Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Cor 13:5-7)

The following is from David Clarkson (c. 1621-1686), a Puritan who assumed the pulpit of John Owen: ¹

This material was written in the mid-1600s, so admittedly, the language is somewhat archaic English but well worth persevering in the reading as it is very effectual to personal soul searching. (2 Cor 13:5-7)

A long list of self-examinable insights is available here to assess our life to see how sincerely we love and follow him, as we prepare for eternity in His Spirit.

For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.—Ephesians 5:5 A covetous man—and the like may be understood of the rest—is an idolater…Not only the covetous but the unclean are idolaters. The apostle, who here makes covetousness to be idolatry, also counts voluptuous persons to be idolaters, where he speaks of some who make their belly their God (Phil 3:19).

“The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1John 2:16), i.e., pleasures, riches, and honours, are the carnal man’s trinity, the three great idols of worldly men, to which they prostrate their souls. Indeed, every reigning lust is an idol; and every person in whom it reigns is an idolater. And giving that to them which is due only to God, they as a result of this become guilty of idolatry…

That this may be more evident, that covetousness, uncleanness, and other lusts are idolatry, let us consider what it is and the several kinds of it. Idolatry is…to give that honour and worship to the creature due only to God (Rom 1:25)…Now when this worship is made common, communicated to other things, whatever they are, we hereby make them idols and commit idolatry. Now this worship due to God only is not only given by heathens to their false gods; and by papists to angels, saints, images, etc.; but also by carnal men to their lusts. For there is a twofold worship…due only to God, internal and external:

1. External, which consists in acts and gestures of the body. When a man bows to or prostrates himself before a thing, this is the worship of the body. And when these gestures of bowing, prostration are used, not out of a civil, but a religious respect, with an intention to testify divine honor, then it is worship due only to God.

2. Internal, which consists in the acts of the soul and actions answerable thereto. When the mind is most taken up with an object and the heart and affections most set upon it, this is soul worship; and this is due only to God. For He being the chief good and the last end of intelligent creatures, it is His due, proper to Him alone, to be most minded and most affected. It is the honor due only to the Lord to have the first, the highest place, both in our minds and hearts and endeavors. Now according to this distinction of worship there are two sorts of idolatry:

1. Open, outward idolatry, when men, out of a religious respect, bow to or prostrate themselves before anything besides God. This is the idolatry of the heathens and part of the idolatry of papists.

2. Secret and soul idolatry, when the mind and heart is set upon anything more than God; when anything is more valued, more intended; anything more trusted, more loved, or our endeavors more for any other thing than God. Then is that soul worship, which is due only to God… Hence, secret idolaters shall have no inheritance in the kingdom of God. Soul idolatry will exclude men out of heaven as well as open idolatry. He that serves his lusts is as incapable of heaven as he that serves or worships idols of wood or stone. Before we come to confirm and apply this truth, it will be requisite to make a more clear discovery of this secret idolatry…In order thereunto, observe, there are thirteen acts of soul worship…:

1. Esteem. That which we most highly value we make our god. For estimation is an act of soul worship…Worship is the mind’s esteem of a thing as most excellent. Now the Lord challenges the highest esteem, as an act of honor and worship due only to Himself. Therefore, to have a high esteem of other things, when we have low thoughts of God, is idolatry. To have a high opinion of ourselves, of our parts and accomplishments, of our relations and enjoyments, of riches and honors, or those that are rich and honorable, or anything of like nature, when we have low apprehensions of God, is to advance these things into the place of God, to make them idols and give them that honor and worship which is due only to the divine Majesty. What we most esteem, we make our god. If other things are of higher esteem, ye are idolaters (Job 21:14).

2. Mindfulness. That which we are most mindful of we make our god. To be most remembered, to be most minded, is an act of worship which is proper to God, and which He requires as due to Himself alone (Ecc 12:1). Other things may be minded; but if they be more minded than God, it is idolatry—the worship of God is given to the creature. When ye mind yourselves, mind your estates and interests, mind your profits or pleasures more than God, you set these up as idols in the place of God. When that time, which should be taken up with thoughts of God, is spent in thoughts of other things; when God is not in all your thoughts; or if He sometimes be there, yet if other things take place of Him in your thoughts; if when ye are called to think of God—as sometimes every day we should do with all seriousness—if ordinarily and willingly you make these thoughts of God give place to other things, it is idolatry. If either you do not think of God or think otherwise of Him than He is—think Him all mercy, not minding His justice; think Him all pity and compassion, not minding His purity and holiness; think of His faithfulness in performing promises, not at all minding His truth in execution of threatenings; think Him all love, not regarding His sovereignty—this is to set up an idol instead of God. Thinking otherwise of God than He has revealed Himself or minding other things as much or more than God is idolatry.

3. Intention. That which we most intend we make our god, for to be most intended is an act of worship due only to the true God. For He being the chief good must be the last end. Now the last end must be our chief aim, i.e., it must be intended and aimed at for itself; and all other things must be aimed at for its sake…in a subserviency to it. Now, when we make other things our chief aim or main design, we set them up in the stead of God and make them idols. When our chief design is to be rich, or great, or safe, or famous, or powerful; when our great aim is our own ease, or pleasure, or credit, or profit and advantage; when we aim at, or intend any [thing] more, or anything so much, as the glorifying and enjoying of God; this is soul idolatry…

4. Resolution. What we are most resolved for we worship as God. Resolvedness for God, above all things, is an act of worship which He challenges as due to Himself alone. To communicate it to other things is to give the worship of God unto them and so to make them gods. When we are fully resolved for other things, for our lusts, humours, outward advantages, and but faintly resolved for God, His ways, honour, service…; when [we] resolve presently for other things, but refer our resolves for God to the future—“Let me get enough of the world, of my pleasure, of my lusts, now; I will think of God hereafter, in old age, in sickness, on a deathbed”—these are idolatrous resolutions. God is thrust down, the creatures and your lusts advanced into the place of God, and that honor which is due only to Him you give unto them. This is unquestionable idolatry.

5. Love. That which we must love, we worship as our god; for love is an act of soul-worship…To love and to adore are sometimes both one…That which one loves, he worships. This is undoubtedly true, if we intend hereby that love which is superlative and transcendent; for to be loved above all things is an act of honour and worship, which the Lord challenges as His due in peculiar (Deut 6:5). In this the Lord Christ comprised all that worship which is required of man (Mat 22:37). Other things may be loved, but He will be loved above all other things. He is to be loved transcendently, absolutely, and for Himself. All other things are to be loved in Him and for Him. He looks upon us as not worshipping Him at all, not taking Him for a God, when we love other things more or as much as Himself (1Jo 2:15)…Love, whenever it is inordinate, it is an idolatrous affection.

6. Trust. That which we most trust we make our god; for confidence and dependence is an act of worship, which the Lord calls for as due only to Himself. And what act of worship is there which the Lord more requires than this soul-dependence upon Him alone? “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart” (Pro 3:5). He will have no place there left for confidence in anything else. Therefore, it is idolatry to trust in ourselves, to rely upon our own wisdom, judgments, parts, accomplishments. The Lord forbids it (Pro 3:5)… To trust in wealth or riches. Job disclaims this and reckons it amongst those idolatrous acts that were punishable by the Judge (Job 31:24-28). David joins this and the disclaiming of God together (Psa 52:7); and our apostle, who calls covetousness idolatry, dissuades from this confidence in riches as inconsistent with confidence in God (1Ti 6:17).

