Jean 16:9

Of sin, because they believe not on Me

Ineffectual reproof and effectual conviction of sin

We did not need that the Holy Spirit should come down from heaven to reprove the world of sin.

The words and thoughts of men would have been sufficient to do this. Every preacher of righteousness from the days of Noah has gone about reproving the world of sin. Everybody who in any age has led a just, and holy life has reproved the world of sin, even though he may not have lifted up his voice against it. Nay, the unholy may do so, and the greatest sinners may be the loudest in reproof. Poetry had reproved the world of sin; indeed this is the special business of two of its branches--comedy and satire. Philosophy had reproved the world of sin; and at the time when the Spirit of God had begun His great work, the reproofs of philosophy had become severer and more clamorous than ever. But what is the world the better for all this laborious reproving? How much does the world heed it, or care for it? No more than the crater of Etna cares for the roaring and lashing of the waves at its feet. The smoke of sin will rise up and stain the face of heaven, the flames will still burst forth and spread desolation far and wide, although the waves of reproof should roll around it unceasingly century after century. In fact, the whole history of man has shown that reproof, when there is no gentler and more penetrative power working along with it, instead of producing conviction, rather provokes the heart to resist it. The office of the Spirit, then, was not to reprove but to convince, to teach mankind what sin is, to lay it bare under all its masks, to trace it through all the mazes of its web, and to light on it sitting in the midst thereof, to show it to man, not merely as it flashes forth in the overt actions of his neighbours, but as it lies smouldering inextinguishably within his own bosom, to give him a torch whereby he may explore the dark chambers of his own heart, to lead him into them, and to open his eyes so that he shall behold some of sin’s countless brood crouching or gambolling in every corner. And to convince a man of sin in this way, by proving to him that it lies at the bottom of all his feelings, and blends with all his thoughts, that the bright coloured stones with which he is so fond of decking himself out, and which he takes such delight in gazing at, are only so many bits of brittle, worthless glass, and that what he deems to be stars are earthborn meteors, which merely glimmer for the moment they are falling; to convince the world of sin, by showing it how sin has tainted its heart, and flows through its veins, and is mixed up with its life-blood--this is a work which no earthly power can accomplish, and therefore was our Saviour mercifully pleased to send the Comforter to produce this conviction in mankind. (Archdeacon Hare.)

Sin and its reproof

I. THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN PRODUCING CONVICTION OF SIN IN THE CONSCIENCE,

1. Sin is wholly a matter of motives. It is true that sin is the transgression of the law, and we might suppose it to be a matter of action; but we mistake the law. The law of God is to love God supremely and our neighbour equally. Sin is transgression of this law.

2. Now, whatever form of action may tend to good and to blessedness is right. God has a right to good and blessedness; and if we minister to His good and blessedness we respect His right. Man, too, has a right to good and blessedness, and when we confer upon him good and increase his blessedness, we give him that which is his due.

3. But since we do not understand in what way our life may be related to the good and blessedness of God, we must receive instructions from Him as to the manner of expressing our love to Him. And this He has done in His Word, progressively, most fully by His Son, in whom we have not only an instructor, but also a pattern; and it is ours to receive the instruction and apply it. And when we have received it and applied it, we shall furnish ourselves with rules of conduct. Conformity to these is righteousness; nonconformity to these is unrighteousness.

4. That, then, for which the Spirit is come into the world is chiefly to convince the intelligence and convict the moral judgment of a want of perfect love to God and man. You will easily see that it does not need the Spirit to teach a man concerning immorality, or even unrighteousness. For there is in man a natural conscience, and it teaches him that selfishness is wrong, and that generosity, at least, if not love, is right. And at the time the Saviour spoke there had been a revelation. The law of love had been expressed in the life of Jesus, and it had been wrought out into many precepts which He had uttered during His ministry, and which would be repeated by His disciples. But it is in the power of the mind to turn itself away from the inspection of motives, and to set itself so outwardly from itself, as that it will merely try its conduct by the external rule, without searching its recesses and referring its activities to their real sources in the affections. And so men need not only help in order to sound judgment, but a disposition in order to faithfulness with themselves. And if any help shall be given, it must be of a personal sort. It must come from one who can look into the heart, discern the thoughts and feelings, discover the motives, test them, and perfectly judge them. No mere influence proceeding from God could do anything with man in the court of conscience when he determined to stop inquiry and prevent judgment.

II. IN WHAT DOES THE SIN OF THE WORLD CONSIST? Who is this young peasant who gathers about Him a few disciples, and, when He is about to be sacrificed for His enthusiasm, talks about His importance to this degree that the Spirit of the living God is to come into the world to convince all men of their sin--consisting in failure to trust Him? I should not want any other hinge than that upon which to swing the whole doctrine of the divinity of Christ; for here is either infinite assumption, or a consciousness of infiniteness--one or the other. The ages have decided it. I do not think two million two hundred and fifty thousand copies of the history of His life would have been seized by the English-speaking people in forty-eight hours if such talk as this were regarded in the judgment of the nineteenth century as infinite assumption. Now note that, we cannot love a being unless, when we know him, we know him to be such that we can trust him; and we cannot trust a being without loving him.

1. Where, then, is God revealed that we may know Him? Partly in nature, partly in our own constitution, but chiefly in the person of Jesus Christ.

God sent Him into the world--Immanuel, “God with us”; God sent Him to manifest His moral excellence in His character and by His life. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” If we shall know God, it will be by knowing Christ. He said, “I am the Truth.”

2. We could not otherwise come into relationship with God except as He is known, and as He has manifested Himself, in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we love God as we love Him in the Son, and not otherwise; for we can only love where and as we know and trust.

