Penitent Hands (1)

The publican had also penitent hands; for he smote upon his breast. This also is set before us to show us a particular aspect of a true spiritual conviction. Almighty wisdom will teach us yet more as to what further belongs to a right soul-repentance. The smiting of the breast itself, as that was done outwardly by the publican, would have had very little significance had he not done it with a penitent hand. All the virtue of this smiting of the breast hung only upon the blessed inward sorrow which the publican possessed within his heart.

For it is certain that some hypocrites have a much better knowledge of how to perform this smiting upon the breast or upon the thigh before the eyes of men, than the truly contrite, who prefer to practice it quietly and alone. Who among us would not have thought, supposing we had found wicked King Ahab in some assembly of troubled people, rending his clothes, putting sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasting; yes, lying in sackcloth upon the ground and going softly, with weeping eyes and a very fearful countenance, like one with a broken spirit (1 Kings 21:27); who would not have thought, we say, that this man should also be numbered among the penitents? And yet it was all nothing other than fear for the punishment which God had pronounced upon him, without any sorrow or mourning over all his perpetrated wickedness.

With the publican the case was quite different. Here again there are three things for us to consider, which were the actual motives of this his penitent behavior.

First, he smote upon his breast to show where the foul source and the true basic cause lay of all his misery and wickedness; that it was his heart which lay behind that breast, whence originated all his condemnation and pressing grief. Within his heart was his plague of leprosy; there lay the ground and root of that Sodom-tree which bore such bitter fruits. His meaning was: Ah, I am a condemned sinner! My heart, my heart is totally depraved; it is a filthy and unclean slough of all wickedness, and a dwelling of devils. Oh, my evil heart! There is no good thing in it. Were it only my feet, eyes, hands, and mouth with which I had committed sin; but alas, I have even sinned with my heart, with all my will and inclination, with all my thoughts, lusts, and cravings, and with all my heart and soul. Woe is me, miserable sinner! I cannot find for myself the least excuse. “At this also my heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place” (Job 37:1).

This then is another property of a true saving repentance, that the sinner is brought to an inward sense of the deadly plague of his heart; for the heart is the fountain-source of life. Let sin not dwell in the heart, and it shall dwell nowhere. But “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies,” and all kinds of cruel wickedness (Matthew 15:19).

Hypocrites, in their confessions, may read out long registers of sins which they have committed, and they may make a great deal of fuss about it; yet they always retain secretly some good hidden within their heart, though it be only the good desires which they still have to be converted, and to begin now to change their way and state; though they will on the other hand be ready enough to ascribe it only to divine grace, under the power of which they think themselves motivated. But an oppressed and downcast publican finds absolutely nothing good in his heart, before he is reconciled with God through the blood of Christ and is come to the immediacy of the new birth by the Holy Spirit. This point deserves careful consideration, that the deceitful heart lead us not aside, even in the midst of repentance. So long as men come not to this, that the sins of their heart alone weigh far more with them than all their other sins together, they give no indication that they have ever possessed a single drop of true repentance or conviction. For never shall the heart indeed be purified by faith (Acts 15:9) until its uncleanness becomes such an oppressive burden as to drive him to the fountain opened of Jesus' blood and the Holy Spirit.

There can be nothing more dangerous than for such as have obtained some measure of conviction of their sins and who have already begun to smite upon their breast and to show other signs of repentance, to be looked upon already by such as are considered experienced in the Spirit's work, as truly convicted and so to be handled and guided. In this way many a precious soul is pitifully misled by Satan; for these come to Christ with a half-conviction, in order to gather at once from Him a complete comfort; which is but a false comfort springing from a vain delusion. Such people handle in the same way as incompetent physicians, who instead of carefully examining and probing the wounds, or making an incision to discover the cause, allow them at once to close up, and labor to heal them with piasters, until after some time they break out again, perhaps fatally, and then the poor sufferers must shift for themselves.

Yet the Lord has faithfully warned each one in His Word of this unfortunate type of physician, and described them thus: “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). It is not yet time, the Lord says, to speak of peace and of salvation, or to go to work with the piasters of the gospel in order to cure and to heal, until the wound has bled enough and has been duly examined and cleansed, and from the bottom up is well prepared for healing.

Truly this is quite another treatment than at once, wherever some conviction or concern is found in a person, to introduce the balm of Gilead and to spread it thickly upon the wound. Men ought first somewhat carefully to probe the wounds themselves, over which this crying and groaning is made, to find out how deep they go—as far as the conscience or as far as the heart. And when they are found to be neither wide nor deep enough, then the making of some further opening in the sound flesh must not be spared. Soft surgeons make stinking wounds, and those poor souls are not a little to be pitied who fall into the hands of such tender-hearted physicians who hate the sight of blood, or who dare not use a sharp blade or lancet when necessary.

The gospel can indeed never come too soon when properly used with holy skill to make it subservient to the instrument of the law until it (the law) has first completely finished its work, with the blessed help of the Spirit. But it comes always too soon, on the other hand, when the law has not yet had its full working. Ah, if many did but realize that the handling of never-dying souls is the greatest skill on earth, and that those are best fitted for it who are granted the most intercourse with God in the sanctuary of His Word and institutions. “He that is spiritual discerneth all things” (1 Corinthians 2:15, marginal note), and upon this it is bound mostly to depend, otherwise men do but grope, and grasp at the sweet flute of the gospel when they should lay hold of the rod of the law. This is for many a fatal mistake, which sometimes they cannot rightly see, until, alas, they lie eternally in hell.

— to be continued —

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