Our brother John Owen reminds us of Christ's magnificent love for us sinners--even we Christian, ongoing sinners.
How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one of which were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome! What mountains of unbelief does it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day!
--John Owen, Communion with God (Christian Focus 2007), 113
It is not sins I committed before being born again that discourage me; it is sins as a believer, as someone who knows Christ and has been flipped inside out and made a new creation. If that's really happened, why do I still ______?
What then shall I say? Where sin abounds--whenever it was committed--grace hyper-abounds. The more sin, the more grace.
Thanks for continually sharing your wrestlings with Scripture, theology, and sanctification. The quotes you share on this blog are regularly helpful to me as I ask some of the same questions you've been asking. And your chapel message several weeks ago at Wheaton was so helpful. Praise be to the God of the glorious gospel that saves us--from regeneration, through sanctification, and to glorification!
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