3. Out of this grows the filial spirit, and we at length are able to reach the Father, to come into perfect relations to Him, and by the Spirit of adoption to say, “Abba, Father.” And then, of course, when we are so related to God as that we love Him, and our life is in Him, it is our very nature to love His children.

4. We can now see in what respect it is the work of the Spirit to convince us of sin, namely: that in our hearts we do not purely and perfectly love God and God’s children; and we fail here because we do not know Him and trust Him; and we do not know Him and trust Him because we do not see and approach Him in Jesus Christ. Therefore, as the Lord said, “He will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on Me.”

III. INFERENCES.

1. That is the most miserable and powerless religion that has emptied Christ of His divinity. It is of no service to man, and history is proving it, as experience is.

2. That it is not left to a man’s option whether he shall trust Jesus Christ or not. No man with a natural conscience but knows that if He lives, moves, and has his being, and depends for his destiny upon, and must have his good and joy from, the loving and continual agency of God, he ought to render to God what is His due; and if He is the highest object of knowledge, He ought to be known; if He is worthy of perfect trust, He ought to be trusted; and if He is infinitely lovely and loving, He ought to be loved; and our natural conscience would teach us that we ought to know and love and trust God. Very well; there is no other way to do it, except to take God as God comes to us, and He never comes to any man except in the Son, and He never will. (J. T. Duryea, D. D.)

The Holy Spirit convincing of sin

I. WHAT IS CONVICTION OF SIN? It is opposed to the insensibility of the thoughtless; to the vain self-flatteries of those who delude themselves with the hope that it will be well with them, though they are strangers to regenerating grace and unwashed in the blood of atonement; and to the perilous delays of those who defer the concerns of their souls to an uncertain future. Unlike all these, he who is under conviction of sin has awaked to an awful sense of the importance of eternity, of the danger of his state, and of the necessity of instant attention to his dearest, his everlasting interests. His carnal security is terminated. Seeing himself pursued by the curses of the law, and exposed to everlasting agonies, the world diminishes in his esteem; much change is made in his affections, and much reformation in his outward conduct. Such is conviction of sin; that conviction that was felt by Peter’s hearers on the day of Pentecost; by Saul of Tarsus when, “trembling and astonished, he cried, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” by the Philippian jailer.

II. WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF THIS CONVICTION OF SIN? To Him we are indebted not only for grace, but also for all that is preparatOry to the infusion of it in the soul: of this the slightest observation must convince us. Let me add, that the great end and design of the gospel rendered it requisite that conviction should be wrought by the Holy Spirit. The gospel is intended to display the riches of Divine grace, and to remove all cause of glorying in ourselves: and if we could convince ourselves, make ourselves sensible of sin, the glory of the commencement and preparation of the work would belong to ourselves.

III. DO ALL CONVICTIONS TERMINATE IN TRUE CONVERSION? To this question the declarations of the Scripture, as well as our own observation, answer “No.” We are taught that we can “grieve,” can “resist,” can “quench the Spirit” of God. And suppose not that it is improper to attribute these fading convictions to the Spirit of God. “Wherever they fail,” I here use the words of the excellent Dr. Owen, “wherever they fail, and come short of that real conversion to which they have a tendency, it is not from any weakness and imperfection in themselves, but from the sins of those in whom they are wrought. Common illumination and conviction of sin have a tendency unto sincere conversion. They have so, in the same kind as the law hath to bring us to Christ. Where this end is not attained, it is always from the interposition of an act of stubbornness and wilfulness in those enlightened and convicted. By a free act of their own will they refuse the grace which is further tendered to them in the gospel.”

IV. WHAT ARE THE CHIEF POINTS OF DISTINCTION BETWEEN THOSE LEGAL CONVICTIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCED BY MANY WHO ARE LOST, AND THOSE EVANGELICAL CONVICTIONS THAT ARE PECULIAR TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD? A legal conviction arises from a sense of God’s justice, and power, and omniscience. All this is felt by him who is under evangelical conviction; but his chief sorrow arises from the consideration of other attributes of God: the Divine goodness, holiness, and disaffection to sin. He exclaims, “I have abused the tenderness of a Father, and outraged infinite goodness; I have offended purity, which would have sanctified me.” The one traces the malignity of sin principally by its tendency to produce the death of the soul, and in the agonies of the lost; the other chiefly studies it in the sufferings and death of the Son of God. The one is burdened with the fear of punishment, the other with the sense of his desert of it.

1. This subject teaches us the deep guilt of those who strive to stifle those convictions of sin that are produced in the hearts of their acquaintance and friends. Such persons “do despite to the Spirit of grace,” and unite with the prince of darkness in opposition to God and the souls of men.

2. This subject tenderly and solemnly admonishes those who have stifled the convictions which they once felt. Unhappy men I you once appeared “not far from the kingdom of heaven.”

3. This subject consoles and admonishes those who are under convictions of sin. Fear not the pangs of godly sorrow; it is the Spirit of grace who convinces you, that He may be your Comforter. Though you are pained, it is by Him who is love and tenderness. (H. Kollock, D. D.)

Conviction of sin

I. WHAT IS SIN? Any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God. This law is the eternal rule of rectitude. It is not merely a revelation of what is right and reasonable, but what we are bound to be conformed to. Of course our views of sin will be determined by our views of the law. If the law is only the law of reason, sin is simply unreasonable. If the law is limited so is sin. If the law is perfect, then all want of perfection is sin.

II. CONVICTION OF SIN IS THEREFORE A CONVICTION OF WANT OF CONFORMITY TO THE LAW. This includes

1. Want of conformity

(1) Of the heart.

(2) Of conscious states of the mind.

(3) Of particular acts. Under the gospel it is specially of unbelief, as a sin against Christ.

