Grace Super-abounding over the Aboundings of Sin 2
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3. But the third point of comparison of which the Apostle speaks, is, the super-abounding of grace over the abounding of sin, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Does sin abound? Is it not continually flooding our hearts, and oozing up in filthy streams every hour? Can we live a moment without the aboundings of sin? Do we speak? Sin is there. Are we silent? Sin is there. Do we hide ourselves from the world? Sin still intrudes itself. Do we go into business? There sin is still our companion. Go where we will, do what we will, still, more or less, there is the abounding of sin in the carnal mind; and O! the many sighs, groans, and tears which God's people are obliged to pour out on account of the abounding of sin in their wretched, wretched hearts.
But "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." If grace merely abounded, and did not "much more abound," it would be, so to speak, like a drawn battle, like a conflict between two mighty warriors, both departing from the field claiming the victory. But grace "much more abounds;" it comes off a triumphant conqueror– it does not merely meet sin half way, and then retire from the contest; but "where sin abounded," grace, rich, matchless grace, "much more abounds," overtopping, overflowing, and super-abounding over all the heights and depths of sin.
For instance, is our heart (and do we not feel it to be so?) the receptacle for everything base and vile? A cage of every unclean bird? Is our imagination polluted? Is our eye continually lusting after forbidden things? Is our heart continually "hewing out cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water?" Is everything that is base and filthy, everything that is blasphemous and obscene, to be found in our carnal mind– working death, guilt, and condemnation in the conscience? Do what we will, do we still feel the horrid overflowings and aboundings of sin? Is all that we do to keep it down, like casting a dam over a mighty river, that makes the stream flow higher and higher, until it carries away the dam itself upon its rushing waters? Does sin then abound daily and hourly, in every thought and word, in every look, in every imagination, in everything that we do, and everything that we are engaged in? I am sure, if we know our own hearts, we shall find sin abounding in every word, thought, and action.
Now, if grace did not "much more abound," we might be left under the guilt and power of sin; but "where sin abounded," grace steps in, and "much more abounds." However high the tide of sin may rise, the tide of grace rises higher; however sin may overflow the carnal mind, sin is, with all its oozing filth, washed away "by the fountain once opened for sin and uncleanness," which rises high above the highest tides of sin, and washes white the blackest soul that has a saving interest in Christ's finished work. If it were not so, God's people must sink and utterly perish; if they did not at times feel the super-aboundings of grace overtopping and overflowing the aboundings of sin, they must sink, utterly sink, in the deep waters.
Now, where sin abounds, it brings guilt into the conscience. A man cannot feel the workings of sin in him, without feeling guilt laid upon his soul, if his conscience is tender in God's fear; and thus, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, as sin works, guilt works also. Is your eye caught by forbidden objects? Is there an adulterous look, an idolatrous desire? Guilt follows. Has an envious, revengeful thought been indulged? Guilt follows, in a greater or less degree, where the conscience is tender. Is there some rebellious, blasphemous, presumptuous rising against God? Guilt lays hold of the conscience, whenever grace has effectually laid hold of it. Is there some secret plan to exalt or raise ourselves, at the expense of another? Where the heart is tender, guilt arrests it immediately. Is there some rash and hasty word spoken in the heat of temper– some unkind expression leveled at a brother– some malicious pleasure in relating his faults? Guilt instantaneously follows, in a tender conscience. It is thus, by the workings of guilt, that we know the aboundings of sin.
Men for the most part are ignorant of the inward workings of sin; but not those whose hearts are tender by God's work upon them. Often sin falls heavily on the conscience of the child of God; he does not think it a matter of little consequence, like some who stand high in a profession, but whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone. But where the conscience is tender in God's fear, what are called little sins will often be a heavy burden upon the soul. Therefore, as sin abounds, guilt abounds; and as sin abounds sometimes every hour, guilt will sometimes abound every hour. The more that the abounding of sin is felt in its hideous character before a heart-searching Jehovah; the more minutely that the heart is watched, the more clearly shall we see the inward workings of what is contrary to God and godliness; and the more we see of the abounding, the oozing, and the working up of sin from the depths of the carnal mind, the more will guilt and shame take possession of the soul; and in this way are opened up the super-aboundings of grace over these wretched evils. The more a man knows of the mysteries of sin, the more will he know of the mystery of grace– the more experimental insight he has into the depths of the fall, the deeper acquaintance will he eventually have of the riches of sovereign grace.
In order, therefore, to pluck up these blessed pearls from the bottom of the great deep, we must go down experimentally into the depths of our fallen nature; we must sink, more or less, into this unfathomable abyss, to find the pearl of great price at the bottom. To talk, therefore, of the super-aboundings of grace, and know nothing of the aboundings of sin; to have grace on our lips, and never have felt guilt on the conscience; to boast of what Christ has done for sinners, and know nothing of the depth of our own fall, and the horrible devilism of our own fallen nature– is but talking of things at a distance, and not speaking of things we experimentally feel and know.