To trust in friends though many and mighty. He fixes a curse upon this as being a departing from, a renouncing of God, an advancing of that [which] we trust into the room of God (Psa 146:3)…“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes” (Psalm 118:8-9)…The idolatry of this confidence is expressed, in that the true God is laid aside. Trust in the creature is always idolatrous.

7. Fear. That which we most fear we worship as our god, for fear is an act of worship…He that does fear, does worship that which is feared, which is unquestionable when his fear is transcendent. The whole worship of God is frequently in Scripture expressed by this one word fear (Mat 4:10 with Deut 6:13); and the Lord challenges this worship, this fear, as due to Him alone (Isa 51:12-19). That is our god which is our fear and dread (Luk 12:4-5). If you fear others more than Him, you give that worship to them which is due only to God, and this is plain idolatry…

8. Hope. That which we make our hope we worship as god, for hope is an act of worship…and worship is due only to God. It is His prerogative to be the hope of His people (Jer 17:13; Rom 15:13). When we make other things our hope, we give them the honor due only to God. It is a forsaking of the Lord the fountain and advancing of broken cisterns into His place (Jer 2:13), hereby worshipping them as God…Thus do the papists openly, when they call the virgin mother, the wooden cross, and saints departed, their hope. And thus do others amongst us, who make their prayers, their sorrow for sin, their works of charity, or any acts of religion or righteousness, their hope, when men expect hereby to satisfy justice, to pacify God’s displeasure, to procure heaven. Nothing can effect this, but that which is infinite—the righteousness of God. And this we have only in and from Christ. He is therefore called our hope (1Ti 1:1), our “hope of glory” (Col 1:27). Those that make their own righteousness the foundation of their hope, they exalt it into the place of Christ and honor it as God…

9. Desire. That which we most desire, we worship as our god; for that which is chiefly desired is the chief good in his account who so desires it. And what he counts his chief good, that he makes his god. Desire is an act of worship…, and to be most desired is that worship, that honor, which is due only to God. To desire anything more or so much as the enjoyment of God is to idolize it, to prostrate the heart to it, and worship it as God only should be worshipped. He only should be that one thing desirable to us above all things, as to David (Psa 27:4)…

10. Delight. That which we most delight and rejoice in, that we worship as god; for transcendent delight is an act of worship due only to God. And this affection in its height and elevation is called glorying. That which is our delight above all things, we glory in it; and this is the prerogative which the Lord challenges (1Co 1:31; Jer 9:23-24). To rejoice more in our wisdom, strength, riches, than in the Lord, is to idolize them. To take more delight in relations, wife, or children, in outward comforts and accommodations, than in God, is to worship them, as we ought only to worship God. To take more pleasure in any way of sin, uncleanness, intemperance, earthly employments, than in the holy ways of God, than in those spiritual and heavenly services wherein we may enjoy God, is idolatry…

11. Zeal. That for which we are most zealous, we worship as god; for such a zeal is an act of worship due only to God. Therefore, it is idolatrous to be more zealous for our own things than for the things of God—to be eager in our own cause, and careless in the cause of God; to be more vehement for our own credit, interests, advantages, than for the truths, ways, honor of God; to be fervent in spirit, in following our own business, promoting our designs, but lukewarm and indifferent in the service of God; to count it intolerable for ourselves to be reproached, slandered, reviled, but manifest no indignation when God is dishonored, His name, Sabbaths, worship, profaned; His truths, ways, people, reviled—this is idolatrous…

12. Gratitude. That to which we are most grateful, that we worship as god; for gratitude is an act of worship…We worship that to which we are most thankful. We may be thankful to men, we may acknowledge the helpfulness of means and instruments; but if we rest here and rise not higher in our thanks and acknowledgments; if the Lord be not remembered as Him without whom all these are nothing; it is idolatry. For this the Lord menaces those idolaters (Hos 2:5, 8). Thus when we ascribe our plenty and riches to our care and industry; our success to our prudence and diligence; our deliverances to friends, means, and instruments, without looking higher, or not so much to God as unto these, we idolize them—sacrifice to them—as the prophet expresses it (Hab 1:16). To ascribe that which comes from God unto the creatures is to set them in the place of God and so to worship them…

13. When our care and industry is more for other things than for God. No man can serve two masters. We cannot serve God and mammon, God and our lusts too, because this service of ourselves, of the world, takes up that care, that industry, those endeavors, which the Lord must have of necessity, if we will serve Him as God. And when these are laid out upon the world and our lusts, we serve them as the Lord ought to be served, and so make them our gods. When you are more careful and industrious to please men or yourselves, than to please God; to provide for yourselves and posterity, than to be serviceable unto God; more careful what you shall eat, drink, or wherewith [you may] be clothed than how you may honor and enjoy God; to make provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof, than how to fulfill the will of God; more industrious to promote your own interests, than the designs of God; to be rich, or great, or respected amongst men, than that God may be honored and advanced in the world; more careful how to get the things of the world, than how to employ them for God; rise early, go to bed late, eat the bread of carefulness, that your outward estate may prosper, while the cause, and ways, and interests of Christ have few or none of your endeavors, this is to idolize the world, yourselves, your lusts, your relations, while the God of heaven is neglected. And the worship and service due unto Him alone is hereby idolatrously given to other things… He that makes Christ his chief aim, if at length he finds Him Whom his soul loveth, this quiets his heart, whatever he want, whatever he lose besides. He counts this a full recompense for all his tears, prayers, inquiries, waitings, and endeavors. From “Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven,” in The Works of David Clarkson, Vol. II, reprinted by The Banner of Truth Trust.

^{1 David Clarkson (c. 1621-1686): Puritan preacher and author. Colleague of John Owen and successor to Owen’s pulpit. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England.}

 

2 Corinthians 13:5:‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?’

The following article is by the Banner of Truth, which has one of the best summaries on the importance of self-examining the lives that we live under our Lord and King, Jesus Christ. It is worth the long read for anyone who wants to check their life to see how we are doing. This is a biblical prerogative that this study brings out clearly.

It is much easier, and it is certainly more pleasant to judge other people than ourselves. The so-called ‘super-apostles’ were demanding proof that Christ was speaking through Paul (v.3). They were examining him!

So with these words Paul turns to them and the congregation in Corinth and says, ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.’ There are members of every congregation who are the self-appointed judges of sermon and preacher, but every true sermon stands in judgment upon us.

When you open J.C.Ryle’s book entitled Practical Religion (Banner of Truth, 1998), which is a companion volume to his better known book entitled Holiness, the first paper you will read there is on this very theme of self-examination. The paper is entitled ‘Self-Inquiry’, and the text which J.C.Ryle chose leading him to open up that theme is Paul’s words to Barnabas, ‘Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of God and see how they are doing’ (Acts 15:36).

‘Were their members continuing steadfast in the faith?
Were they growing in grace?
Were they going forward, or standing still?
Were they prospering, or falling away?’ (Practical Religion, p.l).

The ‘super-apostles’ wanted everyone to focus on the apostle Paul, and make judgements about him, privately expressing how sad it was about him, wagging their heads, because the apostle always felt he was right about everything, but Paul wanted to know about them, and all the professing Christians in Corinth. How were they all doing? Many had started so well. Were they going on as well as they had started? Let every one of them examine himself to see whether he was in the faith or not.

C.H. Spurgeon uses four pictures to explain self-examination to us:

Firstly, the schoolmaster : he has been teaching a boy for a year and now comes the final annual examinations. ‘How much has gone in? How much have you been studying? How much work have you done? Has there been progress?’ This is one reason for self-examination: Christ once invited us, ‘Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart.’ Have we been learning?

