Pardon for the Greatest Sinners.
A sermon by Jonathan Edwards.
Psalm chapter 25 verse 11.
For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine
iniquity, for it is great.
It is evident by some passages in this
psalm that when it was penned it was
a time of affliction and danger with David.
This appears particularly by the 15th and following
verses.
Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord, for
he shall pluck my feet out of the
net.
His distress made him think of his sins
and led him to confess them to cry
out to God for pardon, as is suitable
in a time of affliction.
See verse 7.
Remember not the sins of my youth nor
my transgressions.
And verse 18.
Look upon mine affliction and my pain, and
forgive all my sins.
It is observable in the text what arguments
the psalmist makes use of in pleading for
pardon.
First, he pleads for pardon for God's name's
sake.
He has no expectation of pardon for the
sake of any righteousness or worthiness of his
for any good deeds he had done or
any compensation he had made for his sins,
though if man's righteousness could be a just
plea, David would have had as much to
plead as most.
But he begs God to do it for
his own name's sake, for his own glory,
for the glory of his own free grace,
and for the honor of his covenant faithfulness.
Second, the psalmist pleads the greatness of his
sins as an argument for mercy.
He not only does not plead his own
righteousness or the smallness of his sins, he
not only does not say, pardon mine iniquity,
for I have done much good to counterbalance
it, or pardon my iniquity, for it is
small and thou hast no great reason to
be angry with me.
My iniquity is not so great that thou
hast any just cause to remember it against
me.
My offense is not such, but that thou
mayest well enough overlook it.
But on the contrary, he says, pardon mine
iniquity, for it is great.
He pleads the greatness of his sin and
not the smallness of it.
He enforces his prayer with the consideration that
his sins are very heinous.
Question, but how could he make this a
plea for pardon?
Answer, because the greater his iniquity was, the
more need he had of pardon.
It is as much as if he had
said, pardon my iniquity, for it is so
great that I cannot bear the punishment.
My sin is so great that I am
in necessity of pardon.
My case will be exceedingly miserable unless thou
art pleased to pardon me.
He makes use of the greatness of his
sin to enforce his plea for pardon, as
a man would make use of the greatness
of calamity in begging for relief.
When a beggar begs for bread, he will
plead the greatness of his poverty and necessity.
When a man in distress cries for pity,
what more suitable plea can be urged than
for the extremity of his case?
And God allows such a plea as this,
for he is moved to mercy towards us
by nothing in us but the miserableness of
our case.
He does not pity sinners because they are
worthy, but because they need his pity.
The doctrine is this.
If we truly come to God for mercy,
the greatness of our sin will be no
impediment to pardon.
If it were an impediment, David would never
have used it as a plea for pardon,
as we find that he does in the
text.
The following things are needful in order that
we truly come to God for mercy.
One, we must see our misery and be
sensible of our need for mercy.
They who are not sensible of their misery
cannot truly look to God for mercy, for
it is the very notion of divine mercy
that it is the goodness and grace of
God to the miserable.
Without misery, in the object, there can be
no exercise of mercy.
To suppose mercy without supposing misery, or pity
without calamity, is a contradiction.
Therefore men cannot look upon themselves as proper
acts of mercy unless they first know themselves
to be miserable.
And so, unless this is the case, it
is impossible that they should come to God
for mercy.
They must be sensible that they are the
children of wrath, that the law is against
them, and they are exposed to the curse
of it, that the wrath of God abides
on them, and that he is angry with
them every day they are under the guilt
of sin.
They must be sensible that it is a
very dreadful thing to be the object of
the wrath of God, that it is a
very awful thing to have him for an
enemy, and that they cannot bear his wrath.
They must be sensible that the guilt of
sin makes them miserable creatures, whatever temporal enjoyments
they have, that they can be nothing other
than miserable undone creatures, as long as God
is angry with them, that they are without
strength, and must perish, and that eternally, unless
God helps them.
They must see that their case is utterly
desperate, as far as anyone else being able
to do anything for them, that they must
hang over the pit of eternal misery, and
that they must necessarily drop into it, if
God does not have mercy on them.
