By The Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY

Modernized by Cliff Collins

“Without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

In discussing this subject I will show:

I. WHAT THIS PASSAGE MEANS.

II. WHAT THIS PASSAGE IMPLIES.

III. THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING AND BELIEVING THIS PASSAGE.

IV. THE PRONENESS OF THE HUMAN HEART TO OVERLOOK AND PRACTICALLY DENY THIS PASSAGE.

I. What is the meaning of the passage, “Without Me you can do nothing”?

The context of our passage today shows that Christ meant to affirm an impossibility, for He says, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4) Now whatever metaphysical or philosophical distinctions you may want to make here, it is clear that Christ wanted to say that doing anything without Him or independently of Him is impossible. This inability extends to everything, but the context that this passage is in, shows that Christ meant that this impossibility applies to holiness or goodness.

II. What does this passage imply?

This passage implies that we are not required to do anything without Him. If it is impossible to do anything without Him, it cannot be our duty to do anything without Him; for it can never be anyone’s duty to do what is impossible.

Every command that God makes implies a corresponding promise, that is, if God requires us to do anything by Christ, the very requirement is a virtual promise that God will provide all the aid we need to make it possible for us to perform it. Indeed, the command, all by itself, is an implied promise that God will provide all the help that we need.

People often say, that God’s commands are addressed to us as moral agents, and since we are moral agents, we must obey, whether God provides any assistance or not. Now, if you understand this properly, these words are correct; but these words are extremely easy to misunderstand. The question is, “What is implied in being a moral agent”? There is a difference between acting morally, and simply having the natural powers required to act morally. A man may have eyes, but without light, he cannot see, and, therefore, without light he is under no obligation to see. In the same way, a man may possess the powers of a moral being, but without light on the subject of what is his duty, he is not prepared for moral action. He is a moral being in the sense that he has the required natural powers; but light is the indispensable condition of bringing these powers into action, or in other words, light is the indispensable condition of moral agency. A person cannot exercise his moral powers on any subject until he has light on that subject. He is under no moral obligation to do anything that goes beyond the amount of light he has. A heathen who has never heard of Christ is under no obligation to believe in Christ, and, as far as Christ is concerned, he does not have the responsibilities of a moral agent. He does possess those faculties that will make him responsible as soon as someone shares Christ with him; but without some knowledge of Christ, he is not under any moral obligation to believe in Him.

Therefore, light is a condition of moral agency, and therefore, light is a condition of our moral obligation. If supernatural light is needed, then supernatural light is the condition of our moral obligation: if only natural light or the light of nature is all that we have, then that light of nature is a condition of our moral obligation. If the light of the written word of God is all that we have, then that is a condition of our moral obligation. The kind and the degree of light that is required to impose moral obligation varies depending on the subject. The simple light of nature may be enough to impose obligations concerning a great many duties; but on many of the great questions of the gospel, the light of divine revelation is needed to impose moral obligation, for without this revelation, our mind cannot know nothing about these duties.

To get a right understanding of many truths of the gospel, we need the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Without His influence, our mind does not and cannot comprehend the length, the width, the depth, and the height of these truths. Our minds cannot understand these truths enough to embrace Christ and know either the Father or the Son without the Holy Ghost.

Now when Christ says, “Without Me you can do nothing”; He means that without divine light shining on the pages of inspiration and on the works of God, without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, holiness for us is impossible. Therefore, this passage implies that God offers His divine light to us for us to accept, and Jesus Christ provides us with this light.

Our passage implies the absolute Deity of Christ. If Christ is not God it is absurd, and false for Him to say, “Without Me, you can do nothing”.

III. What is the importance of understanding and believing the doctrine of today’s passage?

1. If we do not understand that we desperately need Christ, we shall not and cannot believe it. It is impossible to believe what we do not understand. We may sometimes question this, but if you properly understand what I just said, the proposition must be obvious. We cannot believe unless our mind understands what we must believe. Now, I may believe a fact without being able to explain the philosophy of that fact. For example, I may believe the fact that Christ died for sinners without being able to understand, at all, the high policy of Jehovah’s government on which God basis the doctrine of atonement, or which made His death necessary. Now, I am not required to believe anything respecting the philosophy of the atonement. All I have to do is simply believe the fact, and that is something that I can understand. It may be gratifying and useful for me to search out the philosophy of it, but it is not necessary for my salvation that I should believe anything more than the fact of the atonement. In the same way, I may believe thousands of facts and truths, and not understand the philosophy of any of those truths; but, I am not able, nor am I required to believe anything more than I can understand concerning any truth. I can understand the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost. I can understand that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Ghost is God; but the exact sense in which these are three, and the sense also in which they are one, I cannot comprehend. Nor am I under any obligation to comprehend it, nor am I required to believe anything more concerning this or any other doctrine than I can comprehend.

