This is an excerpt of a letter to a young pastor by John Newton. Let a master soul-surgeon do some open heart surgery.
“Your understanding of the gospel is intellectually sound, but there is much legalism in your experience of Christ, and that perplexes you. You are very capable of giving advice to others, but I wish you could apply more effectively what you preach.
“You can’t be too aware of your inward and inbred evils, which you complain of, but you may, yes in fact you are, too controlled by them. You find it hard to believe it compatible with divine purity that God would embrace or employ such a monster as yourself. You can’t complain too much about your sin. God ahead and complain about your sin. Take a look at it. Look it full in the face. You are a monster. You have all those inward evils. That’s not your problem. Keep looking at them. You are probably worse than you think. But, that’s not your problem. Your problem is, you say you express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is perfectly right, but you also express too low an opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer which is certainly wrong. If you think God cannot work with you, then that means you think your sins bear more weight than the work of the Redeemer.
“It seems, too, that though the total depravity of human nature is fundamental to your doctrinal creed, you do not actually accept what you say. Or else, why are you so continually disappointed and surprised that in and of yourself you find nothing but evil? A man with two broken legs will hardly wonder that he is not able to run or stand. If you know you are a sinner, why are you constantly surprised by it? And though you say you have nothing good of your own, you act as though you believe you do, forgetting that the Gospel is the provision for the helpless and worthless. You have not, you cannot, have anything in the sight of God but what you derive from the righteousness and atonement of Jesus. Sometimes Satan wants to teach you humility, but though I wish to be humble, I desire not to learn in his school. His premises are true. We are vile and wretched creatures, but then he draws abominable conclusions from them, Satan does, and would teach you that therefore you ought to question the power of the willingness or the faithfulness of Christ. Indeed, your complaints about your sin, when we come to examine them closely, have as much self-will, self-righteousness, unbelief, pride, impatience mingled with them that they are little better than the worst evils you can complain of.”
[…] author of the hymn Amazing Grace) wrote to a young pastor. Cavman excerpts some of the letter in an entry on his blog. It’s a must […]