Excerpt from The Doctrine of Repentance, By Thomas Watson. (Chapter 3, Ingredient 4)
The fourth ingredient in repentance is shame: “that they may be ashamed of their iniquities” (Eze 43.10). Blushing is the color of virtue. When the heart has been made black with sin, grace makes the face red with blushing: “I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face” (Ezra 9.6). The repenting prodigal was so ashamed of his excess that he thought himself not worthy to be called a son any more (Luk 15.21). Repentance causes a holy bashfulness. If Christ’s blood was not at the sinner’s heart, there would not be so much blood in the sinner’s face. There are nine considerations about sin which may cause shame:
(1) Every sin makes us guilty, and guilt usually breeds shame. Adam never blushed in the time of innocence. While he kept the whiteness of the lily, he did not have the blushing of the rose; but when he had deflowered his soul by sin, he was ashamed. Sin has tainted our blood. We are guilty of high treason against the Crown of heaven. This may cause a holy modesty and blushing.
(2) In every sin there is much unthankfulness, and that is a matter of shame. The one who is upbraided with ingratitude will blush. We have sinned against God when he has given us no cause: “What iniquity have your fathers found in me?” (Jer 2.5). In what has God wearied us, unless his mercies have wearied us? Oh the silver drops that have fallen on us! We have had the finest of the wheat; we have been fed with angels’ food. The golden oil of divine blessing has run down on us from the head of our heavenly Aaron. And to abuse the kindness of so good a God, how this may make us ashamed! Julius Caesar took it unkindly at the hands of Brutus, on whom he bestowed so many favors, when he came to stab him: “What, you, my son Brutus?” O ungrateful, to be the worse for mercy! Aelian reports that the vulture draws sickness from perfumes. How unworthy it is to contract the disease of pride and luxury from the perfume of God’s mercy; to requite evil for good; to kick against our feeder (Deu 32.15); to make an arrow of God’s mercies and shoot it at him; to wound him with his own blessing! O horrid ingratitude! Will not this dye our faces a deep scarlet? Unthankfulness is a sin so great that God himself stands amazed at it: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isa 1.2).
“Unthankfulness is a sin so great that God himself stands amazed at it: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isa 1.2).
(3) Sin has made us naked, and that may breed shame. Sin has stripped us of our white linen of holiness. It has made us naked and deformed in God’s eye, which may cause blushing. When Hanun had abused David’s servants and cut off their garments so that their nakedness appeared, the text says, “the men were greatly ashamed” (2Sam 10.5).
(4) Our sins have put Christ to shame, and should we not be ashamed? The Jews arrayed him in purple; they put a reed in his hand, spat in his face, and in his greatest agonies reviled him. Here was “the shame of the cross;” and that which aggravated the shame was to consider the eminency of his person, as he was the Lamb of God. Did our sins put Christ to shame, and shall they not put us to shame? Did he wear the purple, and shall not our cheeks wear crimson? Who can behold the sun as it was blushing at Christ’s passion, and hiding itself in an eclipse, and yet not blush himself?
(5) Many sins which we commit are by the special instigation of the devil, and should this not cause shame? The devil put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ (Joh 13.2). He filled Ananias’ heart to lie (Act 5.3). He often stirs up our passions (James 3.6). Now, as it is a shame to bring forth a child illegitimately, so too it is a shame to bring forth those sins which may call the devil their father. It is said that the virgin Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost (Luk 1.35); but we often conceive by the power of Satan. When the heart conceives pride, lust, and malice, it is very often by the power of the devil. May not this make us ashamed: to think that many of our sins are committed in copulation with the old serpent?
(6) Sin, like Circe’s enchanting cup, turns men into beasts (Psa 49.12), and is that not a matter for shame? Sinners are compared to foxes (Luk 13.32), to wolves (Mat 7.15), to asses (Job 11.12), and to swine (2Pet 2.22). A sinner is a swine with a man’s head. He who was once little less than the angels in dignity has now become like the beasts. Grace in this life does not wholly obliterate this brutish temper. Agur, that good man, cried out, “Surely I am more brutish than any!” (Pro 30.1-2). But common sinners are in a way entirely made into brutes; they do not act rationally but are carried away by the violence of their lusts and passions. How this may make us ashamed who are thus degenerated below our own species? Our sins have taken away that noble, masculine spirit which we once had. The crown has fallen from our head. God’s image is defaced, reason is eclipsed, and conscience is stupefied. We have more in us of the brute than of the angel.
