Category Archives: Faith

The Wonderful Combat, Sermon 2.4

16 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by in Faith, Faith, Lancelot Andrewes, temptation

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IV. The Devil’s Temptation to Distrust

Now we are to consider the diversity and order of the temptations, & then will we handle them particularly. And first we are to note, that though there are but these three recorded, yet he endured divers [various] others. His whole life was full of temptations, as may appear by Luke 22. 28. It is said Luke 4. 2. that he was tempted forty days of the Devil whereas these three Temptations here set down, were not till after the end of forty days. These only are mentioned, but there were other not written, as divers of his miracles are unwritten. John 20:31. Only so much was written, as was expedient.[1]

These three are a brief abridgement of all his Temptation.[2] As it is true that Paul saith, that Christ resembled Adam, and was made a quickening spirit, as Adam was a living soul, 1. Cor. 15. 45.[3] And the bringing of the Children of Israel out of Egypt, by being called out of Egypt, Matt. 2. 15.[4] So may Christ and Adam be compared in these three temptations. For they both were tempted with concupiscence [strong, sinful desire] of the flesh, concupiscence of the eye, & pride of life, 1. John 2. 16.[5]

In Adam, the Devil first brought him into a concept, that God envied his good, and of purpose kept him hood-winked, least he should see his good,[6] as we see falconers put hoods over hawks’ eyes, to make them more quiet & ruly [subject to being ruled]. Secondly, he lulls him on to a proud conceit [thought] of himself, by persuading him, that by eating he should be like God. Thirdly he shows the fruit, which was pleasant. So in Christs temptation first, he would have brought him to murmur against God: secondly to presume: & thirdly to commit idolatry[7], all which are set down.[8]

And under these three heads come all temptations, Numb. 14. & 21. and Exod. 32.

To some of these extremes will the Devil seek to drive one.

First, by distrust he will seek to drive us to use unlawful means, for the obtaining of necessary things, as bread is when a man is hungry. Or if we be in no such want, that that temptation cannot take place, then (through superfluity) he will tempt s to wanton and unnecessary desires, as to throw ourselves down, that the Angels may take us up: and having prevailed so far, then he carries us to the Devil and all. All this will I give thee, there is his All: Fall down and worship me, there is the Devil with it: so (that in this respect) may it well be said, that The way of a Serpent is over a stone, Proverb. 30. 19. He goes so slyly, that a man sees him in, before he can tell what way, or how he got in. First he wraps himself in necessity, and thereby winds himself in unperceived then he brings us to make riches our God.

Now let us see his Darts. The first is, of making stones bread. This may well be called the hungry temptation. The stream of the Doctors[9], make Adam’s offence the sin of gluttony: but Bucer[10] thinks, that this temptation is rather to be referred to distrust and despair. There is small likelihood, that one should sin in gluttony by eating bread only. The Devil’s desire was only, that the stones might be turned into bread, and that after so long a Fast: and then if the temptation had been to gluttony, Christ’s answer had been nothing to the purpose; the Devil might well have replied against the insufficiency of it. For gluttony is to be answered by a text willing sobriety, whereas this text which Christ answers by, contains rather an assertion of Gods’ providence: and therefore, our Savior should have seemed very unskillful in defending himself. The temptation therefore is to distrust.[11]

This stands well with the Devil’s cunning in fight: for by this he shows first even at the throat, and at that which is the life of a Christian: to wit his faith; as a man would say, even at that which overcomes the world, 1. John 5. 5.[12] He tempted him to such a distrust, as was in the Israelites, Ex. 17 7[13]. when they asked if God were with them or no.

So, he made Adam think, God cared not for him: so here the Devil premises a doubt to shake his faith, wherein Christ made no doubt, Si filius Dei es. [If you are the Son of God.][14]

Indeed, you heard a voice say, you were the beloved Son of God, but are you so indeed? or was it not rather a delusion?[15] You see you are almost starved for want of bread: well, would God have suffered you so to be if you had been his Filius dilectus [beloved Son]? No, you are some hunger-starved child. So, Luke 22. 3. Christ prayed that Peter’s faith might not fail.[16] It was that the Devil shot at. He is a roaring lion seeking to devour us, whom we must resist by faith, 1. Pet. 5. 8.[17]

It is our faith that he aim at 1. Thess. 3. 5.[18] For having overthrown that, disobedience soon will follow. Having abolished the stablisher of the Law, Roman. 3. 31. the breach of the Law must needs [by logical necessity] follow. He hath then fit time to set us a work, about making stones into bread, that is, to get our living by unlawful means. First, shipwreck of faith, then of obedience.[19]

The Devil here seeing him in great want and hunger, would thereby bring in doubt, that he was not the Son of God, which is not a good argument.[20] For whether we respect the natural tokens of God’s favor, we see they happen not to the wisest and men of best and greatest knowledge, as appears in the ninth chap. of Eccl. vers. 11 or the supernatural favor of God, we shall see Abraham forced to fly his country into Egypt for famine, Gen, 10. 12. so did Isaac, Gen. 26. 1. & Iacob likewise was in the same distress, Gen. 43. 1.[21] Notwithstanding that God was called The God of Abraham, Isaack and Jacob[22]; yet were they all three like to be hunger-starved. Yea, not only so, but for their faith, many were burned and stoned, of whom the world was not worthy, Heb. 11. 37.[23] So fared it with the Apostles, they were hungy, naked, and a thirst, 1. Cor. 4. 11.[24] But what do we speak of the adopted sons of God, when as his own natural Son suffered as much, nay, far more?[25] Here we se he was hungry, also he was wearied with travail and fain [desirous] to rest. John4. 6.[26] he had no house to hide his head in, whereas foxes have holes.[27]

If thou be the Son of God.

The heathens have observed, that in rhetoric it is a point of chiefest cunning, when you would out-face a man, or importune him to do a thing, to press & urge him with that, which he will not, or cannot for shame deny to be in himself: as by saying; If you have any wit, then you will do thus and thus: if you be an honest man or a good fellow, do this[28]. So here the Devil (not being to learn any point of subtlety[29]) comes to our Savior, saying, If thou be the Son of God, (as it may be doubted, you being in this case) then, make these stones bread. No, no, it follows not: a man may be the Son of God, and not shw it by any such art.[30] So when Pilate asked, who accused Christ? They [the ones bringing the accusation against Jesus] answered, If he had not been a malefactor, we would not have brought him before thee, John 18. 30. They were jolly grave men [very serious men], it was a flat flattery: and in John 21. 23.[31] there is the like. This ought to put us in mind, when we are tempted in like manner, that we take heed we be not out-faced.[32]

In the matter itself we are to consider these points: First the Devil sets it down for a ground, that (follow what will) bread must needs be had. [The Devil asserts: You must have bread.]

