I decided to do another post on chapter two of Martyn Lloyd-Jones book because the material is so important. I did not do that in the first post because it would have been far too long.
The following link is to part one of this topic: https://sheeplywolves.com/spiritual-depression-by-martyn-lloyd-jones-chapter-2-excerpts/
Excerpts regarding Jones’ second principle from the latter part of chapter two of Spiritual Depression [I divided his large paragraphs for ease of reading]:
This brings me to the second principle. The second thing the true Christian realizes is God’s way of salvation in Christ.
This is the great good news. ‘This is the thing I am preaching’, says Paul, in effect, to the Romans, ‘this righteousness that is of God, that is in Jesus Christ, His righteousness.’
What is he talking about? It can be put in the form of a question if you like. What is your view of Christ? Why did He come into the world? What has God done in Christ? Is He merely a teacher, an example, and so on?
I shall not waste your time by showing the utter futility of all that. No, this is something positive, this righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Salvation is all in Christ, and unless you feel yourself shut up to Christ with everything else having failed, you are not a Christian, and it is not surprising that you are not happy.
‘The righteousness of God in Jesus Christ’ means that God sent Him into the world in order that He might honour the Law and so men might be forgiven. Here is One who gave perfect obedience to God. Here is One, God in the flesh, who has taken human nature unto Himself and, as man, has rendered perfect homage to God, perfect allegiance, perfect obedience. God’s law He kept fully and absolutely without a failure. But not only that. Paul adds other things in this classic statement of the doctrine of the Atonement; ‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: to declare at this time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus’. Which means this.
Before man can be reconciled to God, before man can know God, this sin of his must be removed.
God has said that He will punish sin, and that the punishment of sin is death and banishment from the face of God.
This has to be dealt with. And what has happened?
Well, says Paul, God has set Him forth as a propitiation. That is the means which God has employed. His being the propitiation for our sins means that God has made Him responsible for our sins. They have been placed upon Him and God has dealt with them and punished them there, and therefore because He has punished our sins in Christ, in His body upon the Cross, He can justly forgive us.
You see this is high doctrine. It is a daring thing for the Apostle to say, but it has to be said and I repeat it. God, because He is righteous and holy and eternal, could not forgive the sin of man without punishing it. He said He would punish it, so He must punish it, and, blessed be His Name, He has punished it.
He is just, therefore, and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus. The sin has been punished, so God, Who is just and righteous, can forgive sin.
How then does it work? It works like this. God accepts this righteousness of Christ, this perfect righteousness face to face with the Law which He honoured in every respect. He has kept it and given obedience to it, He has borne its penalty. The Law is fully satisfied. God’s way of salvation, says Paul, is that. He gives to us the righteousness of Christ.
If we have seen our need and go to God and confess it, God will give us His own Son’s righteousness. He imputes Christ’s righteousness to us who believe in Him, and regards us as righteous, and declares and pronounces us to be righteous in Him.
That is the way of salvation, the Christian way of salvation, the way of salvation through justification by faith.
So that it comes to this. That I see and I believe and I look to nothing and to no one except to the Lord Jesus Christ. I like Paul’s way of putting it. He asks: ‘Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay, but by the law of faith’.
You foolish Jews, says Paul, you are boasting about the fact that you have been circumcised, that you have the oracles of God and that you are God’s people. You must cease to do that. You must not rest upon the fact that you have this tradition and that you are children of your forefathers.
There is no boasting, you have to rest exclusively upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect work.
The Jew is not superior to the Gentile in this respect. ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ We look to Christ and to Christ alone, and not to ourselves in any respect whatsoever.
To make it quite practical let me say that there is a very simple way of testing yourself to know whether you believe that. We betray ourselves by what we say. The Lord Himself said we should be justified by our words, and how true it is.
I have often had to deal with this point with people, and I have explained the way of justification by faith and told them how it is all in Christ, and that God puts His righteousness upon us. I have explained it all to them, and then I have said: ‘Well, now are you quite happy about it, do you believe that?’ And they say, ‘Yes’. Then I say: ‘Well, then, you are now ready to say that you are a Christian’. And they hesitate. And I know they have not understood. Then I say: ‘What is the matter, why are you hesitating?’ And they say: ‘I do not feel that I am good enough’.
At once I know that in a sense I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves; their idea still is that they have to make themselves good enough to be a Christian, good enough to be accepted with Christ. They have to do it!
‘I am not good enough.’ It sounds very modest, but it is the lie of the devil, it is a denial of the faith. You think that you are being humble. But you will never be good enough; nobody has ever been good enough.
The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him!
As long as you go on thinking about yourself and saying: ‘Ah, yes, I would like to, but I am not good enough; I am a sinner, a great sinner,’ you are denying God and you will never be happy.
You will continue to be cast down and disquieted in your soul. You will think you are better at times and then again you will find that you are not as good as you thought you were.
You read the lives of the saints and you realize that you are nowhere. So you keep on asking: ‘What can I do? I still feel that I am not good enough’.
Forget yourself, forget all about yourself. Of course you are not good enough, you never will be good enough.
The Christian way of salvation tells you this, that it does not matter what you have been, it does not matter what you have done.
How can I put this plainly? I try to say it from the pulpit every Sunday because I think it is the thing that is robbing most people of the joy of the Lord. It does not matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell, if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin, it does not matter from the standpoint of being justified with God.
You are no more hopeless than the most respectable self-righteous person in the world. Do you believe that?
There is another good way of testing yourself.
Do you believe that from the standpoint of salvation and justification with God that all our customary distinctions are abolished at a stroke and that what determines whether we are sinners or not is not what we have done, but our relationship to God?
I say, therefore, that this is the test, that you acknowledge readily and say clearly that you look to Christ and to Christ alone and to nothing and no one else, that you stop looking at particular sins and particular people. Look at nothing and nobody but look entirely to Christ and say:
‘My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesu’s blood and righteousness,
I dare not trust my sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesu’s Name.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.’
You must so believe that as to be able to go further and say with holy boldness:
The terrors of law and of God With me can have nothing to do,
My Saviour’s obedience and blood Hide all my transgressions from view.’
Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression? The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and for ever to your past. Realize that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ. Never look back at your sins again. Say: ‘It is finished, it is covered by the Blood of Christ’.
That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you.
What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying. No! you just begin to say:
‘I rest my faith on Him alone Who died for my transgressions to atone.’
Take that first step and you will find that immediately you will begin to experience a joy and a release that you have never known in your life before.
‘Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law.’ Blessed be the Name of God for such a wondrous salvation for desperate sinners.
Lloyd-Jones, David artyn. Spiritual Depression (p. 35). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
The purpose of this two-part mini-series is to whet the appetites of those who are depressed, that they might turn to this book for some biblical guidance.