this Seed of the woman, promised by God to bruise the head of the
serpent, is now come, and has atoned for this sin, and taken away
condemnation. But he must cry out against himself, for not hav-
ing accepted or believed in this Christ, the devil's Iload-bruiser
and Siu-strangler.
" Thus every man's danger rests with himself; and it is his own
fault if he is condemned ; not because he is a sinner through the
sin of Adam, and deserving of condemnation by reason of his for-
mer unbelief; but because he will not accept this Saviour Christ,
who takes away our sin and condemnation. True it is indeed that
Adam has condemned us all, inasmuch as he brought us along
with him into sin, and under the power of the devil. But now
that Christ, the second Adam, is come, born without sin, and has
taken away sin, it can no longer condemn me if I believe in Him ;
but I shall be delivered from it through Him, and be saved. If
on the other hand I do not believe, the same sin and condemna-
tion must continue ; because He who is to deliver me from it is
not taken hold of: nay, it will be a doubly great and heavy sin
and condemnation, that I will not believe in this dear Saviour, by
whom I might be helped, nor accept His redemption. Thus all
our salvation and condemnation depend now upon this, whether
we believe in Christ, or no. A judgment has at length gone forth,
34*
402 NOTE Q.
â– wliicli closes heaven against all sucli as have not and will not re-
ceive this faith in Christ. For this unbelief retains all sin, so that
it cannot obtain forgiveness, even as faith removes all sin. And
hence without this faith every thing is and continues sinful and
condemnable, even in the best life and the best works which a man
can perform ; which, although in themselves they are praiseworthy
and commanded by God, yet are corrupted by unbelief, so that on
account thereof they cannot please God ; even as in faith all the
works and life of a Christian are pleasing to God. In fine, with-
out Christ every thing is condemned and lost ; in Christ every
thing is good and blessed ; so that even sin, which continues in our
flesh and blood, being inherited from Adam, can no longer hurt
or condemn us.
" This, however, must not be understood as if leave were here-
by granted, so that men may freely sin and do evil : for, because
faith brings the forgiveness of sins, and Christ is come to take
away and destroy sin, it is not possible for any man to be a Chris-
tian and a believer, who lives openly, carelessly, and impenitently,
in sin and according to his lusts. For where there is such a sinful
life, there is, also, no repentance : but Avhere there is no repent-
.ance, there is, also, no forgiveness of sins, and consequently no
faith, which receives the forgiveness of sins. Whereas he who has
the belief in this forgiveness, strives against sin, and does not fol-
low its lusts, but wars against it until he is entirely free from it.
And although in this life we cannot become wholly free from it,
and sin continues ever even in the holiest of men, yet the believer
has the consolation that this is covered for him by the forgiveness
of Christ, and will not be reckoned for his condemnation, if so be
he continues in the faith of Christ. This is what St. Paul says,
that tliere is no condemnation for tlienitliat are in Christ Jesus, who
wall' not after the flesh; and again, Theij that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with its lusts. You see, to these it is said that
sin shall not harm nor condemn them : to those who are without
faith and reckless, nothing is here preached."
In giving such long extracts from Luther, in tliis and other
places, I have not been induced solely by the admirable clearness
and force of the passages cited, but, also, by a wish of showing by
comparison how far superior his expositions of Scripture are, in
the deep and living apprehension of the primary truths of the
â– Gospel, to those of the Ix^st among the Fathers, even of Augustin.
NOTE Q. 403
Much, Indeed, of what is here said by Luther, is now become fa-
miliar, mainly through his influence, and that of his brother Re-
formers, to all readers of religious books. But if we would do
justice to any of the master minds in history, we must compare
them with their predecessors : for one of the surest marks of a
great heaven-sent teacher is, that the truths which he is conmiis-
sioned to teach, become in course of time more and more a part of
the intellectual patrimony of mankind. But when we come upon
these truths in Luther, after wandering through the dusky twilight
of the preceding centuries, it seems almost like the sunburst of a
new Revelation, or rather as if the sun, Avhieh set when St. Paul
was taken away from the earth, had smldeuly started up again.
Yerily, too, it does one good, when one has been walking about
among those who have only dim guesses as to where they are, or
whither they are going, and who halt, and look back, and turn
aside at every other step, to see a man taking his stand on the
eternal Rock, and gazing steadfastly with unsealed eyes on the
very Sun of Righteousness. An additional motive in this last in-
stance for not cutting short the extract sooner is, that the con-
cluding paragraph is a proof, though only among ten thousand
which might easily be adduced, of the utter groundlessness of the
charge of Antinomianism, which has been brought against him by
his modei'n revilers.