It is therefore extremely important concerning the doctrine of our dependence on Christ that we should understand this fact as a fact. Whether or not we are able to understand the philosophy of this dependence doesn’t matter. All we need to do is to understand the fact that without Christ we can do nothing.

2. To understand, that without Christ we can do nothing, is more than simply admitting that it is true. I may admit that something is true in theory even though I don't understand it. I may admit that multitudes of truths are true. In fact, I can agree with any and all the truths of the gospel without really understanding one of them. Many people will admit the truth of our dependence on Christ, but not as many people rationally understand our dependence on Christ.

3. To understand properly that we are dependent on Christ is to realize it. We must not only perceive that it is true, but we must also have in our mind a heart-felt realization of its truth.

4. To believe this truth is more than to simply accept it in theory. A man may accept, in theory, the whole Presbyterian Confession of Faith. He may defend it. He may argue in favor of it, and truly think that he believes it, while in fact, in the gospel sense, he does not believe one word of it. Many, who professed faith in the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ, have held it and defended it as a theory, but they clearly don’t truly believe it. Faith is the yielding up of our mind to be influenced by truth that our intellect apprehends. Faith is our mind confiding in, trusting in, and receiving a truth. Now nothing is more common than for people to hold and defend a truth in theory that they do not really believe. To believe the doctrine of our dependence on Christ is to commit or surrender ourselves up to the influence of this truth, to rest in Christ, and to confidently place our soul into His hands so that He may keep it.

5. To believe this truth implies constantly remembering it. It implies that we hold our mind in an attitude of dependence and trust. Suppose I am leading a little child by the hand, I give him my finger and lead him along on the edge of a frightful rock wall. I tell him, “Without me you will fall”. Now if he believes me, he will hold my hand tightly. He will be in a constant attitude of depending, trusting, and holding on to me. Now this illustrates what I mean by believing in our dependence on Christ. When we truly believe in this, we will not try to do anything without Christ.

Let me give you another illustration. Suppose there is a man who only has one leg. He never tries to walk without a crutch. When he sits down, he lays his crutch by his side, or stands it up within his reach. Whenever he tries to walk, the very first movement of his mind is towards his crutch. The same is true with the person who truly believes in the doctrine of dependence on Christ. It is just as natural for him to throw himself on Christ, when he performs his everyday duties as it is for the lame man to depend on his crutch.

Now, not to understand and believe this, is real infidelity concerning Christ. It is really rejecting the gospel of Christ and Christ Himself. No man understands and believes the gospel in any saving sense, who does not understand and believe that he universally depends on Christ.

The rejection of this doctrine makes a person proud and presumptuous. If a man depends on his own powers, unenlightened by the Spirit of Christ, he depends on the bruised reed of his own resolutions, and he must inevitably find himself in perpetual condemnation.

If you reject this doctrine you greatly dishonor Christ, and you completely throw away His gospel.

To reject or overlook this doctrine leaves your soul to neglect due watchfulness. If you are not aware of your constant dependence on the indwelling Spirit of Christ, you will not feel the need to watch and pray so that you may retain the Spirit of Christ.

Rejecting this doctrine of depending on Christ makes us the sport of temptation. You will certainly be overcome if you attempt to resist temptation in your own strength. You will fall just as surely as the one-legged man will fall if he tries to run without his crutch.

Rejecting this doctrine leads to total discouragement. When people attempt to stand in their own strength and find themselves continually overcome, they soon come to the point where they begin to seriously doubt whether there is any such thing as standing before the power of temptation. Finding themselves perfectly unable to stand in their own strength and not believing in Christ as they should, they naturally fall, of course.

The understanding and belief, that without Christ, we can do nothing, leads to results that are just the opposite of those I have just mentioned. Believing in this truth causes the believer to be careful not to grieve the Spirit of Christ. It renders his soul humble and it empties his soul of all its proud, self-righteous dependence on self. It naturally engages the soul to love Christ, to honor Him, and watch carefully against doing anything that might displease Him. It strips his mind of all dependence on his own resolutions and unaided efforts; it teaches him who to turn to in the hour of temptation, and throws all of this on Christ as his all-sufficient support. It keeps his soul out of bondage, generates gratitude, fixes his attention and thoughts on Christ, and engages his soul to live by faith in Him.