Two, we must be sensible that we are
not worthy that God should have mercy on
us.
Those who truly come to God for mercy
as beggars, and not as creditors, they come
for mere mercy, for sovereign grace, and not
for anything that is due.
Therefore they must see that the misery under
which they lie is justly brought upon them,
that the wrath to which they are exposed
is justly threatened against them, and that they
have deserved that God should be their enemy,
and should continue to be their enemy.
They must be sensible that it would be
just with God to do as He has
threatened in His holy law, which is to
make them the objects of His wrath and
curse in hell to all eternity.
Those who come to God for mercy in
a right manner are not disposed to find
fault with His severity, but they come in
a sense of their own utter unworthiness, as
with ropes around their necks, lying in the
dust at the foot of mercy.
3.
They must come to God for mercy in
and through Jesus Christ alone.
All their hope of mercy must be from
the consideration of what He is, what He
has done, and what He has suffered.
They must consider that there is no other
name given under heaven among men whereby we
can be saved but that of Christ, that
He is the Son of God and the
Savior of the world, that His blood cleanses
from all sin, and that He is so
worthy that all sinners who are in Him
may well be pardoned and accepted.
It is impossible that any should come to
God for mercy and at the same time
have no hope of mercy.
Their coming to God for it implies that
they have some hope of obtaining, otherwise they
would not think it worth the while to
come.
But those who come in a right manner
have all their hope through Christ, or from
the consideration of His redemption and the sufficiency
of it.
If a person thus come to God for
mercy, the greatness of their sins will be
no impediment to pardon.
Let their sins be ever so many, ever
so great, and ever so aggravated.
It will not make God in the least
degree more backward to pardon them.
This may be evident by the following considerations.
First, the mercy of God is as sufficient
for the pardon of the greatest sins as
it is for the least, and that because
His mercy is infinite.
That which is infinite is as much above
what is great as it is above what
is small.
Thus God being infinitely great is as much
above kings as He is above beggars.
He is as much above the highest angels
as He is above the meanest worm.
One infinite measure does not come any nearer
to the extent of what is infinite than
another.
So the mercy of God, being infinite, must
be as sufficient for the pardon of all
sin as it is of one.
If one of the least sins is not
beyond the mercy of God, so neither are
the greatest or ten thousand of them.
However, it must be acknowledged that this alone
does not prove the doctrine.
For though the mercy of God may be
as sufficient for the pardon of great sins
as others, yet there may be other obstacles
beside the want of mercy.
The mercy of God may be sufficient, and
yet the other attributes may oppose the dispensation
of mercy in these cases.
Therefore I observe, second, that the satisfaction of
Christ is as sufficient for the removal of
the greatest guilt as it is for the
least.
First John chapter 1 verse 7.
The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth
us from all sin.
Acts chapter 13 verse 39.
By Him all that believe are justified from
all things from which ye could not be
justified by the law of Moses.
All the sins of those who truly come
to God for mercy, let them be what
they will, are satisfied for if God is
true who tells us so, and if they
are satisfied for, surely it is not incredible
that God should be ready to pardon them.
So that since Christ has fully satisfied for
all sin, having wrought out a satisfaction that
is sufficient for all, it is now in
no way inconsistent with the glory of the
divine attributes to pardon the greatest sins of
those who, in a right manner, come unto
Him for it.
God may now pardon the greatest sinners without
any prejudice to the honor of His holiness.
The holiness of God will not allow Him
to give the least countenance to sin, but
inclines Him to give proper testimonies of His
hatred of it.
But since Christ has satisfied for sin, God
can now love the sinner and give no
countenance at all to sin, however great a
sinner He may have been.
It was a sufficient testimony of God's abhorrence
of sin that He poured out His wrath
on His own dear Son when Christ took
the guilt of it upon Himself.
Nothing can more show God's abhorrence of sin
than this.
If all mankind had been eternally damned, it
would not have been so great a testimony
of it.
God may, through Christ, pardon the greatest sinner
without any prejudice to the honor of His
majesty.