Calvin's note on our verse is brief, and does not set forth as
clearly as Luther how the root and ground of all sin is unbelief:
but he has always something valuable to say, and says it well.
" In the first jilace it is to be noticed, that the judgment of the
Spirit begins by a demonstration of sin ; for this is the beginning
of spiritual teaching, that men begotten in sin have nothing in them
except the elements (inateriam') of sin. Moreover, Christ men-
tions unbelief, in order to shov/ v/hat in itself is the nature of men.
For we are without Him, and separated from Him, until we be-
lieve, since faith is the^hain with which He unites Himself to us.
These words, therefore, have just as much weight as if He had
said : When the Spirit shall come. He will show and convince
men, that without Me sin reigns in the world. Hence unbelief is
here named because it separates us from Christ, and so works that
nothing except sin is left to us."
In Cartwright's note on this passage we again find how difllcult
it was to attain to a clear insight into the radical sinfulness of un-
404 NOTE Q.
belief. He sees that this particular manifestation of unbelief 'was
Tery heinous, but does not see with the same distinctness' how un-
belief lies at the root of all sin. " Here it is to be observed, that
of all sins none is more base and dreadful than unbelief, as it is the
parent and root of all others. They had vittered many awful re-
proaches against Christ ; but all these lie buried, as if in silence, in
the presence of luibelief. So Heb. iii. 18, 19, although they were
guilty of many kinds of wickedness, nevertheless they are said to
have been excluded on account of unbelief alone. Xor wrong-
fully, since he who believes not on the Son, makes God a liar :
1 John V. 1 0. This may be illustrated by an example from among
men, esjjecially those who punish this offence with death, and by
the blood of him who reproaches them with falsehood. This, in-
deed, was always a heinous crime, yet now it is much more heinous
under the Gospel. For after so many promises made, and so great
fidelity in fulfilling those most precious promises respecting His
Son delivered to death, it becomes the gravest of all sins to doubt
the faithfulness of God. Again, since God, who spake in' times
past by prophets, hath now spoken by His only Son (Heb. i. 1, 2),
it becomes by this circumstance itself a hea\"ier sin to detract from
the faithfulness of His words. Finally, if it be a great wickedness
not to believe a threatening God, as Jeremiah charged upon the
people : Fear ye not My hand? v. 22, 23, much more will it be a
great sin not to believe God when making promises. We see this
in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter most boldly reproves the
perfidy of the Jews."
Lampe speaks of the conviction that had already- been wrought
by the Spirit in earlier ages of the world. " It is true, that He
hath convinced the world even from the beginning. His striving
with the antediluvian world is related in Gen. vi. 3 ; with the Jews
in Is. i., Heb. iii. 7, 8. Kor has the conversion of a sinner ever
taken place without the conviction of the Spirit. But as all His
operations in the New Testament were to-be more illustrious, so
also His convincing of sin. For the conviction of the Spirit In the
New Testament Is much clearer, because the mysteries of salva-
tion arc more fully revealed ; — much more efficacious, breaking
through with peculiar power all the oj^jposition of false reasoning
(2 Cor. X. 4, 5) ; — much more universal, pertaining not only to
the Jews but even to the whole world, to kinffs themselves and
judyes of tlie earth. (Ps. ii. 10.) Hence Is. II. 4, says concerning
NOTE Q. 405
tlie law of Messiah coming out of Zion, by the ministry of the
Spirit: And He shall Judge among the nations, and shall rebuke
many people; which prophecy is quite parallel to our passage.
Comp. Mich. iv. 4, and Is. xlii. 1 : He shall bring forth Judgment
to the Gentiles, and 4. And thus the Spirit of God was mystically
to brood upon the waters."
