Conclusion: Light and Heat, Spirit and Truth

All of Life is about Theology

In this series, we've considered what exactly it means to do theology, and what theology is all about. We learned that, when we're honest with ourselves, we discover that all of life is about theology. That is, any part of life that is worth knowing about and understanding leads us to ask questions, and those questions are always, invariably, ultimately questions about God. And answers to those questions come from learning who God is and what He is like.

We've also considered that there are quite a few people with quite a few differing ideas on how to go about answering those kinds of questions. Some people think we should follow our heart and do what our feelings tell us. Others think we should hang out with our friends and discover what is "true" relative to our particular community. And yet we've seen that God Himself speaks into His creation and to His creatures through His Word -- the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments in which He has revealed Himself.

All of Life is about Worship

We learned that the world is fundamentally about the worship of God, because that's precisely how God designed it. And so the answers to our questions are all relative to that chief purpose for which the entire world was created, for which we all exist to this day: for the worship, honor, glory, and praise of our Creator who is worthy of the highest of worship, the most exalted honor, the most magnificent glory, and the most passionate praise.

We Worship What We Know

And Jesus, the object of all this worship, told us how true worshipers worship. True worshipers of the true God worship what they know. They don't have some vague, ethereal, esoteric fabrication of a god that they would like to exist. They don't make up whatever feels right to them. They don't take pieces from this religion, and aspects of that philosophy, until they come up with a perfect mosaic of a god made in their own image. And most of all, true worshipers don't simply abandon the pursuit of a true knowledge of God because they think doctrine is overrated and we should all just "love Jesus" and have "no creed but the Bible." No, life is about worshiping God, and true worshipers worship what they know. So true worshipers don't mind giving their life to diligent and disciplined study if it means that they will rightly know and thus rightly worship the God they were made to know and enjoy.

We Worship What We Know

And yet, in response to that anti-intellectual emotionalism there has emerged an anti-emotional intellectualism that seeks to squelch all true expression of affections. We see some of the nonsense that goes on in the name of being "Spirit-filled" or "passionate," and we don't want any part of that. So we do our best to turn life, to turn theology, to turn the pursuit of knowing God into a merely academic exercise by which we assimilate and formulate propositional content. We actually abort the actual doing of any real theology by forgetting that theology -- just like everything else in the universe -- exists for the purpose of worship. Yes, we worship what we know, but we also worship what we know.

And you don't honor what you don't enjoy. I don't know any artist in the world that is honored by someone who comes into a museum and analyzes their painting with a cool, wholly dispassionate disposition. Even if that person is an art connoisseur, and can identify the particular technique, the light/dark contrast, the method of the brush strokes, and the use of perspective, but recognizes all those things only with a furled brow and an occasional raised eyebrow. The artist desires to affect those who behold his work, and he is more honored by the one who sees all those things for what they were meant to communicate, actually receives that communication, and revels in the genius of the artist who could produce something so magnificent.

Just the same, to gaze into the most glorious exhibition of beauty and genius revealed in the face of Christ, who is the image of God, and to be intellectually stimulated without being affected, and moved in the depth of your soul, is to dishonor God, and treat as common that which is holy.

Theology exists for worship. Thinking deeply is necessary in order to enjoy fully.

Light and Heat, Spirit and Truth

Therefore, our commitment to doing theology must have worship as its end, and our theological method must be entirely shaped by that aim. “Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers….On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought” (Piper, Desiring God, 82).

But as a Christian—as a true worshiper—I must worship in spirit and truth. I must engage in theology and arrive at the formulation of doctrine because I desire to know and enjoy my God as He is. This is impossible without both accurate knowledge and a heart exhilarated by beauty.

As a pastor, I need to do the same, because God has entrusted me with the care and oversight of a flock of His people, and I must shepherd them in the knowledge of Him. I must indeed be the lead worshiper, because if I myself am not thrilled by the clear, contoured, unadulterated vision of an all-glorious, all-satisfying, exalted God as is revealed in His Word, I will never be able to lead people there. And without such a vision, the church is left unfilled by the Spirit, powerless in our fight for holiness, because apart from that vision of the glory of God in the face of Christ we have no resources to battle the desires of our flesh with superior desires for Christ (2 Cor 3:18; Gal 5:16-18).