Therefore, Christ first closes with him[33], Admit he had bread, were he then safe?[34] No, We live not by bread only: so that bread is not of absolute necessity. Well, what follows of that? Bread you must needs have, you see your want [lack], God has left off to provide for you. Then comes the conclusion, Therefore, shift for your self [take are of yourself] as well as you can.[35]

First, he solicits us to a mutinous repining within ourselves, as Heb. 3. 8. Harden not your hearts, as in the day of temptation, whereby he forces us to break out into such like conceits [thoughts], as Psalm. 116. 11. I said in my distresse, that all men be liars: and Psalm. 31. 22. I said in my hast, I am cast off. Thus closely he distrusted God, in saying, his Prophets prophecy loes, till at last, we even open our mouths against God himself, and say, This evil commeth from the Lord, shall I attend on the Lord any longer? 2. Booke of Kings, chapter 6. and verse 33. Hunger and shame is all we shall get at God’s hands.[36] And so having cast off God, betake themselves to some other patron, & then the Devil is fittest for their turn.

For when we are fallen out with one, it is best serving his enemy, and to retain to the contrary faction.[37] Then we seek a familiar (with Saul) to answer us, 1. Sam. 28. 7.[38] But what did the Devil tell him? Did he bring comfort with him? No, he tells him, that tomorrow he & his sons should dye. So here does the Devil bring a stone with him. What Father (says Christ) if his Sonne aske him bread, would give him a stone? Matthew the seventh chapter and in the ninth verse:[39] yet the Devil does so; Christ was hungry, and the Devil shows him stones.

Here is the Devil’s comfort, here be stones for thee, if thou canst devise any way to make these stones bread, thou art well; whereas we do not use to make bread of stones, but of wheat[40], to work it with the sweat of our brows. To get it so, we learn Gen. 3. 19.

By extortion and usury we may make stones into bread, that is the Devil’s Alchemistry: or happily we may make bread of nothing, when a man gets a thing by another’s oversight, Gen. 43. 12. Or else, what and if we can overreach our brother in subtilty, and go beyond him with a trick of wit or cunning? Let no man defraud or oppress his brother in any matter: for the Lord is avenged of all such, 1. Thess. 4.6. The one is called The bread of violence and oppression, Proverbs 4. 17. The other, The bread of deceit.[41]

They are indeed both made of stones, for they still retain their former property, as the event will declare. For though in the beginning such bread be pleasant, Proverb. 20. 17. yet after his mouth is but filled with gravel, Proverb. 20. 17. After which will consequently follow, gnashing of teeth.[42]

Notes:

This section of the sermon begins to consider the first temptation.

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”” (Matthew 4:1–4, ESV)

We must not think that these were the only temptations which Jesus ever faced. But there are representative temptations. The temptations follow in a pattern which was laid down in the Garden when the Serpent tempted Eve. First, there is the temptation to distrust God. Second, there is the temptation to trust yourself. Third, there is the temptation to full idolatry.

Thus, in the attack, the Devil must begin by striking at our faith.  He does this with Christ by first asking him, are you really the Son of God. That voice you thought you heard 40 days ago? Did you really hear anything? Really? If you are the Son of God, then why are you here in the desert starving to death?

You cannot really trust God to take care of you. That is for certain. But I’ll tell you what, if you are really the Son of God you could certainly do something little like turning these stones into bread.

If Jesus had made bread, would the Devil have left him alone? “Oh, you are the Son of God, my bad.” No. The Devil would have continued to press Jesus to distrust God. The attack at each step was an attack upon trust in God. That is the nature of temptation. It attacks at faith: God is not to be trusted. You can only trust yourself.

This is the critical element of this section of the sermon: Temptation first comes at faith. It seeks to dislodge us from God. The response must be then to focus on our trust of God.

Jesus saw through the temptation and knew what the Devil aimed at: His answer, Man shall live by what God says.

Andrews then turns the matter around and looks at the Devil’s temptation the other direction. The Devil comes to us when we are hungry and he only offers us stones. He says, see if you can eat that? He is not seeking to free us, but to ruin us.

What is the Devil’s means of getting bread? It is not farming and waiting and making bread. It is stealing, oppression, fraud. If we eat such bread, it will turn to gravel in our mouths.

[1] “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30–31, ESV)

[2] The three temptations of Satan which are recorded should be understood as a sort of summary of all the temptations Christ suffered.

[3] “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:42–49, ESV)

[4] This text has provoked a great deal of confusion over time. Here is an excellent discussion of this text and how Matthew is in fact using Hosea. https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/10928

[5] “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” (1 John 2:15–16, ESV)

[6] The Devil was the first to trick (hoodwink) Adam into believing that God did not want Adam to have good. The Devil was thus (falsely) offering Adam sight.

[7] “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”” (1 Corinthians 10:5–7, ESV)

[8] The temptation of Christ follows the same pattern as took place in the Garden. The first move was to assert that God was withholding some good thing. To Eve, the Serpent says that God is withholding the fruit because God does not want Eve to know good and evil. To Christ, the Devil says God is withholding food from you, why don’t you make bread? Second, the Serpent tells Eve you should eat the fruit, it won’t hurt you. It will make you better. To Christ he says, throw yourself down from the temple. You won’t be hurt. Third, the Serpent bring Eve to actually rebel against God. To Christ, the Devil says, just worship me.

[9] Most prior theologians.

[10] Martin Bucer, protestant theologian, 1491 – 1551.

[11] The majority of theologians speak of the temptation to make bread being a temptation to gluttony. But that does not make sense. Why offer bread if it was gluttony. Moreover, the response to a temptation to gluttony is sober self-control. But Jesus does not speak about self-control. Instead, the temptation was to despair of God’s oversight of the world, “Why isn’t God taking better care of you?” Jesus goes to his trust in God, not to he has self-control over hunger.

