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Delighting in God By Jay Wegter (Part One) Are we preaching to the affections? (An introductory note to pastors) We live in an age in which the phrase, “Is it relevant?” has made incursions into pulpits across America. Pragmatism has become the rule of the day as mega-church values increasingly become the criterion for measuring spiritual results. Pastors convinced that God’s Word is sufficient are in the minority while “market-driven” ministries seem to be rewarded with numbers and financial resources. As a result, confidence in the sufficiency and authority of Scripture has been undermined in countless churches. Methods dominate the religious landscape in places where a departure from Scripture has left a vacuum. Seminaries committed to the sufficiency of Scripture are needed now more than ever. They fulfill a vital role; for they train students in the exegetical method and they graduate many capable men who are committed to expository preaching. But even the best seminary training has its limitations. Graduates find that their academic experience has taught them to preach to the intellect, but often to the neglect of other faculties of the soul. As pastors committed to the faithful preaching of God’s Word, we’re grateful for the example set by today’s expositors; they have taught us by example to preach to the mind, and to the conscience, and to the will. Our seminary training in expository preaching has been priceless. We are capable at developing the historical setting and identifying the occasion for which our passage was written. We have learned to excel at unfolding the meaning of the text. We are becoming accomplished at laying the burden of the text upon the conscience. We are adroit at preaching application and the how to of implementation. But a question arises; are we preaching to the affections? Are we exalting the excellence of our God and His glorious perfections in the truths we declare? Are we setting forth the desirability and beauty of Christ, the Lord of the truth? Would it trouble us if we found that we are content to leave souls informed and challenged but not ravished by the God of all grace? This author finds his own conscience pricked at this juncture. Welling up inside is a growing compulsion to be ever more effective in carrying out the privilege of displaying Christ; and displaying Him in such a way that the hearers are moved from accuracy to awe and from duty to delight. When it comes to preaching to the affections, it is likely that we will feel our own inadequacy; for in reality we are babes. Much is to be gained by sitting at the feet of divines who have gone before us. These were men whose meditations brought uncontainable joy and copious tears. For them worship and meditation was a lifestyle. Their doctrine of anthropology was not entirely gleaned from systematic theologies. They knew the heart of man from a deep and contrite familiarity with their own hearts and by frequent interaction with the hearts of their parishioners. This paper is a call to ministers to sit for a moment and consider how central the affections are to true religion. The following anthology on delighting in the Lord is intended to be an incentive to handle the Scriptures as God’s living Word addressed to the affections of sinners.
From The Works of Jonathan Edwards, “God, the Best Portion of the Christian” (Banner of Truth), 2:104-107. Asaph’s observations in Psalm 37 concerning the wicked (especially their values and destiny) are set in stark contrast to the those of the righteous. The godly have a far better portion than the wicked. The godly have all they need in God; He leads them, provides for them, guides them, and receives them into glory. Practice occupying your mind on things above. The righteous prefer God before all things; He is their portion. The godly set their hearts upon heaven (Col 3:1-2; Heb 11:13; Jn 14:2; 20:17). The believer’s heart is there in heaven because his treasure is there; God Himself. Why do you want to go to heaven is a legitimate question. Islam paints a portrait of heaven as a place filled with the same sensual objects as man desires on earth; whereas the Holy Scriptures describe heaven’s highest joy to be delight in God. God’s promise to His people is about God giving us Himself (Ps 16:11). Here on earth we have little manifestations of divine glory and love ---but as promised in the Gospel, heaven will be full enjoyment of God’s glory and love. On this side of glory, the genuine believer hungers and thirsts for more and greater attainments of God; the true saint longs for God’s presence in his heart (Ps 27:4; 42:2, 4; 63:1, 2; 84:1-3). No honor will excel that of Christ confessing our names before His Father and before the holy angels. The godly man desires honor from God more than honor from men (Jesus established this as a criterion of true belief and reception of Himself -- Jn 5:43, 44). Union of the soul with Christ is the greatest possible honor and dignity on earth. There is no greater honor than to be united with Christ and to wear the “robe of Christ’s righteousness” (Ps 84:10; Is 61:10). The godly prefer God to all the enjoyments of the world (Ps 16:5, 6). They prefer God above any earthly