It's fitting for me to close this series with the thoughts of Jonathan Edwards, a pastor, theologian, and worshiper of the first order, who embodied the Christlike example of a mind enlightened by the knowledge of God as He is and a heart warmed by the passion to enjoy the glory he was created to behold:

If a minister has light without heat, and entertains his auditory with learned discourses, without a savour of the power of godliness, or any appearance of fervency of spirit, and zeal for God and the good of souls, he may gratify itching ears, and fill the heads of his people with empty notions; but it will not be very likely to reach their hearts, or save their souls.

And if, on the other hand, he be driven on with a fierce and intemperate zeal, and vehement heat, without light, he will be likely to kindle the like unhallowed flame in his people, and to fire their corrupt passions and affections; but will make them never the better, nor lead them a step towards heaven, but drive them apace the other way.

But if he approves himself in his ministry, as both a burning and a shining light, this will be the way to promote true Christianity amongst his people, and to make them both wise [and] good, and cause religion to flourish among them in the purity and beauty of it. (The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister, Works, 2:958)

Series Outline

Light and Heat: Introduction

1.1 - In Pursuit of Light: We Worship What We Know
1.2 - Systematics and Doctrine Matter
1.3 - Loving God with All Your Mind

2. In Pursuit of Heat: We Worship What We Know

3. Conclusion: Light and Heat, Spirit and Truth

The Glory of God in Ordaining Evil

Before posting the next post in the series on learning from Jeremiah about suffering righteously, as a complement to Monday's post about God's sovereignty in suffering, I thought I'd reproduce a piece of a conference message given by John Piper, entitled: "Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?" In this message, he enlists the help of Jonathan Edwards in explaining how God's sovereign ordination of the existence of evil serves His glory, rather than denigrates from it. That is mainly answered by a long quote from Edwards towards the end of this post. At the beginning I give some of Piper's presentation on how God can ordain or decree what seems contrary to His will (e.g., God desires that all men be saved, 1Tim 2:4, and yet has decreed that not all men be saved, because not all men are saved).

I hope you'll be benefited by this. These are deep waters. Tread humbly, but drink deeply.

Two Aspects or Senses of the Will of God

In one sense God wills that what he hates come to pass, as well as what he loves. Edwards says,

God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn't will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting [I would push back here, and say "ordaining"], sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn't hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.

This is a fundamental truth that helps explain some perplexing things in the Bible, namely, that God often expresses his will to be one way, and then acts to bring about another state of affairs. God opposes hatred toward his people, yet ordained that his people be hated in Egypt (Genesis 12:3; Psalm 105:25 – "He turned their hearts to hate his people."). He hardens Pharaoh's heart, but commands him to let his people go (Exodus 4:21; 5:1; 8:1). He makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of his people, but he ordains that he do it (2 Samuel 24:1; 24:10). He opposes adultery, but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father's wives (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 12:11). He forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but ordained that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel against Rehoboam (Romans 13:1; 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Kings 12:15-16). He opposes murder, but ordains the murder of his Son (Exodus 20:13; Acts 4:28). He desires all men to be saved, but effectually calls only some (1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; 2 Timothy 2:26).

What this means is that we must learn that God wills things in two different senses. The Bible demands this by the way it speaks of God's will in different ways. Edwards uses the terms "will of decree" and "will of command." Edwards explains:

[God's] will of decree [or sovereign will] is not his will in the same sense as his will of command [or moral will] is. Therefore it is not difficult at all to suppose that the one may be otherwise than the other: his will in both senses is his inclination. But when we say he wills virtue, or loves virtue or the happiness of his creature; thereby is intended that virtue or the creature's happiness, absolutely and simply considered, is agreeable to the inclination of his nature. His will of decree is his inclination to a thing not as to that thing absolutely and simply, but with reference to the universality of things. So God, though he hates a things as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things.