Secondly, the regimental sergeant-major: he has been instructing and drilling the recruit and now he is summoned to the parade ground for the inspection. The sergeant major does not look down from his office window. He marches up and down the ranks of men and scrutinises each one of them. Then he looks at them as they do their drill. So we examine and test ourselves intimately.

Thirdly, the lawyer: the witness is in the box and now you cross-examine him. ‘Were you there? Did it really happen just as you said it did?’ Question your heart back and fore.

Fourthly the traveller: of course there are the popular places where the crowds of tourists gather, and you must visit them. But the true traveller will go off the beaten track and he will explore the valleys and the hidden coves. So it is our private life, the inner life of the imagination and mind where so many of our troubles begin that we will also investigate.

1. SELF-EXAMINATION IS DIFFICULT

Of course, many unavoidable aspects of the Christian life are difficult:

Constant personal prayer is difficult.
Repentance is difficult.
Mortifying remaining sin by the power of the Spirit is difficult.
Witnessing to people humbly and earnestly is difficult.
Being contented in whatever state we are in is difficult.Submitting to the decrees of God is difficult. Tithing is difficult.
Loving your neighbour as yourself, and loving your enemy, and forgiving seventy times seven – all such activities are difficult.

In other words, it is tough to be a true Christian. Self-examination is simply another difficulty.

It is difficult because it means examining your inner life. Who can know his own heart? Are these feelings natural or are they the work of the Holy Spirit? The heart is deep. Eternity is there. It is unsteady and deceitful because of remaining sin. Again, is it difficult because of our love of ease. There is that character in the book of Proverbs – the sluggard – and in each heart here a sluggard lives, and we fools are seeing to it that he stays alive. Now no sluggard likes to be rebuked for his slothfulness. Again, it is difficult because of all the winds that blow around us, especially in the professing church, and they have their own influence upon us. Let’s look at some of them:

Many professing Christians deplore self-examination, even in the clear light of Scripture. They have one message: ‘Look to Jesus!’ That single monotonous theme; it is like the call to the faithful going out relentlessly from the minaret day after day. But there will come a time when those who hear it will begin to ask themselves, ‘Am I indeed looking unto Jesus?’

There are men who deplore self-examination because they think that it must lead to introspection, and depression. They suggest that the inevitable consequence of doing what in our text the Holy Spirit himself tells Christians to do is that they will lose their assurance and become floundering doubters. Why should that be so? If we are beloved by God from before the foundation of the world, washed in the precious blood of Christ and indwelt by the Spirit of God may we not hope to find some evidences for this in our hearts and lives?

If we readily behold mountains of grace in others may we not hope to find molehills of grace in ourselves?

It was on July 22, 1838, George Muller was in his garden and reading the verse, ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and for ever’ and he was applying those words to himself and his own circumstances.

What did that truth mean for him? Was he appropriating this Jesus to himself? Was he a real beneficiary of the immutable Lord Jesus? That is self-examination. Very soon he came to this conclusion, ‘Jesus in his love and power has hitherto supplied me with what I have needed for the orphans, and in the same unchangeable love and power he will provide me with what I may need for the future.’ Then a flood of joy came into his heart. He recorded all that in his journal for that day. Self-examination in the light of the Word of God brought him assurance.

Self-examination is discouraged by those whose faith is focused in the sacraments – in baptism, and in confirmation, and in Holy Communion. ‘If you have been baptized, and confirmed as being a Christian by the bishop placing his hands on your head, and if you are going regularly to communion then all is well,’ men are persuaded. I heard a woman calling in on a Christian radio phone-in and telling the experts that she was unsure whether she was a believer or not. ‘Have you been baptized?’ asked one of the ministers, and when she said she had been, then he assured her that she was safe. ‘You have been baptized into Christ,’ he told her. So for him this problem of whether you are a Christian or not was solved by a priest having administered the sacrament with the correct formula, not by examining herself in the light of the Bible to see whether she was in the faith of the Scriptures.

Application: But Philip baptised a man from Samaria called Simon who later offered the apostles money to purchase the ability to lay his hands on people and they would receive the Holy Spirit. Peter told him that he had no part nor share in this ministry, that his heart was not right with God and he needed to repent of his wickedness and pray to God. ‘Perhaps,’ Peter added, God ‘will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart’ (Acts 8:22). There was nothing automatic and permanent about the status in which baptism had placed Simon.

Again, there are many evangelicals whose slogan is ‘Don’t trouble untested assurance.’ They would not behave in that way concerning anything else, and certainly the world wouldn’t. When a boat is launched it goes through trials at sea for months before it takes its first passengers on board. If men have some uncertainty about their health they would visit their doctor for an examination. They would describe the symptoms and ask for a check-up. If men are going to buy a horse they will want to try it for a few days to be sure that it has the temperament and strength of which the salesman is boasting. If their car were making a strange noise they would take it to the garage mechanic. If they were going on a journey abroad they would check up on their travel documents, passport, visa and health insurance. They will examine their plants and then write letters to the gardening experts in the Saturday papers. They will take their pets to a vet after they have examined them. Men examine everything, but how strange that religious men will never examine their own faith in the light of the Bible.

These are the men who are so upset if a true believer expresses some momentary concern: ‘She heard this preacher and she experienced some uncertainties whether she was indeed born again. Horror!’ Why should that be so awful? Doubts have never damned anyone, but sinful presumption has damned many.

The Scripture often says, ‘Let no man deceive you . . . let no man deceive himself . . . be not deceived.’ Isn’t that in the Bible for a purpose? What would you think of a doctor who told every single patient who came to see him that everything was fine with their health? ‘You are covered by the National Health Service,’ this quack tells each of them. He would be the last doctor you would recommend anyone to visit. You want truth from your doctor not bland assurances. Through the course of a year one campaign after another is launched to warn people about different diseases. These campaigns instruct men and women how to examine their own bodies, to look out for and discover the first symptoms of a life-threatening disease. ‘Examine yourselves. Test yourselves. These are the things to look for . . .’ Even the world is speaking of the value of self-examination. Shall not those who come into the orbit of New Testament Christianity pay heed when we are told by the spokesmen of Jesus Christ to examine ourselves?

What occurs in the hearer’s mind when preaching self-examination. The only one who will lose any permanent peace is the spurious believer, and all of us want such a person to be awakened. Think how the Lord Jesus awakened a religious man called Nicodemus by telling him he had to be born again. Of course if preachers are setting the standard too high, or making unscriptural distinctions, or unnecessarily troubling the godly, may the Lord make them aware of it.

The apostle John said, ‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life’ (1 John 5:13). What things did he write to them to assure them of this knowledge? Did he talk about making a decision? Being baptised? Having his hands placed on their heads? That they knew a summary of Christian teaching like the Apostles’ Creed? None of those things. John gave them a series of tests by which they were to examine their lives. He said it was by keeping God’s commandments that we know that we are God’s people. He said that it was in loving the brethren we know that we have passed from death to life. He said that it was in overcoming temptation that we know that we have been born again. He spoke to their consciences about such marks of having a true saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Without such searching preaching there are going to be bigger congregations but there will also be giant compromise. The spirit of the world will have entered the church. The Lord Jesus warned his disciples about this early on in his ministry. He told them that if the salt loses its savour it is good for nothing.

