Penitent Hands (2)

Secondly, the publican smote also upon his breast to take, as it were, vengeance upon his evil and wicked heart; as though he would say: Oh! thou abominable, depraved heart! Foul pool of all uncleanness; through thee has come all my misery and ruin. Thou deservest to be beaten, yea, broken, shattered, and completely crushed. Thou art worthy to be eternally smitten and ravaged with the hand of God's awful vengeance, and with the fist of Satan! and so forth. May this too be carefully considered by each one who reads, for it points out yet another property of true gospel repentance.

No hypocrite or false believer shall ever lay God's wrath to his own heart, on account of sin. He might do so a thousand times in word and profession, but never in deed or in truth. He still ever loves his heart too much, and still retains a sigh to excuse himself and to plead freedom from death and the punishment of hell. This comes about because a hypocrite does not rightly comprehend the holiness and spirituality of the law, since the light of his conviction does not penetrate so far. “For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Romans 7:7). But here also the hypocrites falter, and so they will always try to point to some grace in their hearts, and to spare its life like Saul, who spared the king and the best cattle of the Amalekites, and would not destroy them with the edge of the sword as the Lord commanded (1 Samuel 15:9).

To sinners the heart is something much too dear to give over so completely and for ever unto death, for Jesus' sake. They will indeed cast all their works into the fire, but only their heart, their king, they will ever spare. And in truth, what man has ever hated his own life? Who would not much rather give all his goods to save his life? Condemn for ever all that I have ever done, a hypocrite will say to God when he is in trouble; only look upon my heartfelt sighs and longings after salvation, and deal not with me, I pray Thee, like one absolutely wicked, who possesses nothing good at all. This is the very lowest to which any “time-believer” will ever come before the feet of the most high God, and to require more of them would be to require of them a true repentance and conviction, even such as God's Spirit alone works in the hearts of true believers. For these last are they who will raise not the least objection to smiting honestly with the publican upon their breast, and besides all their works and all their actions and abstentions, to condemn their heart also, and to write upon it the sentence of eternal death and damnation. Yes, they will condemn and judge their heart first above all, as the seat and source of all their other wickedness. They reckon their repentance worthless, if their heart take not the foremost place therein. This is the great secret of the humility of the publican. Yet this is ignored by those who habitually daub the wall of Christendom with untempered mortar, and who swiftly set their seal upon all such work.

Lastly, the publican smote upon his breast also, in order to show that the sorrow which he felt over his sin was not feigned but real, internal, and heartfelt, and that it oppressed him very greatly, so much so that no other sorrow in the world could be likened to it. It was as though he were crying aloud in bitter anxiety of soul, “My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart” (Jeremiah 4:19). Hypocrites have indeed at first strong fits of sorrow, and with some there are even floods of tears and ardent stirrings. Yes, there can at times arise such fearful storms and tempests of anxious conviction in their heart, that it appears as though all would collapse and perish. But usually it does not last long, and when the tempest is a little calmer and the sun of delusion has shined a little upon them, their tears are quickly dried up and the ground of their hearts is then once more as hard and stony as before; even though their outward course of life be markedly changed.

There is an essential difference between great sorrow and heart sorrow. Some men will at first be in great grief and make much lamentation over the loss of their wife, and nonetheless, after a few weeks will consider another woman. But there are also men, who in such a sad position, cannot cry and weep so loudly, and yet who, year in, year out, are not able to think of another woman. Who would now dare to say that the first sort of sorrow is so much greater and deeper than the last, simply because it shows itself so much more strongly to outward appearances in its initial stages?

Truly, if we do not wish to run the danger of being very seriously deceived in these matters, then it will be best for us to attempt more to consider all sorrow for sin in the inward rather than in the outward aspect. “And they have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds” (Hosea 7:14). What does the Lord mean by such a word? The sequel shows us that the principal thing with these people was only to obtain of Him a portion of earthly enjoyment. Nevertheless it can also be the anxiety over sin, and the fear and terror of hell which can make men thus to howl, which is far from that heartfelt and unfeigned godly sorrow which “worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of' (2 Corinthians 7:10).

If men were to find an evil-doer, having just unexpectedly received the death sentence, bitterly crying and weeping, smiting upon his breast and crying out: “Woe is me! that I should have plunged myself into such misery,” would they at once be able to take these for signs of true repentance? Surely none would be willing to do so. Is it then any less wise in a matter upon which man's everlasting happiness depends, that one should attempt to discover with all possible care what sort of tears and sorrow over their sin they do have, whether they be Esau's tears or Peter's? And though we poor creatures cannot always know this well enough of each other, yet we must, in humble dependence on the Lord and His heavenly light, exert thereto our best efforts, like physicians who, when they cannot discover the true cause and origin of a disease, yet do their best by all possible means to search it out with care.

Those who are wont to carry with them everywhere the burning lamp of God's Word will not be hasty to step into a dark room, but will prefer to wait a little until the light is brought in, by which they can then see. There are people aplenty who are very ready to oppose another's judgment, and yet who do not realize that they themselves are usually first and foremost in judgment. While they indeed judge a thousand things as good, others for weighty reasons prefer to reserve judgment until they may acquire closer knowledge and insight of matters. And if this is but the ignorance of such in the Spirit's work, then there will certainly, on the other hand, be a wisdom also which truly is not very desirable, though it be acquired by many swiftly and with little difficulty.

It deserves particularly to be noticed, however, that the publican here smote upon his breast, that is, upon his own breast and not upon that of another. He himself was the man who had sinned. There were indeed many other sinners besides him in the temple, but he could not now concern himself with them. He had enough to do with his own guilt and in smiting upon his own breast.

The Pharisee acted quite differently: he smote upon the breast of the publican and not upon his own when he thanked God so haughtily that he was “not as other men are…or even as this publican” (Luke 18:11). He stands here before God, not to accuse himself, but others. This is the real character of hypocrites: to lay more weight upon the sins of others than upon their own. Adam smote not upon his own breast, but laid the blame upon his wife. She smote not upon her own breast either, but cast the blame upon the serpent. Thus they were both at that time far from a true penitence. But David smote honestly upon his breast when, with great meekness and sadness of heart for his poor people, he said to God, “Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? let Thine hand, I pray Thee, be against me, and against my father's house” (2 Samuel 24:17).

So also did the publican. “O Lord!” said his heart, “I, I am the man who has sinned; I have done evil, yea, imbibed it as water. Justly might Thy hand be against me to my eternal condemnation.” Let us then learn from this, that whatever it may seem, it is nonetheless not a good sign when those who are still in the path of repentance over their own sins and who are still working out their own salvation, are at this of all times so concerned about the salvation of others that they bind them as it were to themselves so as to be saved not alone.

Oh, when one has to do with God in truth in order to come into the gracious righteousness of faith, and into the new birth of the Holy Ghost, then the burden of one's own guilt and misery will press so heavily upon the heart that one will not go and take up those of any other person besides, though they belong to one's own wife or husband, father or mother. But when a poor sinner is once rightly relieved of his own burden, in Christ through faith, and finds now free access to the throne of grace, then love will soon enough teach him what he ought to do with respect to the salvation of others. And his deep reverence for God and the recognition of His unmerited free mercy will cause him to be very humble in bringing his request before the Lord.

Those then were the publican's penitent hands; for whosoever can rightly smite upon his breast with but one hand, has two such penitent hands.

— Rev. Theodore van der Groe

— (1705–1784)

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen