19: THE TWELFTH SIGN OF AUTHENTIC AFFECTIONS (1)

Gracious and holy affections always bear the fruit of holiness
of life.

THIS IS NOT ONLY THE most important of the twelve signs of the saving presence of the Spirit but the most controversial as well. In order for us to grasp what is in view, we need to make three observations.

First, it is necessary that a person be “universally obedient.” This does not mean the regenerate are perfect or sinless. What it does mean is that they are willing and devoted to parting ways with all “their dearest iniquities.” There is no element or facet of our responsibility to Christ that we feel ourselves exempt from pursuing. This extends not only to the avoidance of all sins that are noted in Scripture but also to the positive practice of those virtues we read of in God’s Word.

Second, if a person is a true Christian he or she will pursue the business of religion and the service of God “with great earnestness and diligence, as the work which they devote themselves to, and make the main business of their lives.” Those whom Christ redeemed are said to be zealous for good works (see Titus 2:14), which is to say their hearts are fully employed and engaged in the practice of righteousness. “The kingdom of heaven is not to be taken but by violence. Without earnestness there is no getting along in that narrow way that leads to life, and so no arriving at that state of glorious life and happiness which it leads to.”

Without “earnest labor” and “constant laboriousness” there is no hope of finally and fully attaining to eternal life. “Slothfulness in the service of God, in his professed servants, is as damning as open rebellion.”

Third, every true Christian “perseveres in this way of universal obedience, and diligent and earnest service of God, through all the various kinds of trials that he meets with, to the end of life.” Such perseverance is not the sort that is easily attained when times are smooth and successful. This is a perseverance that occurs through trials and temptations and the worst of times.

Many things serve to derail us from godly perseverance in the pursuit of righteousness: the alluring appeal of sin, those things that remove the restraints on the expression of our sinful inclinations, and especially those things that make the performance of duty appear hard, unappealing, and terrible, such as the suffering, reproach, contempt, pain, and loss of possessions and outward comforts we incur if we stay in the way of righteousness. Indeed, often God in his providence so orders our lives that these trials come our way to bring to the surface the true nature of our commitment and the depth of our conviction.

None of what has just been said should be taken to mean that true saints cannot backslide or fall into sin. But “they can never fall away so as to grow weary of religion and the service of God, and habitually to dislike it and neglect it, either on its own account, or on account of the difficulties that attend it.”

True saints can never backslide so far that they abandon the way of righteousness altogether. “Nor can they ever fall away so as habitually to be more engaged in other things than in the business of religion, or so that it should become their way and manner to serve something else more than God.”

Nor can a true saint ever fall away to the extent “that it shall come to this, that ordinarily there shall be no remarkable difference in his walk and behavior since his conversion, from what was before. They that are truly converted are new men, new creatures; new, not only within, but without; they are sanctified throughout, in spirit, soul and body. Old things are passed away, all things are become new. They have new hearts, and new eyes, new ears, new tongues, new hands, new feet, i.e. a new conversation and practice, and they walk in newness of life and continue to do so to the end of life. And they that fall away, and cease visibly to do so, ’tis a sign they never were risen with Christ. And especially when men’s opinion of their being converted, and so in a safe estate, is the very cause of their coming to this, it is a most evident sign of their hypocrisy.”

Why is it that gracious affections will always result in godly practice? Because God has communicated himself to us in our experience of being born again. We participate in the divine nature. Christ lives in our hearts. The Holy Spirit dwells within and unites himself to our faculties as an internal vital principle and exerts his nature in the exercise of our faculties of soul. How could divine omnipotence, dwelling in the human soul, fail to be powerful and effectual in the production of a godly life?

In other words, if God dwells in the heart and is vitally united to it, “he will show that he is a God, by the efficacy of his operation. Christ is not in the heart of a saint as in a sepulcher, or as a dead Savior, that does nothing, but as in his temple, and as one that is alive from the dead. For in the heart where Christ savingly is, there he lives, and exerts himself after the power of that endless life that he received at his resurrection.”

The spirit of Christ, “which is the immediate spring of grace in the heart, is all life, all power, all act” (see especially 1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:5; 1 Cor. 4:20). This is why saving affections, although not as loud or visible as others, have in them “a secret solidity, life and strength, whereby they take hold of and carry away the heart, leading it into a kind of captivity (2 Cor. 10:5), gaining a full and steadfast determination of the will for God and holiness.” Thus, holy affections “have a governing power in the course of a man’s life.”

A granite statue may have all the external features of a real person, representing well the contours of his body and appearance. But there is no inward principle or power to animate and supply strength. Thus it does nothing, and accomplishes nothing. “But gracious affections go to the very bottom of the heart and take hold of the very inmost springs of life and activity.” True and gracious affections conquer the will and triumph over lusts and corruptions of nature and carry us into the way of holiness despite all temptations, difficulty, and opposition.

There are numerous reasons why truly gracious affections issue in godly practice, virtually all of which are related to the eleven signs of authentic spirituality we have already examined. Let’s take note of just a few of them.

