Those that Christ hath to do withal are Bruised

This bruising is necessary, first, before conversion — so that the Spirit may clear a way into the heart by leveling all our proud, high thoughts, and so that we may understand ourselves to be what we truly are by nature. We love to wander from ourselves and be strangers in our own home, until God bruises us with one hardship or another; then we come to our senses and come home to ourselves, like the prodigal son (Luke 15:17).

It is a remarkably hard thing to bring a dull, evasive heart to cry out for mercy with real feeling. Our hearts, like criminals in the dock, never cry out for the Judge's mercy until every excuse has been beaten out of them. Second, this bruising makes us place a high price on Christ; the gospel becomes the gospel indeed once the fig leaves of our own morality can no longer help us. Third, it makes us more thankful, and fourth, thankfulness in turn makes us more fruitful in our lives — for what makes so many people cold and barren except that being bruised for sin never truly endeared God's grace to them? Fifth, this dealing of God further establishes us in his ways, once we have felt the knocks and bruises of going our own way. This, in fact, is often the very cause of relapse and falling away: that people were never truly stung by their sin at the start, never long enough under the lash of the law. This is why this preliminary work of the Spirit, humbling our high thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:5), is necessary before conversion. And for the most part, the Holy Spirit, to further the work of conviction, joins it with some affliction — which, once sanctified, has a healing and purging power.

In fact, even after conversion we still need bruising — first, so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising, because of the pride still remaining in our nature, and to show us that we live by mercy. Second, so that weaker Christians are not too discouraged when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised. Peter was bruised in this way when he wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75); before that bruising, this reed had more wind in him than substance — "Though everyone else forsakes you, I will not" (Matthew 26:33). The people of God cannot do without such examples; the heroic deeds of great saints do not comfort the church nearly as much as their falls and bruises do. David was bruised this way (Psalm 32:3–5) until he came to an honest confession without any deceit in his spirit — indeed, his sorrow rose, in his own experience, to the sharp pain of broken bones (Psalm 51:8). Hezekiah likewise complained that God had broken his bones like a lion (Isaiah 38:13). And the chosen vessel Paul needed a messenger of Satan to torment him, so that he would not become conceited (2 Corinthians 12:7).

From this we learn not to pass too harsh a judgment on ourselves or others when God exercises us with bruising upon bruising; there must be a conformity to our head, Christ, who "was bruised for us" (Isaiah 53:5), so that we may know how much we owe him. Profane people, ignorant of God's ways of bringing his children to heaven, condemn broken-hearted Christians as desperate or unstable, when in fact God is doing a gracious, good work in them. It is no easy matter to bring a person from nature to grace, and from grace to glory — our hearts are that unyielding and hard to manage.