422. Monday after Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.
Let me know thy holiness, O God,
that I may see my sin,
and fear thy judgment. Amen.
Job 15, 14-16. What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight: How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
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We might say that according to this text man is as unholy as God is holy. However it would not be exactly correct; for nothing can properly be compared with the holiness of God. “The heavens are not clean in his sight.” The glory of his countenance eclipses the purest sunlight. — Now, since God is so exceeding holy, what shall be our fate when we appear before him? How shall he which is born of a woman be righteous; a man abominable and filthy, which drinketh iniquity like water? And how can our Pelagians contrive to explain away this text?
Do learn to know the nature of Adam’s offense and of original sin; that your depravity is greater than you can say or understand. Learn to know yourself; to know what you are become as a result of the fall: that from being the image of God you are become the image of Satan, with all his wickedness and malignity. For as the image of God means all the holiness of God, purity, and every virtue; and as man before the fall was wholly of heaven, spiritual, and pure as an angel; so man’s inner nature is now become wholly of the earth, carnal, and brutish. In his anger and cruelty man has something of the nature of the lion; in malice and greed he is wolfish; in filth and gluttony he resembles the swine. If you will carefully examine yourself, you shall find in you a whole world of unclean beasts; and even in the one little member, the tongue, you shall find a nest of vipers and wicked spirits, “a world of iniquity.”
— Johann Arndt
This is the teaching of the Bible; almost literally what Paul writes in Romans 3, 10-18; it is truth unto salvation. How comes it, then, that only few men will listen to it, and that a still smaller number recognize the accuracy of this description of themselves? The trouble is that our conception of God is a faded picture. Come before the thrice holy and terrible God, in whose presence the seraphims cover their faces, saying. “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts.” Know him from whom you cannot escape; who in his holy zeal spared not even his only Son, who had taken upon himself our sins, but gave him the full cup of wrath to drink, though he wept, and prayed that it be taken from him. Know our God, who is a consuming fire. Do this; and you shall cease to dream of your own piety, and you shall see your uncleanness and unrighteousness. Your disease is incurable; yet there is One says: “I am the Lord that healeth thee.”
My God, I am shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me; and thus my heart is evil from my childhood. Have mercy on me, for Jesus’ sake; forgive me, and heal me, that I may live and praise thee. Amen.*
In vain we seek for peace with God
By methods of our own:
Jesus, there’s nothing but thy blood
Can bring us near the throne.
’Tis thy atoning sacrifice
Hath answered all demands;
And peace and pardon from the skies
Are blessings from thy hands.
[suggested tune: Martyrdom (TLH 154); listen here]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.