IV. Let us look at the tendency of the human heart to overlook and deny this truth.

In some sense, everyone knows, that “without Christ, we can do nothing”, is true, and yet few realize its truth in any such sense as to make a practical use of it. This is clear partly from the fact that few people ever even think of it. They do not realize it, like the lame man realizes that he cannot walk without his crutch. His dependence on his crutch is an ever-present reality with him. He always thinks of his crutch whenever he tries to walk. Now if an individual really receives this truth, it will be an ever-present reality to him. The fact of his dependence on Christ will be so deeply settled in his mind that he will just as naturally and certainly turn to Christ for support as the lame man turns to his crutch.

But, further evidence that few realize and believe this truth, is found in the fact that we have so little heart-felt gratitude manifested to Christ. If our dependence were an ever-present reality, we could not fail, having performed any duty, to feel obligated to Christ for having worked in us to will and do this thing. We would not take the credit ourselves, but we would be grateful to Him.

More evidence that few people believe this truth is found in the fact that they have so little fear of sinning against Christ. If they believed that they were completely dependent on Him for all their own right actions, they would not be so reckless in sinning against Him. Suppose you depended on someone to lead you everywhere you went, and to hold you up whenever you took a step, could you allow yourself to abuse your guide and supporter?

More evidence that few realize and believe this truth is found in the fact that there is so little praying against temptation. There is so little looking to Him for grace to support and strengthen us at every step. The Bible teaches that God works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, that our source of power is in Him; that He is our life, and that the only good in us is the good that is wrought in us by the Spirit of Christ. Now that there is very little hearty confidence in these truths, even in the church, manifests itself in many ways. For example, there is comparatively very little prayer for sustaining grace, for upholding grace, and for the indwelling and energizing of the Holy Spirit. There is very little of the spirit of thanksgiving for the constant aid and agency of the Spirit of God.

If the Holy Spirit keeps some Christians from a besetting sin for a while, they soon stop thanking Him for sustaining grace, and they lose a sense of the fact that He is truly keeping them above it. They think they have so overcome the temptation to that sin, that they are dead to it and their tendency in that direction has stopped. When they get this idea, it often makes it necessary for Christ to withhold His restraining grace, in order to remind them that it is not them, but He who keeps them from falling. Thus He teaches them by bitter experience, what they will not learn from His word, that without Him they can do nothing.

The more the Holy Spirit keeps them above sin, the more likely they will lose a sense of the fact that the grace of Christ upholds them. If they are supported just enough to feel the keen force of temptation and the need to cling to Christ continually, they don’t lose a sense of dependence. But, if Christ lifts them so high that temptation does not seem to touch them, even if it is only for a little while, they immediately become forgetful of their dependence, become self-confident, dishonor and grieve His Spirit, and fall back into temptation.

Because we do not see, nor hear, nor directly feel the hand that supports us, we are constantly prone to forget that He supports us. The influence that Christ exerts is not a physical influence but a moral one. It is the power of truth and persuasion, the power of divine light that sustains our mind. Now, because we do not directly see the agency of Christ employed in sustaining us, we are very likely to overlook the fact that His invisible agency is our constant support.

To learn the lesson of our dependence upon Christ so thoroughly that it will be an ever-present reality to us is one of the most difficult things in the Christian religion. There is nothing more contrary to our natural pride and the independence of human nature. There is not one doctrine of the Bible that we are more likely to disbelieve and practically reject than this doctrine. We may admit this doctrine as a theory forever, without ever really believing in it.

One of the most difficult things is to always remember, as we go about our daily lives, that we cannot take one step in the path of obedience without depending on Christ, anymore than a lame man can take a step without his crutches

Christ has more trouble with us on this point than perhaps any other. It is easy for Him to support us if He could persuade us to depend on Him. He can easily guide us if we will maintain a hold of His hand. He can easily carry our burdens if we will allow Him to carry our burdens. He can work in and for us all that we need with infinite ease, if we will only trust in Him and surrender ourselves up to His influence. In short, the greatest practical difficulty in the Christian religion, lies in the right understanding and belief of the doctrine of our dependence on Christ. I say a right understanding and belief, because to believe this, in one sense and in one particular form, is Antinomianism: to understand and believe it in another sense, is sheer legalism. Legalism rests in Christ as an atoning sacrifice, but not as an indwelling, upholding, all sustaining, and controlling Spirit. It receives an outward but not an inward Christ. Legalism places Christ in heaven, but does not place Christ in the heart. It makes Christ a Mediator between God and man, and an Advocate on high, but not a present sanctification in the soul. It is receiving Him into our heart as our present sanctification that constitutes the right belief of our dependence on Christ. Indeed, Christ must be received both as an atoning sacrifice, a risen, reigning, glorified Redeemer, a Mediator and Advocate with the Father; and also as an indwelling, sanctifying, constantly operating, upholding, guiding, renovating Spirit. He must be received by faith, to dwell in the inward sanctuary of our own being, to exert a constant sustaining and sanctifying influence there, to work in us both to will and to do all of His good pleasure.