2. The consciousness of this as guilt, i.e., as justly exposing us to the condemnation of the law.

3. The sense of inability to make atonement.

4. The sense of defilement: that which renders us objects of abhorrence. This stands opposed to self-complacency and self-approbation.

III. THE NECESSITY OF THIS CONVICTION ARISES OUT OF THE FACT THAT THE GOSPEL IS A PLAN FOR THE SALVATION OF SINNERS. It is designed for sinners. If we are not sinners, we do not need the gospel; and if we do not as sinners feel our need of the gospel we shall not embrace it. If we do not feel ourselves guilty and polluted we shall not look to Christ for pardon and cleansing.

IV. WHAT KIND OR DEGREE OF CONVICTION IS NECESSARY? What are the evidences of genuine conviction?

1. Every man is convinced of sin in a certain sense and measure. But only in such a measure as is consistent with indifference or carelessness.

2. Others are so convinced as to create great anxiety and to lead to long and painful efforts to save themselves.

3. Others are so convinced as to be thoroughly persuaded that they can neither atone for their guilt, nor deliver themselves from defilement, or make themselves holy. This is the result to be desired.

V. THIS CONVICTION CAN ONLY BE PRODUCED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

Conviction of sin

As John Wesley on a summer evening in 1742 was preaching on his father’s tombstone, he observed a gentleman in his audience, who, he knew, made no profession of religion. “I was informed,” said Mr. Wesley, “that he had not been at public worship of any kind for upwards of thirty years. Seeing him stand as motionless as a statue, I asked him abruptly ‘Sir, are you a sinner?’ He replied with a deep and broken voice, ‘Sinner enough,’ and continued looking upward till his wife and a servant or two, who were all in tears, put him into his chaise and carried him home. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

The convictive work of the Holy Ghost

I. TO CONVINCE THE WORLD OF SIN IS MUCH MORE THAN TO CONVINCE THE WORLD OF CRIME. There may be sin where there is no crime, but wherever there is crime there is sin to account for it. Society is organized to defend itself against crime, yet every member of it is guilty of sin. Thus

1. Society condemns murder; so in His reasoning with us the Holy Ghost begins with this admission, and proceeds to say--You condemn murder, but this is merely a gross and vulgar morality, little better, indeed, than selfishness stimulated by fear; you must find out how murder begins--it begins in unholy anger; that anger may never have spoken one word or shown one sign, yet by so much as you have given way to it in the secrecy of your inmost heart you are guilty of murder in the sight of God! It required a Ghost to teach us that. We could only get so far as to make some difference between murder and manslaughter, or between murder with extenuating circumstances and murder without them. There society paused, being unable to go further; and precisely there the Spirit began His work.

2. Society has made murder penal, but it has not been able to set falsehood amongst punishable crimes, although it is treated more spiritually than murder. We own, for example, that a man may act a lie as well as tell one: that he may use words with two meanings: that he may guard himself and mislead others by mental reservations. What more can the Holy Ghost Himself do? The Holy Ghost says that a form of words may be true, and yet it may express a lie! A conversation may be reported verbatim, yet, by a mere change of tone, by the omission of a facial expression, by a skilful variation of pause or emphasis, the report may be a falsehood from beginning to end. Farther and deeper still, a man may be false to himself. He may actually have treated himself so dishonestly as to have suspended or destroyed the very power by which he knows right from wrong. His conscience is “seared as with a hot iron,” and he “given over to believe a lie.” Under such circumstances the man is something more than a liar, he himself is actually a lie! Who then but the Spirit of God can convince of sin here?

3. But the process becomes still more spiritual. Murder and falsehood are at all events nominally condemned; but what of virtues which are praised as the very security and crown of human society? Take an act of almsgiving, and let it be outwardly the choicest specimen of its class: the gift is large, timely, cordial, and deservedly bestowed. Beyond this point society does not carry its judgment. But where man ends, the all-searching Spirit begins: He holds the candle of the Lord over the secret places of the heart: He tries the motives by the fires of the supreme judgment; and having done so, He says in effect to the applauded man--“Your love went not with your gift; it was an oblation to your own vanity; it was a bribe by which you bought reputation; it was not given to the poor, it was given to yourself.” This conviction may be made so clear to a man, as to cause him pain amidst the general applause.

4. We are now upon the line every point of which adds to our knowledge of spiritual realities as distinguished from formal facts. May our religion be the chief of our immoralities? You prayed in the house of your friend, and made your prayer the medium of personal compliment to his supposed excellencies and deserts; not daring to hint at his sins; would you have so prayed for him if he had not been listening to you? Would you have prayed at all if you could decorously have escaped the duty? Not only does the Holy Ghost ask these questions, He compels you to answer them to your shame.

5. More: even if we are unassailable at any of the great points now indicated, yet there is another kingdom. Every man has two lives--the life of motive, and the life of behaviour, into the first of which none can enter but the Spirit of spirits. “He knoweth our thought afar off;” before it is a complete thought. Through your heart there shot a desire which scorched you, though no human eye will ever see the blister which it left, and the very memory of that desire will make you dumb whilst others sing. Into your mind there came what was only the hint of a thought, yet it struck you like a thunderbolt, so evil did it seem to be even in its incompleteness! These are the visitations which show a man that there is something worse than crime, and make him impatient with the deceitful comforters who would “heal his hurt slightly.”