friend (Luke 14:26). Whatever loss he suffers on earth, he knows He cannot lose God. For God is his true home. (A true home has love, belonging, order, beauty, dignity, discipline, rest, refreshment, protection, loyalty, affection, relatedness comfort, and mutuality – see Come Home Forever, by Tom Wells, Evangelical Press, pp. 9-13). “Earthy” men (1 Cor 15:47) set their hearts on fading things. The spiritual man builds upon the foundation that is unshakeable (Heb 12:27-29). Here is a test – “do you prefer God to all other things?” “What commands your supreme respect?” “Why do you want to go to heaven when you die?” – The godly can answer confidently, “My heart’s desire and expectation is to be with God, to have communion with Him, to be conformed to Him, to enjoy Him there.” Delighting in God produces the willingness to count all things as loss for the sake of knowing Christ. The saint who has tasted God manifesting Himself as Father, discovering to you His glory and love; lifting up the countenance of His favor upon you would rather have this, though in poverty, than anything the world can offer. God is pleased at all times to give such discoveries of His glory and of the excellency of Christ. The intent of such encounters is to draw forth from the heart the conviction that (beyond the shadow of a doubt) the believer is willing to count all things as loss for the excellence of knowing Christ (Phil 3:7, 8). If you are to be satisfied that you have the true love of God by the witness of His Spirit, LABOR to grow in grace, seek to have such experiences again and frequent. Press forward, seeking acquaintance with God, have the principle of grace strengthened. What is our response to God’s love? Prefer God to all things on earth. Be sure that your heart is wedded to God above all other lovers. Deny, forsake, sell all, take up your cross, run with endurance, fight the fight of faith, bring your body into subjection – sincerely choose God above all things competing for your affections. Press toward the mark, toward the upward call of God (Phil 3:12-14). From The
Thought of God, by Maurice Roberts, “Christ Lover of our Souls” (Banner of
Truth), 57-66. Ecstasy and delight in God are essential to the believer’s soul; they promote sanctification. We are not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration. When the heart goes for long periods of time without warmth from God’s presence, there will be the temptation to find the emotions satisfied from earthly things, not the Spirit of God. The soul of man was made to worship, to adore, and to pursue happiness. The soul was made to crave – if it cannot reach spiritual joys, it will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction. If the believer goes any length of time without tasting the love of Christ (the savor of the Savior’s presence), and when Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, souls will go in silent search of other lovers. What is the love of Christ in the heart? It is the experience of the love of God being shed abroad in the heart (Rom 5:5). This is an actual experience. It is God making His love wonderfully real to us so that we are made profoundly aware of it. It is the impression upon the human spirit of the love which God has for us in Christ. This experience is accessible by means of grace. Our daily duty and privilege is to seek this experience from Him until we are joyful partakers of it. To taste this once is to not be satisfied nor rest content, but to seek to have it again and again. The experience of biblical enjoyment of God is not abnormal or extraordinary, but part of our inheritance (Eph 1:14). “Earnest” or initial payment is not confined to the doctrinal, or theoretical. The “down payment” of our inheritance strongly implies that the enjoyment of God is to be expected, looked for. When we delight ourselves in the Lord, He makes His wonderful love real to us. This gracious communication to us in this life by the Spirit generates felt joy and exhilaration in connection with the consciousness that one is a child of God. This experience is not confined to the N.T. God is my exceeding joy (Ps 43:4). Taste the goodness of the Lord (Ps 34:4). “Tasting” is experiential; it is the ecstasy of the Spirit poured out in the heart – that we might pant after Him, thirst for Him, desire to appear before Him, and long to enjoy His lovingkindness forever. The godly expect this ongoing “tasting;” it is not just mental understanding, but heart-warming experiences. It is felt enjoyment of the love of God (Ps 63:2-7). How different is the heartless formalized religion that so often passes for piety. Without heart affection, our knowledge is offensive to God. True worship is not a function of rote learning. It is through true worship that believers find this felt blessing. Delighting in God, as any other aspect of faith, is a spiritual art learned from the Word of God. But how do we go to God for the sense of His love? It begins with an act of faith. We must believe that such a thing as a sense of His love is to be had in this life. We must expect such an experience. Stoic professors of Christianity may scoff in their imagined wisdom at such a religious experience (and condescendingly smile at our reports). But the