2. SELF EXAMINATION IS A DUTY

The Word of God tells us very plainly to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith. ‘Test yourselves!’ it urges us. Why are Hebrews chapters 4 and 6 found in the New Testament if it were not important for us to look at our lives? Why did the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount warn us not to have a religion like the Pharisees if it weren’t to make us ask ourselves, ‘Do I have pharisaic religion?’ When we’re invited to come to the Lord’s Supper, the apostle says, ‘A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup’ (1 Cor. 11:28). What sins does he have to confess? Is his hope still in the name of the Lord Jesus alone? Does he feel unworthy to come, but does he know that all his worth in the sight of God is found in who Christ is and what he has done? There was the weeping woman convinced that she could not come to the Supper because of her sins, and the presiding minister, John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan, set the plate with the bread under her nose and said to her, ‘Take it! It’s for sinners!’

Do we feel our sins but treasure the grace that is greater than all our sins in the Saviour? That is the goal of self-examination. The Word of God tells us to examine ourselves . . . and then to come to the Table.

If we have to confess Christ before men how can we do that unless we are sure we belong to him? If we are to rejoice for evermore how can we rejoice until we know that we have good reason to do so? Would the Scripture tell us to examine and test ourselves if it were not certain that the result of that exercise would be knowledge of our true state, and assurance of our salvation? Such confidence is attainable (whatever the Roman church might say) and that is why the Bible commends to us self-examination.

The Bible does not tell us to go to the homes of the elect and preach the gospel only to them, because before faith we have no way of knowing who the elect might be. So the Bible tells us to preach the gospel to all the world. The Bible does not tell us to examine Scripture and discover the date of the second coming because all the scholars in the world for two thousand years have searched Scripture with their toothcombs and still are nowhere nearer knowing when the world will end. That knowledge has not been revealed and it is unattainable.

The Bible does not say, ‘Ask God to show you what a sinner you are,’ because you could not bear that knowledge. God will show you as much of your sin as is good for you, to humble you but not to destroy you. Such things as comprehensive views of my sin are unattainable, and God would tantalise and mock us if he told us to do them. But he tells us to examine and test ourselves to see whether we are in the faith because in this way we can come to the conclusion, ‘Yes, we are believers.’

Jacob could say with a simple confidence that the Lord God had appeared to him at Luz and blessed him. David could say, ‘The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God and my strength.’ Paul could say, ‘I know whom I have believed,’ and ‘he loved me and gave himself for me.’ John could stand in solidarity with all the Christians reading his first letter and say on behalf of every one of them, ‘We know we have passed from death to life.’

If God has commanded us to do something then it must be for our good, not for our distress. There must be countless benefits that will come to us from doing whatever God says. If he tells us to take up our cross and deny ourselves and follow him, then that must be for our good. If he tells us to pluck out the right eye or cut off the right hand then that must be for our good. If he tells us to hate our mother and father and brother and sister and husband and wife and children then that must be for our good. If self-examination is going to lead to assurance that we are loved by God then one effect will be that our witnessing is going get stronger – how can we speak to others of our Saviour if we are uncertain whether we have him or not?

If God has commanded us to examine ourselves then that is one way he determines we shall be delivered from self-deception. The Lord tells us that on the day of judgment many will say to him, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name driven out demons and performed many miracles?’ But Jesus will tell them they were self-deceived. ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers.’ Is there not one single person in this congregation who is self-deceived? Then it must be the only congregation in the world to be so favoured. Will there not be one person in this congregation who will take that prediction of Jesus Christ seriously and say to himself, ‘Then maybe I am deceived. I had better check what I believe, and how I behave.’ I am saying that God has prescribed self-examination as a preservative against false hopes.

This is a very personal activity. I can remember two boys both getting onto a scales in a railway station and putting a big old penny in and weighing themselves together. I suppose they were going to divide the weight in half to find out what each of them weighed, but as they looked like a junior Laurel and Hardy the half weight was not accurate for either of them. We are not to blend with others and find others in the congregation who are worse than ourselves and gain any comfort from that. How is it between me and God? When he puts me in the balances does he find that I am wanting?

Surely it is impossible to avoid passing some judgement on ourselves. I pass judgement on every sermon I’ve preached and I know there’s not been a message I’ve given that I knew could not have been improved. We pass judgment on our work, on our labours, on our achievements as parents, on our tastes and skills. Imagine a person who felt they were perfect in everything! We know such people and it is impossible to tell them anything. They are the best drivers, conversationalists, painters, Baptists, and cooks in the town. Their taste in music, books, politics, sport is exemplary – so they believe. They never pass judgment on themselves.

Aren’t you afraid for such people? Isn’t the mature person seeking to grow in wisdom and grace and understanding? We stand in front of the mirror each day and we brush our hair and we put on certain clothes and we examine our appearance. How do we look? Isn’t it possible to do that without either vanity or depression? Of course. But shouldn’t we look deeper than that? Isn’t there an inner life – the life of God in the soul of man? Is it characterised by love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control? Are they totally absent from your inner life? No Christian will answer No. Isn’t that the life of true beauty? Don’t you wish your life were characterised by more of those graces? That healthy desire for more comes from true self-examination.

3. THERE ARE DANGERS IN SELF-EXAMINATION

Our main focus is on the Lord Jesus Christ our great prophet, priest and king who is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. But if that main focus begins to centre on our own frames and feelings then we are in danger. Robert Murray M’Cheyne urges us to take seven looks at Christ for every glance at our sin. There is a dynamic in Scripture that wherever we are warned of self-deception and urged to examine ourselves then words of the most tender grace and mercy to sinners are found right next to them. See here in our text. What is to be the result of examining and testing ourselves? It is, he says, to come to this fresh realisation: ‘Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test.’ What is the purpose of his writing these words, ‘that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority – the authority the Lord gave me for building you up’ (v.10). Then his concluding words for these same people whom he has told to examine themselves, ‘May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all’ (v.14). His longing is that on every single one of them this glorious blessing of God may rest.

So it is in those fearful chapters in Hebrews where the apostle writes of all that may be attained while falling short of a saving relationships with God, he quickly takes his readers away and comforts them. He has given them a glimpse, and that is enough: ‘Even though we speak like this, dear friends’, he says, ‘we are confident of better things in your case – things that accompany salvation’ (Heb. 6:9).

When Christ cuts us he heals us. So we come to church to be searched by our Saviour. We are happy if the Great Physician has a scalpel in his hand because he will bind up our wounds and strengthen us by anything he does with us.

It is not enough to point out the danger of being extreme. There are ditches on both side of the path to heaven.

One ditch is presumption, and self-examination is God’s appointed means of delivering us from that.
But there is another ditch called despair, and God will not use his warnings about presumption as a means of driving us into despair. That is what the devil will do. We are to have an equal horror of both dangers. If we do then we are right in the centre of the path to glory.

Sometimes Christians are tired because of the stress of their jobs. They have been ill, or there are particular problems in their families. There is a natural heaviness at periods like that. Doubts and discouragement at such times are natural phenomena, not the witness of the Spirit. Think of David Brainerd’s occasional bouts of heaviness. Some of that was due to the illness he was suffering from – tuberculosis – that caused his death as a young man. He had a melancholic temperament in a way that another sufferer of tuberculosis, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, did not have.

There is practical guidance about such cases in the New Testament. John tells us we may ‘set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. (For) God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything’ (1 John 3:19, 20). Our hearts and feelings are not infallible guides. They may mislead us. The hymnist tells us that he dare not trust the sweetest frame. He wholly leans on Jesus’ name.

