Spiritual Counsels II: The Holy Spirit in Conviction | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Mediagratie, and I'm here again this week with Dr. John Snyder, pastor of Christ Church New Albany and author and teacher of the Behold Your God study series from Mediagratie.

Last week we started a series on walking with the Lord in some really practical ways with some help from Thomas Charles again, which we're taking from Thomas Charles Spiritual Councils, which is available from our friends at the Banner of Truth.

And last week we talked about the fact that Christ is the only one who knows the Father and that the Father is the only one who knows the Son and very helpful things that Charles just shows us, things that we think we know, but we're walked through and shown in ways that maybe we haven't thought of before.

And so I was helped by that. This is the first of a few where Charles will be talking to us about the operations of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, we talked last week about the fact that we want to start with a look directly at the worth of our Savior.

But now we want to move to another topic that really, I can't think of a more important follow-up to that than understanding the work of the Spirit in taking the things of Christ and bringing them to us from the beginning where we talk about conviction and conversion all the way through, you know, the life of the believer growing and being sanctified.

So this is a longer essay. It's going to take us a few podcasts to get through it, but we do want to take a few weeks to do this. Remember that Thomas Charles was a leader in the late 18th, early 19th century in the country of Wales, really the product of those Welsh revivals that happened in the 18th century.

So we have the union there in Thomas Charles's writings of Reformed theology and just real warmth and experiential wisdom, how to guide people, you know, how to take theology from the Scripture and bring it to bear on people in a way that the average person can benefit from.

So we're really happy to be walking along with them. Matt, why don't you start us off with his opening thesis statement? Well, this is his essay, The Operations of the Holy Spirit, and he begins like this, The salvation of fallen man is wholly from beginning to end the work of God.

The Father, Son, and Spirit have jointly engaged in covenant and by promises to accomplish this stupendous work. Right. So very simple statement, salvation is wholly of God. And probably most, I think most believers would not have any trouble with that statement.

But when we begin to be more specific is when it really begins to become such a beautiful statement. And in this next quote that Matt's going to read, Charles talks about the motivation for this, and he starts to give us a look at how all three persons of the triune God had work in conjunction in harmony to bring about our rescue.

In this gracious engagement, there could have been no other motive, but divine love ascribed peculiarly to the Father, though not to the exclusion of the Son and the Spirit. The love of each person is the love of the divine nature common to each.

It must therefore be the same in each. But this love is particularly ascribed to the Father because he is in all things the first mover, so also in redemption. The salvation of man and all the blessings it includes proceed from the love of the Father, through the grace of the Son, and by the operations of the Spirit.

The Spirit graciously reveals and applies the love of the Father and the grace of the Son, which otherwise would never have profited us. Any more than light can profit a blind man or food a dead man. We have no eyes to see the one, nor appetite to feed on the other.

Yeah, so really helpful things there. How does the love of God express itself in this triune work, and how does the work of the Holy Spirit at the heart of that, bringing that to bear on us, make it something that we can see and something that we can really taste?

So, Charles next goes on to emphasize how large a part that the love of the Spirit for the Lord's people is in all that He does, and how He becomes very specific to the Spirit and the Spirit's love for His church.

So, Charles writes,. The same love which influenced the Son when He took upon Him the form of a servant and became obedient even unto death influences the Spirit in His condescension and undertaking as comforter and sanctifier.

He is infinitely free in all His operations. Our unworthiness has no more influence on Him and what He does than it had on Christ's coming to redeem the world. Christ died for the ungodly, and the Holy Spirit comes to and abides with and sanctifies the ungodly.

He comes into the heart when it is nothing but a filth, a hellish scene of all abominations and iniquities, a horrid darkness, a miserable confusion like the world in its chaotic state. He so loves His people committed to Him that He abides and dwells with them forever, acting with authority and power according to His own pleasure as their various circumstances may require.

He prepares and strengthens them for every event, reveals to them what they must needs know in the time and way most fit, inclines their hearts in the way and degree He pleases, and controls all their inward enemies.

In that section, Charles talks a lot about the freedom of the Spirit, and I think it would be good for us to stop and think of the word free because we use it in different ways. When we, you know, we're, you know, around the Christmas season, you know, if you buy this, you get a free this.

Well, is that what it means? Like, when we use the term with regard to grace, free grace, do we mean, oh, it doesn't cost me anything or it's free? Well, yes, grace can't cost a man anything or then it's no longer grace.

You know, you remember Paul's argument in Romans 4. There's grace or there's what you deserve, you know, your paycheck. So, gift or paycheck, which is it? Grace or something you've merited? But when we talk about free grace, what we mean is that the grace of God is free, unobligated, uncontrolled by anything outside of God.

God is free to show this kind of love in whatever way His holy nature desires to do it. So, when we think of the free operations of the Spirit, we're saying that the Spirit, motivated by that triune love, is free to deal with us as He delights to do.