scriptural enjoyment of Christ is not fanaticism; it is the subjective fruit of the Gospel in the heart-experience of the believer. Are you convinced that the experience of Christ’s love can be felt? Then go to God in prayer for it. Go to the throne of grace for the choice favor of tasting, so as to be made aware (subjectively conscious of) the love God has for you in Christ. We often stray at this point – our tendency may be to come to God in prayer to tell Him how much we love Him. But, to experience God’s love it is necessary to put one self as far down as possible. Start in prayer by admitting how piteously low our love to God is. Assume a lowly place in praying (Is 57:15). Don’t make it a habit to pray without God’s power in your heart – it is folly, and it is harmful to treat prayer merely as an exercise of mind without expecting to emerge from the presence of God without a fresh token of His love. In true prayer there is a concurrence of man’s spirit WITH God’s Spirit. The Spirit assists with groaning too deep for words (Rom 8:26). We are to treat God with the awe His majesty deserves – lowness, contrition, self-abasement; yet not with detached politeness. He expects us to wrestle with Him as Jacob did, casting ourselves at His feet and making mighty demands – deadly earnest to get His blessing, expiring at His feet if we do not succeed. Such concentration in prayer demands undistracted focus and an unhurried, settled mind before His felt presence. The believer rises from his knees at times with joy inexpressible at the prospect of having received the unforgettable impression of Christ’s love upon his spirit. Spiritual decline sets in when we lack the commitment to take hold of God and when we fail to pursue delight in Him. Without a commitment to take hold of God in the above way, there is a danger of learning to tolerate living away from the experience of the love of Christ. Our corruptions work against daring to draw near. We tend to retreat into the shadows away from Christ for months on end until we become strangers to the inward enjoyment of the love of Christ in the heart. A spiritual chill comes over the soul – callousness insulates the spirit from intimacy with God. Worldliness, like cracked paint layers, coats the soul and makes the believer accustomed to feeling nothing. Busy-ness for God may continue. But it is dangerous to live without the heart-warmings that are all important to spiritual well-being. The next step of spiritual declension involves slipping into dead formalism. Prayer becomes mere duty and routine. Bible reading is kept up for appearance, or to salve the conscience. There is an accompanying loss of joy in things spiritual – without relish for the things of God. Companions are selected that are cool regarding devotion to Christ. It is surprising that this condition is not more readily diagnosed – but like Ephesus of Revelation 2, works, labor, patience, zeal, and orthodoxy may conceal a heart that has left Christ its first love. A heart that is spiritually lukewarm is often concealed in Christian workers who may be actively fighting against ecumenism, liberalism, and secularism. Countless folks are convinced that they are serving God even though they are engaged in spiritual decline. Seminary professors, preachers, missionaries, and church workers often have such a busy life that they fail to take the time to seek the dew of spiritual freshness. Neglecting precious time with God by yielding to an overly busy schedule can harm our souls. When we stir ourselves to experience the love of God, we will have strength against temptation and we will have effectiveness in service. Without fresh encounters with Christ, the soul becomes restless for pleasure. It is unfortified against an ambush by Satan. The love of God experienced puts iron into the backbone – the believer relishing God’s love can easily say no to the world’s solicitations. But without these heart warmings of God’s love in Christ, the soul is far too ready to compromise when temporal things compete for its affection. The Lord requires we walk close to Him. Without conscientious fellowship we will lose the opportunity for genuine service. Spiritual effectiveness comes out of the secret place with God. Guarding time with the Lord in which we seek Him passionately births new vision and new triumphs. To pray well is to have studied well (Luther). Nothing must be permitted to weaken our cultivation of fellowship with Christ. All of our outward duties need to be re-molded to be a means of fellowship with God. Abiding in
Christ is our number one priority – we are to live unto God, upon God, and for God. For me to live is Christ
and to die is gain (Phil 1:21). To
be effective we must excel at fellowship with Christ. The power to influence others spiritually is a function of
emerging from our prayer closets as those melted
by Gospel love. From The
Works of the Reverend John Howe, “A Treatise on Delighting in God” (Soli
Deo Gloria) 1:474-664. The Devoted Life, Kelly M. Kapic and
Randall C. Gleason, eds. (Intervarsity Press), “A Treatise on Delighting in