[12] “Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:5, ESV)

[13] “And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”” (Exodus 17:7, ESV)  The people became discontent and did not trust the Lord. And so they asked, Is the Lord among us?

[14] The Devil sought to sway Christ’s faith by saying, Well if you are really the Son of God.

[15] Andrews here makes an interesting observation. When Jesus came up from being baptism a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son.” The observation by Andrews takes the humanity of Jesus seriously. Jesus has spent an impossible time alone in the wilderness. He must be near physical death. The comparison to Moses does not even seem appropriate at this level, because was apparently being supernaturally maintained. This fast level Jesus weak and hungry. Matt. 4:2. At that point, one might begin to wonder, did I really hear that voice?

[16] ““Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat,” (Luke 22:31, ESV)

[17] “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” (1 Peter 5:8–9, ESV)

[18] “For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.” (1 Thessalonians 3:5, ESV)

[19] If the Devil can cause us to doubt God, our obedience will fail.

[20] The Devil’s argument is not based upon a sound premise. We cannot tell whether we are God’s child merely by looking at our present physical circumstances. Sometimes the most wicked person has a long, profitable life; and the most faithful child becomes a martyr.

[21] Abraham and Isaac each had to flee the land due to famine. Jacob had to flee the potential violence of his brother. By looking at merely their circumstances, one could not necessarily conclude that they were favored by God.

[22] “And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:6, ESV)

[23] “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:37–40, ESV)

[24] “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless,” (1 Corinthians 4:11, ESV)

[25] We are all children of God by adopted. Jesus is Son of God by nature.

[26] “Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.” (John 4:6, ESV)

[27] “And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”” (Matthew 8:20, ESV)

[28] It is a useful rhetorical trick to press someone to do something which it appears he must be obligated to do or he will lose his reputation. This permits you to gain a degree of control over the other person.

[29] There is no trick which the Devil does not know.

[30] The Devil, If you were really the Son of God, then you could turn these stones into bread. But being made to play tricks for the Devil is not necessary for Jesus to be the Son of God.

[31] “So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”” (John 21:23, ESV)

[32] We should be careful and wise not to respond to every demand of a fool or one who is trying to manipulate us.

[33] Christ engages him in battle.

[34] Christ sees the trap: If he makes the bread, will the Devil leave him alone and admit that he is the Son of God? No. Jesus sees the trap as is shown by his response.

[35] The Devil says, You need bread. God is not going to help you. You have better help yourself. This will then lead to discontent. The examples in the next paragraph show instances of discontent.

[36] If we begin to distrust God, our complaints against God will grow into complete unbelief and rebellion.

[37] When grow to distrust God and rebel, we will turn to serve God’s enemy. It is interesting that turning to God’s enemy we often think ourselves to be serving no one.  As if we were sufficiently clever to avoid the Devil’s scheme.

[38] Since Saul could no longer receive a word from the Lord, he went to see a witch. “Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a medium at En-dor.”” (1 Samuel 28:7, ESV) Saul will learn that he and his son will die the next day.

[39] “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?” (Matthew 7:8–10, ESV)

[40] Andrews here turns the Devil’s temptation on him and in quite an ironic and funny manner. You want help from the Devil? Here is how the Devil helps: You’re hungry? Here are some stones. See if you can make yourself something to eat. But we don’t eat stones. We make bread from wheat.

[41] The way in which the Devil provides bread is by alchemistry like bread into stones, or deceit, or oppression, or stealing.

[42] “Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.” (Proverbs 20:17, ESV)

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 4.3

31 Friday Dec 2021

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John Street (director of the MABC program at TMU) when teaching on the change which should take place in the Christian refers to the passage in Ephesians 4, where Paul writes a thief must stop stealing and then get a job and give to others. To merely stop stealing is to be a thief between jobs. But to work and give is to be something new. John Owen explains that the death of sin is to abound in grace:

The first is, How doth the Spirit mortify sin?

I answer, in general, three ways:—

[1.] By causing our hearts to abound in grace and the fruits that are contrary to the flesh, and the fruits thereof and principles of them.

John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 6 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 19.

Sibbes makes a similar point about faith. It is not sufficient to merely stop trusting in the creature, we must put our trust in God:

Obs. That it is not sufficient to disclaim affiance in the creature, but we must pitch that affiance aright upon God.

We must cease one thing and begin another. Our faith will be somewhere. If we take it off of the creature and do not place it upon God, we will be like the soul where a demon has been driven out only to return with others worse than himself. Thus, the Scripture commands us repeatedly to take our trust off of the creature and to place it upon God:

We must not only take it off where it should not be placed, but set it where it should be. ‘Cease from evil, and learn to do well,’ Isa. 1:16, 17. Trust not in the creature. ‘Cease from man,’ as the prophet saith, ‘whose breath is in his nostrils,’ Isa. 2:22; ‘Commit thy ways to God, trust in him,’ Ps. 37:5. 

He then makes an argument from common grace. We can read in many heathen authors the reasonable argument that we must stop trusting in the creature. The world will disappoint us. It reminds me of the Fire Sermon of Buddha, ““Everything, monks, is burning. What, monks, is everything that is burning? The eye, monks, is burning, form is burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning. The feeling that arises dependent on eye-contact, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, that also is burning. 

With what is it burning? It is burning with the fire of passion, the fire of hatred, the fire of delusion. I declare that it is burning with the fire of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, pain, sorrow, and despair.” 

He can see the vanity of the creature, but he then can offer no solution beyond rejecting creation. 

This much can be seen without grace:

The heathen, by the light of nature, knew this, that for the negative there is no trusting in the creature, which is a vain thing. They could speak wonderful wittily* and to purpose of these things, especially the Stoics. They could see the vanity of the creature. But for the positive part, where to place their confidence, that they were ignorant in. And so for the other part here, ‘Neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods.’ Idolaters can see the vanity of false gods well enough. 

But this rejection is insufficient; it is not salvation:

It is not enough therefore to rest in the negative part. A negative Christian is no Christian; 

There must be a movement to trust in God

Oh! such make religion nothing but a matter of opinion, of canvassing an argument, &c. But it is another manner of matter, a divine power exercised upon the soul, whereby it is transformed into the obedience of divine truth, and moulded into it. So that there must be a positive as well as a negative religion; a cleaving to God as well as a forsaking of idols.