And that freedom, that unexpected, unmerited aspect of the Spirit's love was pointed out in a few things in that quote. One is in the way that He operates. He is free to do what He wishes to do. So, it's part of the economy of redemption.

But then there's that wonderful mystery that though it is the plan of the Father, the Spirit is free to implement that plan for love of the Father, for love of the people. But also, when we think of the freedom of the Spirit, we see that in the kind of people He deals with.

And He mentions that, the worst people. He comes into the most sinful aspects of our being and works in us there. And the third thing that shows the freeness is the kinds of things He does. He cleanses us.

He brings us from death to life. And that's what the rest of the article is going to be about. He's going to begin to speak about exactly what is it that the Spirit is doing or has done or will continue to do that is such a wonderful expression of this love.

Yeah. And it really is amazing when we understand and then we continue to remind ourselves day by day that it is love that motivates the heart of God, so to speak. And that's a great step forward in having the right response to God and to the right response when the Spirit does these things in us, when He does all that we're told that He will do, convict us of sin and on and on, to remember, okay, this is from love.

This is not the hand of God's anger down on me, but this is motivated by a heart of unbreakable love for His people. That's a wonderful step toward responding in the right way. Yeah, it certainly is. Even the painful aspects of the work of the Spirit, which is where we have to start convicting or as Thomas Charles using the older version, convincing of sin.

We remember that in the last discussions that John records, Christ speaking to the disciples before the crucifixion, He talks about the fact that He's going to leave them, which would be quite a shocking statement to them at this point.

And He says to them something even more shocking, that it is to your advantage that I'm not with you in the way that I am now because I'm going to send the Spirit. And then He explains what the Spirit would do.

And we read that passage in John where it says that He will convict. John 16, 7 -11,. But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you. And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, and concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you no longer see me, and concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged.

When we think of the existence of sin and the Spirit's role in revealing two things, its existence and its true nature, we might be surprised that it takes the work of an infinite God, of the Spirit of God to do that because, you know, we have a number of things that we think maybe without the Spirit, these would be enough.

And Charles is going to deal with three of these. What about just our natural intellect? We can look around and we can see sin everywhere. I mean, we see the ruin of sin. We see the way people sin against us.

I mean, we're pretty aware of those things. Why would it take the Holy Spirit to reveal that? Then he's going to talk about the conscience. God has placed a mirror of his moral law within our own soul.

Don't we have a conscience? Isn't that enough? And then the third thing he's going to talk about is the law of God. So, let's look at the first. With so much sin in the world, why does it take the coming of the Spirit to make that clear to us?

Yeah. So, Charles writes, as every imagination and every thought is only evil, there is nothing within us by which evil can be discovered and condemned, for it will neither discover nor condemn itself.

It is light only that can discover the hidden things of darkness. But within us, in our natural state, there is no light. We are darkness and we sit in darkness, contented and satisfied with the state in which we are.

We see not the evil of it, nor seek any deliverance out of it. So, the reason it requires the Spirit is that our minds, having been influenced by our sinful nature, are blind to the existence and nature of sin.

So, you know, we can see that things are wrong, but we don't really understand it in the way that God would have us to understand it. We certainly don't understand it in a way that leads us to Christ.

So, the mind dulled, numbed, blind to the true nature of sin. It requires the Spirit. What about the conscience? The conscience, everyone has a conscience. We know things are right and wrong. We feel it.

When we do something against someone that we love, we feel that. Why isn't the conscience enough? So, he writes, There are indeed, as to most, some gleams of natural light remaining in the conscience, which may be strengthened and improved by education, instruction, and example, but at best they are but faint, and the knowledge they convey is merely intellectual, floating in the head, vague, uncertain, and unaffecting, the heart continuing still as dark and unknown as ever.

This light never did nor can discover sin to be sin, to be what it really is, exceeding sinful. Both the discovery it makes of sin and the sentence it passes on it are unfruitful and useless. It neither truly humbles us on its account, nor causes us to flee from it.

It may make us fearful and uneasy, but it will not make us repent and turn from it to the living God. But when the Spirit enters the heart with the glass of the law, as it were, in His hand, and shows sin in this glass, then we see it to be sin and to be exceedingly sinful, far above all imagination sinful, so that the mind is overwhelmed with the vastness of its guilt.

So, the conscience can see sin. The conscience can feel that we've done something wrong, but he says it's too vague and it's ineffective. It doesn't drive a man or a woman to Christ. It just, you know, maybe we feel ashamed.

He mentioned fear. Okay, am I in trouble? Right, yeah. Does anybody else notice this? But to lead a person to treasure the Lord Jesus Christ in the way that repentance does is not going to happen without the work of the Spirit.

