Bunyan: Our Sin + The Saviour = The Sweetest Frame

In God alone there truly is a sweet frame of mind to be found. Whilst such an experience is not always with us and we should not rely on it, it ought to be precious to deeply realise that God himself is your haven, your refuge, your saviour! And even being reminded of our own sin ought only to drive us deeper into our appreciation of what Jesus has done for us! Bunyan explains, using the old meaning of the word “frame” which we have been looking at for a few articles now:

The sweetest frame, the most heart-endearing frame, that possibly a Christian can get into while in this world, is to have a warm sight of sin, and of a Saviour upon the heart at one time. Now it weeps not for fear and through torment, but by virtue of constraining grace and mercy, and is at this very time, so far off of disquietness of heart, by reason of the sight of its wickedness, that it is driven into an ecstasy, by reason of the love and mercy that is mingled with the sense of sin in the soul.

The heart never sees so much of the power of mercy as now, nor of the virtue, value, and excellency of Christ in all his offices as now, and the tongue so sweetly enlarged to proclaim and cry up grace as now; now will Christ ‘come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.’ (2 Thess 1:10)

Bunyan, J. (2006). The Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Judgement (Vol. 2, p. 99). Logos Bible Software.

Bunyan also describes his own experience which he reports as his conversion in words which resonate strongly with the hymn which sparked our conversation: My Hope is Built on Nothing Less. It is interesting to note that this great revelation took place whilst he was out in nature walking. Much good can be done to our souls by walking in God’s creation with an open heart towards him:

But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was adoing, God could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever (Heb 13:8).

Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away; so that, from that time, those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God. So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find that sentence, Thy righteousness is in heaven; but could not find such a saying, wherefore my heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my remembrance, he “of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”; by this word I saw the other sentence true (1 Cor 1:30).

For by this scripture, I saw that the man Christ Jesus, as he is distinct from us, as touching his bodily presence, so he is our righteousness and sanctification before God. Here, therefore, I lived for some time, very sweetly at peace with God through Christ; Oh methought, Christ! Christ! there was nothing but Christ that was before my eyes, I was not now only for looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as of his blood, burial, or resurrection, but considered him as a whole Christ! As he in whom all these, and all other his virtues, relations, offices, and operations met together, and that ‘as he sat’ on the right hand of God in heaven.

It was glorious to me to see his exaltation, and the worth and prevalency of all his benefits, and that because of this: now I could look from myself to him, and should reckon that all those graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, when their gold is in their trunks at home! Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home! In Christ, my Lord and Saviour! Now Christ was all; all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption.

Further, the Lord did also lead me into the mystery of union with the Son of God, that I was joined to him, that I was flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, and now was that a sweet word to me in Ephesians 5:30. By this also was my faith in him, as my righteousness, the more confirmed to me; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and earth at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my head, by my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.

Now I saw Christ Jesus was looked on of God, and should also be looked upon by us, as that common or public person, in whom all the whole body of his elect are always to be considered and reckoned; that we fulfilled the law by him, died by him, rose from the dead by him, got the victory over sin, death, the devil, and hell, by him; when he died, we died; and so of his resurrection. “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise,” saith he (Isa 26:19). And again, “After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight” (Hosea 6:2); which is now fulfilled by the sitting down of the Son of man on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, according to that to the Ephesians, he “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6).

Ah, these blessed considerations and scriptures, with many other of a like nature, were in those days made to spangle in mine eyes, ‘so that I have cause to say,’ “Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness” (Psa 150:1, 2).

Bunyan, J. (2006). Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (Vol. 1, pp. 35–36). Logos Bible Software.