Again, Satan would like to present us with a list of our sins over many years, to drive us to despair and bitter regrets. He will recall things we had forgotten and remind us of the follies and offences of earlier days. He does this to paralyse us. He is like that party of men who dragged the adulterous woman to Jesus. They wanted her blood, but the Lord Jesus did not condemn her. Think of the wonder of that! Those sins that make you groan and sigh, the Lord Jesus knows about them, but he does not condemn you for them. You can scarcely believe it, but it is true. There is no condemnation for those particular sins because you have long repented of them and his blood covers them. I think of my sins as a minister and preacher. I can hardly believe that he will never bring them up to shame me for them.

Satan will. He will come when we are at our lowest, and he will seize on one bad fall. ‘What about that?’ Satan will say. But that is not the Lord’s doing. He loves us too much to do that. Would you go to your husband when he is sick, or under pressure because of his job, or bearing a load of troubles, and at that time remind him of his sins? Satan does that – not the Lord.

Christ loves us and mixes comforts with his insistence that we examine ourselves. For example, he speaks to the seven Churches of Asia and he makes them examine themselves as the body of Christ. There are things that are wrong in most of them, but he begins virtually every analysis with words of praise. The Lord Jesus commends each church. In other words, self-examination is not to the end of demoralising us, but strengthening areas of weakness. That is not Satan’s way of dealing with Christians. He will call ‘sin’ what is not sin to bring us low.

When Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress is walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death he has all these foul thoughts. They haven’t come from his own heart. They have been scattered there by Satan. Being tempted by lust and anger and self-pity and pride is not in itself sinful.

The Saviour was himself tempted in all points as we are. It is cherishing the thought, taking it aboard, dwelling on it and going with it, that is sinful. It is when we are hearing the Word of God that Christ particularly speaks and convicts us. He points out our sin, and at that moment we confess it, and we ask God to forgive us. He is telling us things to be dealt with, and he will encourage us to find his grace sufficient to keep coming to him and keep confessing those sins which so easily beset us.

4. AN APPROACH TO SELF-EXAMINATION

We are constantly setting before you the glories of Christ’s finished work of redemption, and the great benefits of being in a state of grace. Now that must result in all of us asking such questions as these, ‘And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood? Died he for me? How may I be sure that I possess saving faith? How can I know whether I am a child of God or not?’ There is not one verse in the Bible that has the name ‘Geoff Thomas’ written in it but there are many verses that describe for me true believers, how they live, what they believe, what they think about God and themselves. Am I living like them? It seems to me there is no way of getting assurance if we neglect such a duty.

i] We live differently from the world. We do not live perfect lives, but we live new lives. The apostle Peter is describing the life of the convert and he says, ‘he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God’ (1 Pet. 4:2). Here is a Christian and his goal is to do the will of God. That is his ambition. He never achieves it perfectly, but he would! Peter goes on to speak of this man’s old cronies who are scornfully watching him with some incomprehension: ‘They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you’ (1 Pet. 4:4).

There is a challenge here. Is our own life different? Is it what Paul calls in Romans 6 ‘a newness of life’? Is it a life that seeks to do the will of God? Has there occurred any transformation in point of behaviour as a result of our Christian profession? Is our life, in the broadest sense, risen and elevated? Is there some purity and majesty? Yesterday I received the little quarterly paper called the Vision of Europe. It is published by the European Missionary Fellowship and the current edition contains the testimony of a lady called Rosa Viera from Paio Pires in Portugal. She has become a Christian and she concludes with these words, ‘God has completely changed my life – so many are the blessings he has poured out on us. My home today is nothing like it used to be. The long and the short of it is that today there is much love to one another at home. We daily put all our matters into the hands of God.’ There is newness of life in that Christian home.

Now I am asking you to examine yourselves not in point of feelings, not in point of gift, but in point of Christian conduct, in point of Christian love and Christian purity, which would tell men that your life has been touched by the power that made the world, that your life has been affected by the power which raised our Lord from the dead. Are our lives different from what our unregenerate lives were? Are our lives different from those who still constitute the mass, the unregenerate world? Do they think it strange that you do not live as they live, and maybe they heap any abuse on your head? Do they tease you, and is that teasing sometimes sharp? Does this argue that in you now there is working the Almightiness of the Lord God? As we face the temptations of this life, does the way that we emerge declare that we have faced and overcome them by the power of an Omnipotent Creator? As we undergo whatever his will may hold for us of suffering, do we have the courage and patience that would argue that the Lord has held us up with his own strength, and made over to us the resources of his own power?

Do we long for the will of God to be done in our lives, effectively, so that it is done not by our own strength but by the power of the living God? Do we seek to live by the Sermon on the Mount, and by the great sections of the New Testament letters, by Romans 12 and Ephesians 5 and 6? I am not asking for perfection. I am asking for newness of life, and a different life.

ii] We are given a zeal for doing good works. Isn’t this the effect of the grace of God entering our lives, that we become actually zealous in good works? The Christian is someone ‘created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’ (Eph. 2:10). God’s grace is his sanctifying power. It is not God showing men the way. It is not God beseeching men to do good works, or God pleading with us and pointing out to us what he wants us to do in the life of his Son. It is God himself putting forth his power to make it absolutely certain that some changes are going to be effected in our lives and conduct. Henceforth there is going to be a new pattern of kindnesses shown, journeys made, services rendered, feet washed and dried, prisons visited, the sick helped, and the hungry fed. In the true Christian there is not going to be one initial volcanic explosion of good works which is going to last about a month and then the Christian just lies dormant for decades. God has prepared in advance for our whole life to be spent in doing good works, and he provides the energy and resources to accomplish this, so that the Christian can say, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’

It has been profitable to read Brian Edwards’ account of his years of marriage to his wife Barbara (Horizons of Hope, Day One, 2000). She had chronic rheumatoid arthritis, and after thirty-five years of marriage she died on November 16, 1998. Increasingly he needed to do more and more for her, including preparing their meals and clearing up afterwards. She became totally dependent upon him and he was given grace to abound in good works towards her. That was his great privilege. But how zealous had she been for good works over many years in spite of her physical handicap. On the night she died Brian wrote in his diary, ‘Only I know just how wonderful a wife and mother Barbara was. Her patient endurance, deep love for the Lord and longing to serve him. Thank you Lord, for Barbara.’ We sometimes wonder how we would cope if we or our spouses developed a serious illness. God would enable us to be still zealous in good works.

iii] We are given a new attitude to sin. Let me approach this by way of the hymns we most love to sing. When we sing ‘Amazing grace’ we really mean it when we say that it saved a ‘wretch like me.’ That is not poetry for us. When we sing ‘Beneath the cross of Jesus’ we really mean it when we say that we confess two wonders, his glorious love and our own worthlessness. When we sing ‘Jesus, lover of my soul’ we really mean it when we sing, ‘Vile and full of sin I am.’ When we sing ‘Rock of ages’ we mean it when we sing, ‘Foul, I to Thy fountain fly, Wash me Saviour or I die.’ We have seen something of the splendour and majesty and glory of God. The cherubim hide their eyes in his presence and they sigh, ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ Eternal light, in whom is no darkness at all!

Our sin meant that God the Son must become incarnate. He must become the Lamb of God. ‘Was it for sins that I had done He groaned upon the tree?’ Yes. He bore my sins in his own body on the tree.

For what you have done His blood must atone; The Father hath punished for you His dear Son. The Lord in the day of His anger did lay Your sins on the Lamb and He bore them away. (Charles Wesley)

The dying of Jesus Christ makes our whole attitude to sin different.

Ye who think of sin but lightly Nor suppose the evil great Here may view its nature rightly Here its guilt may estimate.