On the conviction of sin he says : " Concerning sin the Saviour
speaks indefinitely. I should think, therefore, that not this or that
sin, but the universal state of sin, the stain as well as guilt of it, by
which the whole world is oppressed, is to be understood. For
since in the following verse mention is made only of a distinct sin,
namely, unbelief, that is to be regarded only as an example, as one
of a thousand." (Another proof how slowly men have been
taught to discern that primary truth, which Luther so fully appre-
hended and so clearly enounced, that faith is the ground of all
good in man, and the want of faith the ground of all evil.) " Con-
â– viction of sin implies a clear perception of its deformity and
damnableness ; moreover, that one descends into his own heart
and discovers his own vileness ; and struck by this discovery
loathes his own baseness, greatly fears the danger, and perceives
the imjiotence of his own struggling. This conviction is of the
highest necessity. Without this knowledge of misery and sin no
desire of salvation follows, no glory will i-edound to God for the
work of redemption. — But for this the ministry of the Holy Spirit
was required. For the world knows nothing beyond the light of
the Word concerning the origin of sin from the fall of our first
parents ; nor concerning the subjects of it, because these are not
only external deeds, but also inward thoughts and the very first
movings of evil concupiscence. The Apostle confesses this igno-
rance, Rom. vii. 7. Nor does the presentation of these truths out-
wardly by means of the Y\"ord suffice, unless all subterfuges, by
which the flesh endeavors to palliate its own inclination to sin, be
at the same time removed by the efficacy of the Sjiirit. —
" Conviction of the want of faith in Jesus was the work of the
Holy Spirit. Other sins could be demonstrated from the law and
the light of nature. — But a knowledge of this pi-esupposed that
the life and salvation of a sinner rested in Christ alone, whence
was inferred the wretched state of those who were not imited to
Him by faith. Of this without the Word nothing could be known
to the world. — And the Word alone, without the Spirit, did not
406 NOTE Q.
lead to conviction among the Jews, vcho lieard It and saw signs,
and yet remained In unbelief. This conviction was abont to take
its rise from the Jewish world, when the Apostles should demon-
strate to the conscience that Jesus was the Christ, — that there
•was no salvation in any other, and hence their crime was very ag-
gravated, because they not only were disobedient to the voice of
the Lord, but even brought Him to the cross. And it was then to
pass to the Gentile world, when they would be taught, that they
had hitherto been strangers to the way of jjropitiating the true
God, and therefore hedged in by the grossest darkness and misery.
And this conviction of deficiency in faith was most suited to point
out the general dominion of sin in aU men. This was a very-
strong argument : he that belleveth not on the Son is under the
condemnation and yoke of sin. The whole world belleveth not.
Experience teaches the minor premise. There were other more
si^eclal sins : but this rendered all liable to punishment. So all
are shut up together in unbelief, that God might have mercy upon
all, Rom. xi. 32. Each part of the major premise is also true.
For Christ is the only one, who can free from the curse of sin by
His blood, and from its tyranny by His Spirit. Therefore those
have no part In this freedom, who are not united to Christ by
faith. (John HI. 36, 1 John v. 12.) Yet tlils argument affected the
Jews in one way and the Gentiles In another. The Jews were
preeminently guilty of unbelief, and this their sin was of Itself the
most heinous of all ; and there was danger that they would die in
their sins (John vill. 24), unless they repented. But that very
thing was the Index of the depravity of the Jews. For how was
it possible, that they should have been blind to so great a light, ex-
cept they were completely bound by the dominion of sin ? — It
came to pass, that this unbelief rendered all the righteousness,
which they sought from the law, detestable, — all their sacrifices,
impure. — Nor was this a less effective weapon for wounding the
Gentiles with a knowledge of sin. For while the unbelief of the
Jews was discovered to them. It was an evidence to the Gentiles,
how long sin had hitherto reigned In the world. At the same
time their own lack of flnth was discovered to them, since though
their guilt had not been so great in itself, stiU this unbelief
unioiiu, had excluded them from all means of grace. Since
they were icithout Christ, they ought to infer that they were
&ho strangers to the covenant of promise, tvithout God, — and ly
NOTE Q. 407
nature the cldldren of icrath, Epli. ii. 3, 12. Nevertheless tliey
â– were not free from all blame in this matter. For their fathers,
from the love of sin, had inwardly blotted out the tradition of
Messiah, wliich they had received from the Patriarchs : and from
this forgetfulness were begotten those awful sins, into which the
Gentile world had fallen. Rom. i. 21, seq. Moreover, this want
showed them the sinfulness of all their actions, even though
ajDparently good, because loithout faith it is impossihle to please
God : Heb. xi. 6, Eom. xvi. 23. How forcibly and happily the
Apostles might use this argument after the effusion of the Holy
Spirit the event has taught, with respect to the JeAvs, Acts ii. 37,
iii. 14, 15, 19, iv. 11, 12 ; as regards the Gentiles, Eom. i. 28, etc."