* That is, ‘with wit’ = wisdom.—G.

Kierkegaard on the Difference Between the Tragic Hero and Abraham

22 Sunday Mar 2020

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In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard draws an interesting contrast between Abraham and Agamemnon: both men are called upon to sacrifice a child: but Agamemnon is a tragic hero and Abraham is an example of faith. What then is the true distinction between the two?

The tragic hero is compelled to his end by an ethical demand. To fulfill his oath, Agamemnon must lead the force into war. The demand to sacrifice is daughter is tragic and painful, but it is compelled by the demand of his oath. His act is meaningful and ethical to the community.

But it is not so with Abraham. There is no ethical duty which is recognizable to anyone who watched Abraham. The soldiers who saw Agamemnon move to give up his daughter, would have a basis to understand and even sympathize with Agamemnon. But if one were to watch Abraham: his actions would make no ethical sense. There is no apparent duty.

A second and related comparison comes with the matter of disclosing his conduct.

In this section Kierkegaard first makes an observation about concealment and revelation. In the older Greek tragedies, the concealment was brought about by fate. Oedipus kills his father, but it is concealed to him. It is revealed afterward.

In the modern age, the act of concealment is brought about the character’s decision. He compares two types here. There is the esthetic concealment, where two lovers conceal to bring about their desired end. And to have the happy ending we enjoy such action.

Esthetics permits these actions, even if unethical:

But esthetics is a civil and sentimental discipline that knows more ways out than any pawnshop manager. What it do then? It does everything possible for the lovers. (75)

But ethics requires revelation: The concealment is a deception, and even if pleasing aesthetically it is repugnant to ethics. Ethics requires an explanation, a justification for the conduct. There must be a public rationale.

Abraham differs, because he cannot explain. What is there to say? He is seeking something absurd. Abraham is not merely doing something which seems outside of all ethics; he is doing something he knows cannot be true. He will kill Isaac and Isaac is the child of promise and God will fulfill his promise. This is not merely improbable; it is paradoxical.

There is no public rationale, because the wisdom of God is greater than man.

We go wildly astray if we think Kierkegaard says that faith is believing things which are untrue or improbable. That is what is often miscredited to him. Faith is not believing stupid or false things. Faith is believing that God is above human categories:

1 Corinthians 1:20–29 (ESV)

 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

 

Some observations on the “absurdity” of faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling

06 Friday Mar 2020

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Kierkegaard’s Fear and Loathing considers the fact of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. A central concern of this work has to do with the obvious ethical problem of murder: how can Abraham be a great man of “faith” when his greatest act of “faith” is so obviously unethical?

Kierkegaard takes on this problem from multiple directions. Here, to merely get the ideas straight in my own mind, are certain elements of this text which I found most interesting and useful.

“The old saying that things do not happen in the world as the parson preaches.” (Cambridge University Press, trans. Sylvia Walsh.) Too often philosophy is too abstract, to pat; too often sermons are more platitude than help in patience.

When it comes to the question of Abraham, this book works to avoid neat theories of Abraham’s act: What could he do? God was making him do this thing. Or, well he knew that Isaac would live again in the resurrection; so what does it matter? Or Abraham knew it was some mere trial.

The work (written by a pseudonym; thus, there is some distance between Kierkegaard and the “author” of the work, does nothing to shy away from the fact this great act of faith hinges upon a murder; and thus, unethical in the fullest sense of the world. “What is left out of the Abraham’s story is the anxiety … to the son the father has highest and most sacred duty.”

The ethical makes a demand upon Abraham which runs counter to the command of God; thus, the ethical paradoxically becomes a temptation!

One aspect of the analysis lies with the common understanding of ethical as merely a culturally determined pattern for behavior. While faith may be consistent with such ethics, faith is not necessarily constrained by such ethics.

Abraham cannot kill Isaac and point to some greater ethical good. If it were, then Abraham’s killing could be justified on the ground of the greater good.  But, there is no argument of the loss of the one for the community. And yet somehow, Abraham’s act is a matter of faith. He is not a “tragic hero” who ultimately has an ethical justification for an unethical act.

Kierkegaard aims to disentangle the matter of temptation (by the ethical) from the matter of paradox.

Next, faith is not merely resignation to the greater will of God and a willingness to lose Isaac.  Kierkegaard writes at length of the Knight Infinite Resignation. This knight resigns himself to the loss because there is (again) a greater context in which the paradox of God’s command “makes sense”.

A common intellectual tactic is to resolve a present problem into an unknown future good in the world to come. There is something in the “infinite” which justifies this action in the “finite”. In such a circumstance, the present loss and conflict removes the difficulty of the command of God.

Again, the resolution of the matter is completed by resolving and dismissing the “paradox” of God’s command.

But this will not work, because Abraham does not proceed according to some platitude and hope for the vague future. Abraham expects to murder and receive Isaac in the same act: “By faith Abraham did not renounce Isaac, but by faith Abraham received Isaac.” (41)

In another place, Kierkegaard notes that Abraham was not hoping for some future but was hoping for something in this life: God had promised Abraham that Isaac was the son of promise.

How then does this work out? Abraham is tempted to the ethical; but how could God command the unethical. Abraham is tempted to merely resign himself to duty or overwhelming power, but instead expects to receive Isaac back.

Moreover, Kierkegaard rules out another escape hatch. Abraham is not believing in something merely improbable (which is another dodge undertaken in the name of faith).  Kierkegaard expressly does not mean by faith, something highly unlikely.

Rather, solves his problem by grasping it squarely and stating that faith is a paradox; it actually does hinge upon something “absurd” which we too often which to domesticate.

Abraham believed. He did not believe that he would be blessed one day in the hereafter but that he would become blissfully happy here in the world. God could give him a new Isaac, call the sacrifice back to life. He believed by virtue of the absurd, for all human calculation had long since ceased. (30)

By absurd, he does not mean “the improbable, the unforeseen, the unexpected.” (39). Before Abraham can believe that he will receive Isaac in this life, he must first fully resolve himself to the fact that Isaac is lost. He knows that Isaac is lost, utterly lost. That is the “movement” of infinite resignation. Faith then takes an “absurd” step to believe that Isaac will be restored in this life – knowing full well that Isaac is lost. Faith then says, Yes, Isaac is lost and I will receive Isaac back though he is lost.

