Memory of sin in the saint - Chambers, Oswald
. . For that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious. 1 timothy 1:1213
. . . And such were some of you. 1 Corinthians 6:11
No aspect of christian life and service is in more need of revision than our attitude to the memory of sin in the saint. When the apostle Paul said for- getting those things which are behind, he was talking not about sin, but about his spiritual attainment. Paul never forgot what he had been; it comes out repeatedly in the epistlesfor i am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle (1 Corinthians 15:9); unto me who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given (Ephesians 3:8); . . . Sinners, of whom i am chief (1 timothy 1:15). And these are the utterances of a ripe, glorious servant of god.
If one wants a touchstone for the depth of true spiritual Christianity, one will surely find it in this matter of the memory of sin. There are those who exhibit a pharisaic holiness, they thank god with an arrogant offensiveness that they are not as other men are; they have forgotten the horrible pit and miry clay from whence they were taken, and their feet set upon a rock through the might of the atonement. Perhaps the reason they condemn others who have fallen and been restored is the old human failing of making a virtue out of necessity. Their lives have been shielded, the providence of god has never allowed them to be enmeshed in the subtle snares other men have encountered and whose fall has plunged them into an agony of remorse. May the conviction of god come with swift and stern rebuke upon any one who is remembering the past of another, and deliberately choosing to forget their restoration through gods grace. When a servant of god meets these sins in others, let him be reverent with what he does not understand and leave god to deal with them. Certain forms of sin shock us far more than they shock god. The sin that shocks god, the sin that broke his heart on Calvary, is not the sin that shocks us. The sin that shocks god is the thing which is highly esteemed among menself-realisation, pride, my right to myself. We have no right to have the atti- tude to any man or woman as if he or she had sunk to a lower level than those of us who have never been tempted on the line they have. The conventions of society and our social relationships make it necessary for us to take this attitude, but we have to remember that in the sight of god there are no social conventions, and that external sins are no whit worse in his sight than the pride which hates the rule of the holy ghost while the life is morally clean. May god have mercy on any one of us who forgets this, and allows spiritual pride or superiority and a sense of his own unsulliedness, to put a barrier between him and those whom god has lifted from depths of sin he cannot understand.
Holiness is the only sign that a man is repentant in the new testament sense, and a holy man is not one who has his eyes set on his own whiteness, but one who is personally and passionately devoted to the lord who saved him one whom the holy ghost takes care shall never forget that god has made him what he is by sheer sovereign grace. Accept as the tender touch of god, not as a snare of the devil, every memory of sin the holy ghost brings home to you, keeping you in the place where you remember what you once were and what you now are by his grace.
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save.
Sinners; of whom i am chief (1 timothy 1:15)sin- ners, of whom i am chief. What a marvellous humility it betokens for a man to say that and mean it! In the early days of the sterner form of Calvinism a mans belief about god and about his own destiny frequently produced a wistful, self-effacing humility; but the humility Paul manifests was produced in him by the remembrance that Jesus, whom he had scorned and despised, whose followers he had persecuted, whose church he had harried, not only had forgiven him, but made him his chief apostle: unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that i should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Howbeit for this cause i obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. Here is the attitude of the servant of God since God has done this for me, i can despair of no man on the face of the earth. Show such a servant of god the backslider, the sinner steeped in the iniquity of our cities, and there will spring up in his heart an amazing well of compassion and love for that one, because he has himself experienced the grace of god which goes to the uttermost depths of sin and lifts to the highest heights of salvation. But where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly (RV).