Even in Matthew Henry there is still a good deal of vagueness
in the attempt to determine why unbelief should be the sin of
which the Spirit convinces the world. " The Spirit in conviction
fastens especially upon the sin of unbelief, their not believing in
Christ. First, as the great reigning sin. There was and is a
world of people that believe not in Jesus Christ ; and they are
not sensible that it is their sin. Natural conscience tells them
that murder and theft are sin ; but it is a supernatural work of
the Sj^irit to convince them that it is a sin to suspend their belief
of the Gospel, and to reject the salvation offered by it. Natural
religion — lays — us under this further obligation, that whatever
divine revelation shall be made to us at any time, with sufficient
evidence to prove it divine, we accejit it, and submit to it. This
law those transgress, who, when God sjjeaJceth to lis h>j His Son,
refuse Him that speaheth ; and therefore it is sin. Secondly, as
the great ruining sin. Every sin is so in its own nature ; no sin
is so to them that believe in Christ ; so that it is unbelief that
damns sinners. It is because of this that they cannot enter into
rest, that they cannot escape the wrath of God : it is a sin against
the remedy. Thirdly, as that which is at the bottom of all sin : so
Calvin takes it. The Spirit shall convince the world that the true
reason why sin reigns among them, is because they are not by
faith united to Christ."
Luecke aptly remarks, that in this explanation of the triple
tXeyXog by three similarly worded propositions, the unexpi-essed
subjects of the af^iagilu, diy.aiOGVvij, and ygiGtg are determined
in each case by the explanatory propositions; that is, 7ie(Ji a[.iUQ-
408 NOTE Q.
Ti'ug rcov ou Tunzevovioyv (tov '/.oa/nov), jrfo? diy.aiQ(JVfi]g
f.iou (loii vnayoviog tiqo? tov TIuitQa), ntgl Kgloiwg xov
ag)[oviog TOu }(0(yf.iov TOVTOV ; and that the triple on deter-
mines the substance and ground of the triple tXey/og. Of the
first D.fy/og however his exposition is very narrow. " The Par-
aclete will convince the world of its sin, so far as it does not
believe in Christ : that is, the world will be brought by the Holy
Spirit to the consciousness that its unbelief is sin, is wrong; so
that it will give up the delusion spoken of in v. 2. — The Para-
clete finds the world unbelieving, — ov ■niQidvovaiv, — and at-
tacks this unbelief as a sin, which the world does not deem it."
Here, where we require a spiritual eye for truth, Olshausen is
far superior. " In the first place the Spirit makes sin manifest,
not however in its outward characters, — in this resjject the Law
awakens the knowledge of sin (Rom. iii. 20), — but in its inward
deep root. Now this is nothing else than unbelief, which we may
call the mother of all sinful actions : but unbelief itself is, in its
most glaring form, unbelief in the Incarnate Christ. The ina-
bility of recognizing this jmrest manifestation of the Divinity im-
plies utter blindness."
In Stier's Observations on our Lord's Discourses, one of the
most precious books for the sjiiritual interjiretation of the Gospels,
the deep meaning of this passage is brought out more -fully than
by any other commentator. " Here we have the counterpart of
the truth enunciated in xiv. 1 7 ; and that previous declaration
receives an important limitation. The same world, which cannot
receive the Spirit of Truth, because it sees Him not, nor knows
Him, is yet to discover that He is working upon it, speaking to it, in
the first place testifying against it. Hence its incapacity for receiving
the truth is not to be regarded as absolute or unchangeable. The
same Spirit of Truth, through whose coming in the first instance
the l)road separation between the world c-aid the disciples, between
unbelievers and believers, is manifested and defined, is neverthe-
less striving at the same time to remove this separation. For His
coming and working is the last stage in the Divine Economy of
Grace, before the Day of Judgment : Acts ii. 20. Here is still an
escape for many others, whom the Lord will call. The last, most
powerful, most heart-piercing, most decisive call to salvation be-
gins, no otherwise than Christ's and that of all the prophets, with
NOTE Q. 409
Repent ye! When, by the rejection of Christ, the last stage of
unpardonable guilt, of incurable sin, of inflexible hardness has
been attained, and that which is said in c. xv. 22-25 is accom-
plished in its full sense, — this however is far from being the case
with allj^'as the sequel shows, — then the work of the Spirit is to
bear -natness of sin, and to announce the Judgment. For the day
of the Holy Ghost, — the third after the economy of the Father
and the Son, as is indicated in its type, Exod. xix. 10, 11, — is
the antitype of the last day, as well as the preparation for it.
