John 8:31-59 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed;… Sin is the suicidal action of the human will. It destroys the power to do right, which is man's true freedom. The effect of vicious habit in diminishing a man's ability to resist temptation is proverbial. But what is habit but a constant repetition of wrong decisions. The will cannot be forced or ruined from outside. But if we watch the influence upon the will of its own yielding to temptation, we shall discover that the voluntary faculty may be ruined from within. Whatever springs from will we are responsible for. The drunkard's powerlessness issues from his own inclination and therefore is no excuse. "If weakness may excuse, what murderer, what traitor, parricide, incestuous, sacrilegious, may not plead it? All wickedness is weakness." Sin is spiritual slavery, if viewed in reference — I. TO MAN'S SENSE OF OBLIGATION TO BE PERFECTLY HOLY. 1. The obligation to be holy as God is rests upon every rational being, and he is a debtor to this obligation until he has fully met it. Hence even the holiest are conscious of sin, because they are not completely up to this high calling. This sense is as "exceeding broad" as the commandment, and will not let us off with the performance of a part of our duty. It is also exceeding deep, for it outlives all others. In the hour of death it grows more vivid and painful as all else grows dimmer. A man forgets then whether he has been prosperous or unsuccessful and remembers only that he has been a sinner. It might seem that this sense would be sufficient to overcome sin, and bring man up to the discharge of duty; but experience shows that in proportion as a man hears the voice of conscience, in this particular does be become aware of the bondage of his will. 2. In our careless unawakened state we sin on, just as we live on without being distinctly aware of it. A healthy man does not go about holding his fingers on his wrist, neither does a sinner as he goes about his business think of his transgressions. Yet the pulse beats, and the will transgresses none the less. Though the chains are actually about us they do not gall us. "We are alive without the law." But as the Spirit of God awakens the conscience, that sense of the obligation to be perfectly holy starts up and man begins to form an estimate of what has been done in reference to it. Now the commandment comes, shows us what we ought to be and what we are, and we die (Romans 7:9-11). The muscle has been cut by the sword of truth, and the limb drops helpless, and we learn in a most affecting manner that "whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin." But suppose after this discovery we endeavour to comply with the obligation: this only renders us more painfully sensible of the truth of the text. II. TO THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE SOUL. All those serious impressions and painful anxieties concerning salvation, which require to be followed up by a mighty power from God to prevent their being suppressed again by the love of sin and the world. For though man has fallen into a state of death in sins, yet through the common influences of the Spirit of Grace, and the workings of rational nature, he is at times the subject of aspirations which indicate the heights from which he fell The minds of the greatest of the ancient pagans were the subjects of these aspirations, and they confess their utter inability to realize them. The journals of the missionary disclose the same in modern heathenism. All these phenomena show the rigid bondage of sin. The drunkard in his sober moments longs to be free and resolves never to drink again. But the sin is strong and the appetite that feeds it is in his blood. Temptation comes before the enslaved will. He aspires to resist but will not; and never is he more conscious of being a slave to himself than when he thus ineffectually aspires to be delivered from himself. This applies to all sin. There is no independent and self-realizing power in mere aspiration, and when, under the influence of God's common grace, a man endeavours to extirpate the inveterate depravity of his heart, he feels his bondage more thoroughly than ever. III. TO THE FEARS OF THE SOUL. 1. The sinful spirit fears the death of the body, and therefore we are all our lifetime subject to bondage. We know that bodily dissolution can have no effect on the imperishable essence, yet we shrink back from it. 2. The spirit fears that "fearful something after death" — eternal judgment. We tremble having to give an account of our own actions, and to reap the harvest, the seed of which we have sown. 3. The spirit has an awful dread of eternity. Though this invisible realm is the proper home of the soul, never is the soul stirred to so great depths as when it feels the power of an endless life. Men will labour convulsively day and night for money, power, fame, pleasure; but what is the paroxysm of this activity compared with those throes, when the startled sinner sees the eternal world looming into view. 4. If, now, we view sin in relation to these three great fears we see that it is spiritual slavery. Our terror is no more able to deliver us than our aspirations. The dread that goes down to hell can no more save us than the aspiration that goes up to heaven.Conclusion: 1. This bondage is self-inflicted, and therefore the way of release is not to throw the burden of it upon God. 2. The way out of it is to accept the method of deliverance afforded by Christ. (Prof. Shedd.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; |
    |