Its called 'Everything is Different'. I really like what they are doing. As I get to know the songs better I will post lyrics of select songs. Buy it!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
New Shane and Shane CD
Its called 'Everything is Different'. I really like what they are doing. As I get to know the songs better I will post lyrics of select songs. Buy it!
Give Thanks to the Lord!
Psalm 136
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
11 and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
12 with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
15 but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
17 to him who struck down great kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
18 and killed mighty kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
19 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
20 and Og, king of Bashan,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
21 and gave their land as a heritage,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
22 a heritage to Israel his servant,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
23 It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
24 and rescued us from our foes,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
25 he who gives food to all flesh,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
Funerals
I had the privilege this last Saturday to observe two of my pastors officiate and preach at a funeral. This, strangely, was one of the high points of my internship. The time I got to spend with both the pastors on the way to and from the funeral was invaluable. They shared with me how their interactions with and knowledge of the family did and did not shape what they shared. I watched how to navigate through the complexities present at a funeral. I listened to Pastor Colin transition from an exposition of heaven to a passionate and pastoral exhortation to all those present to come to Christ and 'wash their robes white in the blood of the Lamb'. I listened to Pastor Ted warmly and clearly share the Christian hope of the resurrection symbolized in the burial of the body. They both managed to encourage and console the family while at the same time present a vivid rendition of the gospel to those who may never have heard it before. The greatest part about the day with them was leaving with a more defined sense of calling to pastoral ministry. I left feeling strengthened and eager to step out in dependence on God, to lead. I haven't done a funeral of my own yet, but O' that I may so live and so eat God's word and so stand on all the promises we have in the gospel that I would be ready to give a reason for the hope that we have when the day comes. May God raise up courageous and bold and winsome men to help people die in a way that the glory of God's love is put on display--and how good it would be to be one of them.Soli Deo Gloria
Friday, November 6, 2009
Bernard of Clairvaux
What follows is the manuscript I used to give a message to the seniors at our church in a class called New Commandment. Let me know what you think about it. I am not entirely advocating everything he says, but am commending it for consideration. . .
When I was asked to speak for this class, though I was excited by the privilege and responsibility, I didn’t know what to speak on. I am taking a class on the history of Christian interpreters. We are not only looking at major figures in Christendom’s history but how they understood the bible, what they saw to be important, what they presupposed when they approached this text. You can approach this text with certain commitments, for better or for worse. Sometimes these commitments come from secular philosophies. Other times our commitments we bring to the text actually come from the text. This is the way it ought to be, I am becoming more convinced. This is how the Bible makes more and more sense. We don’t check at the door the knowledge of God and his world that we learn from Genesis when we deal with Jeremiah. So, I am in the class and I am reading up on Bernard of Clairvaux and am struck by his treatise On Loving God. As a Christian, I find that one of the things that increase my joy in the gospel is finding out how Christians, long before I was ever a twinkle in my mother’s eye, knew better and loved greater the things that I am only now coming across. As G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy, “I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before.” This morning I would like to look with you at the topic of true religion, of saving faith, of genuine love for God through the eyes of a man who lived almost 1,000 years before you and I did. What can we learn from Bernard? Was he right about everything he said?
Some things to stay attentive to as we dive into Bernard is the primacy of his view of God and his commitment to the importance of our love for God. Born in into a family of French nobility in 1090, Bernard decided to leave all the wealth of this world and follow God into the monastery when he was 22yrs old. Bernard became a mystic, and because of this you will see a strong focus on the experience of loving God. He was a monk who lived in a time where scholasticism was the air he breathed, so we also see a care for God’s word and a desire to interpret faithfully. Now, Bernard had some questionable features, for sure. To name a few, so that we know we are dealing with a fellow sinner, (1) he supported the crusades against the Turks; (2) he is known for his devotion to Mary which helped set a precedent in Catholicism that we would be kind to say is less than biblical; (3) he also interpreted the Bible with a heavy use of allegory- a method many in our time would and do properly frown on. In my limited study of church history it baffles me and then humbles me to think that some of the greatest Christian leaders have had moral blind spots that from our perspective are quite hideous. How could John Calvin be involved in, though in a somewhat limited way, the burning of heretics at the stake? How could Jonathon Edwards, who is in such agreement with Bernard on some issues we will look at today, endorse slavery? This ought to humble us and cause us to search our hearts. We must not throw out the good with the bad, for if we did we could learn from none!
The main aspect from his treatise that I would like to discuss this morning is what he called the ‘four degrees of love’ that can be experienced in your and my life. Bernard believed that what characterized the spiritual condition that we as humans live in more than anything is two things: the object of our love and the motive for our love. Loving God was all-important to Bernard. We can see this from a famous hymn he wrote called O Sacred Head Now Wounded. Discussing this will not only clarify your understanding of salvation itself but will, I hope, give many of us new fuel and direction in our pursuit of sanctification.
The first degree of love is the heart condition of an unbelieving person.
