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Psalm 32:5:
5I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
It is difficult for us, sinners, to recognize, what is an appointment of God for which to give Him thanks, that in the end sin is compelled to become the means to lead us to a deeper knowledge of God and to cause the Majesty of the Lord to shine with greater brightness for us.
The fact that Satan, and they who as his satellites tempt men to sin, abuse also this Divine appointment, in order in a heaven-defying way to mingle sin and religion, in no way darkens the glory of this appointment itself.
Also no one of us can say, whether, in case Satan first, and after him Adam, had not fallen, God the Lord would not have opened another way, now unknown to us, by which to lead us into an equally deep, if not a still more intimate knowledge of His Name and Being.
All such reflections as these, however, advance us no single step. The fact is that we have been born sinful in a sinful world. With this sinful world we have to reckon. And this being the case, it behooves us to thank God that from evil itself He causes good to come forth, and that He uses even sin to enrich the knowledge of His Name and Being in the inner perception of His child.
Grace, compassion, mercy constitute a deeper part of the love of God than His blessing in prosperity and His help in time of need; and yet, the knowledge of this grace and compassion can only be known by him who himself has tasted the sweetness of reconciliation, and may count himself not only among God's creatures, but also among His redeemed.
In Christ, a knowledge of God's Name and Being has come to us, such as never has been known outside of Him, and yet Bethlehem as well as Golgotha have found their explanation alone in the salvation of sinners.
But there is more.
Even the knowledge of the Almightiness of God has been greatly enriched by sin. For does not the Apostle say that the "exceeding greatness of his power, according to the mighty working of his strength was only revealed to us in the Resurrection of Christ and in the regeneration of believers?" (Ephesians 1:19).
In the re-creation there is a greater exhibition of Majesty and of Almightiness than in the creation; in causing Christ to rise from the dead, a mightier unfolding of Divine strength is shown than in the first calling of nothing into being. There would have been no resurrection without death, no re-creation without fall, and since fall and death both find their starting-point in sin alone, so likewise this higher revelation of the Almightiness of God, which is exhibited in resurrection and in re-creation, would never have come to us in this way, if we had not become sinners.
In order to exhaust what this implies, we must go down still one step more, and also come to recognize that, in God's hand sin becomes the means to make our sense of the holiness of the Lord more keen and clear.
Of course we leave for the moment out of account those who in their unconverted state still walk in the way of sin. In this connection we only deal with the redeemed, with those who in knowing God have found eternal life.
And how did the history of sin run in their case, how runs it now?
Two sorts of persons must here be kept apart. Those who in an offensive way broke out in sin, and those others who remained within the bounds of an ordinary sinful existence. Mary of Magdala and Salome do not stand in the same class. Peter, who denied his Master thrice, passed through an altogether different inward struggle than John, who remained faithful to his Redeemer.
The sinner who went far astray, in his conversion can sometimes rouse the jealousy of the sinner who remained within bounds. The first is far more deeply moved, his struggle in the transition is far more heroic. His jubilant delight in grace when at length the burden of his guilt glides from his shoulders, is far more abounding. The prodigal son, who returns, has something which the son who remained at home, lacks.
And yet he is mistaken, who deems that the calm, quiet sinner, if we may so express it, can not drain the cup of grace to the bottom. He who committed the heinous sin of drunkenness, immorality or dishonesty, runs the great risk of counting this extravagant dissipation his real, actual sin, and of not reckoning with his sinful nature that is back of it. Thus it frequently occurs that such sinners as have been signally converted from criminal practices actually get away from them without making any advances in sanctification of heart and life. And, on the other hand, you see very often that they who have lived unblamably before the eyes of men, after they have come to conversion, have a much keener eye for the less offensive, hidden sins of the heart, and, as a result of their faith, unfold a far richer Christian life. The convert from gross sins frequently continues all his life long to count with the weight of pounds alone, while the convert from less noticeable offenses weighs with the assay-balance.
This is not true of all. There are those, alas, and not a few, who, because they have continued free from great sins, deem themselves on this account alone to be possessors of a glorious record, and with their ordinary sins of pride and quiet selfishness go on to life's end, without ever putting up a serious fight against them.
Take, on the other hand, the redeemed in the narrower sense; in him the tenderness of conscience with respect to sin goes so far that he even mistrusts his own examination of his heart, and ever and again ends with the prayer that God will also make known to him his secret sins, and forgive them.
For when our own heart does not condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, even those that hide in the innermost recesses of our soul.
But in whatever way and measure the inward struggle against sin awakens in us, it always begins with the accusation of our conscience; and that which troubles us in this restlessness of conscience, is always the voice of our God upbraiding us for our sin.
In part, this is the case even with the people of the world, who begin with a conscience that has not as yet been altogether extinguished. But with them the voice of God in the conscience is not recognized. They hear in it either nothing else than a troublesome resistance of their spiritual nature against that which their carnal nature craves, and sear their conscience, in order freely to go on in sin; or they see in it an impulse of their own better self, and imagine that they train themselves in virtuous living. This results in a good deal of social respectability and praiseworthy self-control, but it bears no fruit for eternal life, insomuch as they claim the honor of it for themselves, and withhold it from God with Whom they refuse to reckon.
But the conscience operates altogether differently with those who are redeemed.
With them the first effect of the troubled conscience is that they are startled; that they become angry with the sin they have committed; that for the sake of everything that is precious, they wish that they had never done it, and that now they stand embarrassed and ashamed before their God.
This gives rise to prayer.
Even in the midst of the cares and labors of the day they were aware that God opposed their sin; but in the general intercourse with people, and in work there is so much to divert their attention that they easily got away from the impression.
But this they have, in distinction from the people of the world, that they still pray. And when day is done, and they are at the point, before retiring, of bending their knees before God, they perceive a hindrance, they shrink from prayer, they feel that something wrong lies in between their heart and God, and they scarcely dare to appear before His Face.
And then comes the moment of decision.
If they refrain from prayer, their conscience takes the soporific drink, and unless God saves them, they are lost.
The third verse of Psalm 32 describes what follows: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring."
But David did not faint, he struggled on; however deeply ashamed he was of himself, he knelt down before his God. The fifth verse of this same Psalm contains the record: "I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. So I acknowledged my sin unto thee and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."
And then, when the soul does not give up but, in spite of everything, yet kneels down and cries unto God on account of its sin, then there comes blessedness: "For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee, in a time when thou mayest be found. Floods of great waters may come, but they shall not come nigh unto him."
And in this contrition of soul there is a recognition of God's holiness, with an intensity such as has never been experienced before.
It was no longer a holiness of God such as was reasoned out and inferred from the commandment that is given; nor yet a holiness which lost itself in a vague admiration of its own purity; no, it was the Holy God Himself Who in our conscience pressed upon us, and by His holiness upbraiding us for our sin, made us test and taste that holiness in the bitterness of our self-reproach and penitence.
The holiness of God then presented itself to us in the light that of itself is formed by the deep contrast with the shadow of our sin. It revealed itself then to us as a power which, quick and quickening, antagonized the death of our sin.
This holiness then assumed a definite, concrete form for us in the inexorable condemnation of a definite, concrete sin. And after it was grasped by us in this definite form, it lighted up for us, as it were, an immeasurable realm of holinesses, that lay over against the dark background of our own soul's existence from which this definite sin had sprung.
This holiness did not merely hover over us, but it cleaved unto us, and so our sin-convicted soul came into direct contact, in immediate touch, with the holy God.
It brought us living, tangible knowledge of Him, with Whom we have to do.
The sin was dreadful; but through it God brought it to pass, that you obtained a better understanding of His holiness.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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