God,” summary of Howe’s treatise by Martin Sutherland, pp. 225-237. Says Howe, delighting in God is the very substance of religion – it is the base, the foundation, the top, and the perfection of practical godliness. Howe’s treatise is intended to bring readers to the point where they habitually and fervently seek delight in God (once delight in God is understood, motivation to seek Him would not be a problem – it would almost be automatic). We ought to persuade ourselves that God desires to meet with us and manifest His love to us. Common ways of studying God by dwelling upon His inherent qualities is sterile says Howe. This approach to the attributes of God is too much the ‘God of the philosophers.’ (See Henry Ward Beecher’s marvelous sermon in The Protestant Pulpit, by Andrew Blackwood, “The God of Comfort,” Baker, pp. 86-98. Beecher’s comments on the ‘God of philosophers,’ pp. 91, 92 perfectly parallels the point Howe is making about sterility in studying God.) Our focus ought to be upon our relatedness to the Godhead as it is settled in Christ. As opposed to philosophy, Christianity is about relationship with God who came to us in Christ Jesus. Thus we are to more principally consider Him (Heb 12:2). We are to frequently consider our relatedness to the Godhead as it is settled in Christ. This is the most crucial point in our relationship with God. The Divine Being we are called upon to delight in is not remote. Our Christian God was among us. He took on our nature. He entered our experience on our behalf. Therefore delight in Him is as natural as saying ‘hello.’ What is it about God’s nature that generates delight? If we compare the intimate acquaintance of a fellow human to intimacy with God; God’s communications are more intimate, constant, powerful, efficacious, delightful, and satisfying than any earthly friendship. Encounters wherein we delight in the Lord change us into the likeness of Christ. When we meet God, there is a consequence for the mind, will, and heart. First there is an inward enlightening revelation of Himself. The Holy Spirit brings a progressive apprehension of the beauty of God’s truth and an assurance of its eternal significance. This goes beyond intellectual conviction and rationality. God communicates something more – inward revelation which captivates the heart to an entire unitive closure with the great things of God contained in the outward revelation (His written Word). (By unitive closure, Howe means that man’s faculties of intellect, conscience, will, and affections all unite to embrace the compelling truthfulness and beauty of God’s revelation – note Ps 86:11, 12 – unite my heart to fear thy name. . .) An encounter with God does more than convince; it brings transforming impressions of His image. The impact unites the will, the heart, the mind, and the practice of the believer. The encounter changes people. Like a flame passing through the soul; it searches, melts, burns up dross, and makes a new lump. It forms the heart for God’s own use and converse. The effect is cumulative. Encounters produce greater transformation and greater joy and a greater desire for more acquaintance with God. The rectifying effect of an encounter with God is an essential element of delight. Contact with God not only brings delight, but order, resolve, and rectitude to the soul. This is a safeguard from accusations that we are courting religious experiences – delight issues forth in Christ-likeness. Rapturous, transporting apprehension of God’s particular love accomplishes work in the soul. Beholding produces transformation (2 Cor 3:18). Wherein is the delight? It is personal, delectable manifestations of God’s love to the soul in particular. The Gospel is about God’s love coming to the individual. What is more dignifying than God’s particular love? There is no higher honor than being favored by God’s love. To meet God so as to delight in Him is to find one’s desire satisfied. As said before, the internal joy is not an end in itself. Delight is the perfection of God’s love. It is the redeemed creature’s desire satisfied – issuing forth in rest, trust, completion, and satisfaction. This is reflexive worship. God is glorified in our delight because delight is knowledge of God, thoughts of Him, and enjoyment of Him. There is a resulting desire to gain more of Him unto the satisfaction and repose of the soul. The exhortation is -- stir yourself to heighten delight in God (Ps 37:4). Delight is inherent in God’s communications of Himself to us. Delight is inherent in God’s communication of Himself to His people. We were made for joy in Him – therefore delight is the natural response of the regenerate to that encounter. True delight informs and encourages the entire Christian life. Indeed, says Howe, the presence of delight is a test for true religion. Religion that does not lead to delight must be false. Instructions for creating an environment conducive to delight in God are as follows: 1.) be well-instructed in the essentials of the faith. 2.) labor to have a soul good and holy. 3.) keep watch on your spiritual health. 4.) be frequent and impartial in graciousness toward others. 5.) be convinced religion is a delightful thing. 6.) realize that delight is joined to the highest motives. 7.) be engaged in the pleasure of well-doing. 