So Why Does God Ordain that there Be Evil?

It is evident from what has been said that it is not because he delights in evil as evil. Rather he "wills that evil come to pass . . . that good may come of it." What good? And how does the existence of evil serve this good end? Here is Edwards' stunning answer:

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .

Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .

So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.

So the answer to the question in the title of this message, "Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be?" is no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin (as we saw this afternoon) or by denying his control of sin (which we have seen this evening) is fatal, and a great dishonor to his word and his wisdom. Evangelicals who are seeking the glory of God, look well to the teaching of your churches and your schools. But most of all, look well to your souls.

If you would see God's glory and savor his glory and magnify his glory in this world, do not remain wavering before the sovereignty of God in the face of great evil. Take his book in your hand, plead for his Spirit of illumination and humility and trust, and settle this matter, that you might be unshakable in the day of your own calamity. My prayer is that what I have said will sharpen and deepen your God-entranced world view, and that in the day of your loss you will be like Job who, when he lost all his children, fell down and worshiped, and said, "Yahweh gave and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh."

Apologetics and the Demand for Evidence

I'm a presuppositional apologist.

Or, at least, I believe that the presuppositional model of apologetics is the Biblical model of apologetics. I reject the idea that the way we are to persuade skeptics of the truth of God's existence, His Word, His acts of providence, etc. is by presenting historical, archaeological, scientific, and other kinds of external evidence to them. And I explain why I believe that here. In short, evidentialist apologetics is entirely inconsistent with what the Scripture teaches about the nature of man, what he can know, the nature of knowledge, and the doctrine of salvation.

And so I'm a presuppositionalist. That is, I believe that there are certain presuppositions that Christians must consistently hold to without wavering even when reasoning with unbelievers about the truth of God's Word and of Jesus Christ. Such presuppositions are: God exists; He is who He says He is; the Bible is perfect, the inspired Word of God, infallible, and inerrant; Jesus rose from the dead three days after being crucified; etc. These are not topics that God has left open for debate. God never presents Himself in Scripture as a proposition to be evaluated and decided over. You never get to tell God, "Wait a sec, let me see if You really do exist." He simply asserts, "I AM WHO I AM." Trying to evaluate the evidence for God outside of Scripture or trying to evaluate the evidence for the veracity of Scripture is an endeavor on the order of asking to measure a ruler (or, if you're on the metric system, a meter-stick). You don't measure the instrument of measurement. It does the measuring.

However, at the same time, I don't believe it's right for Christians to dichotomize faith and concrete knowledge. That is, I disagree with the assertion that the existence of real evidence for what we believe necessarily undermines the need for faith. What I am saying is that the Christian and the skeptic define "real evidence" in two different ways. I'd like to explain what I mean with the help of Jonathan Edwards.

I agree with Edwards when he says our faith must be grounded upon a reasonable conviction. "By a reasonable conviction I mean a conviction founded on real evidence, or upon that which is good reason, or just ground of conviction." That is, Christians should not simply blindly accept things and pat ourselves on the back for being 'faithful.' That's more a willful naivete than anything.

But the question is, where does that evidence come from? What qualifies as evidence? Let's say you're dialoguing with a naturalist about creation vs. evolution, or even the the existence of God. The naturalist responds that evidence must be materially empirical. It has to be physically observable and testable; i.e., it has to meet the standards and presuppositions of the naturalist.

But Edwards doesn't define evidence that way. He says, "The gospel of the blessed God does not go abroad a begging for its evidence, so much as some think: it has its highest and most proper evidence in itself."

That is such a glorious statement. Do you feel the weight of that? Read it again if you don't.

See, the natural instinct of both the naturalist and, sadly, many contemporary Christians, is to go outside of the Scriptures themselves when trying to prove their genuineness. That's precisely what evidential apologists do. But what Edwards is saying is that the Word of God itself is so self-authenticatingly glorious that the very glory of it is its own evidence.

