None will experimentally appreciate the righteousness of Christ until they have been experimentally stripped by the Spirit.

Not until the Lord puts us in the fire and burns off our filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), and makes us stand naked before Him, trembling from head to foot as we view the sword of His justice suspended over our heads, will any truly value "the best robe."

Not until the condemning sentence of the law has been applied by the Spirit to the conscience does the guilty soul cry, "Lost, lost!" (Rom. 7:9, 10).

Not until there is a personal apprehension of the requirements of God’s Law, a feeling sense of our total inability to perform its righteous demands, and an honest realization that God would be just in banishing us from His presence forever, is the necessity for a precious Christ perceived by the soul.

~ Arthur Pink, "The Doctrine of Justification"

The Chestnut Mare