One could ask what this dense, often difficult discussion of faith and ethics has to do with the actual life of a Christian today? I do not necessarily find myself struggling with Hegelian categories of thought on the same grounds as that faced by Kierkegaard in the 19th Century church of Europe.

The answer lies in our constant tendency tame faith in some manner.

Olivia Walsh, in her essay, “The Silencing of Philosophy” makes the observation

This idea of the absolute duty to God in faith can lead to some rather remarkable commands, such as the Gospel injunction to hate one’s “own faith and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life” (Luke 14:26 RSV) which exegetes tend to water down in typically ethical fashion.

I will testify to having heard this and similar texts being domesticated by turning the word “hate” into the phrase “love less”.  But the language itself is shocking. We can say this means hyperbole; but if so, what is the toned-down understanding of “hate”.

Moreover, Jesus in nowise ever abrogates the duties to one’s family. Indeed, he commands love even of one’s enemies. Kierkegaard helps us here by seeing the paradox in the duty toward God and human beings. There is a resignation to loss and recovery back which refuse to be resolved by ethical games or linguistic tricks.

Indeed, the Christian religion itself hinges upon the most profound of paradoxes:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God made Christ sin – the one who was sinless; so that we who are sinful might become righteous. There are no ethical tricks, no linguistic tropes, no logical move which resolves the utterly paradoxical movement in this passage. Faith takes hold of the paradox in joy.

Faith and fear go hand in hand

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

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The graces of the Spirit work for good. Grace is to the soul, as light to the eye, as health to the body. Grace does to the soul, as a virtuous wife to her husband, “She will do him good all the days of her life.” Prov. 31:12. How incomparably useful are the graces! Faith and fear go hand in hand; faith keeps the heart cheerful, fear keeps the heart serious; faith keeps the heart from sinking in despair, fear keeps it from floating in presumption; all the graces display themselves in their beauty: hope is the helmet, 1 Thess. 5:8. meekness “the ornament,” 1 Pet. 3:4. love “the bond of perfectness,” Col. 3:14. The saints’ graces are weapons to defend them, wings to elevate them, jewels to enrich them, spices to perfume them, stars to adorn them, cordials to refresh them: and does not all this work for good? The graces are our evidences for heaven; is it not good to have our evidences at the hour of death?

 Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial; The Saint’s Spiritual Delight; The Holy Eucharist; and Other Treatises, The Writings of the Doctrinal Puritans and Divines of the Seventeenth Century (The Religious Tract Society, 1846), 17–18.

What hope produces, what produces hope.2

28 Thursday Mar 2019

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[Picking up from the first part]

I said there were not three things, but here are three things in this verse about hope. First, hope has a very present effect. That is the word “because”. Second, the hope is certain:  it is laid up in heaven. Third, the hope marks goal, the end of our pilgrimage. Our hope is laid up in heaven.

First we are going to consider the effect of hope. I want you to notice something about. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, Paul writes that, “faith, hope and love” now abide. Here is a triad which lies at heart of being a Christian: we cannot be a Christian without faith hope and love. Paul mentions these three in our text:

4since we heard of your faith [there is faith] in Christ Jesus and the love [there is love] which you have for all the saints;

5because of the hope [there is hope] laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel

Notice also that the hope comes about from hearing “the word of truth, the gospel”.  So there is a chain of events here: 

First there was hearing the word of truth. We will think about what is that word of truth in moment. For right now, just notice that hope did not come their imagination or their experience or anything else. Hope came from hearing “the word of truth”.

In 1 Thessalonians 1:5 Paul describes what happened to that church:

“for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and full of conviction”

There is the pattern which is throughout the Scripture — and demonstrated over and again in the history of the Church. Believers, the church of Jesus Christ are created by Word of God and the Spirit of God. The Word of God comes to people and comes in the power of the Holy Spirit.  It presses down upon the elect and they believe and are transformed. 

Now understand this about true, saving faith: it is not just some sort of historical calculation. For instance, I believe George Washington was the first president of the United States. But that belief is just an idea, it’s just an exercise of thought.

Saving faith is different, it is not just an idea. It comes with power, with conviction, it changes. When true faith comes, it comes with hope. In Romans 4:18, Paul describes Abraham’s saving faith like this, “In hope again he hope he believed.” And in Romans 8:24, Paul writes, “For in hope we have been saved”. 

Faith and hope are very close together; and in saving faith, it comes with hope. We believe we are now saved, and we believe we will be saved. We believe we will be justified on the day of judgment, we believe we will be resurrected, we believe we will be forever with the Lord. But notice that all of that belief entails hope:

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Rom. 8:24-25. And conversely, we could not possibly hope for something we did not believe to be true and real and ahead of us. No one could hope for something he did not sincerely believe was true.

Now consider this also: faith and hope strengthen one another. As we believe, we can more easily and clearly hope: as we hope, our faith gains strength and vigor.

Let’s do a little thought experiment.  Let us assume that the story gets around that Tom is feeling generous today and that he is taking every out to lunch. And so we all hope and believe that Tom is going to bring around limos and we will all be ferried down to Gladstones at the ocean and we will have lunch and be brought back to church in time for evening service. 

But after our initial rush of hope and belief, we start to think about this. We begin to realize that taking a couple of hundred people in limos to lunch at the ocean might be unrealistic for Tom. Tom probably doesn’t have ten thousand dollars to spend on our lunch. And so, our belief begins to wane. And as our belief wanes, our hope wanes. And by the time noon comes around, our faith and hope in Tom’s wonderful lunch surprise goes away.

Faith and hope need one another to survive. 

Here is a point of application. We must keep our faith and our hope well and in good strength. When we becomes hopeless, when we begin to falter in our hope, our faith will decline. In fact, I would surmise that for most people it is their hope which falters first, and then their faith.  The Devil would not easily get you to deny the Incarnation — but if he can discourage you, if he can distract your hope and draw it on to other things, you faith will fail. Faith cannot stand without hope. To keep faith without hope is like keeping a roof without walls. Faith and the roof will fall to the ground.

But Paul also draws love into this equation look again 

4since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints;

5because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel

The love which the Colossians experience and exhibit is “because of the hope”. Their hope gives rise to their love. Some of the commentators are puzzled by this connection. Since love is a very generous affection, it seems odd to connect with one’s hope. How can hoping make one more able and willing to love?