II. “The Spirit of truth will convince the world of sin, BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE NOT ON ME.” The Holy Ghost will so vividly and thoroughly show the nature of sin, that those who thought themselves the best examples of human society will be afflicted with the keenest compunction because of what they know themselves to be in the presence of God. It will no longer be a question of comparison as between one class of man and another; the judgment will lie wholly between man and God. This personal consciousness is to be so vivid and intense as to become painful; a man will see himself as he never saw himself before, and feel the burden of life with a new and intolerable oppression. Can he in that moment of despair turn to others for help? No; because they are in the agonies of the same experience. What then? When the conviction is so keen and relentless, the heart will begin to know that in turning away from Christ, it turned from the Son of God, the only mediator of the covenant of peace. This is the conviction of sin which the Spirit of God is to work in hearts which have not believed in the Saviour of the world. Christ cannot be understood until sin is understood. So long as sin is regarded from a merely social point of view, the Cross of Christ must appear to be an exaggeration. Why do with blood a work which could be done as well with water? Why sacrifice a man when the blood of a beast would answer every purpose? But the moment that sin is seen under the illumination of infinite holiness, the Cross of Christ alone is equal to the tragic awe and appalling horror of the situation. The first clear view which any man gets of the sinfulness of sin marks the crisis of his life. From that time he elects his destiny.

III. In the light of this exposition we may see the way clear to some PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS.

1. All attempts to establish a satisfactory life on the basis of what is commonly known as morality, must be given up. Morality has become one of the fine arts. It is a fine balancing of calculations, a tacit understanding with evil powers, at best but an armed neutrality. But what if morality be only an art--the most cunning and profitable of tricks? What if the partitions which we call our “rights” be saved from destruction merely because it pays better to repress the fire of passion than to give it free course? The Holy Ghost teaches us that we cannot be right with one another until we are right with God. He says: “You must be born again--you must die unto yourself, that you may live unto God.” This is clearly a magnificent basis of life, supplying as it does eternal guarantees of purity and nobleness.

2. All hopes founded upon what are thought to be different degrees of sin must be abandoned. There are, of course, different degrees of crime, but the question does not turn upon crime at all. For all the purposes of criminal law it may be sufficient to classify men according to the mere accidents of their mischievous behaviour, so that punishment may be assigned with some degree of proportion to the shock which public feeling has sustained; but another standard must be set up when the offence is between man and God. “Would you send a murderer and a speculative sceptic to the same hell?” it may be asked. But stop! The question is one of the heart, not of the hand. According to the teaching of the Holy Ghost it may be that the heart through which has passed an unholy desire may be in a worse condition than the heart whose momentary passion has vented itself in murderous vengeance. The thing to be understood is that sin is spiritual, and that it is to be judged spiritually, without reference to the vulgarity or noise which may make it socially noticeable.

3. Under such realization of sin the work of Christ is seen in its true light. Here it is emphatically true that “they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” But let the boastful man awake to the fact that in his own body there is a slowly developing disease, painless in its early stages, but surely advancing upon his very life; let him come to the conviction that at any moment his pulse may cease, and instantly his attitude towards the medical profession may be totally changed. A new conviction has given him a new feeling and compelled him towards a new policy. Jesus Christ makes use of this very experience to throw light upon His own ministry: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Everything, therefore, is made to depend upon conviction. Where there is no conviction there will be no pressure of necessity. Where there is no thirst, who cares for the fountain? but in the desert, under an intolerable sun, who can calculate the value of a cup of cold water? Christ awaits the demands of spiritual necessity. He knows that the Holy Ghost will so torment the heart with a sense of sin as to compel the sufferer to pray for mercy, and at that point of anguish he will show himself to the Saviour of the world. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The work of the Holy Spirit in the conviction of sin

I. WHAT IS CONVICTION OF SIN? The word means

1. To reprove, censure, or upbraid.

2. To convict, prove to be guilty.

3. To render manifest. Here it is used in the last two senses.

(1) The people of the world are to be convicted at the bar of their own conscience of being sinners. This act is to be manifest to their own consciousness; and as sin includes two elements--guilt and pollution--the one expressing the relation of sin to justice, and the other its relation to holiness, conviction of sin includes

(a) The conviction of just exposure to the wrath of God on account of our own character and conduct. And this includes the conviction that we deserve punishment and that we certainly shall be punished unless in some way our guilt is removed.

(b) The conviction of moral defilement, i.e., that we are in fact and in our own eyes offensive, degraded, and the proper objects of loathing.

(2) The effects of conviction flow from these two sources, and are

(a) Dread of the wrath of God.

(b) Self-condemnation.

(c) Remorse, including the sense of ill-desert, sorrow for the offence, and craving after satisfaction. It is stilled by punishment or adequate atonement.

II. THE SIN OF WHICH MEN ARE TO BE THUS CONVINCED IS THAT OF NOT BELIEVING ON CHRIST.

1. What is it to believe on Christ? This includes

(1) The belief that He is what He claimed to be--the Son of God, or God manifest in the flesh; the Messiah; the Prophet, Priest and King, and therefore the Redeemer of men. This involves the recognition of the truth of all His doctrines. This faith to be genuine must not rest merely on external evidence, but on the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

(2) Reliance on Christ, on His propitiation, His saving, sanctifying and protecting power.

(3) Adoring love for His person, zeal for His glory, devotion to His service, submission to His will. It includes this not exactly in its nature as faith, but as its necessary effects: just as we cannot separate apprehension of beauty from delight in it.

2. The worst of all sins is unbelief. And men are convinced of sin when convinced that want of faith in Christ deserves God’s wrath and degrades and pollutes the soul.