(7) In every sin there is folly (Jer 4.22). A man will be ashamed of his folly. Is he not a fool who labors more for the bread that perishes than for the bread of life? Is he not a fool who for a lust or a trifle will lose heaven, like Tiberius who for a drink forfeited his kingdom? Is he not a fool who, to safeguard his body, would injure his soul? Would someone let his arm or head be cut off to save his vest? Naviget antyciram (Horace). Is he not a fool who would believe a temptation before he believes a promise? Is he not a fool who minds his recreation more than his salvation? How this may make men ashamed: to think that they inherit not land, but folly (Pro14.18)
(8) What may make us blush is that the sins we commit are far worse than the sins of the heathen. We act against more light. To us have been committed the oracles of God. The sin committed by a Christian is worse than the same sin committed by an Indian because the Christian sins against clearer conviction. This is like the dye added to the wool, or the weight put into the scale: it makes it heavier.
(9) Our sins are worse than the sins of the devils: lapsed angels never sinned against Christ’s blood. Christ did not die for them. The medicine of his merit was never intended to heal them. But we have affronted and disparaged his blood by unbelief.
The devils never sinned against God’s patience. As soon as they apostatized, they were damned. God never waited for the angels, but we have spent from the stock of God’s patience. He has pitied our weakness, borne with our frowardness. His Spirit has been repulsed, and yet he has still importuned us and will take no denial. Our conduct has been so provoking as to have tried not only the patience of a Moses but of all the angels. We have put God to it, and made him weary of repenting (Jer15.6).
The devils never sinned against example. They were the first that sinned and they were made the first example. We have seen the angels, those morning stars, fall from their glorious orb; we have seen the old world drowned, Sodom burned, and yet have risked sin. How desperate is that thief who robs in the very place where his fellow hangs in chains. And surely, if we have out-sinned the devils, then it may well make us blush.
Use 1. Is shame an ingredient of repentance? If so, then how far from being penitents are those who have no shame? Many have sinned away shame: “the unjust knows no shame” (Zeph. 3.5). It is a great shame not to be ashamed. The Lord sets it as a brand upon the Jews: “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush” (Jer 6.15). The devil has stolen shame from men. When one of the persecutors in Queen Mary’s time was upbraided for his bloodiness toward the martyrs, he replied, “I see nothing to be ashamed of.” Many are no more ashamed of their sin than King Nebuchadnezzar was of being turned to eating grass. When men have hearts of stone and foreheads of brass, it is a sign that the devil has taken full possession of them. There is no creature capable of shame but man. The brute beasts are capable of fear and pain, but not of shame. You cannot make a beast blush. Those who cannot blush for sin too much resemble the beasts. There are some so far from this holy blushing that they are proud of their sins. They are proud of their long hair. These are the devil’s Nazarites. “Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man has long hair, it is a shame to him?” (1Cor 11.14). It confounds the distinction of the sexes.
“You cannot make a beast blush.”
Others are proud of their black spots. And what if God should turn them into blue spots? Others are so far from being ashamed of sin that they glory in their sins: “whose glory is in their shame” (Phil. 3.19). Some are ashamed of what is their glory: they are ashamed to be seen with a good book in their hand. Others glory in what is their shame: they look at sin as a piece of gallantry. The swearer thinks his speech is most graceful when it is interspersed with oaths. The drunkard considers it a glory that he can drink to excess (Isa 5.22). But when men are thrown into a fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter by the breath of the Almighty, then let them boast of sin as they see cause.
Use 2. Let us show our penitence by a modest blushing: “O my God, I blush to lift up my face” (Ezra 9.6). “My God” – there was faith; “I blush” – there was repentance. Hypocrites will confidently avouch God to be their God, but they do not know how to blush. O let us take holy shame to ourselves for sin. Be assured, the more we are ashamed of sin now, the less we will be ashamed at Christ’s coming. If the sins of the godly are mentioned at the Day of Judgment, it will not be to shame them, but to magnify the riches of God’s grace in pardoning them. Indeed, the wicked will be ashamed at the last day. They will sneak around and hang down their heads; but the saints will be without spot then (Eph 5.27), and without shame; therefore they are bid to lift up their heads (Luk 21.28).