Let us think of the greatest act of love in the history of humanity: without question, it is the love Jesus showed to us when he went to the cross. Jesus himself said that giving one’s life for another was the greatest act of love. Jesus abounded in love, when he went to the cross.

Now I want you to consider Hebrews 12:2, “Jesus … who for the joy set before him endured the cross”. Jesus’ love toward us was itself grounded in hope. Jesus died for us to glorify his name, to glorify the Father — and for us, he made atonement for sin. Jesus gave himself in love, but Jesus also gave himself in hope. 

Because Jesus knew his work would be successful does not mean that Jesus did not hope. Hope does not mean an uncertain a foolish desire. Hope can be quite certain, as we will see. The security of the hope does not mean that it is not hope. Hope is desire for something which is not now present. 

Hope is means of enjoying something in the future now. It is taking possession of something just beyond our grasp. 

Jesus’ love and Jesus’ hope were in perfect agreement and were both fulfilled together. 

Love is a generous affection. Hope is also generous. A hope of acceptance and love from God, makes us wealthy — it makes love and generosity wise. Hope fixes our eyes upon Christ (and that is a whole other thing which we cannot fully consider) — and as it fixes our eyes upon Christ, it makes us like Christ:

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB95)

18But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Our hope transforms us by fixing our gaze upon our Lord. And in so doing, our hope transforms us into those who love. We could never love without hope. We love in hope that our love will be received and will work good in the beloved.

If our gaze could never go beyond the confines of this life and this world, then the full generous love God commands, to love our neighbor as ourself would be insane, it would be dangerous and foolish. To love as God calls us to love is a sucker’s game if there is no heaven calling us: if there is no life beyond this life, then as Paul writes, we are most to be pitied. 

But hope gives room and promise and purpose to Christian love. As Paul also says, our labor will not be in vain. 

When we are filled with hope, then faith and love will grow themselves. And here is the amazing thing: When we have these three, they each make the other grow. When we have love and faith, it grows hope. When we have hope and love it grows faith. Love fulfills the law, love is obedience to Christ. And in Hebrews 5:14, we learn that obedience — which will necessarily require love — makes us fit and able to learn more of God, to increase the scope and depth of our faith and hope, because it gives more range for faith and hope act.

What produces hope? The Word of God brought to bear by the Spirit of God, the word of God believed produces hope. And what does hope produce: faith and love. If you see you faith flagging look to your hope. If you love has grown cold, look to hope. If you hope is weak, look to your faith. 

If you feel yourself wander, discouraged, fallen into sin and tempted with despair, come back to the fountain, come back to the place you lost your way. Come back to the start, to the Word of God, pick up the trail in faith; your flagging hope will stir and that will set you going in the correct direction.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXVII

30 Wednesday May 2018

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(From the Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, 1666)

Upon the Weapon Salve

Who was the author of this weapon salve, cannot certainly be affirmed. Some attribute it to Paracelus who was very pregnant in mysterious inventions: others to one Parmensis Anshelmus, an Italian, who was called a “Saint” as Simon Magus of old, the great power of God, though both were no better than sorcerers. But whoever he were, the ointment is much famed (yet not altogether unquestioned) for its strange manner of healing and curing wounds, differing from other physical applications in a double respect: the one is that it is applied not other person who receives the wounds, but to the active instrument that inflicts it, which is a subject not at all capable of sickness of sanity, or ease or pain, and so cannot be receptive of the alternative power of the ointment; which, if it work by virtual contact must necessarily have the intermedial bodies to participate of it.  The other is, the salve cures at distances which are inconsistent with the rule of a mediate contact: it heals the patient when he is a hundred miles off, as well as when he is hear; and the it requires a vicinity of place, as well as a right disposition of the medium.

Now these difference, though they have served to heighten its esteem in the apprehensions of many, and have given learned men who are great admirers of sympathies to write for it or to be fautors [patrons] of it; yet others of no less worth and repute have divided from them and have slighted it as an empty vanity or censured as a magical impiety. 

For my part, I am not satisfied with such subtle niceties as are used to defend it, of common and universal spirits which convey the action of the remedy to the part and conjoin the virtue of bodies far disjoined; neither can I think it worthy of such speculations: it commonly healing only simple wounds, and such, which being kept clean need no other hand than that of nature and the balsam [anything healing] of the proper part.

But there is a weapon salve of which it is easy to speak much, but impossible to say enough: so full it is of divine and mysterious wonders, if we consider what it is, or what the cures are which it effects, or what the distance is in which it operates.

Would you know what this salve is? The blood of Christ crucified, whose sufferings do all turn to the advantage of believers: 

The blood is his, 

but the balm is theirs; 

the thorns are his, 

but the crown is theirs; 

the price is his, 

but the purchase is theirs.

Would you hear what cures it does? It heals inveterate ulcers and mortal wounds; it extinguishes the fiery darts of Satan. It eases pressures; it destroys yokes, and what not that rise to let [stop] or bar to a believer’s life or happiness. 

Would you know the extent of its virtue, and at what distance it operates? Paul tells us that by the blood of the cross he has reconciled all things to himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. [Col. 1:20]

There is no person that can stand so remote or be at any such angle or corner of earth but he may partake of the influence of it, if he do but cast an eye of faith toward heaven and be as fully healed as any other. Like as to the stunned Israelite who lay in the utmost part of the camp did receive equal benefit by looking to the brazen serpent with him that stood next unto the pole upon which it was erected.

O therefore let not any who are exercised with spiritual conflict cast away their confidence, but fight the good fight of faith unto the end. For though they be not invulnerable, yet none of their wounds are incurable. The blood of Christ is more powerful to save, than sin or other enemies to destroy; else the great end of Christ’s coming into the world of being a physician to the sick, a deliverer to the captive, a healer of the broken hearted would be in vain and all the saints must still be in their sins. 

Set then faith on work you that faint and droop in your minds; and say not, who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring this salve unto us that we may live? Or who shall go over the sea for us and bring this sovereign balm [all powerful medicine] of Gilead [Jer. 8:22] unto us that we may e healed by it.

Do but believe and the cure is wrought. Faith is the instrument which makes a virtual contact between Christ and every believer: It receives healing grace from him, and straightways conveys it uno the subject in which it is to terminate. 

