i loathe me

At one of his weekly tea-parties somebody asked Simeon:(1) 'What, Sir, do you consider the principal mark of regeneration?' It was a probing question. With the current popularity of the 'born-again movement', one wonders how the average evangelical believer would reply today. This was Simeon's answer: 'the very first and indispensable sign is self-loathing and abhorrence. Nothing short of this can be admitted as an evidence of a real change ... I want to see more of this humble, contrite, broken spirit amongst us. It is the very spirit that belongs to self-condemned sinners ... This sitting in the dust is most pleasing to God ... give me to be with a broken-hearted Christian, and I prefer his society to that of all the rest ... Were I now addressing to you my dying words, I should say nothing else but what I have just said. Try to live in this spirit of self-abhorrence, and let it habitually mark your life and conduct.'(2)

'Self-loathing', 'self-condemnation', 'self-abhorrence'. The words grate on modem ears. The contemporary craze is for a bigger and better self-image. We are exhorted on all sides to love ourselves, forgive ourselves, respect ourselves, assert ourselves. And to be sure, as in all heresies, there are a few grains of truth in this one. For we should gratefully affirm ourselves as creatures made in the image of God, and as children of God redeemed by Christ and indwelt by his Spirit. In this mercy of God our Creator and Saviour we are to rejoice greatly, and there is much exhortation to such joy in Simeon's sermons.

But to rejoice in God is one thing; to rejoice in ourselves is another. Self-congratulation and the worship of God are mutually incompatible. Those who have a high view of themselves always have a correspondingly low view of God.

Notes:

1. Charles Simeon (1758-1836) Minister of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, 1783-1836.
2. Quoted in William Carus (editor), "Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend Charles Simeon", London 1848. pp. 651f.

--From Introduction to "Evangelical Preaching" (Sermons of Charles Simeon) (Portland: Multnomah, 1986), p. xxxix.