Without any cheering support from the blood of Christ: On spiritual self-flagellation || John Pesebre

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Oh God of unsearchable riches,

Before thee I am nothing but vanity, iniquity, perishing;

Sin has forfeited thy favour,

stripped me of thy image,

banished me from thy presence,

expos. ed me to the curse of thy law.

From the Valley of Vision

A Christian's very being is found in the Being of God. Such realization is not a realization of utility, but of necessity. Holiness also has a being rooted in that identity; when we sin, our holiness creates an incidence in our consciousness as we reflect on our being because that sin is incidental to our actions -- it is directly connected. My identity is directly connected to that sin but I must alienate myself from it through the grace of repentance that God mercifully given as a spiritual duty that will alienate myself from that sin. Without this grace of repentance, we will take matters into our own hands. Without the grace of repentance we will meander to "worldly sorrow [that] brings death" (2 Cor. 7:10)

Why do we have remove ourself from this sin?

Because sin attempts to be an autonomous theory of identity for you. It puts itself into your narrative, to create an estrangement from your real identity in God. The Psalmist cries out to be estrangemed from this sin,

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice let thine ears by attentive to the voice of my supplications. (Psalm 130:1, 2)

John Owen reflects on this verse saying,

The moral use of the word, as expressing the state and condition of the souls of men, is metaphorical. These depths, then, are difficulties, or pressures, attended with fear, horror, danger, and trouble.

Our initial impulse in this estrangement is to get rid of it, just as we would get rid of a tumor. But we get rid of it with a feeling of shame, guilt and self-loathing. This might be what you will expect a true believer to do: to rend his heart and not his garments (Joel 2:13) -- a picture of tingling pain that sin creates. We expend all our efforts to rid oursves of it. Being destitute of the Gospel, we will self-flagellate.

Owen puts it this way, "[The soul] plunges itself into the curse of the law and flames of hell, without any cheering support from the blood of Christ."

Thus for our succour, we continue with the prophet Joel and read the entire verse --

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

A Christian might self-flagellate himself after sin because sin has exposed him to the curse of the law and would like to forge a debilitating sense of estrangement and separation from the shame and emptiness of that sin. It is at this point that sin secures us in its grip. It is a consciousness destitute of the grace of God in forgiveness and mercy.

"Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:1

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Suggested Puritan reading
John Owen, The Soul in the Depths of Sin
Ralph Venning's The Sinfulness of Sin