For as futuriton [existing in the future] in respect of the existence of things is no prejudice to the eye of faith in beholding of them in the present; so neither is distance of place any hinderance to the efficacy of the touch of faith, but that it may forthwith transmit the sanitive efflux of Christ’s blood [Christ’s blood pour out makes holy] unto him, who by faith touches him [touches Christ].  The woman that labored many years of the bloody issue in the same instant that she touched the hem of Christ’s garment, get in herself, that she was healed of her plague. [Mark 5:24-34]

But I am jealous, that while I commend this sacred remedy, some presumptuous sinner who is more apt to abuse grace, than a wounded spirit to improve it [make use of it]should make no other use of it than to think he may sin securely and need not fear what bruises and wound he contracts, seeing the cure is certain and speedy.

I can therefore, do no less than express myself in a holy indignation against such who would make the precious blood of my Savior subservient to their lusts, desiring rather to be freed from the danger than from the dominion of sin.

O my soul, come thou not into their secrets; unto their assembly mine honor be not thou united:  Cursed be their lusts, for they are vile, and their desires for they are devilish. [Gen. 49:6-7] Let me bless God who has made me whole, and sin no more lest a worse thing come unto me. [John 5:14]

Soren Kierkegaard, The Mirror of the Word Part One

23 Monday Apr 2018

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How to Derive True Benediction from Beholding Oneself in the Mirror of the Word

James 1:22 to the End

Fifth Sunday After Easter

 

Introduction

Kierkegaard prefaces his discourse with a note about the necessary “eloquence” of Christian preaching: it must be an eloquence of word and action:

He who is to preach ought to live in the thoughts and conceptions of Christianity; this should be his daily life — if such is the case, then (as Christianity teaches) thou shalt have eloquence enough, and just what is needed, when thou dost speak straightforwardly without special preparation. On the other hand, it is a false eloquence,  if without being concerned with these thoughts or living in them, one sits down from time to time to make a collection of such thoughts, culling them perhaps from the field of literature, and working them up together into a well-developed discourse, which then is learned perfectly  by rote and is admirably delivered, both with respect to elocution and with respect to movement of arms. No, just as in a well-appointed house one is not obligated to go downstairs to fetch water, but by pressure already has it on the upper floors merely by turning the tap, so too is with real the Christian orator, who, just because Christianity is his life, has eloquence, and precisely the right eloquence, close at ham, immediately present with him ….

For the sermon ought not to establish an invidious distinction between the talented and the untalented, it ought rather in the unity of the Holy Ghost fix attention exclusively upon the requirement that actions must correspond to words.

This idea of correspondence between actions and words is worked in the subsequent discourse on the correspondence between faith and action. There must be an integrity between what is said, and what is done.

The Sermon

Kiekegaard preaches on the following text:

James 1:22–27 (ESV)

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Kierkegaard begins his consideration of these words with the apparent contradiction of Martin Luther: we are saved by faith alone. He then notes the nature of human depravity when it comes to works:

yet every man has a disposition either to want to have merit from works when they are to be done; or, when faith and grace are to be stressed, to want to be as far as possible liberated entirely from works.

Luther sought to work around that dual tendency:

Luther wanted to take away the meritoriousness from works and apply it in a somewhat different place, namely to witnessing for truth. Worldliness, which understood Luther radically, did away entirely with meritoriousness — and with works along with it.

Luther also notes that “faith is a perturbing thing”. Well, then if faith is a perturbing thing, “To what effect has faith, which thou sayest thou hast, perturbed thee?”

That is the trouble. And what sort of disquiet should come from faith? The disquiet of faith will seek to change things to conform to the faith — whether it is the religious order or a disquiet of “inward order.”  “A true love-affair is a disquieting thing, but it does not occur to the lover to want to change the established order.”

Kierkegaard mentioning Luther’s trouble with James suggests that perhaps Luther did not realize how easily one could twist “faith alone” to mean faith apart from effect upon one. “That does not apply to the Lutheran doctrine, but it applies to me: I have reason to know that I am not an upright soul, but a crafty fellow.”

Since I am a crafty fellow, I think to think more carefully about what is meant by this “faith alone”. “So it doubtless would be well to examine a little more carefully the subordinate clauses (works, existence, witnessing and suffering for the truth, works of love, & c.), the subordinating clauses of Lutheranism.”

It is that examination of what faith must do that occupies the discourse proper.

Loyalty to the Saints

24 Sunday Dec 2017

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This sermon (“Loyalty to the Saints”) by James Denney is based upon Psalm 78:15, ” If I had said, I will speak thus; Behold, I had dealt treacherously with the generation of thy children.”

This sermon concerns the “generation of God’s children”, the people of God and the individuals need of relationship to God’s children. Having established that God has a generation in every age, Denney explains the importance:

At this moment, there is such a thing in the world as the generation of God’s children, the spiritual successors of those to whom the Psalmist refers; they inherit the same hopes, and represent the same ideals and beliefs.

[1] It is a great matter to recognize this. For one thing, it is an important part of our moral security to have our place among God’s children.

[2 For another, it is a great test of the soundness of our judgment in spiritual things when we find ourselves in agreement with them.

James Denney, The Way Everlasting: Sermons (London; New York; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 128.  Here is an important aspect of the stability in the Christian life: both as to how we live (“moral security”) and right thinking (“soundness of our judgment”).  Therefore, it is critical that we rightly understand the Church.

Denny singles out trust or faith in God as a distinguishing mark of the Church:

The one mark of the children of God which never varies is that they believe in Him. From generation to generation they perpetuate the sublime tradition of faith. In various modes, through all sorts of discouragement, they look unceasingly to Him, believing that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him. (129)

While not a comprehensive theory of the “true Church”, Denney does focus on the distinguishing attribute of “faith”.  He does not attempt to distinguish true and false objects at faith. Rather he looks to three practical objections to faith. The rationale for such an examination is that faith must be challenged to be faith, “No doubt it belongs to the nature of faith that it should be tried; if there were not appearances against it, it would not be faith; it would be sight.” (129)

First, the political evil of the world may cause us to question God: “Faith in God implies faith in His government of the world.” (129) But when we look at the world — from the time of the psalmist until now — there is constantly more than enough to cause us to question God, “It is manifest that the Psalmist had had more than enough to try his faith in the Divine government. When he looked abroad upon the earth, it was as though God had abandoned it, or rather as though there were no God at all.” (129-130).

