Some people talk of "a
believing sinner," or speak of the worship offered to God by "poor
sinners." Many hymns indeed never bring the soul beyond this condition.
But what is meant by "sinner" in the Word of God is a soul altogether
without peace, a soul which feels its want of Christ, without the knowledge of
redemption. It is not truthfulness to deny what saints are in the sight of God.
If I have failed in anything, will taking the ground of a poor sinner make the
sin to be less, or give me to feel it more? No! If I am a saint, blessed with
God in His beloved Son, made one with Christ, and the Holy Spirit given to
dwell in me, then I ought to feel and say, "How terrible that I have
failed, and broken down, and dishonored the Lord, and been indifferent to His
glory!" If I feel my own coldness and indifference, it is to be treated as
baseness and hated as sin. On the other hand, to take the ground of a
"poor sinner" is really, though it may not be intended, to make
excuses for evil. Which of the two ways would act most powerfully upon the
conscience? Which humbles man and exalts God most? Clearly the more that you
realize what God has given you, and made you in Christ, the more you will feel
the sin and dishonor of your course if you are walking inconsistently. But if
you keep speaking about yourself merely as a sinner, it may seem lowly to the
superficial, but it only becomes a kind of palliative of your evil, and never
causes such thorough humbling as God looks for in the child of faith.

(From Lectures
on the Epistle to the Galatians.)