Mark the Sacrifice appointed, See who bears the awful load; Tis the Word, the Lord’s anointed, Son of man and Son of God. (Thomas Kelly)

What is your estimate of your own sin? Do you seek to mortify remaining sin? Have you declared war on it? Do you take it seriously? When you sin do you plead the merit of the blood of Christ to wash the stain away?

iv] We are given a new attitude to Jesus Christ. We have the most exalted and most stupendous view of him. We have the grandest, and greatest, and maximal possible view of Christ. For us he is the Son of God. We did not always see him like this. We judged him to be a great man and a good man and wonderful prophet, but God has intervened and given us not religion, nor feelings, nor marvellous experiences, but a whole new insight into Jesus Christ. He has transformed our beliefs and ideas about Jesus of Nazareth. He has printed indelibly on our conscience a few elementary momentous convictions regarding Mary’s boy-child. God has persuaded us that Jesus is God’s own Son. I believe that there is nothing more foundational to a Christian than this. This is the great end of self-examination that we fall again before him and confess, ‘My Lord and my God! This is the first question that we ask people who say they are Christians: ‘What do you think of Jesus?’

When men came to John the Baptist they wanted John the Baptist to talk to them about John the Baptist. But John the Baptist would have none of it. John the Baptist said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’ He was pointing away from himself. So is the Christian church. It is pointing primarily to the Lamb in the midst of the throne. A Christian makes the most stupendous claims on behalf of his Saviour. I believe in his pre-existence, that he has always been, that he was in the beginning, that he never came into being. I believe that he is the Maker of heaven and earth, that he designed every leaf, that he plotted the flight-path of every comet, that he upholds the whole universe by the word of his power, that every physical and chemical bond in the cosmos has been fashioned and maintained by the Lord of glory. I believe that our mathematics and physics, as applied to the universe, describe the thought patterns of the eternal Jesus Christ.

I believe that one day he will come again and that he will pull this whole universe apart, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, and that he will put it all together again as a new heaven and earth. I believe that one day you and I will stand before him face to face, and give an account, and from him receive our destinies. I believe that in him we meet ultimate and absolute and final reality. I believe that he is God; the only God there is; in him is the fulness of God; the whole form of God and the whole glory of God is found in Jesus Christ; he may be more, but he is not less. I believe in the greatness of Jesus, the unique grandeur of the Lord Jesus, the incomparable magnificence of Jesus of Nazareth.

Who is He in yonder stall, At whose feet the shepherds fall?

‘Tis the Lord, O wondrous story, ‘Tis the Lord, the King of glory. At his feet we humbly fall; Crown him crown him Lord of all. (Benjamin R. Hanby)

Self-examination is intended to lead us to him. Paul says, ‘Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?’ (v.5) The end of our examination is to bow before him, believing in our hearts and confessing with our lips that he is God. So you see how gracious and saving a means of grace is true self-examination.

Most people understand that Jesus Christ was crucified and that he was resurrected. What most people do not understand is that everyone living on earth who dies will be physically resurrected from the dead, some to everlasting, eternal life and eternal joy, and many to judgment. There will be a resurrection of every single person who has lived and died. Wherever their bodies were laid, to whatever degree of corruption they were then subjected, will have nothing to do with God’s ability to raise them in a new body fit for their eternal dwelling. ¹

Everyone lives forever. People who think that death is sleep and they go out of existence are mistaken. People who think that everyone goes to heaven when they die are mistaken.

They will go into eternal existence with all their faculties heightened and intensified to the degree that’s incomprehensible to them…They will also be raised in a body that is fit for their dwelling place: either in heaven — a body suited to eternal blessing and service to God or a body suited to eternal divine judgement and punishment. But everybody will rise. ² 

Consider that with heightened intelligence — with the ability to recall the cause and damaging effect of each sin and perceive its concomitant relation to a spouse’s life, a child’s life, a friend’s life; or that fragile or poor person you could have helped but didn’t. And to live with the attending judgment for such disregard in a  hellscape of mind body and soul. Why? Because you chose not to seek God’s forgiveness! This would be the insanity of cyclic recall for eternity! See how the doctrine of Annihilation differs.

In one of the oldest books in the Bible, the book of Job, written in the patriarchal period, back in the time of Genesis, the question is posed, “Shall a man live again,” or, “Is there life after death?” And the answer: Job says this: “After my skin is destroyed”—in other words, after his body has decayed—“yet in my flesh I will see God; whom I will see for myself, and my eye will behold and not another. My heart faints within me!” Asking the question, Will a man live again? Job answers the question: “Yes, he will live again. His flesh is corrupted, but yet in a new kind of flesh he will see God.” And that’s enough to make his heart faint. Every human being who dies will be raised to see God, every person who’s ever lived—there is no escape. Once you’re born, your life continues forever. ³

In John chapter 5, Jesus healed a man at the pool of Bethesda, a man who had a disability for thirty-eight years. It was a powerful miracle, obvious to the populace of Jerusalem who had seen that man there for years. With this healing of Jesus, the Jews were furious that Jesus healed on the Sabbath — and aimed to kill him for not coming under their authority. Jesus had taught that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, that he is Lord of the Sabbath. (Matt 12:12; Mark 3:4)

John 5:16 reads concerning the healed man picking up his mat and carrying it: “For this reason, the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.” The Jews had created many man-made rules for the Sabbath. The impertinence of being offended by a man who had been healed via a divine miracle,  picking up his bed and walking away from the place of his healing! Pride knows no end to its folly and offense to God. Sadly the Jews saw this as an act of blasphemy on the part of Jesus, doing even the work of healing, because you weren’t supposed to work on the Sabbath, and then having the man do the work of carrying his bed. In John 5:18 we read: “For this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him.”

They had been already seeking to kill Him because He rejected their false religion. And now it was intensified because He had violated the Sabbath…They “were seeking all the more to kill Him,” verse 18 says, “because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, and making Himself equal with God.” This was the ultimate blasphemy. Back in verse 17, He had said, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” What He was saying is: “The Sabbath doesn’t relate to God, and I’m God. The Sabbath doesn’t relate to Me. Neither God nor the Son of God are subject to your fabricated rules.” They understood that as a claim that He was equal with God, and that is exactly what it was. The Jews were never mistaken about Jesus’ claim. They knew He was claiming to be equal with the eternal God, Yahweh, the creator God, the triune God of reality and of Scripture. ⁴

John 5:19 reveals Jesus standing his divine ground as the Son of God: “Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them”—he strongly rebuked those who were accusing Him of blaspheming for claiming to be equal with God —“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.’” This is a terrifying set of claims by our Lord Jesus. He is saying, “I’m not subject to your rules on the Sabbath. I align with God; I do what the Father does.”

In verse 17 Jesus said: “My Father is working . . . I am working.” The Jewish leaders would perceive this as He was saying He was equal with God, He was one in nature, one in essence; in fact, He is God—the ultimate blasphemy in the mind of the Jews.

Not only was He one with God in nature, but He was one with God in work. Verse 19 is a powerful proclamation of His authority: “Jesus answered [them with] saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner’”— essentially saying: “Everything you see Me do is because it is the Father doing it. Everything you see Me do is the work of the Father, based on the will and purpose of the Father.”

So He is one with God in nature; He is one with God the Father in works. Following in verse 20, “The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.” In other words, the third thing He says here is that He has full knowledge of everything that God knows.

