” (Psalm 68:19). Our mercies come in greater number and a greater measure than we are able to acknowledge, make use of, or be thankful for. Therefore, this is the burden of gracious hearts, that mercies come so thick and fast we cannot be thankful enough for them, but to help us, God distributes them by parcels. He loads us daily, some today, some tomorrow, and every day, so that we would not forget God, but would have a new reason to praise him.

4. Every day we can renew our dependence on God

There is no day but we stand in need of the Lord’s blessing, of sanctification, of comfort, and that they would not be a snare, so every day there is still need of new strength, new grace, and new supplies.

5. We can take every day as it comes

We pray, “Give us this day,” so that we may not burden ourselves with overmuch thoughtfulness, and so that we might not solicitously cark for tomorrow. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:34). Every day affords business, trouble, care and burden enough; we need not anticipate and pre-occupy the cares of the next day. God does not want to have us overborne with solicitude, but to look no further than this day.

6. Every day avoids excess

Christ is teaching us that worldly things should be sought in a moderate proportion. If we have sufficient for a day, for the present need, we would not be grasping at too much. Ships lightly laden will pass through the sea, but when we take too great a burden, the ship will easily sink with every storm. We have sore troubles to pass through in the world, and when we are overburdened with present things we have more snares and temptations.

7. Every day reminds us of our life’s uncertainty

“Say not, This and this I will do to-day or to-morrow: What is your life? it is but a vapour” (James 4:13). Someone was once invited to dinner the next day, and replied, “For these many years I have not had a tomorrow,” meaning that he was providing every day for his last day. We do not know whether we have another day, but we are apt to sing lullabies to our souls, and say, “Soul, take thine ease, thou hast goods laid up for many years” (Luke 12:19). We are sottishly complacent, and dream of many years, whereas God tells us only of today.

8. Every day awakens us to heavenly things

When we seek bread for the present life, then give us “this day.” “But now come to me,” says Christ, “and I will give you bread that shall nourish you ‘to eternal life,’ bread that endures for ever.” “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life” (John 6:27). There is food that will endure for ever, but for the present we beg only for this day. As Peter says, we have “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:4). That is an eternal state, but this earthly state is only short and of a small continuance.

You see what need you have to go to God, that He will most plentifully provide for you.

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How do you explain the success and happiness you have in your life? Some would say it’s because they’re lucky. But does believing in luck – random happenings over which you have no control – actually help you to be happy? A recent scientific study has found that a personal belief in ‘luck’ as an entity which determines your outcomes is linked with pessimism and negativity, rather than with cheerfulness and optimism. Christians would explain their success and happiness with reference to God providing for them. Although of course we cannot control God or God’s actions, yet Christians have a solid basis for happiness because they know that God can be trusted to do what is right and beneficial for them. This is after all why they confidently pray to Him to grant them each day their daily bread, and thankfully receive whatever He provides. In the following updated extract, the Puritan and Westminster Assembly member Thomas Manton provides a variety of reasons for optimism, gratitude and thankfulness when we believe in God’s providence instead of capricious luck.

Thankfulness comes from the family relationship

When we pray, “Give us this day,” we are asking on behalf of others – those who can be regarded as being all in a family together. Those who can call God their Father by the Spirit, may come with the most confidence to God about their daily supplies.

It is the Lord who bestows on us freely and graciously the good things of this life. God has a hand in all the ordinary mercies we enjoy. Everyone, high or low, rich or poor, affluent or just about managing, and even those who have the greatest store and plenty of worldly accommodations, must come from morning to morning and deal with God for daily bread.

Anxiety is avoided by knowing God’s particular interest in us

God is the absolute Lord of all things both in heaven and in earth, and whatever is possessed by any creature is by his indulgence. ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein’ (Psalm 24:1).

And He not only gives the earth in general, but He makes allocations to particular individuals. The particular designation of every individual’s portion in the world, is of God. These things do not come by chance, but by the particular special designation of God’s providence.

Whatever way they come to us, we must acknowledge God in our possession of them. Whether they come to us by gift, purchase, labour, or inheritance, yet they are originally from God, who by these means bestows them on us. If they come by the gift of others, it was God who disposed them to be generous to us. If they come to us by inheritance, it is the providence of God that we are born to the rich and not to beggars. If they come to us by our own labour and purchase, still God gave it to us. ‘Take heed that thine heart be not lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth’ (Deuteronomy 8:14-18). He does not leave second causes to their own power and force, as if He were only an idle spectator in the world. No, He gives the skill and industry to manage affairs, and success to lawful undertakings. It is all from God.