When we see the evil of this world, we wonder at the evil of the world and wonder why we should try. But in this skepticism, we should be checked, because the children of God have persevered through generations. To doubt would be to betray the perseverance of the Church:

What, it was suggested to him, does the indulgence of this sceptical temper mean? It means that I am betraying the cause for which the children of God have fought the good fight from generation to generation, that I am deserting the forlorn hope of the good to side with the enemies of God and man. God forbid! Be my soul with the saints, and shall my mind cherish thoughts, shall my lips speak words, that are disloyal to their faith, their hopes, their sacrifices? To choose your creed is to choose your company, and the feeling that such scepticism would range him in base opposition to the Israel of God is the first thing which rallies the Psalmist again to assert his faith. (131).

Rather than back down, the witness must become more certain (Thomas Watson, “The profaneness of the times should not slacken but heighten our zeal. The looser other are, the stricter we should be.”),

No: they are trumpet calls for witnesses for God; for soldiers, for martyrs, for men and women who will fight God’s battle against all odds, and though they die fighting die assured of victory at last. All the hope of the world lies in them, not in the cynical or sceptical who say, How doth God know?

The same principle applies to our private trials of faith, “by your own faith and patience set a new seal to its truth”. (132).

Second, we must not question God’s moral agency even when world proves to us that we should change our position: we must not be relativists. Our Faith in the authority of God’s law must remain unchanging.  While the first tests our patience and hope, this second tests our relationship to society, ”

While the first point shows itself in private defections, this second point has recently shown itself in claiming Christian Churches rejecting the law of God, particularly on matters of sexuality:

And how many novelists there are, exhibiting their criticism of life in all languages, who seem to have it as their one motive to show that there is nothing absolute in the seventh commandment. A man is to be true to his wife, naturally; but it is a poor kind of truth to sacrifice to his legal obligations to one woman the genuine love for another in which his true being would attain its full realization. (134)

What then should we do?

What should we say when we encounter ideas of this kind, in philosophy or in literature, in cruder or in subtler forms? Let them be met on their own ground, by all means; let bad philosophy be confuted by good; let the inadequacy of such theories to explain the actual moral contents of life be made clear; but before everything, let the soul purge itself from every shadow of complicity in them in the indignant words of the Psalm, “If I spoke thus, I should be false to the generation of God’s children.” I should desert those who have done more than all others to lift the life of man from the natural to the spiritual level.

It is also reject that which God has “set His seal” upon.

Finally, this faith is in the promises of God, particularly the promise of eternal life. (136)  Eternal life is at the crux of the Christian hope, “As the Scottish father whom I quoted at the beginning has said, ‘Eternity is wrapt up and implied in every truth of religion’.” (136).

How then do we respond to such necessary doubts? First, “that true as the disconcerting phenomena referred to may be, they are not the whole truth.” (138)

Second, why should I reject the the faith of the Church, why should “I separate myself from the generation of God’s children”? (139) He drives this argument further,

No one, I fancy, has ever argued more subtly against immortality than Hume: but what has Hume contributed to the spiritual life of the world that he should be counted an authority at all? Who would weigh his negative inferences, whatever the weight of logic behind them, against the insight and conviction of this Psalm, against the assurance of Jesus, against the struggling yet ever triumphant faith of the generation of God’s children? None who would be loyal to the best that man has been. (139)

Denny ends with an exhortation as to the life of the Church:

I will add one word of application to this interpretation of the text: Associate with God’s children, and let their convictions inspire yours; frequent the church, and let the immemorial faith of all saints beget itself in you anew. It is one great service of the Church that it perpetuates the tradition of faith—that sublime voices like those of this Psalm are for ever sounding in it, waking echoes and Amens in our hearts—that characters and convictions of the highest type are generated in it, not by logic but by loyalty, not by argument but by sympathy with the good—deep calling unto deep. We need the common faith to sustain our individual faith; we need the consciousness of the children of God in all ages to fortify our wavering belief in His government, His law and His promises. To be at home in the Church is to absorb this strength unconsciously. It is to be delivered from the shallows and miseries of a too narrow experience, and set afloat on the broad stream of Christian conviction which gathers impetus and volume with every generation the saints survive. (139-140).

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Affliction Creates Faith

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in 2 Corinthians, affliction, Faith, Faith, Uncategorized

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It is a melancholy reflection upon human nature that we have, as the Apostle expresses it elsewhere, to be “shut up” to all the mercies of God. If we could evade them, notwithstanding their freeness and their worth, we would. How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence? Is it not by proving, through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to feel that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benignant than our own, life is a moral chaos? How, above all, do we come to any faith in redemption? to any abiding trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of our souls? Is it not by this same way of despair? Is it not by the profound consciousness that in ourselves there is no answer to the question, How shall man be just with God? and that the answer must be sought in Him? Is it not by failure, by defeat, by deep disappointments, by ominous forebodings hardening into the awful certainty that we cannot with our own resources make ourselves good men—is it not by experiences like these that we are led to the Cross? This principle has many other illustrations in human life, and every one of them is something to our discredit. They all mean that only desperation opens our eyes to God’s love. We do not heartily own Him as the author of life and health, unless He has raised us from sickness after the doctor had given us up. We do not acknowledge His paternal guidance of our life, unless in some sudden peril, or some impending disaster, He provides an unexpected deliverance. We do not confess that salvation is of the Lord, till our very soul has been convinced that in it there dwells no good thing. Happy are those who are taught, even by despair, to set their hope in God; and who, when they learn this lesson once, learn it, like St. Paul, once for all…. Faith and hope like those which burn through this Epistle were well worth purchasing, even at such a price; they were blessings so valuable that the love of God did not shrink from reducing Paul to despair that he might be compelled to grasp them. Let us believe when such trials come into our lives—when we are weighed down exceedingly, beyond our strength, and are in darkness without light, in a valley of the shadow of death with no outlet—that God is not dealing with us cruelly or at random, but shutting us up to an experience of His love which we have hitherto declined. “After two days will He revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him.”

James Denney

Expositor’s Bible, 2 Corinthians, pp. 25-26, “Faith Born of Despair”