But where sin has really abounded in a man's heart, and has been opened up to him by the Spirit of God, he stands as a sinner before the eyes of him with whom he has to do. He finds abounding in his heart everything that is hateful and loathsome in the sight of a pure and a holy God. This makes him want to know something of the super-aboundings of grace. And he finds to his soul's joy, that grace "much more abounds;" and that there is no depth to which there is not a corresponding height, that there can be no abounding of sin without a corresponding super-abounding of grace; and O! how this exalts the sovereign grace of God, to find that grace can and does overtop those horrible, unceasing, repeated, and aggravated iniquities, which are daily and hourly flowing out of a polluted heart.
But again. Grace also superabounds in delivering the soul from the power of sin, "sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace." When grace pardons sin, grace also delivers from the dominion of sin. And how does grace deliver from the dominion of sin? By communicating a secret power, whereby the man is no longer the slave of his lusts and passions, and sin no longer has power to domineer over him. God never allows his people to live and die under the power of sin; he will deliver them sooner or later from the power of evil. It is true, he always finds sin and guilt in them, and they always groan, grieve, and cry unto God on account of the aboundings of sin.
But God will not allow them to live and die under its dominion. He will deliver them from the dominion of pride, presumption, hypocrisy, and carnality. He will not allow them to live in anything which is contrary to his holy word, but by making their consciences tender in his fear, he will "keep them from evil, that it may not grieve them."
But it is added, "through righteousness unto eternal life." It is all "through righteousness"; for it all flows through Christ's righteousness. Justice has been satisfied, therefore grace may now superabound, which, unless there were this "righteousness," it could not do. God does not pardon sin, and heal backslidings, as an indulgent parent winks at the faults and follies of his children. God indeed pardons sin and heals backslidings, but it is still "through righteousness," in consequence of the satisfaction which his dear Son has paid to justice. Satisfaction therefore, having been paid to justice, by the sacrifice of the Son of God, iniquity is blotted out, and sin put away. Grace now freely flows to the objects of mercy; and it is in this way only that grace enters into a man's soul. It flows to him through the channel of the Mediator's death, through a crucified Christ.
When grace, therefore, comes into the believer's soul, through the righteousness which is in Jesus Christ, he sees that it flows through the channels of the Savior's agonies, groans, sweat, death, and blood. Thus, he not only finds that grace superabounds over the aboundings of sin, but that it flows through the sufferings of Christ, and comes through the blood of the Mediator– and that grace could never have so super-abounded over the aboundings of sin, unless it had flowed through the meritorious sufferings of the Son of God. It therefore exalts grace in his eyes, that it should have come into his heart through this channel; it makes him see the hideousness of sin that requires such a sacrifice; it opens up the depth of the fall to see that he could only be delivered by having such a substitute; it reveals the wondrous mercy of God, that he did not spare his only begotten Son, but that he gave him up freely that he might bleed and die, in order that "grace might reign through righteousness," and that grace might superabound over the aboundings of sin, to pluck its favored objects from the depth of the fall.
But it reigns, not only "through righteousness," but "unto eternal life." It lands safe in glory all its favored objects– whatever darkness befalls them, whatever temptations they may be laboring under, whatever difficulties trouble them, whatever burdens may oppress them; however vast the reign of sin over them, and the abounding of sin in them, grace will reign and superabound unto eternal life– it will not leave them in the conflict, nor let them die in the battle; but it will bring them off more than conquerors through him who has loved them.
In order, then, to get at these precious blessings, to know what grace is in its reign over sin, and in its super-aboundings over the aboundings of iniquity, we must be led experimentally into the depths of the fall. We must be led by God himself into the secrets of our own heart; we must be brought down into distress of mind on account of our sin, and the idolatry of our fallen nature. And when, do what we will, sin will still work, reign, and abound, and we are brought to soul-poverty, helplessness, destitution, and misery, and cast ourselves down at the footstool of his mercy– then we begin to see and feel the reign of grace, in quickening our souls, in delivering us from the wrath to come, and in preserving us from the dominion of evil. We begin to see then that grace superabounds over all the aboundings of sin in our evil hearts, and as it flows through the channel of the Savior's sufferings, that it will never leave its favored objects until it brings them into the enjoyment of eternal life.
And if this does not melt and move the soul, and make a man praise and bless God, nothing will, nothing can. But until we have entered into the depths of our own iniquities, until we are led into the chambers of imagery, and brought to sigh, groan, grieve, and cry under the burden of guilt on the conscience, and the workings of secret sin in the heart– it cannot be really known. And to learn it thus, is a very different thing from learning it from books, or ministers. To learn it in the depths of a troubled heart, by God's own teaching, is a very different thing from learning it from the words of a minister, or even from the word of God itself. We can never know these things savingly and effectually, until God himself is pleased to apply them with his own blessed power, and communicate an unctuous savor of them to our hearts, that we may know the truth, and find to our soul's consolation, that the truth makes us free.
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