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Tag Archives: Noetic Effects of Sin

Edward Taylor, 28th Meditation.2

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in 2 Corinthians, Edward Taylor, Lord's Supper, Uncategorized

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28th Meditation, Communion, Edward Taylor, Noetic Effects of Sin, The Lords Supper

Lord clear the cost: and let thy sweet sun-shine

That I may better speed a second time:

Oh! Fill my pipkin with thy bloodred wine:

I’ll drink thy health: to pledge thee is no crime.

Although I but an earthen vessel be 

Convey some of my fullness to thee.

The image of a coast picks up on the “befogged dark fancy, clouded mind.” In days before the Coast Guard and lighthouses and radar and exhaustive maps, a cloudy coast would be an enormous danger. 

Here the coast is not a physical location, but rather the affections and mind “befogged” by the effects of sin and the fall. Without going through the entire doctrine here, which goes under the title “the noetic effects of sin,” it is sufficient to know that the residual effects of sin persist as long we exist in this world. And while there is improvement in this life under the operation of the Spirit and the Word, the effects persist.

Taylor here prays that the effects of sin be lifted: rather than fog, “let thy sweet sun-shine.” The hope of this transformative effect is that he will be able to rework the poem and create something more worthy. The poem is losing glory, because it lost it ways.

Perhaps Taylor is referring to an earlier version of the poem which he destroyed. But based upon this being a persistent claim, in various forms, which is seen throughout his corpus, it could be just his difficulty at the beginning of the poem.

In the remainder of the stanza he brings up the method of this shining light. Since the poems were written in preparation for communion, the reference of “blood red wine” is to the wine of communion. 

The nature of communion as a joy, while often not emphasized, is not absent from the ceremony. First, the Supper takes over for the Feast of Passover, which while in stressful circumstances also celebrates the escape from Egypt. Second, while the ceremony recalls the Lord’s Death, we also call that day “Good Friday.” Third, the ceremony recalls the Lord’s Death until he comes. The ceremony is based upon the Lord’s life and looks forward to the Lord’s return.

But there is another level of this image: He asks to have his “pipkin,” his small cup, is to be filled with wine. But in the last line, the image of “wine” is recounted as “fullness”:

Convey some of thy fullness into me.

“Fullness” is a reference to the fullness of grace in the moto for the poem, “16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Thus, it is the fullness of grace he is praying to receive.

The pipkin is repeated in the fifth line of the stanza as an “earthen vessel”. The move to an earthen vessel may seem disjointed on the face of the stanza, but when we see the nature of the illusion, Taylor’s relationship makes sense. 

Taylor is referring to 2 Corinthians 4:7, where Paul writes that “we have this treasure in jars of clay.”  While the reference to clay has become a bit of a Christian cliché to refer generally to the weakness of human beings, Taylor picks up this image not merely as a form self-abasement, but because the passage relates to his twin themes in this stanza of fullness of Christ’s grace and light to drive away the fog.

The treasure Paul identifies is  the “light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  The fuller passage reads as follows:

5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 

2 Corinthians 4:5–7.

A Brief Observation on Herod: Irrationality, Sin, Suppression and God

07 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Matthew, Sin, Uncategorized

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Herod, Irrationality, Magi, Matthew 2, Noetic Effects of Sin, Romans 1:18, Sin, suppression

Anonymous-Artist_The-Magi-Before-Herod-from-the-altar-frontal-of-The-Virgin-with-Roses-c.1350

Something which I had not sufficiently considered about Herod is that he believes. He is not merely responding to a political threat; he is a panic over God. At some point, I may wish to develop this idea: there are two interesting themes here: (1) the irrationality of sin and suppression; (2) the effect of God intruding into human conscious such knowledge has been previously suppressed.

A good parallel here would be Judas & Peter. Anyway, to Herod:

Matthew 2:1–2 (ESV)

 2 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

The Magi approach Herod and speak of the one born the King of Israel.  Herod knows about this child. He has heard about the Messiah & he believes this to be true:

Matthew 2:3–6 (ESV)

3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

            6           “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

                        for from you shall come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ”

Despite this knowledge, Herod has apparently put the thought out of his head. Herod is not a decedent of David. To the extent he has taken thought concerning the Messiah, he has realized that the Messiah will replace him.

He goes to the religious authorities and asks them for more information on this child: specifically where will this child be born.

Consider this for a moment: Herod has successfully kept God at a distance from his conscious thought. He knows these things are true, but they are not Herod’s concern.

When God does intrude into Herod’s thought, Herod becomes “troubled.” He has been successfully suppressing the knowledge of God. But when God forces his way into Herod’s conscious life, Herod can only be troubled.

He seeks to figure out how to manage God, by managing the situation. Thus, he needs some information upon which to act: Where is this Messiah. The religious leaders can give him a city, but not a house. For that information, he turns to the Magi:

Matthew 2:7–8 (ESV)

7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”

Before we go on, consider the irrationality of Herod. Yes, he was a famously dangerous and vicious man. But this even portrays a peculiar kind of irrationality. He knows God is doing something right here, right now. God has intruded into his world. God has so controlled history that a child is being born at a particular moment in history and this known even by Magi from the Parthian Empire.