8.) don’t wallow in spiritual dryness, take action to delight in God. Believers who resist seeking delight in God are operating contrary to law, conscience, and experience, and all aspects of the faith. To fail to seek delight in God is “evil” in that it fails to cohere with other elements of faith. Blindness to God being the largest fault of failing to seek delight since God commands us to seek delight in Him. Delight in God is the greatest good to which humans can aspire: a) God invites us into this state. b) Delight in God is the best preparation for eternal life. c) How pleasant the thought of going to Him with whom we have lived in delightful communion. d) Delighting in God delivers from the vexation and torment of unsatisfied desire (consider how fleeting and imperfect earth’s joys are). e) Without delighting in God your own souls will prove to be a hell to you (delighting in God in Christ is what lifts a saved man past regret, accusation, remorse, guilt, pride, caviling, disillusionment, defeat, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and self-recrimination). From Desiring God, by John Piper (Multnomah Press). “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious” (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle). You have capacities for joy which you can scarcely imagine. They were made for the enjoyment of God. He can awaken them no matter how long they have lain asleep. Pray for His quickening power (p. 84). Joy in God is the best equipping we can have to love others. Love is the overflow of joy in God. 2 Corinthians 8:1-8 shows that Paul thinks of genuine love ONLY in relation to God. The nature of love is seen in four things: 1.) It is a work of divine grace (8:1). 2.) This experience of divine grace filled the Macedonians with joy (8:2). 3.) Their joy in God’s grace overflowed in generosity to meet the needs of others (8:2). 4.) They gave beyond their means even begging for the opportunity to sacrificially meet the needs of others (8:3, 4) (pp. 94-96). Love is
the overflow of joy in God that meets
the needs of others (Luke 14:33; Heb 10:34; 11:24, 25) (p. 106). George Mueller of Bristol saw delight in God as the necessary daily preparation for serving Christ. I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. . . I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it. Reasons for delight in God: 1.) We take hold of our created purpose when we are radically committed to the pursuit of full and lasting joy in the Lord (1 Jn 1:4). 2.) God is breathtaking and ravishing to the redeemed soul (Ps 27:4; Is 6:1-3; Eccl 3:11). 3.) The Word of God commands us to pursue our joy in God (Phil 4:4; Ps 37:4). God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy in Him (Deut 28:47, 48). 4.) Affections are essential, not optional in the Christian life (1 Pet 1:8). 5.) Delighting in God combats pride and self-pity (Eph 2:7, 9; 1:5, 6; 1 Cor 1:28, 29; Matt 5:11, 12). 6.) Delighting in God promotes genuine love for people (1 Jn 5:2-4). 7.) Delighting in God glorifies God (Rom 11:36; Is 58:13, 14) (pp. 211-226). From The Life of God in the Soul of Man, by
Henry Scougal (Sprinkle Publications). It is a paradox that happiness comes by deliverance from self-love; and deliverance from self-love comes from delighting in God (p. 83). The world’s offers are directed at man’s self love; self love is the destroyer of man’s original happiness. Self-love is an intruder and destroyer of original happiness (pp. 84-92). Let us often withdraw our thoughts from this earth, this scene of misery, and folly, and sin, and raise them toward that more vast and glorious world, whose innocent and blessed inhabitants solace themselves eternally in the Divine Presence, and know no other passion but an unmixed joy, and an unbounded love. Consider how the blessed Son of God
came down to this lower world to live among us, and die for us, that He might
bring us to a portion of the same felicity; and think how He hath overcome the
sharpness of death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers, and is
now on the “right hand of the Majesty on high,” and yet is not the less mindful
of us, but receives our prayers, and presents them to His Father, and is daily
visiting His Church with the influences of His Spirit just as the sun reaches us
with its beams (pp. 116, 117). And first, to inflame our souls with the love of God, let us consider the excellency of His nature, and His loving-kindness toward us. It is little we know of the Divine perfections; and yet that little may suffice to fill our souls with admiration and love, to captivate our affections, as well as to raise our wonder; for we are not merely creatures of sense, that we should be incapable of any other affection but that which enters by the eyes (p. 117). There is nothing more powerful to engage our affections than to find
that we are beloved [of God] (p. 120). But when we once come to conceive aright of those pure and spiritual pleasures, when the happiness we propose to ourselves is from the sight, and love, and enjoyment of God, and our minds are filled with the hopes and forethoughts of that blessed estate. Oh how mean and contemptible will all things here below appear in our eyes! With what disdain shall we reject the gross and muddy pleasures that would deprive us of those enjoyments, or any way unfit and indispose us for them! (pp.128, 129).
