JM
Puritan Board Doctor
Which shall know every man the plague of his own heart. 1 Kings 8.38
John Gill:
(sin)…is a very nauseous and loathsome disease: the Psalmist speaks of it as such, My loins are filled with a loathsome disease (Ps. 38:7). He had respect to sin, or the fruit, and effect of it; for he had before observed, that there was no soundness in his flesh, nor any rest in his bones, because of his sin (Ps. 38:3).
This disease makes a person loathsome to Jehovah; who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. This is a disease that mankind are very early infected with; therefore, the apostate sons of Adam are represented by an infant cast out into the open field, to the loathing of its person in the day that it was born.
Being infected with such a disease as this, it cannot but be loathsome in the eyes of God: and sin, that makes us loathsome in the sight of God, makes us loathsome in our own sight too, when we are led to take a proper view of it. Hence those words of the apostle Paul, who had a large experience of the nature, force, and power of indwelling sin; O wretched man, that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:24); or from this dead body, which I carry about with me.
Do but represent unto yourselves how loathsome it must be for a living man to have a dead body fastened to him, and be obliged to carry it along with him wherever be goes; and to have it wherever he is. Just so it is with the people of God, who have any knowledge of this pestilential disease, this body of death, which they continually carry about with them.
This is a disease, also, that is mortal in itself, a deadly disease; as the plague is generally supposed to be. There are diseases which are not unto death; but the disease of sin is unto death. We read of one sin in particular which is unto death. It is emphatically so, namely, the unpardonable sin; because it is not forgiven, neither in this world, neither in the world to come (Matthew 12:32). But every sin is, in its own nature, deserving of death. The wages of every sin, is death (Rom. 6:23); eternal death. This disease is incurable, except by the grace of God and the blood of Christ.
What Jeremiah says of the people of Israel, that their bruise was incurable, and their wound grievous, because there was none to plead their cause that they might be bound up, and they had no healing medicines, may be said of all mankind, with respect to this disease of sin. It is incurable by any methods they themselves are capable of making use of, or others for them: When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound; then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb; yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound (Hosea 5:13).
So let a sinner, that is diseased with sin, use whatever means he can, short of Christ, and his blood, they will be all ineffectual.
Christ is the only physician that can cure the plague of the heart; and his blood is the sovereign balm.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
yes; and that Physician is Christ, that balm is his blood.
John Gill:
(sin)…is a very nauseous and loathsome disease: the Psalmist speaks of it as such, My loins are filled with a loathsome disease (Ps. 38:7). He had respect to sin, or the fruit, and effect of it; for he had before observed, that there was no soundness in his flesh, nor any rest in his bones, because of his sin (Ps. 38:3).
This disease makes a person loathsome to Jehovah; who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. This is a disease that mankind are very early infected with; therefore, the apostate sons of Adam are represented by an infant cast out into the open field, to the loathing of its person in the day that it was born.
Being infected with such a disease as this, it cannot but be loathsome in the eyes of God: and sin, that makes us loathsome in the sight of God, makes us loathsome in our own sight too, when we are led to take a proper view of it. Hence those words of the apostle Paul, who had a large experience of the nature, force, and power of indwelling sin; O wretched man, that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:24); or from this dead body, which I carry about with me.
Do but represent unto yourselves how loathsome it must be for a living man to have a dead body fastened to him, and be obliged to carry it along with him wherever be goes; and to have it wherever he is. Just so it is with the people of God, who have any knowledge of this pestilential disease, this body of death, which they continually carry about with them.
This is a disease, also, that is mortal in itself, a deadly disease; as the plague is generally supposed to be. There are diseases which are not unto death; but the disease of sin is unto death. We read of one sin in particular which is unto death. It is emphatically so, namely, the unpardonable sin; because it is not forgiven, neither in this world, neither in the world to come (Matthew 12:32). But every sin is, in its own nature, deserving of death. The wages of every sin, is death (Rom. 6:23); eternal death. This disease is incurable, except by the grace of God and the blood of Christ.
What Jeremiah says of the people of Israel, that their bruise was incurable, and their wound grievous, because there was none to plead their cause that they might be bound up, and they had no healing medicines, may be said of all mankind, with respect to this disease of sin. It is incurable by any methods they themselves are capable of making use of, or others for them: When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound; then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb; yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound (Hosea 5:13).
So let a sinner, that is diseased with sin, use whatever means he can, short of Christ, and his blood, they will be all ineffectual.
Christ is the only physician that can cure the plague of the heart; and his blood is the sovereign balm.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
yes; and that Physician is Christ, that balm is his blood.
