Works of John Bunyan – The Greatness of The Soul, And Unspeakableness of the Loss Thereof; The Intercession Of Christ and Who are Privilege In It. 171

 

by Thomas Sadler, oil on canvas, 1684

[WHY THE JUSTIFIED NEED AN INTERCESSOR.]

And this is the reason, or one reason, why those who are justified need an intercessor—to wit, to save us from the evil of the sin that remains in our flesh after we are justified by grace through Christ and set free from the law as to condemnation. Therefore, as it is said, we are saved; so it is said, 'He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.' The godly, for now, we will call them the godly, though there is yet an abundance of sin in them, feel in themselves many things even after justification by which they are convinced they are still attended with personal, sinful imperfections.

[Imperfect in their feelings and inclinations.]—(1.) They feel unbelief, fear, mistrust, doubting, despondings, murmurings, blasphemies, pride, lightness, foolishness, avarice, fleshly lusts, heartlessness to good, wicked desires, low thoughts of Christ, too good thoughts of sin, and, at times, too great an itching after the worst of immoralities.

(2.) They feel in themselves an aptness to incline to errors, as to lean to the works of the law for justification; to question the truth of the resurrection and judgment to come; to dissemble and play the hypocrite in the profession, and in performance of duties; to do religious duties rather to please man than God, who trieth the heart.

(3.) They feel an inclination in them, in times of trial, to faint under the cross, to seek too much to save themselves, to dissemble the known truth to obtain a little favor with men and to speak things that they ought not, that they may sleep in a whole skin.

(4.) They feel wearisomeness in religious duties but have a natural propensity for things of the flesh. They feel a desire to go beyond bounds both at board and bed, in bodily exercise, and in all lawful recreation.

(5.) They feel in themselves an aptness to take advantage of using lawful things, such as food, raiment, sleep, talk, estates, relations, beauty, wit, parts, and graces, to unlawful ends. These things, with many more of the like kind, the justified man finds and feels in himself, to his humbling and often cast down; and to save him from the destroying evil of these, Christ ever liveth to make intercession for him.

[Imperfect in their graces.]Again, the justified man is imperfect in his graces and therefore needs to be saved by the intercession of Christ from the bad fruit that that imperfection yields.

Justifying righteousness is accompanied by graces—the graces of the Spirit. Though these graces are not that matter by and through which we are justified, nor any part thereof, that being only the obedience of Christ imputed to us of mere pleasure and goodwill, they come when justification comes. (Rom 9) And though they are not so easily discerned at first, they show themselves afterward. But I say, how many soever they are and how fast soever they grow, their utmost agreement here is but a state short of perfection. None of the graces of God's Spirit in our hearts can do their work in us without shortness, and that is because of their own imperfections and also because of the oppositions that they meet with in the flesh.