The gospel creates the only kind of grief over sin which is clean and which does not crush. It says: “Look at Jesus dying for you! He won’t leave you or abandon you…it is not because he will abandon you that you should be holy, but because this is one who at inestimable cost to himself has said he won’t ever abandon you!…See the GRACE of God argument? It is the only argument which cannot be answered. This creates the only motivation that leads you to hate the sin without hating yourself. It is the only motivation that will bring sin to lose its attractive power over you.
How can this be? The sight of Christ dying for you is at once both the one thing in the world that most convicts you to be holy and yet most assures you that you are infallibly loved. If he died for you—that is conviction. But if he died for you—that is the comfort.