From The Protestant Pulpit, Andrew
Blackwood, compiler, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection,” by Thomas
Chalmers, (Baker Books) pp. 50-62. Chalmers explains that the practical moralist attempts to displace the love of the world from the heart by showing its unworthiness. But because of the constitution of our nature, the moralist way is altogether incompetent and ineffectual. Only setting forth a more worthy object will avail to expel an inferior one. When affection or love sees its object at a distance, it is desire. When the love object is in possession, it is indulgence. While under the control of desire, the soul pursues a path of activity toward gratification. If the object is not gained, it results in pain, abandonment, and fatigue for the ineffectual efforts. The ascendant power of a second affection will do what no forcible exposition (or display of unworthiness) of the first object can do. A naked demonstration of folly won’t kill the charm of the first object. One must address to the eye of the mind another object with a charm powerful enough to dispossess the influence of the first object. Only this will engage him in the prosecution in interest and hope, as exhibited toward the former object. This stamps the word, “impotence” upon all moral and pathetic declamation about the insignificance of the world. A man will not consent to the misery of being without an object of affection merely because it has been displayed as frivolous and fugitive. He would rather voluntarily submit himself to torture. To be without desire and exertion toward an object of affection is to be in a state of discomfort and violence to our nature. Only a superior object can displace the power of a previous reigning affection. You cannot rid a man of desire for an inferior object by destruction; it must be by SUBSTITUTING another superior object of desire. None of our tastes disappear by the process of natural extinction. What is to be destroyed must be dispossessed – one taste gives way to another in order to lose power as a reigning affection. By example, boys’ appetites are replaced by manlier tastes. Youthful pleasures are supplanted by the idol of wealth. Love of wealth can be supplanted by the love of influence, recognition and political power. Desire for an object which exerts a more powerful preference must be there in order to tear the soul away from its first adhesion. Grasping and desire is the tendency of the human heart; the heart must hold an object. Heart and soul without any object of affinity is desolate, void, vacant; it is in intolerable misery if left just with the burden of its own consciousness. Over indulged fleshly hedonism leaves the heart a desert. The heart revolts against its own emptiness. The soul refuses to live with an inner wasteland and cheerless insipidity. Moralistic preaching is powerless to evict the idols of the heart. The moralist seems to be oblivious to man’s created nature. He tries to dispossess without cooperating with the heart’s created mechanism; for the heart is created to love and hold with affinity that which it regards to be excellent. Nature abhors a vacuum in the affections. The natural man loves nothing above the horizon of this world. Therefore it is absurd for the moralist to pass sentence on every inmate of the natural man’s bosom without substituting another love in its place. It is totally unnatural to leave nothing in the room of the heart. Moral preaching is not strong enough to pull down strongholds. “BE GOOD!” for its own sake cannot do it. What can subdue the moral nature of man? We must address to the mental eye (the ‘eyes of the heart’) the worth and excellence of the latter so that the old is done away with (all things new). The love of Christ in the Gospel makes a man “revolt” against his
former love of the world. How
does one obliterate present affections?
A moral revolt must take place in the affections that causes a man to
rebel against his love of the world.
There is charm in effectually preaching the Gospel. The love of God and the love of the world
are rival affections. They are
irreconcilable; they cannot dwell in the same bosom. The heart with only the world yet in front of it cannot reduce itself to a wilderness. The heart is constituted so that an old affection is only expelled by a new one. A radical change must take place in man’s character for him to love God more than the world (1 Jn 2:15-17). The “crucifixion” of the old man is a most fitting description of this radical change. Only the cross can produce a change this deep. Paul attributes to the power of the cross the fact that the world is crucified to him and he to the world (Gal 6:14). In the Gospel God is displayed so that we may love God, have confidence in Him, and approach Him through our Mediator. He shines His glory on us in the face of Christ; freely grants full pardon and gracious acceptance. The Spirit of adoption is poured in; we are delivered from the tyranny of our former desires. Justification by faith produces the sinner’s change – and the greatest moral and spiritual achievement. It is simply not enough to display the destructive consequences of sin and the folly of temporal and illicit pleasures; displaying the deceitfulness of the heart, the follies of society, and the stench of corruption will not eradicate these inmates from the heart. Only a faithful expounding of the Gospel testimony can avail. The tidings of the Gospel is the only instrument that can extirpate the love of the world. The recesses of our nature can only be conquered by being made new creatures in Jesus Christ. The display of