Jesus Christ revealed in John 5, is equal to God in nature, equal to God in works, and equal to God in truth—in revelation, in knowledge. Further in John 5, He adds, “The Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” — meaning greater works than the healing of that lame man. And what would that be? Verses 21 and 22: “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son.” Clearly, He says He is one with God in power to raise the dead, and He is one with God in sovereignty to give life to whomever He will, and that He has been given the right to judge everyone. That’s how sovereign He is: one in nature, one in works, one in knowledge, one in power, one in sovereignty with God. Sovereignly He will judge. “Even the Father,” verse 22 says, doesn’t judge but “has given all judgment to the Son.” ⁵

And then Jesus spoke of being dishonoured by the Jews and that was a defamation of His Father: “So that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent Him.”

The Jewish people thought they knew God, they honored God; they did not because you can’t honor the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ if you don’t honor Him as well. So He is equal to God in nature and works and knowledge and power and sovereignty and judgment, authority, and honor. So He’s just pressing this issue of equality to a degree that was shocking beyond comprehension to the Jews, who thought He was a liar and a fraud…He claims this power and authority—which is the heart of this section that I want you to look at, in verses 21 and 22—when He says He has power to raise the dead and give them life, and He gives it to whomever He wishes. And then He has the power and the authority to judge everyone. This is ultimate sovereignty and ultimate power: the power to give life and the power to judge. He is the one who will make everyone alive, and He is the one who will judge everyone. ⁶

Since Christ is the judge of all mankind, we read in verse 24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” MacArthur makes a theological summation: So this is the sum of all of it. This is an invitation; this is a declaration of fact. Since it is the Son of God who has the power to raise the dead and will do that, who has the authority to judge everyone and will do that, then truly, truly, you must hear His word and believe in Him and the God who sent Him, to have eternal life and to escape from death into life and not come to judgment.

The simple reality of not believing the gospel truth of Jesus. Everybody’s headed for eternal judgment; everyone is headed for a resurrection unto damnation, a resurrection unto condemnation, a resurrection unto judgment. The only way to avoid that is to hear the word concerning Christ, then believe in Him, believe in the One who sent Him, receive eternal life, avoid judgment, and pass out of death into life. This is the heart of the gospel.

The only way to avoid that is to hear the word concerning Christ, then believe in Him, believe in the One who sent Him, receive eternal life, avoid judgment, and pass out of death into life. This is the heart of the gospel.

The reason for salvation is not to bring you bliss in this life, because even if you’re a believer in this life you still have to fight your way through all of the realities of a fallen world and you being a fallen person… the gospel offers you is an escape from eternal judgment. Christ, the only one who can save you, will either be your Saviour, or He will be your Judge. He will either raise you to life abundant and eternal in His presence forever, or He will raise you to condemnation and judgment to suffer forever out of His presence in a place the Bible calls hell. So the word here is to listen to Him. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word concerning Christ.” He is the one who raises the dead and gives life and escape from judgment…the statements in verses 21 and 22 that He raises the dead, gives them life, and He is the Judge. He has the power to raise the dead and the authority to judge. This is Jesus Christ.

The resurrection of everyone Go down to verse 25. This is the focus of the passage whereby He demonstrated His power to raise the dead and to judge. Listen to what it says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice”—all—“and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” ⁷

Mark it: Everybody is going to be raised from the dead, everybody—everybody who’s ever lived and died. And the Lord will have no problem sorting out that individual from the completely disintegrated and dissolved parts, to bring back to life that same person in an eternal form—some kind of body, a body suited for service and worship in heaven. For the unbelievers, it’s a body suited for suffering and punishment in hell. But everybody will be raised from the dead, everybody. “Don’t marvel at this.” And why does He say that? Because this is shocking, profoundly shocking.

Now there are two aspects to resurrection that our Lord is referring to, and if you go back to verse 25, you’ll see how He does that. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Well, there wasn’t yet a physical resurrection at that time; the great, final resurrection is yet to come in the future. So what is He saying regarding “now is”? “An hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live”? What does He mean by that? He’s talking about spiritual resurrection.

Even at the time in our Lord’s ministry and life in which He was speaking here, He was giving life to people, He was saving people, He was raising them from spiritual death. Jesus defined the people as dead. He said, “Let the dead bury their dead,” in the book of Matthew. And what He was saying is, “Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead.” The Scripture is clear about the deadness of the condition of the unconverted.

In the familiar story of the prodigal son, twice in that parable Jesus defines the prodigal as dead—Luke 15—and dead in sin. So even now, Jesus is saying He is giving life to the spiritually dead. And I can show you that. Go back to John chapter 1. Before the cross—listen—before the cross and before resurrection, He was giving life to people who believed in Him. Listen to John 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

Go over to the familiar third chapter of John. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in”—what?—“in Him”—not in the cross, not even in the Resurrection, but believes “in Him”—“shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn’t send [His] Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; [but] . . . he [who] has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God [is judged already].” So already, He was making people alive. He had been making people alive since the beginning.

Romans 10 says, “If you confess . . . Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” It was a matter of believing all that had been revealed; and God accounted that kind of faith as the faith that embraced divine righteousness. You see the same thing in John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life”.

At the coming of the Lord in his second advent we are reassured as believers this wonderful statement of Paul, about the resurrection of the righteous:

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)

Even as Jesus walked about healing and speaking to the people there were people who believed in Him, like the disciples. Even though they hadn’t gotten to the cross yet—like the Samaritans here noted after Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, in John 4:41:“Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Saviour of the world.’” Because they believed that He was the Saviour of the world, the anointed of God, the Redeemer; believing, they would be saved. And that goes through the gospel of John. Even before you get to the cross, He’s calling people to believe in everything He has revealed. Salvation is based on believing in Jesus as your Saviour when He is revealed to you — not pushing back in denial. We need to understand that the Father brings you to His Son in order to be saved. (John 6:37, 16:37)

Let’s look at Abraham. Paul says about Abraham in Romans, “[He] believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” He’s the illustration of justification in Romans 4: He believed God, and he was justified by believing in God. And Abraham knew nothing about the cross or the Resurrection.

How did Abraham believe? By hearing the voice of the Son of God. Christ is the only one who can speak life into the spiritually or physically dead (as per our discussion of raising the dead). He is the one who regenerates. Of great importance for those still alive and able to hear: Christ is the one who gives spiritual life. This is an amazing expression of spiritual power. He takes the spiritually dead and regenerates them. It’s the new birth; it’s regeneration; it’s new life; it’s new creation. Those that remain faithful believers in Jesus Christ, will be also regenerated physically — resurrected unto eternal life. (2 Corinthians 5:5, 1;22; Ephesians 4:14, 30)

And by the way, He is given the title “Son of God” in this particular ministry of giving life because only God can give life. Only God is the source of life. And those who hear the voice of the Son of God as He speaks will live, because He has the same power—verse 26—to give life that the Father has as well. Ephesians 5:14 says, “Awake, you sleeper, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” This is what we do with the gospel: We preach the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, by which the Holy Spirit makes people alive. Colossians 2:13, “He made you alive.” Spiritual resurrection: He has the power for that, and He has the authority for that.

Focus briefly is not that spiritual resurrection but rather what follows that spiritual resurrection in the future, and that is the physical resurrection. Look at verse 27. The Father not only gave the Son also to have life in Himself, but He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. He’s the Son of God, because it takes God to give life; He’s the Son of Man, because it takes one who is a man to sit in judgment on men, lest men think they were judged by an unfair judge. Christ, who was in all points tempted like as we are, will be the judge of all men. He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. So He is the life: “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” He said. “Whoever finds Me finds life.” And He also has the power to judge.

And that takes us to the physical resurrection, verse 28: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming”—again, not an actual hour but an epoch, a time period—“is coming”—still in the future—“in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, and those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” There it is: Everybody comes out of the grave, everybody.

