YouCantCleanse
by JC Ryle

III. My third remark is this. You cannot cleanse away your own sins.

I make this statement boldly and confidently. Startling as it sounds to the natural heart, I lay it down as a piece of undeniable Scriptural truth. In spite of all the Pharisees, and Roman Catholics, and Socinians, and Deists, and idolaters of human reason and human power, I unhesitatingly repeat my assertions.?Man's sins are many and great. It is of the utmost importance that these sins should be cleansed away. Man's guilt in the sight of God, is enormous. Man's danger of hell, after he dies, is imminent and tremendous. And yet man cannot cleanse away his own sins. It is written, and it is true, ?By deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.? (Rom. iii. 20.)

It will not cleanse away your sins to be sorry for them. You may mourn over your past wickedness, and humble yourself in sackcloth and ashes. You may shed floods of tears, and acknowledge your own guilt and danger. You may,?you must,?you ought to do this. But you will not by so doing wipe out your transgressions from the book of God. SORROW CANNOT MAKE ATONEMENT FOR SIN.

The convicted criminal in a court of justice is often sorry for his offences. He sees the misery and ruin they have brought upon him. He mourns over his folly in not listening to advice and in giving way to temptation. But the judge does not let him off because he is sorry. The deed has been done: the law has been broken; the penalty has been incurred. The punishment must be inflicted, notwithstanding the criminal's tears.?Reader, this is precisely your position in the sight of God. Your sorrow is right, and good, and proper. But your sorrow has no power whatever to cleanse away your sins. It needs something more than penitence to take the burden off your heart.

It will not cleanse away your sins to mend your life. You may reform your conduct, and turn over a new leaf: you may break off many evil habits, and take up many good ones; you may become, in short, an altered man in all your outward behaviour. You may,?you must,?you ought, to do so. Without such change no soul ever was saved. But you will not, by so doing, wipe away one particle of your guilt in God's sight. REFORMATION MAKES NO ATONEMENT FOR SIN.

The bankrupt tradesman, who owes ten thousand pounds and has not ten shillings to pay, may resolve to become a reformed character. After wasting his whole substance in riotous living, he may become steady, temperate, and respectable. It is all right and proper that he should be so: but this will not satisfy the claims of those to whom he owes money. Once more I say, this is precisely your case by nature in the sight of God. You owe him ten thousand talents, and have nothing to pay. To-day's amendments are all very well, but they do not wipe away yesterday's debts.?It requires something more than amendment and reformation to give you a light heart and to set your conscience free.

It will not cleanse away your sins to become diligent in the use of the forms and ordinances of religion. You may alter your habits about Sunday, and attend services from morning to night: you may take pains to hear preaching on week-days, as well as on Sundays; you may receive the Lord's Supper on every possible occasion, and give alms, and keep fasts. It is all very well as far as it goes. It is a right and proper thing to attend to your religious duties. But all the means of grace in the world will never do you any good so long as you trust in them as saviours. They will not bind up the wounds of your heart, and give you inward peace. FORMALITY CANNOT MAKE ATONEMENT FOR SIN.

A lantern on a dark night is a very useful thing. It can help the traveller to find his way home; it can preserve him from losing his path, and keep him from falling into danger. But the lantern itself is not the traveller's fireside. The man who is content to sit down in the road by the side of his lantern, must never be surprised if he dies of cold. Reader, if you try to satisfy your conscience with a formal attendance on means of grace, you are no wiser than this traveller. It needs something more than formality to take the burden from your conscience, and to give you peace with God.

It will not cleanse away your sins to look to man for help. It is not in the power of any child of Adam to save another's soul. No bishop, no priest, no ordained man of any Church or denomination has power to forgive sins: no human absolution, however solemnly conferred, can purge that conscience which is not purged by God. It is well to ask the counsel of the ministers of the Gospel when the conscience is perplexed. It is their office to help the labouring and heavy-laden, and to show them the way of peace. But it is not in the power of any minister to deliver any man from his guilt. We can only show the path that must be followed: we can only point out the door at which every one must knock. It requires a hand far stronger than that of man to take the chains off conscience, and set the prisoner free.

The bankrupt who asks a bankrupt to set him up in business again is only losing time; the pauper who travels off to a neighbour pauper, and begs him to help him out of difficulties, is only troubling himself in vain. The prisoner does not beg his fellow-prisoner to set him free; the shipwrecked sailor does not call on his shipwrecked comrade to place him safe ashore. Help in all these cases must come from some other quarter: relief in all these cases must be sought from some other hand. Reader, it is just the same in the matter of cleansing away your sins. So long as you seek it from man, whether man ordained or man not ordained, you seek it where it cannot be found. You must go further: you must look higher. You must turn elsewhere for comfort. It is not in the power of any man on earth or in heaven to take the burden of sin from off a brother's soul. ?None can by any means redeem his brother, nor give a ransom for him.? (Psalm xlix. 7.)

Reader, thousands in every age have tried to cleanse themselves from their sins in the ways I have now described, and have tried in vain. Thousands, I doubt not, are trying at this very moment, and find themselves ?nothing bettered, but rather worse.? They are climbing up a steep precipice of ice, toiling hard and yet slipping backwards as fast as they climb.?They are pouring water into a cask full of holes, labouring busily, and yet no nearer the end of their work than when they began.?They are rowing a boat against a rapid stream, plying the oar diligently, and yet in reality losing ground every minute.?They are trying to build up a wall of loose sand, wearing themselves out with fatigue, and yet seeing their work roll down on them as fast as they throw it up.?They are striving to pump dry a sinking ship: the water gains on them and they will soon be drowned.'such is the experience, in every part of the world, of all who think to cleanse themselves from their sins. Reader, be warned to-day. Do not be one of them.

Beware, I do entreat you, of quack medicines in religion. Beware of supposing that penitence, and reformation, and formality, and priest-craft, can ever give you peace with God. They cannot do it. It is not in them. The man who says they can must be ignorant of two things. He cannot know the length and breadth of human sinfulness: he cannot understand the height and depth of the holiness of God. There never breathed the man or woman on earth who tried to cleanse himself from his sins, and in so doing obtained relief.

Reader, if you have found out this truth by experience, be diligent to impart it to others. Show them as plainly as you can their guilt and danger by nature. Tell them, with no less plainness, the immense importance of having their sins forgiven and cleansed away. But then warn them not to waste time in seeking to be cleansed in unlawful fashions. Warn them against the specious advice of ?Mr. Legality? and his companions, so vividly described in ?Pilgrim's Progress.? Warn them against false remedies and sham medicines for the soul. Send them to the old wicket-gate, described in Scripture, however hard and rough the way may seem. Tell them it is ?the old path and the good way,? and that, whatever men may say, it is the only way to obtain cleansing of our sins.