It’s important to not confuse godly sorrow of 2 Cor. 7:8-11 and Luke 15:17-19, with groveling and wallowing in one’s guilt and shame.
It is more important to not confuse conviction with condemnation. Conviction, like chastisement, is God’s work to turn His child away from sin and unto repentance, and reconciliation to Himself.
The Spirit pressing upon one the convicting weight of guilt through the preaching, especially in the matter of a particular sin, is the Spirit telling you to examine your heart and repent. The efficacious Spirit is able to pervade our inmost recesses to bring conviction to our renewed consciences. The Spirit “powerfully illumines our minds so that we may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God”, Canons 3-4. art 11. Thus, we can be sure that true believers are able to discern conviction. And by faith they can know it is not condemnation.
The Spirit does not do this with unbelievers, whose consciences are seared.
Conviction’s purpose
In the believer, conviction brings an understanding that one is truly guilty. By the Spirit, it works the acknowledgement that what one has done, or thought or said, was truly sinful. Not just wrong, but that it was sin against God. When the Spirit brings the acknowledgment of guilt to one’s conscience, He does not intend to bring hopelessness or despair. Rather, it is to point one to Christ, our only hope.
The Spirit never speaks condemnation to a son or daughter of God, Romans 8:1, because Christ bore our condemnation. The Spirit’s conviction through the Word coming to the regenerated believer is God saying to that believer, ‘You have sinned, so come to Me!’, see Gen. 3:9 & 21.
When the Word of God comes to the unbeliever, it only condemns. The unbeliever cannot acknowledge sin because he does not see his sin. Unbelievers cannot know true conviction. The unbeliever hears only condemnation, ‘You are pronounced guilty, away from Me’.
Conviction’s source
Conviction comes in the Spirit’s use of warnings, admonitions, and threatenings. Basically, the Law points out our sin, failures, misery, and our natural condition of spiritual death. This is the first use of the law, the first section of the Catechism, and the first point of reformed sermons. The Spirit uses the law for our good as Rom. 8:28 teaches.
The warnings, admonitions and threatenings of scripture are like gracious flashing lights and warning signs that indicate one is going the wrong way and that there is danger ahead. If one doesn’t heed the warnings and change course, one ends up harming himself, and others. He could even come near to death. He might even need extra help from the church, perhaps even spiritual surgery, to get out of his trouble and get back on the right spiritual course, LD 31, Q.A. 85.
Why the Spirit uses these things
These warnings, admonitions, and threatenings are the means by which God gets one from regeneration to one’s secured glorification, Canon 2. art 8. God ordained the use of commands, warnings, cautions, urgings, and standards. These forge a stronger faith, and growth in grace, Canons 3-4. art 17, 5. art 14; Prov. 6:23, and 2 Tim. 3:16. They also prevent self-deception of any false security.
They test one’s level of faithfulness in living for Christ and others instead of self (1 Sam. 12:24, 2 Chron. 19:9, Psalm 26:3, Ps. 37:28-31, Prov. 2:7-8, Matt. 25:21, 1 Cor. 4:2 & 14, 1 Cor. 15:58, Eph. 1:1, Col. 1:2, Col. 3:16-17, Hebrews 3:1-6, Heb. 10:22-24, James 1:12, Rev. 17:14). They cause one to soberly reflect on the dangers of sin.
Conviction is not about whether you are a christian or not. That would be second-guessing your conscience. Every believer knows in his conscience that he is saved. That is faith. That is John 3:18. Rather, conviction is about whether you have sinful patterns in your life, whether your life is as it ought to be.
Furthermore, these warnings and admonitions are not God’s hatred of His children, nor even the condemning anger and wrath that is reserved for the unbeliever. Rather, for the believer, warnings and admonitions, etc. are like a loving parent’s sharp rebuke to a child. Love warns in the child’s disobedience, and threatens consequences and chastisements. This is done for their good and even their safety.
Conviction and justification
Spirit-worked conviction is the beauty, and joy, of the truth of justification working in our souls. Justification removes judicial condemnation thus freeing the conscience of terror and dread. Justification renders the conscience good, 1 Tim. 1:5; and so, it renders spiritual conviction a good thing for God’s people. When our consciences accuse us while we walk by faith, 2 Cor. 5:7, we accept the benefit of justification by a true faith, with a believing heart.
So, though in conviction “my conscience accuse me” HC LD 23, QA 60, by faith I do “embrace Jesus Christ, with all his merits, appropriate him, and seek nothing more besides him” BC 22. And “inasmuch as I embrace such benefit [of justification] with a believing heart” (HC LD QA 60), I ‘receive and apply the same to myself by faith only’ (from QA 61); and thus I receive “all things, which are requisite to my salvation” (BC 22).
Spiritual conviction of one’s sin is from on High. The Spirit’s conviction breaks hard hearts, helping us to yield to the Spirit and heed His warnings. Like the faithful wounds of a friend (Prov. 27:6), rebukes from the Spirit brings life. We give thanks, as David often did, when the Spirit points out sin in us and convicts us. See Psalm 19:7-14. This is how God’s gift of repentance is worked in us; we do not conjure repentance up in ourselves, from our own gratitude or love for God, or by our own strength.
Conviction and preservation
Conviction belongs to God’s preservation of his adopted children; which has election as its source. We see this in Canon 5. First, article 2 points out that our sins furnish us with constant matter for humiliation before God, because the Spirit pricks our consciences about it. And instead of despair, we fly to Christ in faith. Article 14 teaches that God ordained the preaching, with its exhortations and threatenings, to begin this work of grace in us. In this way he preserves, continues and perfects it.
“The Spirit’s use of the means of preaching to bring warnings, press upon our conscience our sense of guilt (even to the ‘torment’ of our conscience – Can 5. 13), and work in our heart, is God’s ordained way to preserve us. Thus, through the power of that preservation, we persevere”. Herman Hoeksema, Ref. Dogmatics 2005, vol 2, p 169.
Some final thoughts
Are these hyper-grace people, leaders and followers, believers? I would presume so. If they believe in and confess Christ and him crucified, and risen again; that is the definition of a believer.
Are they Christians? Yes, they do not promote licentiousness, and they do promote holy living. It is not clear from their writings whether they to hold any kind of discipline since they believe that sins are basically erased, or as many put it, forgiven in Eternity Past.
Lack of discipline language is an issue, but then, they are usually not formed into denominations of their own but exist in many and various church groups, mostly conservative. Without being their own denomination, the issue of discipline as a mark of a true church loses its weight.
Are they reformed? No, they cannot claim to be reformed since they hold to ideas that do not conform with the 3 forms of unity. Because they do not codify their beliefs, the hyper-grace teachers have little spiritual heritage to pass on to the next generation. This explains why Jack Taylor emphasizes the idea of spiritual fatherhood and spiritual sons. This is the only way his followers can pass on his theological heritage.
