Book Excerpt
This is a short essay from the book I am currently writing, entitled The Free Will of the Old Man & The Free Will of the New Creature.
"Sin is more than an act, it is the nature and disposition of a heart totally inclined towards death. Every manifestation of the man in this state, be it either his wickedness, which is the native language of the man's true self; or his goodness, which is nothing more but an extension of his selfishness, is utterly detestable in the sight of a thrice holy God. It is that which no effort of man can ever hope to alter nor would wish to improve.
If it were conceivable for death to exist in and of itself as a separate state from life, still death cannot choose life. And if we are to assume that it can, it will not do so. "The dead praise not the LORD," Psalm cxv : xvii. Just as Satan cannot and will not choose God, so death in itself cannot and will not choose life. That is not to say, death is due to Satan's presence, but it is due to God's absence. Death's reason for being is the absence of life.
The sun is both the source of light and of shadows. Where no light is, there the shadow exists. But once the light shines where the shadow was, it is no more. Just as darkness is the absence of light, so death is the absence of life; in this we understand therefore that evil is the absence of God. Nothing. No man. No one, but God alone, in a sovereign determination of his will, can, in the very act of breathing his life-giving Spirit into a man, translate him from his helpless and deathly state by imparting to him life. Yet He not merely imparts life from a distance, but the triune Godhead takes permanent abode in the man. Not by any virtue or favor coming from the man, but solely by the sovereign will of God does the man become the habitation of God. The nature of death ends, because a new nature of life begins. "He will swallow up death in victory," Isaiah xxv v. viii. Now where God is, death is no more."
I have no idea how to write, much less know what to write , but somehow the Lord has placed it in my heart to do so regarding this subject according to my study and meditation of this scripture: Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? Proverbs xx : ix
Please include me in your prayers. May the LORD alone be glorified. Amen.
"Sin is more than an act, it is the nature and disposition of a heart totally inclined towards death. Every manifestation of the man in this state, be it either his wickedness, which is the native language of the man's true self; or his goodness, which is nothing more but an extension of his selfishness, is utterly detestable in the sight of a thrice holy God. It is that which no effort of man can ever hope to alter nor would wish to improve.
If it were conceivable for death to exist in and of itself as a separate state from life, still death cannot choose life. And if we are to assume that it can, it will not do so. "The dead praise not the LORD," Psalm cxv : xvii. Just as Satan cannot and will not choose God, so death in itself cannot and will not choose life. That is not to say, death is due to Satan's presence, but it is due to God's absence. Death's reason for being is the absence of life.
The sun is both the source of light and of shadows. Where no light is, there the shadow exists. But once the light shines where the shadow was, it is no more. Just as darkness is the absence of light, so death is the absence of life; in this we understand therefore that evil is the absence of God. Nothing. No man. No one, but God alone, in a sovereign determination of his will, can, in the very act of breathing his life-giving Spirit into a man, translate him from his helpless and deathly state by imparting to him life. Yet He not merely imparts life from a distance, but the triune Godhead takes permanent abode in the man. Not by any virtue or favor coming from the man, but solely by the sovereign will of God does the man become the habitation of God. The nature of death ends, because a new nature of life begins. "He will swallow up death in victory," Isaiah xxv v. viii. Now where God is, death is no more."
I have no idea how to write, much less know what to write , but somehow the Lord has placed it in my heart to do so regarding this subject according to my study and meditation of this scripture: Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? Proverbs xx : ix
Please include me in your prayers. May the LORD alone be glorified. Amen.
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