III. WHY IS THIS UNBELIEF SO GREAT A SIN? That it is the greatest of sins is directly asserted in Jean 3:18. It is so because

1. It is the manifestation of the greatest depravity. The disbelief of speculative truth is not sinful, except where some moral obligation is violated in rejecting the evidence by which it is supported. But the rejection of moral truth is in its nature sinful, because it implies moral blindness and perversion of moral feeling. This latter unbelief differs in the degree of its sinfulness according to the importance of the truth and the kind of evidence with which it is attended. That the heathen are sinful and without excuse because they do not believe God, as revealed in nature, is asserted by St. Paul. But this sin is slight compared with those who rejected God as revealed in the Old Testament, and their guilt is small compared to that of those who reject Christ. He is God in the clearest and most attractive revelation ever made of the Divine Being. The rejection of Him implies the greatest blindness and depravity.

2. It involves the greatest conceivable ingratitude. It is not only the rejection of God, but the rejection of God humbling Himself to the death of the Cross out of love for us and for our salvation.

3. It involves a preference and deliberate choice of evil instead of good, and the kingdom of darkness instead of the kingdom of God. “He who does not bow to Christ has bowed to Me.”

4. It is the rejection of eternal life for ourselves, and doing what we can to render certain the perdition of others.

IV. THE HOLY SPIRIT ALONE CAN CONVINCE MEN OF THIS SIN.

1. It is certain that human reason or our own nature will not do it.

2. That flesh and blood cannot do it.

3. The Holy Spirit alone can do it, because He alone can open our eyes to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

4. It is His office to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us.

V. INFERENCES.

1. It is our first and greatest duty to repent of sin and to believe on Christ.

2. Our next great duty is to labour to convince the world of this sin, and to lead them to faith in Christ. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The work of the Spirit in the conviction of sin

I. THE SPIRIT’S DEFINITION OF SIN. Notice that unbelief in Christ is

1. The radical and essential sin. Christ did not begin to be when He became man, nor did His relation with men begin with the Incarnation. He was in the beginning with God, and was God, and was the light that enlightened every man that came into the world. And so now, every good tendency comes from God through Him. Whoever therefore opposes such tendency resists the influence of Christ, and sin is the result of that resistance.

2. The ultimate form of sin. We need go no further than this to convict a man of being a sinner. Why is it that men are saved or lost? Not by keeping the law of Moses, for “by the deeds of the law shall no man be justified,” &c.; “we are not under law, but grace.” The terms of salvation or damnation are now belief or unbelief. As there is now no other saving righteousness but that of faith in Christ, so there is no other fatal sin but that of unbelief. “This is the condemnation,” &c.

3. The all-inclusive sin. It may be said truly that there are other sins--theft, murder, &c. But note that the law is summed up in two precepts--“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” &c. Now when that love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost we love God and our brother also, and so keep the commandments. When we have not that love we break the whole law; but it cannot come save by faith in Him who is the revelation of Divine love.

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CONVICTION OF THIS SIN IS WROUGHT BY THE HOLY GHOST.

1. It is one thing to convince of a sin and to convince of sin. A man may acknowledge the existence of and remove a fruit or a branch while ignorant of the root.

2. The conviction too in the two cases is distinct. In the one case the impression may be very superficial; in the other it is a deep and awful sense of wretchedness and want.

3. This form of conviction is not easily effected. It comes not from the words or wisdom of men. Though the speaking of the truth by a human messenger may be the occasion, yet the Holy Ghost must be the agent.

4. In this conviction the Spirit

(1) Gives evidence of sin to the conscience--tells man of his fault.

(2) Remonstrates and rebukes; and the effect of this is to convince of error, and to convict of criminality in following that error.

5. It is as the Comforter that the Spirit convinces. He is at once the comforting Convincer and the convincing Comforter. What true comfort can there be for a man, who knows he is a sinner, till the whole matter of his sin has been probed; and what greater comfort is there in any hour of weakness and infirmity than that of knowing that the whole matter has been sifted to the bottom? And then the operation of the Spirit mingles a revelation of the remedy with the revelation of the sin. The Spirit convinces us of the righteousness of that Christ in whom we should believe. (W. Roberts.)

The necessity of the Spirit’s conviction because of the incompetency of the law

The law could not convince the world of sin as sin, a thing to be abhorred on account of its own hatefulness, but merely as a thing to be dreaded on account of the punishments attached to it. So that there was need of another witness who should search the heart and turn it inside out, and bring forward all the abominations contained in it; a witness, too, who should appeal not to its selfish fears, but to every germ of good left in it, to its love, its gratitude, its pity, its hope, its more generous desires and aspirations--a Witness that should pick up every little fragment of God’s image still remaining in it, and should piece them all together, and make a new whole of them. Such was the Witness that God in His mercy sent to convince the world of sin. (Archdeacon Hare.)

The necessity of the Spirit’s conviction because of the incompetency of conscience

We have the voice of conscience sighing through every fresh crack that we make in God’s image in our hearts, and conspiring, with reason and imagination and every other faculty, to admonish us that we are betraying our duty, outraging our better feelings, marring our true, aboriginal nature, polluting our souls, and withering and rotting our hearts. But is this enough to convince a man of sin? Alas! conscience is so wasted by year-long neglect, and crushed by reiterated violation, that it scarcely ever utters its warnings and reproofs, except against overt acts of sin. It seldom takes notice of our habitual sins: still less does it rouse us to contend against that sinfulness which is inwrought in the natural heart. No! when conscience is uttering her most righteous words, she often is only casting pearls before swine. The passions of the carnal mind are fretted and irritated by the sight of what is so unlike themselves, and trample them impatiently in the mire. (Archdeacon Hare.)

Unbelief, the greatest sin

1. The Spirit convinceth of all sins, but chiefly of a state of sin--of unbelief;

(1) As the fountain of all sin. It was the first sin of Adam. It was the cause also of all the sin that grew up to such maturity in the old world. The faith of Abel is applauded (Hébreux 11:4); consequently the unbelief of Cain is marked. If Abel’s sacrifice was more excellent in regard of his faith, Cain’s was more vile in regard of his unbelief.