The honor of the divine majesty indeed requires
satisfaction, but the sufferings of Christ fully repair
the injury.
Let the contempt be ever so great, yet
if so honorable a person as Christ undertakes
to be a mediator for the offender and
suffer so much for him, it fully repairs
the injury done to the majesty of heaven
and earth.
The sufferings of Christ fully satisfy justice.
The justice of God, as the supreme governor
and judge of the world, requires the punishment
of sin.
The supreme judge must judge the world according
to a rule of justice.
God does not show mercy as a judge,
but as a sovereign.
Therefore, His exercise of mercy as a sovereign
and His justice as a judge must be
made consistent one with another, and this is
done by the sufferings of Christ, in which
sin is punished fully and justice answered.
Romans chapter 3, verses 25 and 26.
Whom God hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare
His righteousness for the remission of sins that
are past.
Through the forbearance of God to declare, I
say, at this time His righteousness, that He
might be just and the justifier of Him
which believeth in Jesus.
The law is no impediment in the way
of the pardon of the greatest sin, if
men truly come to God for mercy, for
Christ has fulfilled the law.
He has borne the curse of it in
His sufferings.
Galatians chapter 3, verse 13.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for us,
for it is written, Cursed is everyone that
hangeth on a tree.
Third, Christ will not refuse to save the
greatest sinners who, in a right manner, come
to God for mercy, for this is His
work.
It is His business to be a savior
of sinners.
It is the work for which He came
into the world, and therefore He will not
object to it.
He did not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.
Matthew chapter 9, verse 13.
Sin is the very evil which He came
into the world to remedy, therefore He will
not object to any man, that He is
very sinful.
The more sinful He is, the more need
He has of Christ.
The sinfulness of man was the reason for
Christ's coming into the world.
This is the very misery from which He
came to deliver man.
The more they have of it, the more
need they have of being delivered.
They that are whole need not a physician,
but they that are sick.
Matthew chapter 9, verse 12.
The physician will not make it an objection
against healing a man who applies to him
that he stands in great need of his
help.
If a physician of compassion comes to the
sick and wounded, surely he will not refuse
to heal those who stand in most need
of healing, if he is able to heal
them.
Fourth, herein does the glory of grace by
the redemption of Christ much consist.
It's sufficiency for the pardon of the greatest
sinners.
The whole contrivance of the way of salvation
is for this end, to glorify the free
grace of God.
God had it on His heart from all
eternity to glorify this attribute, and therefore it
is that the device of saving sinners by
Christ was conceived.
The greatest of divine grace appears very much
in this, that God by Christ saves the
greatest offenders.
The greater the guilt of any sinner is,
the more glorious and wonderful is the grace
manifested in his pardon.
Romans chapter 5, verse 20.
Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
The apostle, when telling how great a sinner
he had been, takes notice of the abounding
of grace in his pardon, of which his
great guilt was the occasion.
First Timothy, chapter 1, verses 13 and 14.
Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor,
and injurious?
But I obtained mercy, and the grace of
our Lord was exceeding abundant, with faith and
love which is in Christ Jesus.
The Redeemer is glorified in that He proves
sufficient to redeem those who are exceeding sinful,
in that His blood proves sufficient to wash
away the greatest guilt, in that He is
able to save men from the uttermost, and
in that He redeems even from the greatest
misery.
It is the honor of Christ to save
the greatest sinners when they come to Him,
as it is the honor of a physician
that He cures the most desperate diseases or
wounds.
Therefore no doubt Christ will be willing to
save the greatest sinners if they come to
Him, for He will not be backward to
glorify Himself and to command the value and
virtue of His own blood, seeing that He
has so laid out Himself to redeem sinners,
He will not be unwilling to show that
He is able to redeem to the uttermost.
Fifth, pardon is as much offered and promised
to the greatest sinners as any, if they
will come aright to God for mercy.
The invitations of the gospel are always in
universal terms, such as, Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and whosoever will, let him
come.
The voice of wisdom is to men in
general.
Proverbs chapter 8 verse 4, Unto you, O
men, I call, and my voice is to
the sons of men.