See, rationalists appeal to reason as the source of knowledge. That's what makes them rationalists. Naturalists appeal to nature as the source of knowledge. That's what makes them naturalists. But Christians must appeal to the Scriptures as the source of knowledge. That is what makes us Christians. If I ask a rationalist for evidence for his credence in rationalism as an adequate theory of knowledge, he's going to give me a reason. If I ask a naturalist for evidence for his credence in naturalism as an adequate theory of knowledge, he's going to give me a summary of observable facts of nature. They're just being consistent with their epistemology. But when they demand evidence of Scripture's genuineness and we Christians give them a Bible verse, they shout, "Circular reasoning!" But it's no more circular than what they do; it's simply remaining consistent with one's own epistemology.

What the skeptic doesn't realize when he demands evidence for Creation or God's existence and dismisses the testimony of Scripture is that he is forcing us to accept his epistemology, his worldview. And when the Christian acquiesces to the skeptic's demands and seeks to prove the genuineness or veracity of any doctrine of the Bible by going outside of the Bible, he fails to realize that in that very act he is forfeiting his Christian worldview and accepting that of the skeptic. It's a tacit acceptance that Scripture itself is not valid evidence -- that the only valid theory of knowledge is rationalism, or naturalism, or some other non-Christian epistemology.

But, as Edwards goes on to say, specifically, "The mind ascends to the truth of the gospel but by one step, and that is its divine glory. ... Unless men may come to a reasonably solid persuasion and conviction of the truth of the gospel...by a sight of its glory, it is impossible that those who are illiterate and unacquainted with history, should have any thorough and effectual conviction of it at all."

That is precisely what 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 teaches: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

Paul tells us that unbelievers are blind to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The definition of unbelief is a blindness to glory that is really there, whether it's seen or not. And before anyone will believe any other physical evidence, God must first shine in their hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

And that is precisely why we must consistently present the Gospel to our inquiring friends: because the evidence they're looking for is only authenticated by the unveiled sight of the glory of God in the face of Christ. If they offer arguments appealing to science that are factually incorrect, we may certainly give an answer (1Pet 3:15) by presenting scientifically verifiable evidence. But we must never imagine that such a presentation will quicken the dead heart and open blind eyes. As 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, it is God who shines that Light to open their eyes. Behind every academic debate or scientific rebuttal, the skeptic is a sinner who needs forgiveness. Only a fresh sight of the glory of God will convince him of that, and only a fresh sight of the glory of God will remedy his unbelief.

Elsewhere Edwards says, "This evidence that [the] spiritually enlightened have of the truth of the things of religion, is a kind of intuitive and immediate evidence. They believe the doctrines of God's word to be divine because they see divinity in them, i.e. they see a divine, and transcendent, and most evidently distinguishing glory in them; such glory as, if clearly seen, doesn't leave room to doubt of their being of God and not of men."

God Himself, and the beauty of His glory, is our evidence. As you give a reason for the hope that is within you, don't send any other message.

You Don't Inspire People by Aiming at Inspiring Them

I've heard (and read) many individuals talk (and write) about the goals of the Sunday morning gathering of believers as a church. One of the things I've heard thrown around a lot is that people want their worship services to be "inspiring." By the end of the service, they want their congregations walking out of their pews inspired.

I came across that thought again recently at about the same time I was finishing up a biographical project on Jonathan Edwards. During that time, I read the following passage from biographer George Marsden's A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards. Marsden is discussing Edwards's thought on the nature of the new birth and its effect on the Christian life. This presentation of a God-centered worldview seemed in my mind to grate against the notion of aiming at having "inspiring" worship services. From page 138:

“The Holy Spirit works in sinners so that, rather than being blinded to higher things by their love of self and fleeting pleasures, they see the beauty of the light of God’s love. They are given ‘eyes to see’ and are transformed or regenerated – ‘born again.’ This transformation is not merely a change in understanding, but also a change in one’s affections, or in what one values and loves. One has a sort of ‘new sense’ of God’s glory, beauty, and love, and that exhilarating sensibility reshapes the priorities of what else one loves. Spiritually transformed people respond to God’s love by loving first of all what God loves, or all that is good. In other words, the transformation of one’s most essential personal relationship revolutionizes how one relates to the rest of reality.”