Fretting is unnecessary when we have a covenant right

As God gives us the possession of what we have, so he gives us a right and title to them.

There is a twofold right to these common blessings – a providential right and a covenant right. Our civil right to things is founded on God’s providence, but our gospel, covenant right to things is founded on God’s grace.

The covenant right belongs only to believers. They have a right to creature comforts by God’s special love. So, ‘The little that a righteous man hath is better than the treasures of many wicked’ (Psalm 37:16). We have this covenant right by Christ, who is ‘heir of all things’ (Hebrews 1:2). Christ has the original right to them, and we by him come to have a covenant right. ‘Things present, and things to come, all are yours’ (1 Corinthians 3:23). All the created things are made for those who believe (1 Timothy 4:5).

If we believe, we may enjoy them as the gifts of God’s fatherly love and compassion to us. We may take our bread out of Christ’s hands, and look on it as swimming to us in His blood, and all our mercies as wrapped up in His heart of compassion. They are sweet and enjoyable to a gracious soul, because that soul not only tastes the created thing itself, but the love of God in the created thing. The worldly are like swine, who gobble up the acorns, but do not look up to the oak they dropped from. But in the Song of Solomon, the spouse’s eyes are compared to dove’s eyes. A dove pecks, and looks upward. So, with every grain of mercy, we should look up to the God of mercies. It is not enough to taste the sweetness of the created things, but also to acknowledge God, and His love and generosity in them.

Enjoyment comes from seeing God’s free grace

The Lord freely and graciously gives these good things to us, that is, merely out of His generosity and goodness. It is not from His strict remunerative justice, but out of his grace. The very air we breathe in, the bread we eat, our common blessings, be they never so mean, we have them all from grace, and all from the tender mercy of the Lord.

In Psalm 136 you have the story of the notable effects of God’s mercy, and the psalmist concludes it like this: ‘He giveth food to all flesh; for his mercy endureth for ever.’ Notice that he ascribes not only mighty victories, and glorious instances of God’s love and power, to His unchangeable mercy, but also our daily bread. In eminent deliverances of the church we will acknowledge mercy, of course! But we should do the same in every bit of food we eat, for the same reason is given all along.

It is not only mercy which gives us Christ, and salvation by Christ, and all those glorious deliverances and triumphs over the enemies of the church, but it is mercy which spreads our tables, it is mercy that we taste with our mouths and wear on our backs. When there were just five barley loaves and two fishes, our Lord Jesus lifted up His eyes and gave thanks (John 6:11). Though our provision be never so homely and slender, yet God’s grace and mercy must be acknowledged. God gives these mercies to those who cannot return any service to Him, to those who cannot deserve them even at our best, and to those who deserve exactly the opposite.

Confidence in second causes is misplaced

Let us not place our confidence in second causes, but in God, by whose goodness and providence over us all temporal things come to us.

Without Him all our worry and work is nothing. We cannot change the colour of a hair by all our anxious thoughts. We cannot make ourselves stronger or taller. Many a one is pierced through with worldly cares, and still the world frowns on him, so all his care comes to nothing. In Proverbs 10:4, it says, “The hand of the diligent maketh rich.” But compare it with verse 22, where it says, “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” Typically those who are diligent thrive with their diligence. That is certainly true, but if that is all – if they do not have the Lord’s blessing – then with all the abundance they have acquired, they do not have sweetness and peace. Oh, therefore, let us place our confidence, not in second causes, but in God.

Contentment comes from God’s good providence

If the Lord is the giver, then we can be contented with the portion we have. Why?

1. Because God is supreme, and He will not be controlled in disposing of what is His own, even if this means that others have better trading, and nicer clothes, and are more amply provided for than we are.

2. Because we deserve nothing, and therefore certainly everything should be kindly taken.

3. Because God knows what proportion is best for us. It is the shepherd who must choose the pasture, not the sheep. Leave it to God to give you what is suitable to your condition of life. A garment, when too long, turns into a dirty rag.

4. Because God not only gives what is suitable to our condition, but the portion that we are able to bear. He proportions everyone’s condition according to their spiritual strength. “Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). If you set God the task that He must maintain you at such and a rate, that ends in mischief and distrust (see Psalm 78, from verse 19 onwards).

5. Because simply having things does not show so much of God’s love as when we are satisfied. When we have contentment in the thing, that is the greater blessing. Your happiness does not lie in abundance, but in contentment. It does not make a man happy that he has plenty, but that he is contented; he has what God wills to give him. All spiritual miseries may be referred to these two things: a war between a man and his conscience, and a war between his wishes and his situation.

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