Lets pause for a moment and notice with me that Bernard is assuming that faith includes an affective or moral component. I happen to be in agreement with him. But let’s be clear what we are saying. He is not saying that love is the same thing as faith. We are not justified by love but by faith alone. But this is worth thinking through. What kind of faith is saving faith? What separates our belief in the one God from the demons’? Is it merely a degree of certainty? As though we really, really believe in God instead of just kind of believing in him like the demons. Well, I think it includes a kind of certainty that Jesus died and was raised again, but its more. The demons believe that Jesus died and rose again, but they hate it! John Calvin would want to say that the defining characteristic of saving faith believes not only that Jesus died and rose again but also trusting that redemption in Jesus was for you!—to accept it as such; to lean on it. Calvin seems to stay clear of mentioning explicitly the affective component of faith because he is being cautious to distinguish faith that justifies from what the Roman Catholic Church of his day contended for: namely, that deeds of love justify us before God. Here is where Bernard and even Jonathan Edwards take it a step further than Calvin—and I think they are right to do so. Bernard says,
So Bernard seems to be right in saying that faith includes more than just certainty in God’s existence or in Jesus’ vicarious death, it involves a delight in it. We don’t just believe that God’s abundant kindness is for us in Christ, we repose in it, we relish it. What once seemed foolish now seems like wisdom and righteousness. Edwards says the difference between saving faith and demonic faith is like the difference between someone who knows propositionally that honey is sweet and the one who has actually enjoyed the sweet savor of honey. This makes sense of passages like 2 Timothy 4:7-8 and Ephesians 1: 18 and Ezekiel 36:26.
According to Bernard what characterizes an unbeliever the most is love of self. The object is self and the motive is a selfish one. He says,
In this stage of love we are blind not only to God but blind to who we are. We don’t see God as glorious and we don’t discern the dignity of who we have been created to be. Bernard would also add that because we don’t see our God-given dignity—having been created higher than beasts—we also don’t live in line with that knowledge. Having the wisdom to recognize the high honor of humanity includes recognizing all that we have been given, every capacity we have to function as humans has been given by God. And we squander these gifts when we don’t recognize them as such.
The second stage of love, according to Bernard is when a person begins to come under a conviction of their absolute dependence. They recognize that they are given light to see, food to eat and air to breath. Everything they need to live and to exist is a gift. In stage two, the object of love changes but the motive stays the same. The object of love, according to Bernard, moves away from self and onto God. Here the person begins to recognize that God exists and that God expects righteousness from us. He or she recognizes their utter contingency and God’s transcendence. They begin to devote themselves to God and religion so as to benefit from it. This is what to do, so they think, to rid themselves of guilt, to get out of hell, to do as they ought. This, so they think will make them happy. While loving God, the person in this stage is doing it merely for reasons of the flesh. God is a means to an end.
Bernard argues that in this stage only fear and self-interest motivate the person. He makes it very clear that these cannot convert the soul—only charity can.
Now comes the transition to the third degrees of love.
But when he has learned to worship God and to seek Him aright, meditating on God, reading God’s Word, praying and obeying His commandments, he comes gradually to know what God is, and finds Him altogether lovely. . .
For Bernard, this makes all the difference in the Christian life! How wonderful a thing this is! How many have began to follow God, become moral, develop faith, and while committing themselves to the rigors of religiosity, they are blown out of the water by the grandeur of God’s glory!
In this degree of love, God remains the object of affection but the motive changes. The reward for loving God is no longer something temporary and other than God, but it is God himself. Bernard is emphatic on this point. This is the degree of love that ought to characterize Christians.
God is the reward. This is the goal of Christianity for this life. We have just finished hearing him say that charity is the thing that causes conversion, not fear or self interest. We have also heard him say that the transition from the second to the third degree of love is gradual. I would like to argue that this degree of love is the degree that signals regeneration, real salvation in the soul. It’s hard to say for sure what he means, Bernard is not dogmatic here. His purpose for this treatise is not the same as, say, Jonathan Edwards Religious Affections. Edwards aim was to separate the chaff from the wheat of pure religion, saving faith. This was in response to the many attacks after the great awakenings that the whole movement was just a bunch of commotion—just enthusiasm. These attacks were usually in response to wild and disorderly excesses used by pastors and lay people to force or fake powerful effusions of the Holy Spirit. Edwards would have none of this. He had to challenge it!
Now pastor Colin just preached on regeneration and he emphasized that it is not a gradual process, it is the instantaneous work of God in us whereby we become new creations. Bernard, I think, is only saying that from our perspective this transition from the second to the third degree of love is gradual. I would imagine that though many of you would affirm that God’s regenerating work is immediate, you would also testify from your own experience that you couldn’t pinpoint the exact date you began to love God for his own sake. That’s the way it was for me, there were some serious turning points for me, but it was a real process from my vantage point.
If we were to stop for a moment and say, okay we know the transition from the second to the third degree of love is significant, we think we are talking about what distinguishes conversion, but how does this happen. How does one go from loving God for the sake of self to love God for God’s sake?
He addresses this question, for according to Bernard, God is . . .
In these words we hear Bernard giving us two answers. First we hear him say that God is the efficient cause of the third degree of love. God is the one who saves us. He gives all credit and glory to God alone for such a gift of restoration. He thoroughly believes that “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things!” Now, ‘how’ can be answered in at least two ways. The first is cause, the second is manor. Bernard just said that God is the cause of our love for him, now, how did God cause and prepare us?
