Introduction
When the gospel
is preached that must be done with the command to repent and believe. The aim
of the presentation of the gospel is always that listeners may be won for
Christ, that they learn to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. All who hear the gospel are commanded to repent and
believe. They are held responsible.
Their
responsibility is not founded upon their ability, but upon their duty. God as
Creator has the right to ask obedience from his creatures and especially from
man whom he made in his image. The fact that man has lost the image of God in
the fall does not alter that fact. The gospel itself is because of its glorious
message worthy of all acceptation. The greatest sin is the sin of unbelief.
Does the command
of repent and believe presuppose that man has the ability and inclination to
accept the message of the gospel? The biblical answer is: no. Man by nature is
dead in tres-passes and sins. Man needs the gospel not because he is free, but
because he is bound.
Man needs the
gospel not because he is bound and can release himself, but because he is bound
and he cannot release himself. The gospel is the message that ‘God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by
grace ye are saved).’ (Ephesians 2, 4-5).
The
person of the Holy Spirit
How
is this mighty change in man brought about? How is a man changed from an enemy
of God into a friend? To answer this question we must direct our attention to
the third person in the Holy Trinity, namely the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is
the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Without believing the doctrine of
Trinity and without knowing the triune God we cannot be saved.
Each of the persons of the Trinity plays his own part in the salvation
of the sinner. The Father elected his church before the foundation of the
world. He is the origin of our salvation. The Son purchased the salvation of
his church by his blood. He is the our Surety and our only Mediator. The Spirit
applies the salvation foreordained by the Father and purchased by Christ to our
hearts. He makes sinners alive with Christ. The triune God is the God of
complete salvation.
We believe in the triune God and in the godhead and
personality of the Holy Spirit, because God has revealed himself so in his
Word. But what is the experimental and practical value of these doctrines? Do
they have any experimental and practical value? Certainly.
We believe in the godhead of Jesus Christ. For only
because the Lord Jesus is of the same essence of the Father, he could bear the
weight of the anger of God against sin. Every true Christian knows in his life
of the burning question: ‘How can I be right with God?’ All true Christians
have found rest in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is more than a man and
than a creature, yea he is God to be praised forever, God revealed in the
flesh.
Every true Christian knows by experience that he could
not come to Christ in his own strength. So he learns the truth of the fact that
the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but the Divine Person who opens our
hearts and works faith in it. A Christian knows himself as a brand plucked out
the fire.
The
example of Augustine
The mighty change wrought in man when the Holy Spirit
unites him to Christ is called in the Scriptures new birth or regeneration. In
church history we have a great example of such a mighty change in the church father
Augustine. It is not without reason that I call your attention to Augustine.
I completely agree with John Owen when he states in
his Pneumatologia, or A Discourse concerning
the Holy Spirit: ‘for I must say,
that, in my judgment, there is none among the ancient or modern divines unto
this day, who, either in the declarations of their own experiences, or their
directions unto others, have equalled, much less outgone him, in an accurate
search and observation of all the secret actings of the Spirit of God on the
minds and souls of men, both towards and in their recovery or conversion.’ In
the sixth chapter of the third book of A Discourse concerning the Holy
Spirit Owen gives an ample reproduction of the conversion of Augustine as
related by Augustine himself in his Confessiones.
When he was nineteen Augustine
left the Christian Church. The Church could not give answers to his
intellectual questions with regard to the relation between God and evil,
between the Old Testament and the New and about the character of several
biblical stories especially in the Old Testament. He joined the cult of the
Manicheans, but in the course of years he found out that also the Manicheans
could not give rational answers to his searching questions.
Just as the Catholic Church they
finally expected to accept things on authority. That was one of the reasons
that Augustine again began to attend the services of the Christian Church. In
the Christian Church Augustine had already in his youth heard about the
Scriptures and their final authority. Augustine was not about thirty and lived
in Milan. In Milan he heard the bishop Ambrosius preach. He was deeply
impressed by the way Ambrosius expounded the Scriptures and especially the Old
Testament.
In the seventh chapter of his Confessiones
Augustine relates how his intellectual reservations against the message of
the Scriptures disappeared. He became fully persuaded of the divine content of
the message of the Scriptures. But there was yet another and still greater
problem.
Augustine did not want to change
his worldly lifestyle. He realised that he did not live to the glory of God. In
a certain sense he wanted to be converted, but at the same time he did not want
that he was converted that very day, because he could not part with his sins.
He tells us that he wanted to be converted tomorrow, but the next day the
situation was exactly the same. It was always tomorrow and not today.
Augustine confesses honestly that
this meant that he did not want really to be converted. When conversion to God
was really his deepest desire, that would be a sign that he was converted
already. Augustine realised that the problem was that to live for God was not
his chief desire and felt that he could not change himself. Only God can change
our inward being. As a bishop Augustine taught that we have to pray: ‘O God,
give me what Thou commands me and than command me what Thou will.’ Realising
our helplessness and inability to change ourselves we have to ask that the Lord
in his sovereign power and might makes us a new man.
In the eight chapter of the Confessiones Augustine has told us in
a moving way how that mighty change was effected in his own life. In the garden
of a villa he was discussing with his friend Alypius their unwillingness to
make a real choice and how they until that day had again and again delayed
their conversion to God.
‘I flung
myself down, how, I know not, under a certain fig-tree, giving free course to
my tears, and the streams of mine eyes gushed out, an acceptable sacrifice unto
Thee. And, not indeed in these words, yet to this effect, spoke I much unto
Thee, “But Thou, O Lord, how long?” “How long, Lord? Wilt Thou be angry for
ever? Oh, remember not against us former iniquities;” for I felt that I was
enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries, “how long, how long?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow? Why not now? Why is there not this hour an end to my
uncleanness?” I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter
contrition of my heart, when, lo, I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know
not which, coming from a neighbouring house, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take
up and read; take up and read.” Immediately my countenance was changed, and I
began most earnestly to consider whether it was usual for children in any kind
of game to sing such words; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like.
So, restraining the torrent of my tears, I rose up, interpreting it no other
way than as a command to me from Heaven to open the book, and to read the first
chapter I should light upon. For I had heard of Antony, that, accidentally
coming in whilst the gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if
what was read were addressed to him, “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.” And
by such oracle was he forthwith converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned to
the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the
apostles, when I rose thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence read that
paragraph on which my eyes first fell, “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in
chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts
thereof.” No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the
sentence ended, by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart, all
the gloom of doubt vanished away.’
As
every Christian before him and after him Augustine recognizes in the portrait
of the prodigal son his own portrait. In first instance this son did not want
to stay at home. He found the presence of his father unbearable. But when he
finally came back the presence of his father became his chief joy. Not because
his father was changed, but he was changed himself. For a Christian it is good
to be near unto God.