(2) As the ligament and band of all sin (Jean 8:24).

2. Unbelief is the greatest sin, because

(1) God employs the highest means to bring men to a sense of it. The odiousness of sin to God appears by His sending Christ to expiate it; the odiousness of unbelief by His sending the Spirit to reprove it.

(2) It is a sin against the gospel, which is so holy a declaration of God’s will that there cannot be an holier; so good in itself, that nothing can be better; the sin therefore against it is so bad, that nothing can be worse.

(3) It is a sin against the highest testimony (Jean 8:17).

(4) As faith is the choicest grace, so that which is opposite to it must be the greatest sin. Note

I. WHAT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY UNBELIEF.

1. Negatively.

(1) Not a want of assurance. Drooping spirits may be believers. There is a manifest distinction made between faith in Christ and the comfort of that faith; between believing to eternal life, and knowing we have eternal life 1 Jean 5:13; Ésaïe 50:10).

(2) Not every interruption of the act of faith. Faith may lie asleep in the habit, when it doth not walk about in the act. Fogs and mists darken the sun, but put not out that eye of the world.

(3) Not doubts. Such there are in the beginnings of faith, when the state of the soul is like that of the twilight, a mixture of light and darkness Psa 126:6-7). This is rather infirmity than unbelief (Matthieu 14:31; Psaume 56:3).

(4) Not temptations to unbelief and unbelieving thoughts injected. If these be not entertained, formally they are not acts of our unbelief (Mt Psaume 73:21).

(5) Not unbelief of some truths through ignorance, provided they be not fundamental (Marc 16:11). Errors in the head do no more destroy the truth of faith than miscarriages in the life through infirmity nullify the being of grace, or every spot upon the face impair the beauty and features of it.

(6) Not a negative unbelief which is in the heathens, who never had the means of faith.

2. Positively it is

(1) A denial of the truth of the gospel; when men assent not to the doctrine of the gospel by an act of the understanding.

(2) A doubting of the truth of the doctrine of the gospel as many do who will not openly deny it. Since all men are in the rank of believers or unbelievers, a suspension of our belief of the doctrine of the gospel cannot be ranked under the banner of faith; it is at best, for the present, a more modest refusal, rather than a downright rejection.

(3) Refusal to accept heartily of Christ upon the terms of the gospel, which is opposite to justifying faith, when there is not a fiducial motion to Christ as the centre.

II. WHEREIN THE SINFULNESS OF UNBELIEF DOTH CONSIST.

1. It is against God.

(1) It is the greatest reproach and undervaluing of God (Ésaïe 7:11). As faith “gives glory to God” (Romains 4:20), so unbelief casts reproach and scorn upon Him.

(2) It robs God of the honour of all His attributes.

(a) It blemishes the truth and veracity of God. He that believes “sets to his seal that God is true” (Jean 3:33). It makes God guilty of perjuryHeb 6:17, 18; Ézéchiel 33:11).

(b) It casts a black aspersion upon the wisdom of God. Unbelief charges God with folly in regard of the unnecessariness of it. If men think they have ability to save themselves, what a needless work was this in God, to make His Son a sacrifice for man’s salvation! Or, if men do account the coming of Christ necessary, and so free God from the charge of folly, they at least charge His wisdom with a mistake in the means of salvation, as if it were undertaken without precedent consideration. And further, by this sin the unbeliever doth, as much as in him lies, frustrate the design of God’s glorious wisdom, in not consenting to that which the wisdom of God hath contrived.

(c) It slights the goodness of God. No greater act of love could spring from boundless eternity, than the parting with His only delight in heaven out of His bosom for the redemption of man (Ésaïe 5:4).

(d) It disparages the power and sufficiency of God. First, In not coming to Him. Secondly, In trusting to something else. What then we trust unto, besides God and above God, we render in our thoughts more powerful than God.

(e) It strikes at the sovereignty and authority of God. It is a debt we owe, as subjects, to God as our sovereign, to give credit to what He cloth reveal, and to obey what He cloth command (1 Jean 3:23). It is a contradiction to the resolute and fixed will of God. All unbelief is a dislike of God’s terms (Romains 10:3). And it renders God, as much as in it lies, unworthy of any sovereignty.

(f) It affronts the holiness and righteousness of God. If the setting forth Christ to he a propitiation for sin was to declare His righteousness Romains 3:25), what doth unbelief signify hut that this act was unrighteous in God?

(g) It is a stripping God, as much as lies in man, of all His delight. The service Christ did, which was delightful to God, is contemptible to an unbeliever. First, It is a refusal of Christ, the “man that is God’s fellow,” His “daily delight.” Secondly, It is a privation of faith, a grace so pleasing to God (Hébreux 10:38). Thirdly, It is a refusal of His mercy in Christ Michée 7:18).

2. It is a sin peculiarly against Christ. It is a piercing Him again Zacharie 12:10).

(1) It is a nullifying the work of His meditation and death.

(a) It renders the design of His coming a vanity, when it receives not the fruits of it (2 Corinthiens 6:1).

(b) It is a vilifying the price of redemption (Hébreux 9:28).

(2) It is a denying of the love of Christ.

(3) It denies the wisdom of Christ. It chargeth Him with folly and inconsiderateness, in undertaking a task that was not worth His pains.

(4) It wrongs the authority of Christ. It receives an aggravation from the greatness of the person that published the doctrine of faith (Jean 5:43).

(5) It denies the excellency of Christ (Philippiens 3:8).

(6) It denies the sufficiency of Christ: the greatness of His priesthood, the fulness of His satisfaction, His prevailing intercession. Where no trust is reposed in Him, it implies that no benefit can be expected from Him.