And then we come to the law, which he mentioned at the end of that quote, but he's going to give a more full description. What about the law? I mean, Paul says in Romans 7, the law showed up and I died.

It revealed that I wasn't what I thought I was. If anything is sufficient to show a man the existence and the nature of sin, surely we think the law, the Word of God is enough, but even the law, even the Word of God by itself is not enough.

There's nothing wrong with the law. There's nothing wrong with the Word of God, but it does not possess the strength to alter our nature. And so he talks about the work of the Spirit in conjunction with God's Word.

Yeah. So he says, sin is general within us without the law. So the apostle saith, I was alive without the law once. That is, he was alive in sin and self-confidence without any spiritual knowledge or attention to the law, which condemns it.

But the law may also be with us in our hands and in our heads. And we, yet not knowing its extent and spirituality, continue ignorant of the true nature of sin. It is holding a glass before us in the dark, which cannot discover our wrinkles and deformities.

We may fancy because we see none that we have none. The truth is we have no light to see our true figure. But when we view ourselves in the glass of the law by the light of the Spirit, then we see what we are, how corrupt and deformed.

We then see sin to be sin, that it is exceeding sinful. Yeah, a really helpful illustration there that even the Word of God, even the law, without the work of the Spirit, it's like bringing a man a mirror, but he's in a dark room and he can never see a clear picture of himself.

But if the man, imagine a man who's just a wreck, you know, he's a drunk, he's covered in filth and he has no idea of how disheveled and how ruined his life has become. You put the mirror in front of him and he says, well, I'm sure I'm not perfect, but hey, I'm better than some other people.

And then suddenly you turn the light on and he sees himself and he's horrified and thinks, I could never have imagined it was this bad. Sure. And that's what the Spirit does. And you know, the analogy could apply to someone who goes to church and has the law preached and is aware of what God's perfect standard is, and yet without the Spirit, not born again, and so they are able to sit in a dark room without the Spirit's light and look into the law and say, maybe I'm not super bad.

I'm not murdering people here, you know. And yet then the law, the light of the Spirit comes and shines on the law and we see the extent of the, and the spirituality of the law and where Christ raises it, especially in the Sermon on the Mount and et cetera.

Yeah. I mean, it is amazing though. I mean, because, you know, Matt, you and I have both been there where, you know, a minister would hold the mirror before us in a church service and I would have walked away saying, yeah, I look pretty good, doing pretty, I'm doing better this week than I did last week.

And, you know, but without the Spirit, so blind. Now you mentioned the spirituality of the law. Charles goes on to talk about two other aspects of conviction that perhaps we don't normally think of. He says, first, the Spirit does more than expose the existence and the ugliness, the sinfulness, the heinousness of those outward sins that even the world recognizes as shameful.

He goes deep beneath the surface, beneath all the mask and he deals with the secret heart sins of a person. Yeah. He writes, not some gross outward sins only are discovered, but the Spirit enters the deepest recesses of the heart with the law, as it were, in his hand.

He goes from chamber to chamber, searches every corner, discovers, tries and condemns secret lusts and spiritual filthiness, totally unknown and unthought of before. And as these secret lusts are discovered and condemned, the curse due to each is awfully pronounced with divine authority in the name of the eternal God.

And as our sins are thus gradually discovered and brought to light as to their number, nature and guilt, the soul sees condemnation still enlarging before it. The curses of the law sound louder and more terrible and the scene becomes exceedingly dreadful.

Every sin appears far greater than was ever before thought of and their number becomes infinitely increased. The individual would willingly turn his eyes from such wretchedness, would extinguish the light which discovers it, or would by some means take a brighter view of these dreadful objects.

But all he can do is fruitless. He would excuse and palliate or try to make it seem less severe, his offenses, or seek some goodness to balance them. But this is also impossible. The law comes still more home and light clearer and brighter shines upon the mind, discovering and condemning every evil thought, every sinful imagination.

Every believer has been through this. You know, the old writers used to call it the chasm of conviction, where God must strip all that we think is good about us away and reveal the something of the depth of our need.

And I wonder if we realize that this is the love of the Spirit for us. This is the free, undeserved, unearnable, and from our perspective, an undesired expression of His love that He would discover. He mentions three things.

He discovers, He tries, you know, like in the legal court, He tries and then He condemns every heart sin, things that were unknown, things that were unthought of. And then having revealed them, He shows that the rightful curse that is due to each aspect of each heart sin until they mount up, and the curse is pronounced louder and louder.

And though we would try to turn our face away from them, He won't let us. Though we would try to reduce the severity of them, He will not let us. He brings us to a place of absolute self-despair, and it's such an expression of kindness.

The last thing He says there in this part of His essay is that He also reveals a particular sin that we might not think is as bad as the other stuff we've been talking about, and that is the sin of taking the things of God lightly or treating God carelessly.