So this means that Christians, whom leaders are trying to "inspire," are only truly inspired and affected by the beauty of the glory of Jesus Christ. At conversion, the Christian's loves change. "Spiritually transformed people respond to God's love by loving first of all what God loves." And, dear friends, if there's any point that I've tried to hammer home on this blog it is that God loves Himself, chiefly, and first of all. And all of His love for us is merely an outpouring, or even a side effect, of His love for Himself.

Therefore, if we pastors and church leaders want to make our worship services more inspiring, we will fail if we aim at the needs and preferences and tastes of fallen man. If we're asking the question, "What can we do in our worship services to inspire our people?" we're asking the wrong question. We should be asking, "What can we do differently or more effectively in our worship services to magnify and exalt the name of God above all things, such that His glory is immediately perceivable to all in our midst?" And that is because the way to inspire Christians is not to aim at them, per se, but to aim at the glory of God above all things --- because that is what regenerated people most love and are most affected by.

And this kind of thing -- that is, loving people by not aiming at them, but at God -- is Biblical. This is precisely how God loves us: He demonstrates how amazing He is by being entirely won by the beauty of His own perfections. Therefore, we love people by demonstrating that very same thing. We, by our actions -- that is, our radical, unilateral commitment to the glory of God above all things -- demonstrate to the household of faith and to a watching world that God is supremely worthy.

It is that vision of a supremely worthy God that inspires the regenerated person. Aim at anything lower, and you'll fail.

John Owen says it better than anyone can:

Let us live in the constant contemplation of the glory of Christ, and virtue will proceed from Him to repair all our decays, to renew a right spirit within us, and to cause us to abound in all duties of obedience… It will fix the soul unto that object which is suited to give it delight, complacency, and satisfaction… when the mind is filled with thoughts of Christ and his glory, when the soul thereon cleaves unto him with intense affections, they will cast out, or not give admittance unto, those causes of spiritual weakness and indisposition… And nothing will so much excite and encourage our souls hereunto as a constant view of Christ and His glory; everything in Him hath a constraining power hereunto, as is known to all who have any acquaintance with these things.

So, you who seek to make your worship services more inspiring for your people, stop fooling around with everything except that thing which is deliberately designed by God to delight and satisfy the souls of your people: the glory of Christ. Nothing will so much excite and encourage their souls as a constant view of Christ and His glory.

Proclaim Him.

An Inward, Sweet Sense

As I've been working on a biographical research project on Jonathan Edwards, I've had the privilege of reading much about him as well as much of what he himself has written on various subjects. Perhaps most interesting for me is to read from his diary and his personal letters to various friends, family members, and acquaintances.

Among those are his reflections on his own conversion. I reproduce some of those thoughts here and pray that they would benefit your soul as they have my own.

The first instance that I remember of that sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things that I have lived much in since, was on reading those words, 1 Tim. 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up in him in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing over these words of scripture to myself; and went to pray to God that I might enjoy him, and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection. …

From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. An inward, sweet sense of these things, at times, came into my heart; and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them. …

The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart; an ardor of soul, that I know not how to express.

After [my conversion] my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of everything was altered: there seemed to be as it were a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything.

God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon, for a long time; and so in the day time, spend much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the meantime, singing forth with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. …

The delights which I now felt in those things of religion, were of an exceeding different kind from those before mentioned, that I had when a boy; and what I then had no more notion of than one born blind has of pleasant and beautiful colours. They were of a more inward, pure, soul-animating and refreshing nature. Those former delights never reached the heart; and did not arise from any sight of the divine excellency of the things of God; or any taste of the soul-satisfying and life-giving good there is in them.

I will bless Yahweh at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul will make its boast in Yahweh;
The humble will hear it and rejoice.
O magnify Yahweh with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
- Psalm 34:1-3 -