(7) It denies Christ His right and reward (Ésaïe 53:11).

(8) It puts Christ to the greatest grief. His soul was never more deeply impressed with grief before the hour of His passion than when He saw men would not come to Him that they might have life.

3. It is also a wrong to the Spirit of God (Act 3:51 : Hébreux 3:10; Hébreux 3:17). (S. Charnock, B. D.)

The sin of unbelief

There are three general forms of unbelief.

I. SCEPTICISM.

1. This consists in either doubting or rejecting the truths of religion and morals in general, or the Divine origin and authority of the Bible in particular.

2. This arises from

(1) Pride of intellect; assuming to know what is beyond our reach and refusing to believe what we cannot understand; setting ourselves up as capable of discerning and proving all truth.

(2) The neglect of our moral nature, and giving ourselves up to the guidance of the speculative reason.

(3) The enmity of the heart to the things of God; or opposition in our tastes, feelings, desires and purposes, to the truths and requirements of religion.

(4) Frivolous vanity, or the desire to be thought independent or upon a par with the infinite.

3. The sinfulness of this form of unbelief is manifest

(1) As pride. Self-exaltation is sinful and offensive in such a feeble, insignificant creature as man.

(2) As the habitude of the moral nature which makes it possible to believe a lie is the evidence of moral degradation.

(3) As opposition to the truth is opposition to the God of truth. It is alienation from Him, in which all sin consists. Hence unbelief is the generic form of sin. It is the general expression of alienation, the opposition of our nature to His. It is, therefore, the source of all other sins.

II. UNBELIEF, or want of confidence in the doctrines, promises, and providence of God. This may exist even in the hearts of believers. It is a matter of degree.

1. It arises either from

(1) The entire absence, or low state, of the religious life.

(2) Or the habit of looking at ourselves and on difficulties about us rather than at God.

(3) Or refusing to believe what we do not see. If God does not manifest His care and fulfil His promise, then our faith fails.

2. The sinfulness of this state is apparent, because

(1) It is the evidence and effect of spiritual weakness and disease.

(2) It dishonours God, refusing to Him the confidence due to an earthly friend and parent; which is a very heinous offence, considering His greatness and goodness, and the evidences He has given of His fidelity and trustworthiness.

(3) It is the manifestation of the same Spirit which dominates in the open infidel.

II. UNBELIEF IN REFERENCE TO CHRIST.

1. This is a refusing to recognize and receive Him as being what He professes to be.

(1) God manifest in the flesh.

(2) The Teacher sent from God.

(3) Our atoning Sacrifice and Priest.

(4) As having rightfully absolute proprietorship in us and authority over us.

2. This is the greatest of sins. It is the condemning sin. Its heinousness consists

(1) In its opposition to the clearest light. He who cannot see the sun must be stone blind. He who cannot see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ must be blinded by Satan. This blindness is moral, religious, and spiritual deadness.

(2) It is the rejection of the clearest external evidence, which evinces opposition of the heart.

(3) It is the rejection of infinite love, and the disregard of the greatest obligation.

(4) It is the deliberate preference of the kingdom of Satan before that of Christ, of Belial to Christ. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The Convincer of sin

I. CONSIDER THE MEANING OF THE WORDS OF THE TEXT. “When He is come, He will reprove the world of sin.” What does this mean?

1. The word reprove is the first that requires explanation. The word so translated has various shades of meaning. It is clear, from the context, that it does not mean merely to accuse or convict, although it has this signification. It must also mean here to teach and demonstrate the matter of the accusation, or the subject under deliberation. We say this is clear from the context, because, although we may speak of convicting a person of sin, we could hardly speak of convicting him of righteousness. Hence we may say, with reference to the part of His work now before us, the Holy Ghost has come to convince of sin, or to convict of sin, according to the result produced in the mind of him to whom the demonstration is afforded.

2. Then, who or what is it, that is to be convinced of sin? It is the world, that is to say, the great power which ever has been and ever is arrayed against Christ and His Church. You will see the comfort which the assurance of our text must have conveyed to the disciples of Christ at the time it was first spoken. They had been prepared for the antagonism of the world, and they might fear for their own weakness in the struggle with the great adversary. One who is all-powerful is on their side.

3. He is to convince the world of sin. This is the first part of His work, for it is a part which is clearly fundamental in a world like ours and among men like ourselves. Other convictions, indeed, must go side by side with this, in order that it may be complete; but this must come first. Sin existed, and yet its existence was denied. Sin was carrying men away like a flood, and it could not be stemmed until its reality and its nature were clearly perceived.

II. THE NECESSITY FOR THE CONVICTION OF SIN BY THE HOLY GHOST. We have seen that this conviction must come first; but what need was there for the Holy Ghost to produce it?

1. Conscience could not do it. We all know by experience as well as observation that the truthfulness of the voice of conscience is affected by the life which we live. Conscience needs education before it can be a guide to us. Even after it has been instructed, it may be darkened and silenced.

2. The law of God will not do it. The law has an important part in the work of conviction; but is not sufficient to effect it by itself. The law, in accordance with its essential character, forbade only the act, and not the thought and the motive.

3. Even the teaching of Christ Himself was insufficient to produce this conviction. It was a mighty advance on anything that had preceded it. Let me not be mistaken. I do not mean that any new Teacher could be sent from God who would undo all that had gone before Him. The light which came from heaven was a true light, even if it was not wholly adequate to man’s requirements. And when Jesus Christ promised to send His Church another Comforter, an inward Teacher, it was not one who should be independent of the instruction which God had given to men before He came. On the contrary, He was to use all that had been revealed in the law and the prophets, all that had been taught by Jesus Himself.

III. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CONVICTION OF SIN IS PRODUCED BY THE HOLY GHOST. “He shall reprove the world of sin--because they believe not on Me.” This was going to the very root of the matter, and striking at the principle from which all sin proceeded. The Holy Spirit had not so much for His work to produce conviction with respect to any special sinful act. That is undoubtedly a part of His work, and a very important part, inasmuch as there can be no reality in a conviction of sin in general which does not include the sense of special and particular sins. That, however, was not the work which He was peculiarly appointed to accomplish. It is clear that a conviction of this kind could be produced only by One who could go deeper into man’s nature than any previous agent had been able to penetrate. When we examine the testimony of conscience and of the law of God, we shall see how inadequate they were to this task. Conscience, apart from Divine revelation, says nothing at all about faith. The same must be said of the law. We do not forget that it was to the law that St. Paul attributed his own knowledge of sin; and it cannot be too often repeated that the natural conscience or even the influence of the Holy Spirit of God could have affected but little in the moral education of mankind, without that rule of duty which was revealed by Almighty God to the Jewish Lawgiver. Yet St. Paul himself, who so powerfully sets forth the virtue of the law as a revealer of sin, in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, acknowledges in the Epistle to the Galatians that “the law is not of faith; but, the man that doeth them shall live in them” (Galates 3:12). Yet, although neither the natural conscience of mankind nor the revealed law of God set forth the principle of faith as the very element of all virtue and goodness, it will be clear to any one who places the history of the human family in the light of that revelation which we now possess, that unbelief has been the root and fountain of man’s sin from the very beginning. The law to which Adam was subject in Paradise was in reality a demand which was made upon his faith. Certain privileges were granted to him: one thing only was denied to him. He was required in that one case to exercise his faith in the goodness and wisdom of his Maker. It was through unbelief that he fell. Unbelief was the radical sin of mankind at all times. Every page of the history of the Jews tells us that this was the origin of all their apostacies and idolatries. Either they doubted the promises of the most High, or they “limited the Holy One of Israel.” But this sin of unbelief, which was everywhere and always the root of evil in man, found its climax in the rejection of Jesus Christ. It is indeed clear that the enormity of sin must always be judged by the opportunities possessed of becoming acquainted with our duty. Hence it is, that every fresh disclosure of truth to men has been a disclosure of sin in man. The Jews of the time of our Lord were guilty of many sins, as He Himself plainly showed them; but compared with the sin of rejecting Him, their other sins were but slight. In the rejection of Jesus all the enmity against God which their hearts had harboured was concentrated in a single act. It was a sin against the clearest moral and spiritual light, which had ever shone upon human darkness. “God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ,” said the Apostle. It was unbelief that crucified the Lord of Glory. Jesus put forth claims which if they were not true were blasphemous. To reject His claims was to pronounce Him worthy of death. But we mum not forget that the conviction of sin is produced in the very same manner among ourselves now. Unbelief is the principle of sin, and we are never thoroughly convinced of sin until we have been made to know the guilt of our want of faith in Jesus Christ. Throughout the whole life of those who are now unfaithful and unworthy members of the Christian Church, their defects are traceable to this radical one. The growth of unbelief is the growth of sin; and the climax of evil in the heart and life of man or woman is the deliberate rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God crucified for the sins of the world. “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son” (1 Jean 5:10); and the beginning of a new life of holiness must be laid in the conviction of the guilt of such unbelief. And this conviction, the same substantially in us which was wrought in the hearers of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, is produced by the same great Agent.

IV. There is a question still remaining to be answered, which is suggested by the words of our text: IN WHAT SENSE CAN IT BE SAID THAT THE HOLY GHOST CONVINCES THE WORLD? It is true the Holy Ghost is said to convince the world of sin, and not only those who are saved. And this will actually take place. Sooner or later, all men will be convinced or convicted; will be convinced of sin, that they may flee from it and be delivered from it; or convicted of sin, that they may be punished for it. The object of the work of the Holy Spirit is the deliverance of man from sin and destruction, by showing him the evil of sin, and thus compelling him to flee from the wrath to come, a work worthy of One who is called the Comforter. But if that aim is disappointed, He will at least produce conviction; and the great result of His work, whether in saving or condemning, will be moral decision. (W. R. Clark, M. A.)

Faith in Christ

I believe on a physician when I put my case into that physician’s hands, and trust him to cure me. I believe on a lawyer when I leave my case in his hands, and trust him to plead for me. I believe on a banker when I put money into his hand, and allow him to keep it on my behalf. I believe on my Saviour when I take Him to be my Saviour, when I put my helpless case into His hands, and trust Him to do what I cannot do for myself--save me from my sin. Have you done so? You believe there is such a Person as Jesus, and that He is the sinner’s Saviour. You do well; but that is only a partial and incomplete faith. To believe that a certain doctor exists and has a large practice is not personally to believe in that doctor. True faith contains a moral as well as an intellectual element, and when the former is wanting the latter can avail but little. Do you repose your moral confidence in Him, as being to you the Saviour that you need, as one whose character and office are congruous to the wants of your nature? You are a sinner, He represents Himself as Saviour. You are a lost one, He has died to find you? You are dead, He presents Himself as the Resurrection and the Life. The point is, Do you take Him by faith to be what He reveals Himself to be? That is believing on Him. If you can say in your heart, “Yes, I believe in Him,” then the Holy Spirit of God can no longer convict you of sin. All your sins were laid on the Lamb of God, who bore the sin of the world. There is no longer a case against you; the summons is dismissed. There is no condemnation; you are pronounced acquitted, and accepted in the Beloved. (W. H. H. Aitken, M. A.)