It is not to moral or religious men,
but to you, O men.
So Christ promises in John chapter 6 verse
37, Him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out.
This is the direction of Christ to His
apostles after His resurrection in Mark chapter 16
verses 15 and 16.
Go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved.
Which is agreeable to what the Apostle said,
that the gospel was preached to every creature
which is under heaven.
Colossians chapter 1 verse 23.
Application.
The proper use of this subject is to
encourage sinners whose consciences are burdened with a
sense of guilt, immediately to go to God
through Christ for mercy.
If you go in the manner we have
described, the arms of mercy are open to
embrace you.
You need not be at all the more
fearful of coming because of your sins.
Let them be ever so black.
If you had as much guilt lying on
each of your souls as all the wicked
men in the world and all the damned
souls in hell, yet if you come to
God for mercy, sensible of your own vileness
and seeking pardon only through the free mercy
of God in Christ, you would not need
to be afraid.
The greatest of your sins would be no
impediment to your pardon.
Therefore if your souls are burdened and you
are distressed for fear of hell, you need
not bear that burden and distress any longer.
If you are but willing, you may freely
come and unload yourselves, cast all your burdens
on Christ, and rest in Him.
But here I shall speak to some objections
which some awakened sinners may be ready to
make against what I now exhort them to.
Objection number one.
I have spent my youth and all the
best of my life in sin, and I
am afraid God will not accept me when
I offer Him only my old age.
Answer number one.
Has God said anywhere that He will not
accept old sinners who come to Him?
God has often made offers and promises in
universal terms, and is there any such exemption
put in?
Does Christ say, All who thirst, let them
come to Me and drink, except old sinners?
Does He anywhere say, Come to Me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, except
old sinners, and I will give you rest?
Or, Him that cometh to Me, I will
in no wise cast out, if he is
not an old sinner.
Did you ever read such exception anywhere in
the Bible?
Then why should you give way to exceptions
which you make out of your own heads,
or rather which the devil puts into your
heads, and which have no foundation in the
Word of God?
Indeed, it is more rare that old sinners
are willing to come than others, but if
they do come, they are as readily accepted
as any whatever.
Answer number two.
When God accepts young persons, it is not
for the sake of the service which they
are likely to do for Him afterwards, or
because youth is better worth accepting than old
age.
You seem entirely to mistake the matter in
thinking that God will not accept you because
you are old, as though He readily accepted
persons in their youth because their youth is
better worth His acceptance.
It is only for the sake of Jesus
Christ that God is willing to accept any.
You say your life is almost spent, and
you are afraid that the best time for
serving God is past, and that therefore God
will not now accept you, as if it
were for the sake of the service which
persons are likely to do for Him after
they are converted that He accepts them.
But a self-righteous spirit is at the
bottom of such objections.
Men cannot get off from the notion that
it is for some goodness or service of
their own, either done or expected to be
done, that God accepts persons and receives them
into favor.
Indeed, those who deny God their youth, the
best part of their lives, and spend it
in the service of Satan, dreadfully sin and
provoke God, and He very often leaves them
to hardness of heart when they are grown
old.
But if they are willing to accept Christ
when old, He is as ready to receive
them as any others.
For in that matter, God has respect only
to Christ and His worthiness.
Objection number two.
But I fear that I have committed sins
that are peculiar to reprobates.
I have sinned against light and strong convictions
of conscience.
I have sinned presumptuously and have so resisted
the strivings of the Spirit of God that
I am afraid I have committed such sins
as none of God's elect ever commit.
I cannot think that God will ever leave
one whom He intends to save to go
on and commit sins against so much light
and conviction and with such horrid presumption.
And others may say, I have had risings
of heart against God, blasphemous thoughts, a spiteful
and malicious spirit, and have abused mercy and
the strivings of the Spirit, trampled upon the
Savior, and my sins are such as are
peculiar to those who are reprobated to eternal
damnation.
Answer number one.
There is no sin peculiar to reprobates but
the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Do you read of any other in the
Word of God?
And if you do not read of any
there, what ground have you to think any
such thing?
What other rule have we by which to
judge of such matters but the divine Word?