Unbelief as it concerns this doctrine, in the form in which I now state it, is the occasion of all our failures and of all our sins. It is a lack of apprehending this doctrine and of thoroughly embracing it, that leaves so many souls in bondage to worry and flounder along in the state described in the seventh chapter to the Romans, without ever finding their way to the experience of the eighth chapter.

REMARKS

1. As I have already confided in you, many believe this doctrine in theory, who never realize or practically believe it.

2. To such people, this doctrine is a fatal obstacle. They hold the doctrine of their dependence on Christ as a theory, and yet they really never depend on Him. This inevitably leaves them in sin; for their theory prevents them from making any efforts to help themselves, and their unbelief prevents them from casting themselves on Christ. As a result, they settle down into Antinomianism, in the form so generally witnessed among professing Christians. They make their ‘so called’ dependence on Christ, their excuse for not obeying God. However, if they really believed this doctrine of dependence on Christ, and actually cast themselves on Him, they would do their duty. Now these people are laboring under a great delusion. They think they truly believe in their dependence upon Christ, whereas, they only believe it as a soul-crippling, God-dishonoring theory, and therefore it becomes a most fatal stumbling-block for them.

The real belief of our dependence on Christ as a gospel fact, will secure a real as opposed to a theoretical dependence on Christ. If a man believes his dependence on Christ because the Bible declares it; if he believes it as a truth of the gospel and a revealed fact, he will, of course, believe more than this, that in Christ, and with the help of Christ, he can do all things required of him. The Apostle Paul says about himself, that he was not willing to even boast about himself (See 2 Cor 12:5); but he adds in another place, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. (Phil 4:13) Now it is very clear, that if the doctrine of dependence is embraced as a truth of revelation, the other fact will also be embraced as a reveal truth, which is: That we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! Believing this will, of course, secure obedience to Christ.

From what I have said, we may learn what the true doctrine of natural ability is, namely, that every moral agent is really able to do whatever God requires of him; that when God requires us to believe in Christ He gives us so much light that it makes us able to believe; that when God requires us to repent, He gives us so much light that we are able to repent; but that we are not able to work out that which is good simply because we possess the powers of a moral being, independently of divine light.

We can now see what the statement that Christ is the true light “which gives light to every man who comes into the world” means. (John 1:9) Every moral agent, in just as far as he is a moral agent, is enlightened by Christ.

It is almost useless to speculate about the philosophy of the divine influence in our soul, or the way in which Christ upholds and sustains us. We must believe in the fact, and although I have spent a lot of time myself speculating about this passage on how God’s divine influence works (and often very much to my own harm), I am still convinced that to grab a hold of the fact without worrying about the methods of divine operation is the important thing that we must do.

We need to accept our dependence on Christ as a fact that is just as stable as the fact of our own existence, that we shall and can do nothing if God’s divine support is withdrawn. And yet, this fact is always so offered to us for our acceptance that we are perfectly responsible for every duty commanded in the scriptures.

It is of lasting importance that we understand what it means to depend constantly on Christ. Now, it is possible for us to acknowledge our dependence without depending. I can know in theory and in fact that I am dependent, without being willing to be dependent; without the act of depending, without casting myself on Christ, and settling down in Him. Now depending is an act of our will or heart. It is, as I have said, a holding on to Christ. It is a state of mind that is always active. It is clinging to Him, and it should be as real to us as it is to hold on to the hand of good friend. The child on the edge of a rock wall who holds onto my hand, must completely depend on me, or he will not hold on to my hand. If he lets go of me in his mind, the muscles of his arm will instantly relax, and he will let go of my hand.

Now, willfully depending and holding on to Christ, is just as real and just as active as if we used our physical hand to hold on to Him. We must understand this. A lack of properly understanding this is the reason why so many people do not abide in Christ. Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” Now to abide in Christ, is to cling to Him with all your heart, to depend on Him not as an outward and distant Savior as a distant atoning sacrifice, but as a present, inward, in-dwelling support, a help at hand, a God as near to you as you are to yourself. This is the true idea of depending on Christ. Without this dependence, we can do nothing; with it, we do all things. Brethren, think about this.