Five days ago, I wrote the introduction to the recapitulation of directions 8 and 9 in Baxter's Christian Ethics. However, as I keep reading the book, I observe that direction 11 could be added to form a single article. And so in this post, I want to combine these three directions that could be organized under one topic. And to achieve this goal, I find the PeakD snaps and Ecency waves I made for the last eighteen days very useful. They serve as my Web3 notes for this post.
Let me divide my topic under three headings:
Self-examination
The eighth direction talks about self-examination. Men who need saving grace are asked to search themselves, particularly in relation to their spiritual status; either they are in the state of grace or still in the state of sin. Self-deception is the common mistake here that we need to avoid. We need to be honest with ourselves before God. This is like diagnosis and prognosis in medical terms. The same thing with our spiritual status. We need to identify the real problem in order to lead the way to genuine recovery.
Here, my snap from ten days ago captured the essence of this self-examination:
Who will find a cure if he thinks he is well? Or to vomit a poison, thinking that he never swallows it? Or to come out of quicksand thinking that he is not being swallowed by it? Those who think they are in the state of grace will either ignore or take saving grace for granted. Source
In order to come up with an accurate assessment of one's spiritual status, Baxter provided "a benchmark to identify whether one is in the state of grace or still under the state of sin." I will just enumerate below the eight indicators that a man is still under the state of sin: Source
If you hate men who are serious in the service of God and because they don’t join the crowd in social sins, that is one clear indication that you are not in the state of grace.
If all you think about is this world and you have no time to contemplate the afterlife, that’s another clear indication that the state of grace is alien to you.
If your reflection of the afterlife does not lead you to deny yourself, that is, if for the sake of Christ and his gospel, you are unwilling to give up even your closest relationships here on earth and all your earthly dreams and aspirations, this is a clear sign that the life of grace is foreign to you.
If the Spirit of Christ does not dwell in you, giving you the ability to desire the law of God and the gospel of His Son, and instead you live to satisfy the desire of the flesh rather than living a life that pleases God, this too is a clear indication that the life of grace is unfamiliar to you.
If you are living in sin and are satisfied with it and have no intention to leave such a kind of life, and you do not pray for strength to overcome it but instead find all the reasons to justify such a kind of life, then this is obvious evidence that your heart is unrepentant and has not experienced the power of saving grace.
If you do not love the Word and the preaching of it, for it exposes your guilt and directs you to your duty, that is one sure sign that you are not yet living in the light.
If you are taking for granted the laws of your Creator and Redeemer as if they are like the wills of man, their threats and promises have no effect on your conscience; that is another indication that you are still under the state of sin.
If you have not made a firm resolution to devote yourself to God as your Father, to His Son as your Savior and King, and to the Holy Spirit as your Sanctifier, this is another clear sign that saving grace is alien to you despite the fact that you were baptized when you were still an infant.
The above is the way I paraphrased Baxter's old English. I removed words and phrases that sound archaic and replaced them with similar meanings that are more comprehensible to modern readers. I must admit that reading these indicators is painful and for many might be offensive to their taste. However, a physician of the soul who intends to provide a genuine cure, especially in relation to sin, would really be of no use if he fails to identify and expose the root cause of man's hostility against his Creator and God.
Frankly speaking, I also find reading the above benchmark painful, for I must acknowledge that I myself failed to live up to such a standard. My only confidence is in the abundance of His grace.
Identifying the Obstacles
In the ninth direction, the goal is to identify specific obstacles that prevent men who need saving grace from accepting God's offer of free grace. Here, the Puritan pastor and theologian provided ten descriptions of a man under the state of sin, which he describes as "a brief account of the case of unrenewed souls" (Christian Ethics, 1966, pp. 36-40). Again, I will just enumerate below my paraphrased version of his statements:
A man under the state of sin is considered an enemy of God. There is hostility between him and God. Though outwardly, he won't admit it, but inwardly he hates the holiness and justice of God.
A man under the state of sin is "unjustified" and "unpardoned."
A man under the state of sin has "no special interest in Christ."
A man under the state of sin despises Christ the Redeemer.
Except for repentance, the prayers and offerings of a man under the state of sin are not acceptable before God.
A man under the state of sin is incapable of doing good works in the true sense of the word; that is, his "good works" lack the motivation, such as faith in God; the end is missing, which is the glory of God; and finally there is no benchmark or standard as to assess the quality of his work, which is provided by the law of God.
A man under the state of sin has all the seeds to commit the worst imaginable crimes. If he is prevented from doing such, it is because providence restrains him.
Based on John 3:18, a man under the state of sin "stands condemned already" for his refusal to believe in the Son of God.
As long as the man under the state of sin remains unrepentant and stubborn, his heart will be hardened all the more (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
The Scale of Balance
The purpose of the above description is for a man who needs saving grace to identify exactly what prevents him from accepting God's offer of saving grace. Once he is clear at this point, the next step is to compare the weight of both his sins and rewards in this life on one side of the balance, and on the other side, the peace and blessings both in this life and the afterlife that his sins would cost him.
It is at this point that I received a critical comment arguing that the reason he could not accept God's offer of free grace is because God Himself is a hypocrite. He is jealous and vengeful, and so a sinner Himself. He adds that he also finds no reason to expect that God would even deliver the promised grace.
Honestly, I find his argument difficult to dismiss. Using common sense and logic that takes for granted the necessity of biblical theology for biblical interpretation, one can arrive at such a conclusion and even worse. In our age and time, where talk of God is considered primitive, irrational, and unscientific, it is easy to follow Richard Dawkins' line of thought, which he confidently argued in his book, The God Delusion. In his eyes, people like me are delusional. They see God as "a jealous, vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser, racist bully." Source
Doing theological discourse on a Web3 platform like Hive, I don't expect everyone to like my content. Since our community is diverse and global and cyber, disagreement is inescapable.
However, I find disagreement like this useful. Enough with the time that theological discourse is done in isolation like self-talk, detached from the daily struggles of men and women in the streets and the marketplace.
One use I found for this kind of talk is to utilize arguments like this in training theological students to come up with sensible responses. This is in agreement with the social element of theological discourse. Even Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch theologian born in the middle of the 19th century who died in the early 20th century, reminded the church of this social task. He identified this as the task of preservation, explanation, interpretation, and defense of the truth God entrusted to her. "The church is called to appropriate it mentally, to assimilate it internally, and to profess it in the midst of the world as the truth of God” (Reformed Dogmatics, 1903, pp. 30-31).