The Way of Holiness # 3

The Way of Holiness # 3

Whatever external acts of religion they may perform, however they may be constant attendants on the public or family worship, and live outwardly moral lives; yes, what is more, if they speak with the tongues of men and angels, though they could prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though they have faith that they can remove mountains; though they bestow all their goods to feed the poor, and though they give their very bodies to be burnt: yet if they have not charity or holiness - which is the same thing, for by charity is intended love to God as well as man; though they have and do all those things, yet they are nothing; they are as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1 Cor. 13). It is good that we should be thoroughly convinced of the most absolute and indispensable necessity of a real, spiritual, active and vital - yes, immortal - holiness.

3. We shall now, in the third place, give the reasons why none that are not holy can be in the way to heaven; and why those who never are so can never obtain the happiness thereof.

First, It is contrary to God's justice - to make a wicked man eternally happy. God is a God of infinite justice, and His justice (to speak after the manner of men) "obliges" Him to punish sin eternally; sin must be punished, the sins of all men must be punished. If the sinner retains his sin, and it is not washed off by the blood of Christ, and he purified and sanctified and made holy - it must be punished upon himself. If he is sanctified, his sin has been already punished in the passion of Christ; but if not, it still remains to be punished in his eternal ruin and misery; for God has said that He is a holy and jealous God, and will by no means clear the guilty. It is reckoned among the rest of God's attributes which He proclaims in Exodus 34:7 and Numbers 14:18.

Second. It is impossible by reason of God's holiness, that anything should be united to God and brought to the enjoyment of him - which is not holy. Now, is it possible that a God of infinite holiness, who is perfect and hates sins with perfect hatred, who is infinitely lovely and excellent - could embrace in His arms a filthy, abominable creature, a hideous, detestable monster, more hateful than a toad and more poisonous than a viper? So hateful, base, and abominable - is every unsanctified man, even the best hypocrite and most painted sepulchers of them all.

How impossible is it that this should be, that such loathsome beings, the picture of the devil, should be united to God: should be a member of Christ, a child of God, be made happy in the enjoyment of His love and the smiles of His countenance, should be in God and God in them? It is therefore as impossible for an unholy thing to be admitted unto the happiness of heaven, as it is for God to be turned into nothing. For it is as impossible that God should love sin as it is for Him to cease to be, and it is as impossible for Him to love a wicked man that has not his sin purified, and it is as impossible for him to enjoy the happiness of heaven except God loves him, for the happiness of heaven consists in the enjoyment of God's love.

Third. It would defile heaven and interrupt the happiness of the saints and angels. It would defile that holy place, the Holy of Holies, and would fright and terrify the sanctified spirits, and obstruct them in their delightful ecstasies of devotion, and would quite confound the heavenly society. How would one unsanctified person interrupt their happiness, and fill those regions all over with the loathsome stench of his sin and filthiness!

Fourth. The nature of sin necessarily implies misery. That soul that remains sinful must of necessity of nature remain miserable, for it is impossible there should be any happiness where such a hateful thing as sin reigns and bears rule. Sin is the most cruel tyrant that ever ruled, seeks nothing but the misery of his subjects; as in the very keeping of God's commands there is great reward, so in the very breaking of them there is great punishment.

Sin is a woeful confusion and dreadful disorder in the soul, whereby everything is put out of place, reason trampled under foot and passion advanced in its place, conscience dethroned and abominable lusts reigning. As long as it is so, there will unavoidably be a dreadful confusion and perturbation in the mind; the soul will be full of  worry, perplexities, uneasiness, storms and frights, and thus it must necessarily be to all eternity, except the Spirit of God puts all to rights. So that if it were possible that God should desire to make a wicked man happy while he is wicked, the nature of the thing would not allow of it, but it would be simply and absolutely impossible.

Thus I have given some reasons of the doctrine - why it must needs be that those that are not holy cannot be in the way to heaven. Many more reasons might be offered, which the time will not allow to take notice of at this time, but these along would have been enough to certify us that none but those who are holy ever attain to a crown of glory, if God had not expressly said that without holiness no man should see the Lord.

Application

We shall apply this doctrine to three uses: first of inference; second of trial or self-examination; third, of exhortation.

~Jonathan Edwards~

(continued with # 4)