How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Struggles of conscience
In Luther’s day the precise evil under which men laboured was this: they believed in being self-righteous, and so they supposed that they must have good works before they might trust in Christ. In our day the evil takes another shape. Men have aimed at being self-righteous in quite a singular fashion; they think they must feel worse, and have a deeper conviction of sin before they may trust in Christ. It is really the same evil, from the same old germ of self-righteousness, but it has taken another and more crafty shape. It is with this deadly evil I want to grapple. In the Puritanic age there was a great deal of experimental preaching. Some of it was unhealthy, because it took for its standard what the Christian felt and not what the Saviour said; the inference from a believer’s experience, rather than the message which goes before belief. We always get wrong when we say one Christian’s experience is to be estimated by what another has felt.
I. By way of consolation. The better a man is the more anxious he is to know the worst of his case. Bad men do not want to know their badness. It should comfort you to know that the prayer of the text has been constantly offered by the most advanced of saints. You never prayed like this years ago when you were a careless sinner. It is indeed very probable you do already feel your guilt, and what you are asking for have in measure realised.
II. By way of instruction. It sometimes happens that God answers this prayer by allowing a man to fall into more and more gross sin, or by opening the eyes of the soul, not so much by providence as by the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit. I advise you to particularise your sins; to hear a personal ministry, seek a preacher who deals with you as a man alone by yourself; seek to study much the law of God.
III. By way of discrimination. Take care to discriminate between the work of the Spirit and the work of the devil. It is the work of the Spirit to make a man feel that he is a sinner, but it never was His work to make a man feel that Christ would forget him. Satan always works by trying to counterfeit the work of the Spirit. Take care not to make a righteousness out of your feelings. Anything which keeps from Christ is sin.
IV. By way of exhortation.
1. It is a very great sin not to feel your guilt, and not to mourn over it, but then it is one of the sins that Jesus Christ atoned for on the tree. It is only Jesus who can give you that heart which you seek. Christ can soften the heart, and a man can never soften it himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
How many are my sins
The meaning of a question is often determined by its reason, spirit, tone. At this stage of the controversy between Job and his would be friends, Job turns his speech from them to God. Smarting under their reproofs, in perplexity dark and deep about the ways of God, Job turns to Him with mournful complaint. The faith that breaks forth in majestic tone--“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”--again seems to be mixed with gloomy doubts; bitterness and melancholy mark his utterances. He says to God, “How many are my iniquities and my sins?” We know the end of the story. Job was proved right in the main. With what motive, and in what spirit shall we ask this question? Is it wise question to ask? If God were to answer it, literally, directly, and immediately, would we not be utterly overwhelmed in despair? God answered Job’s question in a way very different from what he expected. God so revealed Himself to the patriarch that he exclaimed, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” God will deal very tenderly with a soul sincerely asking the question of the text. No man will have any arithmetical answer. But a sincere seeker desiring to know his state as a sinner will come to know enough. Sin has reference to its standard; to its action; and to its effects. All true religion has its deep foundation in the knowledge and conviction of sin. It strikes its strong roots down through the feelings into the conscience. (Donald Smith Brunton.)