When the sin of Israel and of Heathendom, having filled its first
measure, was visited, not by the fire of a wrathful Judgment, but
by the surpassingly gracious testimony of the Spirit, with its fiery
signs and its inward fervor, then began that judgment of the
nations unto jjeace, of which Isaiah speaks as the purpose to be
accomplished among the Heathens (11. 3, 4), and as the beginning
and end of Israel (iv. 3, 4). The saying which is so often misun-
derstood and perverted, that the history of the world is the judg-
ment of the world, is realized in this working and judgment of the
Spirit, this last preparation for the Judgment which will reveal
all things, and Avhich is reserved for the Son, at His final personal
manifestation, as the Spirit has pointed to Him. A^Hiatever faith
or unbelief the Spirit finds existing upon earth. He does not leave
just as it is, but trains it up and purges it, subjects it to His trials,
to the end that faith may be perfected in knowledge and life, or,
if it shrink from this, may be brought to shame, — and that unbe-
lief may ripen for the Judgment through the total blasphemy and
rejection of the Spirit, or may allow Itself to be subdued to repent-
ance and obedience. The object of these progressive operations,
which bring on the final Judgment In the great trial of the world
by the perfecting of sin or of righteousness, by the last conviction
of both in their actuality, is clearly expressed at the close of Scrip-
ture, in that Book which above all others must be termed the
Book of the Spirit, calling, alluring, judging man, previous to the
end. From these hints with regard to the scheme of the Bible,
â– which is no other than the scheme of the Divine Government and
ordering of the world, as already made manifest, we may gain a
deeper insight into the fitness of the dispensation, that the three-
fold iliyiog should belong to the coming of the Spirit. This tes-
timony or conviction of the Spirit, which, while it is a typical or
preparatory punishment, and an actual judgment, is yet an ac-
35
410 NOTE Q .
quittal of all sucli as submit willingly to this judgment, is tlic only
possible mode of expressing the final sentence. Eh'y/iiv is not
equivalent to ^laQTVQilv in xv. 26; for -n-ituess is borne of that
which is good and right, concentrated in the -n-ords iidin ifiov;
â– whereas conviction is of that -which Is evil and folse, by the reveal-
ino- of sin, and the overthrowing of folse righteousness. But it
should not be overlooked that this lltyiHv throughout is only
intended to perfect that (.taQTV^eli', and to complete its victory,
— according to the deepest sense of the prophecy cited in Matt,
xli. 20, — that the Spirit is the last gift of God's grace to the
■world, to the end that the -world, — or at least every one in it -who
•will, — may be saved. He -ndio penitently confesses, lam (jiillly, is
acquitted. For the Spirit does not merely convince of sin and
of judgment, as -we should have supposed and expected that these
two things are immediately connected â– with each other, and that
there is nothing else to come between them ; but in the very cen-
tre of His revelation He convinces us of the righteousness of
Christ, which he who has lived hitherto in unbelief, if he will now
believe, may and shall lay hold on.
"Thus it is not merely as defensor causae, — whose office is
ileyiiiv rorg uviiXeyovTag, as Grotius says, — in behalf of
Christ and those who are already His, and for the condemnation
of all others, that the Spirit bears witness so convincingly, but in
order that He may absolve, convert, and comfort, those who will
give heed to His reproof. The office of reproving is a necessary
preliminary to that of comforting. Hence the Paraclete is not
here dlsch^irging an alien office, until He assumes His own of
comforting and preaching grace, as Luther says : but the ilfyyog,
both as anterior to the (.la^iv^ia, and as involved in it, belongs
in its last and fullest sense to Him alone. In a certain sense
doubtless it is true, that whatever reproves of sin belongs to the
Law : but inasmuch as in the Spirit God speaks through His glo-
rified Son for the first time from heaven itself, from the heavenly
Zion of His redeeming Gi'ace, the words of the Spirit are at the
same time the fulfilment of the Law ; for which that delivered on
Sinai was only the type and preparation: Ilebr. xil. 18-25. It is
an erroneous limitation to say that the Holy Spirit b>/ the Law
reproves every thing as sin, that Is not faith ; for it is only the
Gospel that speaks of faith with this reproof of the want of it. On