God’s wondrous economy is the only way to reclaim a sinful world to Himself. By feeding their affection for God, believers keep their hearts in love with God; they shut out the love of the world; they place no confidence in the flesh; they renounce earthly things (Jude 21). Only a new affection can expel the impulsive power of the old affection (the love of the world). Unbelief cannot see (so as to feel) the love of God in sending His Son into the world. But one Spirit-enabled, amazing look at God’s love in sparing not, His tenderness, and the sufficiency of the atonement causes the sinner to pass from a state of nature to godliness. People keep old affections because new ones are out of view and beyond sight because of unbelief. God’s truth in the Gospel raises new affections. Regeneration opens up loveliness, glory, delight, and joy in the things of eternity. True discipleship is driven by delight in the Lord. Doctrine and demand (the demand of true discipleship) are brought together by desire and delight; that is how a true disciple is made! Without desire and delight, the religious professor will never rise to devotion to Christ; he will remain in a state of legal working, legalism, antinomianism, or dead orthodoxy. The Christian’s battle to live as an overcomer is the successful effect produced the greatness of the cause – the cause of our success is a moral resurrection (by means of the new birth) to the truths and precepts of Christianity. The glorious and wonderful object displayed in the Gospel pacifies the sinner’s conscience and purifies his heart. It is the love of the world that continues to mar the heart and the conscience of the unregenerate. Only a pure affection can cast out the impure affection. The love of evil is expelled by the love of God. We must preserve the freeness of the Gospel offer. The freer the Gospel, the more satisfying the Gospel is. Grace is according to godliness. If you hold God to be a pensioner to be paid back, “do this and live,” (as under law); it will issue forth in fearfulness. The “debtor’s ethic” (a term coined by John Piper) says in effect, “God has done this much for you; you ought to do your all for Him.” The “debtor’s ethic” is inadequate to elicit a selfless motive of overflowing gratitude. The redeemed sinner is already battling a flesh which is attracted to legal working (evidenced by the Galatian heresy). The Christian life must never be presented as a legal bargain in which the believer is seeking to square things with his Maker. (The “debtor’s ethic” is actually driven by selfishness, not the desire for God’s glory.) The “command to eternal life” is to come and buy without money and without cost (Is 55:1). Pure divine grace delivers the afflicted conscience from the hand of justice, and delivers the heart from its ungodly tenants. Once awakened by grace, the heart sees its new moral existence and it overflows with gratitude as a result. Don’t add conditions to the Gospel; don’t raise a shred of legality in presenting the Gospel or you will raise distrust between God and man. When you place legal conditions upon the Gospel, you take away its power to melt and conciliate. The redeemed sinner is under a mighty moral transformation when he is under the belief that he is saved solely by sovereign grace; he is thereby constrained to offer his heart a devoted thing and to deny ungodliness. Man either operates by the channel of the senses or the channel of faith; only the latter leads to delight in God. We keep the love of the world out of the heart by the love of God. We keep our hearts in the love of God by building ourselves up in our most holy faith (Jude 20). Faith works love, and faith works by love (Gal 5:6). It is by Gospel faith that love, love which fulfills the law, is admitted to the heart (Rom 13:8, 10). The sinful creature operates either by the channel of senses, or the channel of faith. Only by the latter will he behold superior objects. By the love of God in the Gospel, we die to the present world and live to a lovelier world (although at a distance). By the love of God in the Gospel, a new affection expels the old; all without doing violence to the constitution of man’s moral nature. From The
Religious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards (Banner of Truth). The great body of religious truth in Scripture is addressed to the affections. The sight, by faith, of God’s infinite mercy and goodness and the unspeakable love of Christ deeply affects the heart. The religious affections in the regenerate are lively and powerful thus making the saint willing to comply with the cost of discipleship. Religious truth has no more power over a person than is evidenced in the affections (pp. 28-31). All true religion is bound up in the affections. Religion consists so much in the affections that without holy affection there is no true religion. No light in the understanding is good which does not produce holy affection in the heart. No habit or principle in the heart is good which produces no external fruit (p. 48). We must aim our preaching at the affections. God gave man affections for the same purpose which He has given all faculties and principles of the human soul; that they might be subservient to man’s chief end – the great end for which God created man and his faculties is the business of religion. Yet, most common men’s affections are engaged and exercised in matters other than religion. Most men are insensible and unmoved about the great truths of another world. They sit and hear of the infinite love of Christ (Eph 1-3) and yet are insensible (pp. 51, 52). Beholding God’s