“Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and [that] no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3).
“And when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him: for they know His voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers” (John 10:4-5).
“I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:21-25).
My comments on some excerpts from John Glas‘ The Testimony of the King of Martyrs Concerning His Kingdom (underlining mine).
“Christ’s subjects delight in the law of their Lord after the inward man, and lo they hear His voice without constraint; but there is another law in their members continually warring against the law of their minds, so that it is no wonder if this their hearing of Christ’s voice be very much marred: Yet so far as they are of the truth, He is unto them the only Lord of their faith, of their conscience, of sin and duty, of their fear, and of their hope. Thus every one that is of the truth hears His Voice.”
John 10:4-5 and Romans 7:21-25 mention this. However — and this is very important — what precisely does John Glas mean by “their hearing of Christ’s voice be very much marred”? How “marred” exactly?
“Christ’s subjects keep His sayings, and do the things that He says; and so they hear His voice. They believe His testimony, they tremble at His word of threatening…[they] do what He commands. …
He is highly offended with them that call Him Lord, ‘and do not the things that He says,’ (Luke vi. 46). ‘Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?’ Men may be so far under the influence of His Spirit as to be thereby enabled to call Him Lord (1 Corinthians xii.3) and so be joined with His people in the profession; and yet not do the things that He says.”
Glas says some men who are “under the influence of [Christ’s] Spirit” do not the things that Christ says. He says further that these men who are supposedly under the Spirit’s influence are “joined with His people in the profession.” Glas juxtaposes “His people” with these men who are mere professors of faith.
“Therefore they are called ‘branches in Him, not bearing fruit,’ (John xv. 2). These may be, as far as man’s eye sees, doing what He says, and so be accounted His subjects. Yet they are not doing the very things He says, but the appearence of them. They do not obey Him in that faith, which worketh by love, and which is the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for; and so, not having root in themselves, they wither and bring forth no fruit to perfection.”
Glas applies this passage, “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3), to the superficial and withering “branches in Him, not bearing fruit” to perfection. Glas is woefully and damnably ignorant of the invincible resurrecting/regenerating power and transforming work of the Holy Spirit.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do [them]” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me” (Jeremiah 32:40).
John Glas writes:
“But every one that is of the truth, in the least measure, does, according to that measure, obey the commandments of Jesus Christ. His subjects are not yet wholly of the truth: There remains a corrupt principle of unbelief and enmity in their souls, while they are in this world, from which the truth in them meets with continual opposition, as it does also from the temptations of Satan and of the world; ‘so that when they would do good, evil is present with them’; and they cannot do the things that they would, yea the evil that they ‘would not, that they do.‘”
In saying that within Christ’s subjects there “remains a corrupt principle of unbelief and enmity in their souls,” Glas is adulterating the relevant Romans 7 passages to his own destruction. It is the carnal (unregenerate) mind that is enmity against God (Romans 8:7). In stark contrast, those regenerate persons under the influence of the Spirit of Christ are given a new heart to love and obey God in sincerity and truth.
“And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (Deuteronomy 30:6; cf. Ezekiel 36:26-27).
John Glas is denying God the Holy Spirit’s work; Glas is also denying the efficacious work of Jesus Christ in destroying the Devil’s work.
“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
A truly regenerate believer still sins (Romans 7:14-24; cf. 1 John 1:10). But this sin in a regenerate person does NOT proceed from a heart at enmity against God (Romans 8:7). The heart of enmity was completely and absolutely excised upon regeneration (Ezekiel 36:26-27; cf. Matthew 7:16-18; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
John Glas is enunciating a pernicious and damnable form of dualism similar to those who believe that a true Christian’s heart remains deceitful and desperately wicked.
The following writings are related or relevant to Glas’ blatant denial of God’s power in redeeming and glorifying Himself in the hearts of His people:
Is a Christian’s Heart Deceitful and Desperately Wicked?
Pernicious Puritan Preparationism
The Pride and Deception of Experience-Based Religion
Agrammatos 