Grace Brings Transformation (2)

As for those who find themselves to be ‘old men' still, who have lived, and still live, in corruption, they must not think they have any benefit by the gospel. If they do, they deceive themselves. For whoever says he has communion with God but walks in darkness is a liar, for God is light (1 John 1:5, 6). How can a man see himself in the love of God and remain in a dark state opposite to love? Will it not alter him? It will not allow him to live in sins against conscience. Let no one who does so think he has benefit by Christ. That knowledge is but a notional knowledge, a speculation. It is not a spiritual knowledge, because wherever the knowledge of God in Christ is real, there is a change and conversion of the whole person. There is a new judgement and new affections. The bent and bias is another way than they were before.
There is a change which in the Scripture is called a turning (Matt. 18:3). Whereas before, they turned their back upon God and good, now they turn their faces to look toward God and heaven and to a better condition; for this change is nothing else but conversion. Those who have seen Christ, the sight makes them differ from themselves; it works a change.
If there were not a change, it would make God swear falsely. For according to the song of Zechariah, 'He has sworn that, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our life' (Luke 1:73-75). If anyone says he is delivered from his enemies and from the penalty of his sins, and yet does not live in holiness and righteousness, he makes God's oath useless, for God's oath joins both together: deliverance, and serving without fear. All who are in a state of deliverance have grace granted them by which they may serve God in holiness and righteousness all their lives.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 129-30 [140-41]
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