Yeah. He calls it a careless neglect and disregard of God, and He writes, in what light does He view it? To live without thoughts of God, the Spirit within us condemns as practical atheism, and to think of Him at all without the profoundest reverence and the deepest humility, without supreme love and submission, appears not much better.

When the Spirit shows sin to be sin, every frame of mind unsuitable to the divine majesty and purity is exceedingly felt and lamented. Shame, sorrow, and indignation, the deepest self-abasement and abhorrence, weigh down the soul and humble it to the dust.

So the Spirit alone able to reveal the severity, the shame, the extreme guilt, not of, you know, of adultery and murder and theft and deceit, but of just not valuing God, and from that small view of God and big view of ourselves, which He calls a practical atheism, you know, we can define that.

Stephen Charnock, the Puritan, defines it as living as if God really doesn't exist. So we say He exists, but in our choices, and in our practice, maybe living as if God exists, but not the way He describes Himself in the Scripture.

And those things flow out and produce a life that gives a few thoughts to God, He says, but having a few thoughts, having a little religion, we would say, but nothing else is no better than being the, you know, the open atheist that says, well, there is no God.

Right. Well, Charles then comes to the result of all of this, the Spirit opening our eyes, making it so that we can see the existence of sin, our conscience, the law becomes a bright mirror in front of us, the outward sins, also the heart sins, even the sin of just not taking God seriously, of neglecting God and the things that He's given us.

So what's the result of that? He talks about that in this next section. Charles writes, when the Spirit thus worketh, what discoveries does He make? What infinite guilt does He show to be in every spot and stain of sin?

With what horror and amazement does the awakened sinner view his own pride, seeing it as comprehending all the atheism and enmity against God, which actuate the inhabitants of hell? Envy, malice, and revenge, the natural offspring of pride, He now sees to be the very tempers and disposition of the devil himself.

So really what Charles has been talking about is the gate into Christian life, God revealing and convicting us of sin in such a way that drives us to a Savior. But though it is the gate, it's the hand of the believer throwing open that gate and casting himself on Christ, it is also, Charles says, it doesn't end there.

The Spirit continues to work in us, continuing to show us the existence of sin, even as believers, so as to promote a continual running to Christ and real growth. So it's not just the gate, it's the path.

And he talks about that in our next quote. Charles says, this is not a frame of mind which is only once known when the sinner is first awakened, but it is an increasing degree his frame of mind as he grows in holiness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost.

So far is it from being inconsistent with his comforts, it heightens his joys, it sweetens his consolations, and it effectually promotes holiness. Without this, all fancy joy and peace is a delusion, and all imagined holiness has no existence but in the pride and darkness of our own deceived hearts.

This is the only frame of mind that can fit us to receive blessings from Christ and to walk humbly with him who filleth the hungry with good things, but sendeth the rich empty away, who giveth grace to the humble, but seeth the proud afar off.

This conviction of sin is whilst in this world forever deeper, clearer, more abiding, as the believer enjoys nearer communion with God and grows in faith and love and peace. And without the continual communion of the Spirit, thus with us, walking humbly with God is impossible.

At every conference we attend these days, people stop by our booth to tell us how one of our studies or our films has helped or influenced them, their families, or their churches. Eventually we started asking if they'd let us record those stories and share them with you.

This is Jordan. Anthony Methenia, one of the contributors to the Behold Your God series, gave him a copy of Behold Your God, The Weight of.

Majesty. What it does I think very well is explains clearly the attributes of God, while at the same time connecting them to these great men in history that we look up to, and how they were held up by the attributes of God, by the knowledge of God, and then at the same time applying that to your own life in a practical way.

So it's not just scholarly, it's not just historical, it's also practical, and it pulls them all together, you know, through the stories that Pastor John tells, through the workbook, through the sermons, and then through the application.

It does it all very well. I would say the Behold Your God series is the best series on the attributes of God, as far as contemporary series go, especially with all the materials that they have. No one's going to take you to the text more consistently.

No one's going to connect it to history more consistently, and no one's going to apply it to your life more practically than.

Behold Your God. For more information about Behold Your God, The Weight of Majesty, visit themeansofgrace .org. So we come to the end of the first section of this essay on the operations of the Spirit by Thomas Charles, and it's pretty gloomy looking, if you don't really understand, because there's a paradox here that the unbeliever doesn't understand.

How can an ever-increasingly clear sight of your sin be part of an ever-increasingly happy life? Well, it can't, unless it is the Spirit showing you, because then we're going to go next week, we're going to talk about the next thing the Spirit does.

After showing you that, then day by day, He takes the fullness of Christ and the provision of this great covenant of grace, and He brings it to you morning by morning. And so we have that ever more painful sight of our sin, but producing an ever sweeter view of Christ.

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