If we venture to go beyond that, we
shall be miserably in the dark.
When we pretend to go further in our
determinations than the Word of God, Satan takes
us up and leads us.
It seems to you that such sins are
peculiar to the reprobate and such as God
never forgives.
But what reason can you give for if
you have no Word of God to reveal
it?
Is it because you cannot see how the
mercy of God is sufficient to pardon or
the blood of Christ to cleanse from such
presumptuous sins?
If so, it is because you never yet
saw how great the mercy of God is.
You never saw the sufficiency of the blood
of Christ, and you know not how far
the virtue of it extends.
Some elect persons have been guilty of all
manner of sins except the sin against the
Holy Ghost.
And unless you have been guilty of this,
you have not been guilty of any that
are peculiar to reprobates.
Answer number two.
Men may be less likely to believe for
sins which they have committed and not the
less readily pardoned when they do believe.
It must be acknowledged that some sinners are
in more danger of hell than others.
Though all are in great danger, some are
less likely to be saved.
Some are less likely ever to be converted
and come to Christ.
But all who do come to him are
alike readily accepted, and there is as much
encouragement for one man to come to Christ
as another.
Such sins, as you mention, are indeed exceeding
heinous and provoking to God, and do in
a special manner bring the soul into danger
of damnation and into danger of being given
to final hardness of heart.
God more commonly gives men up to the
judgment of final hardness for such sins than
for others.
Yet they are not peculiar to reprobates.
There is but one sin that is so,
the sin against the Holy Ghost.
And notwithstanding the sins which you have committed,
if you can find it in your heart
to come to Christ and close with him,
you will be accepted not at all the
less readily because you have committed such sins.
Though God more rarely causes some sorts of
sinners to come to Christ than others, it
is not because His mercy or the redemption
of Christ is not as sufficient for them
as for others.
Rather, it is because in wisdom He sees
fit so to dispense His grace for a
restraint upon the wickedness of men, and because
it is His will to give converting grace
in the use of means among which this
is one, to lead a moral and religious
life agreeable to our light and the convictions
of our consciences.
But once any sinner is willing to come
to Christ, mercy is as ready for him
as for any.
There is no consideration at all had of
his sins.
Let him have been ever so sinful.
His sins are not remembered.
God does not upbraid him with them.
Objection number three.
Would it not be better for me to
wait till I shall have made myself better
before I presume to come to Christ?
I have been and see myself to be
very wicked now, but I am in hopes
of mending myself and rendering myself at least
not so wicked.
Then I shall have more courage to come
to God for mercy.
Answer number one.
Consider how unreasonably you act.
You are striving to set up yourselves as
your own saviors.
You are striving to get something out of
your own on the account of which you
may the more readily be accepted.
By this it appears that you do not
seek to be accepted only on Christ's account.
And is not this to rob Christ of
the glory of being your only Savior?
Yet this is the way in which you
are hoping to make Christ willing to save
you.
Answer number two.
You can never come to Christ at all
unless you first see that he will not
accept you the more readily for anything that
you can do.
You must first see that it is utterly
in vain for you to try to make
yourselves better on any such account.
You must see that you can never make
yourselves any more worthy or less unworthy by
anything which you can perform.
Answer number three.
If ever you truly come to Christ, you
must see that there is enough in him
for your pardon, though you be no better
than you are.
If you do not see the sufficiency of
Christ to pardon you, without any righteousness of
your own to recommend you, you will never
come so as to be accepted by him.
The way to be accepted is to come
not on any such encouragement, that now you
have made yourselves better and more worthy, or
not so unworthy, but on the mere encouragement
of Christ's worthiness and God's mercy.
And finally, answer number four.
If ever you truly come to Christ, you
must come to him to make you better.
You must come as a patient comes to
his physician, with his diseases or wounds to
be cured.
Spread all your wickedness before him, and do
not plead your goodness, but plead your badness
and your necessity on that account.
Do not say, pardon mine iniquity, for it
is not as great as it was, but
say as did the psalmist in our text,
pardon mine iniquity, for it is great.