perfections is inseparably joined to the saints’ true happiness. Beholding God’s perfections is so appealing to the saved man that he places his highest delight in those things; then he will desire them as he desires his own happiness because they are inseparably joined (p. 166). The saints’ love to God is the fruit of God’s love to them. The ability to love God is God’s grace gift to believing sinners. God’s love to particular elect persons is discovered by conversion. At conversion the believing sinner comes to know the wonder of God’s perfections exercised towards him. In conversion, the redeemed man experiences a great manifestation of God’s moral perfection and glory exercised toward him. The fruit of this discovery is the excitation of love to God born of holy gratitude. Thus the spiritual occasion of gracious love in the saints arises primarily from the excellence of divine things as they are in themselves, and not from any conceived relation they bear to the sinner’s immediate self-interest (p. 175). God’s love is the foundation for all of our gracious affections. God’s love lays the foundation for these grateful affections. Gracious gratitude arises when saved men are affected with the attribute of God’s goodness and free grace, not only as they are concerned with it as it affects their own interests, but as a part of the glory and beauty of God’s nature. In the Gospel of grace, God’s goodness as part of the beauty of His nature is set before our eyes – His exercises of it for us is the special occasion of our mind’s attention to that beauty. It fixes our attention and heightens our affections (pp. 176, 177). Joy, spiritual delight, and pleasure in God are not primarily born of immediate self interest as its foundation. Instead, it primarily consists in the ‘sweet entertainment’ the believer’s mind has in the view and contemplation of the holiness, glory, and beauty of divine things in themselves. By contrast, the hypocrite rejoices in himself – self is the foundation of his joy (ibid.). Delight for the hypocrite doesn’t go beyond his own privileged happiness he is convinced he has attained to. By contrast, true saints rejoice in God. They have their minds inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. This is the spring of all their delights; the cream of their pleasures; the joy of their joys. The sweet ravishing entertainment they have is in view of the beautiful and delightful nature of divine things – this is the foundation of their joy. By contrast, the hypocrite’s “joy” is erected upon self interest alone; that he is made so much of by God (ibid.). Our joy is founded upon God’s glory and perfection. The saint’s joy is founded upon God’s beauty and perfection; for in the Gospel, God’s is exalted, His sovereign love is magnified and the sinner is abased. The grateful sinner’s heart is filled with the sweetness of Christ’s excellence, the exceeding riches of His grace, and the beauty of God’s way of salvation. That such excellent grace is theirs is the secondary joy (ibid.). The moral beauty of God remains hidden to those whose hearts are yet in a state of enmity toward God; there is no love kindled. But the first glimpse of the moral and spiritual glory of God shining into the heart produces delight, gratitude, love and humility. The cross is vital if a man is to be adjusted to God’s burning holiness. Only grace through the message of the cross lets a man see the beauty of God’s moral majesty (p. 192). All gracious affections come from the enlightening of our understanding as to what God is teaching us in His Word. All gracious affections rise from some instruction of the things taught by God and Christ in the Word as they enlighten the understanding (Ps 43: 3, 4; Col 3:10) (p. 193). Truly gracious affections are attended with the conviction and persuasion of the truth of the things of the Gospel and a sight of their evidence and reality as demonstrated by the Scriptures (Heb 11:1; 1 Jn 4:13,-16) (p. 219). For the false professor, the Gospel is something accepted (mental assent). But the true saint sees the truth of the Gospel as a glorious doctrine (p. 220). Those willing to suffer for Christ have gained their full assurance of the truth by spiritual sight. The true martyrs described in Hebrews 11 did not attain to full assurance of the truth by merely rational, systematic arguments, but by spiritual apprehension of the beauty and glory of divine things. Their holy practice under great trials was evidence of what they saw with the eyes of the heart (Heb 11:1; 12:2) (p. 232). Those who have full assurance of the Gospel are those who are willing to sell all for Christ; they did not come to that faith and experience merely by probability, history, or human tradition, but by spiritual sight (pp. 230, 231). A genuine profession of faith is to profess that you indeed experience the things you profess to believe. To genuinely profess Christ savingly is to profess that you experience those things you profess to believe (that includes self-denial, love for God, spiritual sight of Christ’s excellence and majesty, a desire for His glory, universal obedience, self-loathing, etc.) (p. 337). Christ purifies our profession of faith by His providential discipline of us. Christ tests all professors by His providence. Trials are a crossroads in our path; it is Christ or some particular lust. Gracious affections take us through serious trials in a victorious manner. The true believer sees trials as a frequent opportunity to weigh what he loves. Our omniscient God needs no evidence of our true faith, but our consciences do. (pp. 353, 354, 373, 375). |
