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Part two of a series. Read part one.
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Editor's Note: Continuing our presentation of chapter three of Arthur Pink's Profiting From the Word, we find the first vital point at which understanding the mystery of Christ profits the soul: understanding our need of Him. Today much of the church as a body, and professing Christians individually, operate as though they do not need Christ - except, so very often, to presumptuously invoke His name as alleged endorsement of un-Biblical living and pursuit of the unbelieving world's approval. May the Lord by His Word and Spirit bring God's people to their knees in repentance of such things. May we truly and ever more fully understand our need of Christ! - Dr. Paul Elliott
An individual is profited from the Scriptures when they reveal to him his need of Christ. Man in his natural estate deems himself self-sufficient. True, he has a dim perception that all is not quite right between himself and God. Yet he has no difficulty in persuading himself that he is able to do that which will propitiate9 Him. That lies at the foundation of all man's "religion,â? begun by Cain, in whose "way" (Jude 11) the multitudes still walk. Tell the devout religionist that "they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:8), and he is at once offended. Press upon him the fact that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6), and his hypocritical urbanity at once gives place to anger. So it was when Christ was on earth. The most religious people of all, the Jews, had no sense that they were "lost" and in dire need of an almighty Savior.
"They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick" (Matthew 9:12). It is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit, by His application of the Scriptures, to convict sinners of their desperate condition, to bring them to see that their state is such that "from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness" in them, but "wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores" (Isaiah 11:6). As the Spirit convicts us of our sins - our ingratitude to God, our murmuring against Him, our wanderings from Him - as He presses upon us the claims of God - His right to our love, obedience and adoration, and all our sad failures to render Him His due - then are we made to recognize that Christ is our only hope, and that except we flee to Him for refuge, the righteous wrath of God will most certainly fall upon us.
Nor is this to be limited to the initial experience of conversion. The more the Spirit deepens His work of grace in the regenerated soul, the more that individual is made conscious of his pollution, his sinfulness, and his vileness; and the more does he discover his need of and learn to value that precious, precious, blood which cleanses from all sin. The Spirit is here to glorify Christ, and one chief way in which He does so is by opening wider and wider the eyes of those for whom He died, to see how suited Christ is for such wretched, foul, hell-deserving creatures. Yes, the more we are truly profiting from our reading of the Scriptures, the more do we feel our need of Him.
Next: The Spiritual Profit of Understanding the Reality of Christ
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