He has the power to give spiritual life to those who hear His voice, and they will be made alive from the dead, and they will escape judgment—that’s verse 24: If you believe, hear His word and believe in Him, you have eternal life; you don’t come into judgment, you pass out of death into life. Believing in Christ is the only way to escape Him as Judge in the sense of a condemned nation by judgment. Everybody comes out of the tombs; they will hear His voice—not the spiritual resurrection but the physical one—and it will appear that “those who did the good deeds” are taken “to a resurrection of life,” and “those who committed . . . evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” The point there is simply to say again, everybody rises from the dead, absolutely everyone.

And would you notice that they will judged by their deeds. You say, “Well, I thought salvation was by grace.” You’re right: “Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So why are we judged by our works? Because that’s the validation of your salvation. “If any man be in Christ, he’s a new creation: old things have passed away; and new things have come.” Or Ephesians 2:10, you are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that you would walk in them.”

Paul says much the same in Romans 2:6-10, that the final judgment will be a judgment based on works, and the works of one who has been regenerated and given life and been transformed will manifest righteousness; and it is by those works that they will receive the resurrection of life. Again, this speaks to this important issue that salvation is not a matter of some experience at some point in your life, or some prayer, or some emotional connection with Jesus.

You will be judged on your works; they don’t save you, but they affirm the reality of your salvation. If you are truly transformed as a child of God, it shows.

Christ’s power to raise the dead Just think of it: “An hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice.” The power to do that is stunning, incomprehensible. Taking you back to the creation: In six days the triune God spoke the entire universe and everything into it into existence, everything. In six days He created everything. So it’s really not a difficult situation for Him to raise the dead and reassemble them in some eternal form fit for heaven or hell, but the power to do that is beyond any kind of comprehension.

I think we know enough science to know that matter is never really destroyed; it just changes form. So the Lord will reach back into the creation and reassemble everyone. In some expression of who they actually were, they will continue to be who they were, only in a physical body suited for heaven or hell. It’s not an ethereal body; it’s an actual body. After his resurrection, Jesus walked and talked and ate. And the resurrected believers will have a glorified body — the unbelievers will have a body also that can feel and comprehend their judgement for not heeding the Lord’s call to salvation, God’s plan to save them and rescue them from from hell. Hell is described as burning, darkness, pain, gnashing of teeth, agony.

Note well: This is an astounding power Christ — the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords — Christ, has the power to to resurrect everyone and he will — moreover he has the power to save you from hell — and He can if you believe in him by faith. He is both Saviour and Judge who will sit on resurrection to judge everyone raised in the second resurrection of the ungodly:  Daniel 7:13–14 (ESV): The Son of Man Is Given Dominion: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Again, you have to put yourself in the position those Jews are in as He’s speaking this to them. First, there was enough that He did something on the Sabbath, and then said He could do what God did because He was God to go from there to effectively saying, “I have the power to raise every single person from the dead and bring them to judgment, and then I have the authority to judge them.” Obviously for those who have been raised spiritually, there is no condemnation—Romans 8:1—and they are raised to the resurrection of life, not judgment. Those who committed evil deeds, and therefore demonstrate there was no transformation, have a resurrection of judgment.

This is where the world is headed. Pretty shocking when you think about how cavalier people are about the end of their life, how little they think about it. Luke 14 talks about the resurrection of the righteous; that will happen as the saints are all raised and brought into the thousand-year kingdom with Christ. At the end of that thousand years is the resurrection of the unjust. It’s a special resurrection. See Revelation chapter 20.

In the book of Revelation we follow the chronology. Christ comes in chapter 19, sets up His kingdom for a thousand years, and after the thousand years, look at verse 5 of Revelation 20, “The rest of the dead didn’t come to life until the thousand years were completed.” That’s a parenthetical statement. So the unbelieving dead will remain in the grave until the thousand-year millennial kingdom is finished.

The remaining Old Testament saints at the end of the Tribulation, Daniel chapter 12 indicates, will be raised from the dead. And so you’ll have the New Testament believers and the Old Testament believers in glorified, resurrected form coming back with Christ. You see that in chapter 19. They come back with Him, their robes are washed white — which is a metaphor for holiness — to reign with Him on the earth, all the resurrected saints.

During that thousand years there will be a rebellion, an insurrection against God at the end by those who refused to believe and surrender to the King of Kings even when Christ is reigning in the world; and there will be a judgment at the end of the thousand years, but that will involve all the unrighteous dead: This is biblical: “The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed.” When the dead are judged, the books will be opened with a record of your life, bearing witness against unconverted sinners: Daniel 7:9–10 (ESV): The Ancient of Days Reigns: “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened

The first resurrection, however, is different. The first resurrection—verse 6—is for the “blessed and holy” ones. They’re in the first resurrection. “Over these the second death”—the second death is that eternal death—“has no power. They will be priests of God and Christ and reign with Him [during His thousand-year kingdom].”

So all the saints are raised to go into the kingdom, but when the kingdom is over, the rest of the dead are brought to life. Go down to verse Rev 19:11. Here’s the picture of that judgment: “I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small”—significant and insignificant—“standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” If your name is not in the book of life, you’re going to be judged by your deeds, and your deeds will not be sufficient. Whether the body is in the ground or in the sea, every unbeliever will be at that judgment, and they will be judged for their sins, and then sent to the eternal lake of fire.

For all that we celebrate in the resurrection of Christ—and rightly we have done that today and lifted up our hearts in praise for all that we are grateful for, for all the joy, for all the hallelujahs, for the resurrection of Christ—that’s only for those who listen to His voice: who know Him and have received life from Him. For the rest, this is a terrifying reality because they killed Him. But God raised Him; and He has now the power to give life, and He will raise everyone. And then He has the authority to judge everyone, and He will judge them by their deeds; and unless those deeds manifest the transformation of salvation, they will be thrown into the lake of fire. That’s the second death. That is the fact Scripture lays out, and that’s where the Bible draws to a conclusion. Be warned.

In Rev 21:8 note: “For the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” You want to be a part of the first resurrection, right—the resurrection of the just, the resurrection of the righteous.

One final word from Scripture, Hebrews 10:26, “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth”—you’ve heard the gospel, you know Christ alone saves, but you go on sinning, willfully rejecting—“there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.” If you reject Christ, there’s no sacrifice for sin. So you will bear your own sins to the judgment and pay for them forever. All you have left if you go on sinning—willfully rejecting the knowledge of the truth, the gospel—all you have left is “a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries”—all there is left is hell. And he gives an illustration, or a comparison: “Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If you violate the Law of Moses, that’s Old Testament order. “How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?”

When you insult the Spirit of grace by rejecting the gospel, when you trample under foot the Son of God by rejecting His sacrifice, there’s a much severer punishment. And God says, “Vengeance is Mine,” verse 30, “I will repay. . . . The Lord will judge His people.” And then this: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” That’s the word of God. And I know that’s not a popular message, but it’s the truth, and God has revealed it so that you can come to Christ and escape. Let’s pray.

We have just studied the entire revelation of Scripture on this subject. We all live forever. We will be raised fit for punishment or fit for blessing, fit for joy or fit for sorrow, and that forever. I pray, Lord, that You will speak in such a way that calls some of the dead reading this to life even now. Jesus said, “You have eyes, but you see not; you have ears, but you hear not.” May You give people eyes to see and ears to hear Your voice. And for Your own glory, speak, Lord; give life, and rescue people from judgment into the glories of eternal heaven.

^{1, 2 John MacArthur}