But he thinks he has a play. If he gets to the right house, he will be to kill the child.

This is the bizarre calculation of sin: Paul begins his argument in Romans with the proposition that God in fact knows, and we humans know that God knows and yet delude ourselves into thinking that God won’t know this time.

More consciously this stunt is attempted, the more bizarre it becomes in practice. Herod knowingly wants to kill the promised Messiah. Why does he believe that he’ll be able to outsmart God? How does he think God will let him get away with this?

The Soul’s Conflict With Itself.5

28 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Richard Sibbes

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Exegeting the Heart, Noetic Effects of Sin, Pride, Psalm 25:11, Richard Sibbes, Self-Deception, Self-Examination, Sin, Spiritual Disciplines, The Soul's Conflict With Itself

The prior post in this series may be found here

In the fifth chapter, Sibbes begins to consider the “remedies” for a downcast soul. First, he notes that we must “reason the case” and speak to our dejected soul. “Therefore the first way to quiet the soul, is, to ask a reason of the tumult raised, and then many of our distempers for shame will not appear, because though they rage in silent darkness, yet they can say nothing for themselves, being summoned before strength of judgment and reason” (145).

Yet, there are many people who never take the time to sound their own soul. Nor knowing their own heart, “Such men are strangers at home, afraid of nothing more than themselves, and therefore in a fearful condition, because they are reserved for the judgment of the great day, if God doth not before that set upon them in this world. If men, carried away with their own lusts, would give but a little check, and stop themselves in their posting to hell, and ask, What have I done? What am I now about? Whither will this course tend? How will it end? &c., undoubtedly men would begin to be wise” (145).

The reason we shun to know ourselves is that don’t desire to see the effects of sin. Sibbes explains:

But sin is a work of darkness, and therefore shuns not only the light of grace, but even the light of reason. Yet sin seldom wants a seeming reason. Men will not go to hell without a show of reason. But such be sophistical fallacies, not reasons; and, therefore, sinners are said to play the sophisters with themselves. Satan could not deceive us, unless we deceived ourselves first, and are willingly deceived. Wilful sinners are blind, because they put out the light of reason, and so think God, like themselves, blind too, Ps. 50:21, and, therefore, they are deservedly termed madmen and fools (146).

This is certainly true. No one (perhaps there is one) thinks their action truly wrong and warranting punishment and without excuse.  We live by rationalization and could not live without it. In this appearance the wonder of true repentance. Repentance has no rationalization; rather it condemns the sin most strongly and prays with David, “Pardon my iniquity for it is great” (Psalm 25:11b).

Sibbes further details the movements of the heart which shun such work. First, we love ourselves and thus will not think ourselves wrong. “but this self-love is but self-hatred in the end” (146).

Second, it is simply hard work to examine one’s own heart truthfully.

Third, “pride also, with a desire of liberty, makes men think it to be a diminishing of greatness and freedom either to be curbed, or to curb ourselves” (146).

Sibbes next explains that when we come to examine and charge (“cite”) our soul, we must not stop there: we press the soul to “give an account” (explain itself). Since our souls will rebel more strongly the longer the sinful passion rages, it is best to press the case as soon as possible.

Now, he moves to the objection: What if my soul refuse to give an account?

Then speak to God, to Jesus Christ by prayer, that as he rebuked the winds and the waves, and went upon the sea, so he would walk upon our souls, and command a calm there. It is no less power to settle a peace in the soul, than to command the seas to be quiet. It is God’s prerogative to rule in the heart, as likewise to give it up to itself, which, next to hell is the greatest judgment; which should draw us to the greater reverence and fear of displeasing God(147-148)

If it is the truth itself that ensures our unbelief

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in John, Uncategorized

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D.A. Carson, D.A.Carson, Depravity, John, John 8:45, Noetic Effects of Sin, Scripture, truth, unbelief, Uncategorized

“Fourth, we must not underestimate the impact of sin on our ability to think through these matters clearly. A substantial element in our original fall was the unbridled lust for self-sufficiency, for independent knowledge. We wanted to be the center of the universe—and that is the heart of all idolatry. John 8:45 reports Jesus addressing his opponents in these shocking words: “Yet because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me!” If it is the truth itself that ensures our unbelief, how deep and tragic and abominable is our lostness. Small wonder, then, that God does not present himself to us in such a way that we may feel we can control him. Those who demand signs of Jesus are firmly rebuked, for he knows that to give in to such demands would be to submit to the agenda of others. He would quickly be domesticated, nothing more than a magical, spiritual genie.”

Excerpt From: D. A. Carson. “Collected Writings on Scripture.” Crossway Books & Bibles, 2010-07-10. iBooks.

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