For example, one reason why people with holy affections are given to holy practice is because what they seek is God himself, solely for the excellency of who he is, and not whatever good uses or ends the knowledge of God might bring them. If a person seeks God only for the benefits he brings us, once those benefits disappear or fail to materialize, one’s hunger for God likewise diminishes. This is why gracious affections will enable men to persevere in the pursuit of godliness even when it is painful to do so. If the pursuit of godliness comes at great cost to a person’s comfort and private interests, the unregenerate will abandon the former for the sake of the latter. But he who loves God for God’s own sake will be so impelled by the beauty and excellency of his divine nature that no degree of trial or loss will impede him.

Again, once we grasp the moral excellence of divine things or the beauty of holiness, we can better understand why one is committed to persevere in the practice of godliness. “Seeing [that] holiness is the main thing that excites, draws and governs all gracious affections, no wonder that all such affections tend to holiness. That which men love, they desire to have and to be united to, and possessed of. That beauty which men delight in, they desire to be adorned with. Those acts which men delight in, they necessarily incline to do.”

We must also remember that the Spirit of God in teaching and leading the believer “gives the soul a natural relish of the sweetness of that which is holy, and of everything that is holy, so far as it comes in view, and excites a disrelish and disgust of everything that is unholy.” If a person should find himself relishing and delighting in that which is unholy, along with distasting and disregarding that which is spiritually excellent, there is reason to doubt that he ever has been the subject of a gracious and saving activity of the Holy Spirit.

The nature of that spiritual knowledge which comes with conversion also accounts for why those with authentic affections will persevere in godly practice. “By the sight of the transcendent glory of Christ, true Christians see him worthy to be followed, and so are powerfully drawn after him. They see him worthy that they should forsake all for him. By the sight of that superlative amiableness, they are thoroughly disposed to be subject to him, and engaged to labor with earnestness and activity in his service, and made willing to go through all difficulties for his sake. And ’tis the discovery of this divine excellency of Christ that makes them constant to him, for it makes a deep impression upon their minds that they cannot forget him, and they will follow him whithersoever he goes, and it is in vain for any to endeavor to draw them away from him.”

Also, the thorough conviction or certainty of a soul in the truth of divine things impels true believers to godly practice. If some are never thoroughly convinced of the truth of the gospel, it is no wonder they fall to the side when trials and afflictions arise. But it is different with those who are fully assured of the gospel truth, “for the things revealed in the Word of God are so great, and so infinitely more important, than all other things, that it is inconsistent with the human nature, that a man should fully believe the truth of them, and not be influenced by them above all things, in his practice.”

We can also point to what we said of humility. A proud spirit is rebellious and resistant to the things of God, whereas a humble spirit yields and is subject to the commands of Scripture. The humble commit themselves to God and subject their will and soul to his ways.

It’s inconceivable that divine grace would not bear the fruit of godly practice, for “there is nothing in heaven or earth of a more active nature; for ’tis life itself.” There is nothing in the universe that has a greater and more effectual tendency to produce fruit than grace. “Godliness in the heart has as direct a relation to practice as a fountain has to a stream, or as the luminous nature of the sun has to beams sent forth, or as life has to breathing, or the beating of the pulse, or any other vital act; or as a habit or principle of action has to action, for it is the very nature and notion of grace that it is a principle of holy action or practice.”

Indeed, it is the very nature and purpose of regeneration and conversion by grace that godly practice should result (see Eph. 2:10; Titus 2:14; 2 Cor. 5:15; Heb. 9:14; Col. 1:21–22; 1 Pet. 1:18; Luke 1:74–75; John 15:13; Eph. 1:4). Thus “holy practice is as much the end of all that God does about his saints, as fruit is the end of all the husbandman does about the growth of his field or vineyard.”

The unsaved are often inclined to promise godly practice and even to humble themselves to some extent when they are confronted with the manifestation of God’s judgment and discipline, but they never wholly give themselves to holiness. Under pressure of the plagues, Pharaoh gave some indication of his willingness to let the people go, but would later renege on his commitment. He appeared willing to obey God yet held on to his sins. “So it oftentimes is with sinners: they are willing to part with some of their sins, but not all. They are brought to part with the more gross acts of sin, but not to part with their lusts, in lesser indulgences of them.”

Even though Pharaoh was under great judgment and a sense of divine wrath when he consented and let the people go, he soon reverted to his natural instincts and pursued them to the Red Sea, intent on destroying them. The reason is that “those lusts of pride and covetousness that were gratified by Pharaoh’s dominion over the people, and the gains of their service, were never really mortified in him, but only violently restrained. . . . Thus there may be a forced parting with ways of disobedience to the commands of God, that may seem to be universal, as to what appears for a little season, but because ’tis a mere force, without the mortification of the inward principle of sin, they will not persevere in it, but will return as the dog to its vomit.”

We will continue with a summary of this sign of authentic affections in the next chapter.