Christ is
currently so common as to excite little notice.

One should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man's
depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness
of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins; but it
does not work out that way. Self can live unrebuked at the very altar.
It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by
what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the Reformers and preach
eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its
efforts. To tell all the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy
and is more at home in a Bible Conference than in a tavern. Our very
state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under
which to thrive and grow.

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be
removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well
try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God
in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its
deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for
judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some
measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered
under Pontius Pilate.

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking
in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in
actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that
veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient,
quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to
touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us
and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and
death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear
and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply
painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the
cross would do to every man to set him free.

Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend
the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust.
We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it
crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy "acceptance" from
the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare
not rest content with a neat