Being Vile

"Behold, I am vile;"

KJV Job 40:4

"One cheering word, poor lost sinner, for thee! You think you must not come to God because YOU are vile. Now, there is not a saint living on earth but has been made to feel that he is vile. If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul were all obliged to say "I am vile," oh, poor sinner, wilt thou be ashamed to join in the same confession? If divine grace does not eradicate all sin from the believer, how dost thou hope to do it thyself? and if God loves His people while they are yet vile, dost thou think thy vileness will prevent His loving thee? Believe on Jesus, thou outcast of the world's society! Jesus calls thee, and such as thou art."

C. H. Spurgeon

I have had the privilege of being taught about two disciple's response to betraying Christ. While Judas felt the full impact of betraying Jesus, and seeing the vileness of his sin, committed suicide. Peter, who was no less sinful in his belligerently denial of being a disciple, wept bitterly knowing that his vileness can only be forgiven by Christ. Eventually, he became the rock by which Christ built the early church upon.

What then should our response be in relation with the vile sin that we constantly wrestle with ? Can murder, adultery, fornication or pornography negate the complete redemptive work of Christ ?

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."

NIV Romans 8:1-4