Bernard says that God’s love and great tenderness revealed in the gospel of His son is the very thing that elicits our love for Him. God causes and prepares our love by a vivid and breathtaking display of His own.
Before moving on to the fourth degree, let’s take a look at some of the practical implications of these last points for two areas of the Christian life: sanctification and evangelism.
First, sanctification. How does this understanding of loving God aid us in our sanctification? Have you ever felt discouraged or even scared by the lack of warmth and zeal you sense in your heart to God? Bernard struggled with this. He long to have greater and greater affection for God, but too often he was plagued by indifference and worldly desires.
As a Life Group leader and a pastor for young adults here at the Orchard, I get people talking to me about this quite often. “Ryan, my love for God was white-hot those first years, but now it’s just waning, I feel dry and parched. What do I do?” What would you say? What kind of wood do you put in the furnace of your love for God?
Bernard’s answer is an abiding and stayed contemplation of God’s marvelous compassion shown on the cross. He asks,
Bernard reminds us that unlike the heathen who have some reasons to acknowledge their need to grow in love for God, we have more. Therefore, he says,
They love all the more, because they know themselves to be loved so exceedingly. . .
How does this help us with temptation?
Second, evangelism: How should the third degree of love, having God as the object and the reward/motive, change the way we share the gospel with people we care about?
According to Bernard, we don’t offer them something more or other or beyond God. It is ridiculous to think of offering someone eternal life and speak of God as though he is only the means to that end!
Listen to him,
Or. . .
So, lets not offer people worldly things which can only inflate them without feeding them. Offering someone anything other than all God is for them in Jesus is like offering to pay a hungry man to eat, he doesn’t want your money, he wants food. Offer him the thing he needs. Don’t make the thing he really needs the lever to get what he doesn’t need.
Is God our ticket that we leave at the gate to enter the city with streets of gold? God is Spirit and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Will we walk past God in heaven to enjoy healthy bodies and restored relationships apart from Him? No! All of these good gifts in heaven will be springboards into greater a delight in God! So, when we share the gospel with people, we must lay before them the unseen, eternal, all-satisfying God as their all in all—not the stuff he gives!
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God!” 1 Peter 3:18
Now, lets move on to the fourth and final degree of love. Bernard thinks that the fourth degree is mainly reserved for heaven. Listen to his description of the transition from the 3rd to the 4th degree.
Speaking of the 3rd degree to begin with:
Here we see the object of love now shift to self, yet our motive remains the same. What does he mean by this? It sounds potentially disastrous doesn’t it? It may help to remember that Bernard wanted to emphasize in the 1st degree of love where we love self for the sake of self that the problem is in large measure that we can no longer see ourselves rightly. We don’t see ourselves as made in God’s image. We don’t see ourselves, every gift and ability we have, as given by a kindly creator. What he is saying is that now in the 4th degree of love, this fallen and sinful perspective of self is reversed! Wonderfully reversed!
Let’s listen to him,
What do you think about this? It’s clear, to be sure, from the narrow and broader context that Bernard is not saying the essence of heaven will be a focus on self. That would be a tragic misreading. No, he is saying that we will for the first time begin to see ourselves aright!
Here he makes himself crystal clear. . .
Now this is the degree of love that really jarred me. I have come to realize in these last years that I have grown a bit out of kilter in my passion to maintain a God-centered outlook on everything. This is language we use quite a bit in the church. We are God-centered, Gospel-centered people—and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So here is how I got out of kilter. I began to see myself only as a sinful wretch that God couldn’t bare to look at unless his merciful son twisted his arm to do so. This is an exaggeration for sure, but not an incredible one. I didn’t understand that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). I felt like I had to stand behind Christ, not in Him. I didn’t realize, at least subconsciously and practically, that there was never a moment since before the foundation of the world was laid that God did not have his love set on my. He purposed, before the world was made, to lavish me with indescribable depths of mercy and grace and kindness in His son.
John Calvin in his Institutes actually quotes Augustine to get his point across,
I can barely believe this! Here is where this 4th degree becomes important. When God says he loves you and sent his son to die for you, and you live like you aren’t worth a thing, that is called ‘unbelief’! Its sin. How many Christians hurt themselves with sinful behaviors because all they can see in the cross is God’s begrudging pardon rather than his inestimable eternal love for them?
The only thing I disagree with Bernard with respect to the 4th degree is the notion that it is almost wholly reserved for the life to come. In its fullness, yes, both love for God and self will only be consummated at Jesus’ return.
But I think this is so important for right now. How are you, Christians, supposed to see yourselves? If you are in Christ you must see yourselves as loved, adopted, provided for, safe, valuable, and secure in God’s favor. No one can snatch you out of the firm hand of His Fatherly love. And you must do all this in such a way that makes you repose in Him, glory in the cross, exult in his plan of redemption. You must love yourself for the sake of His glory.
When I was asked to speak for this class, though I was excited by the privilege and responsibility, I didn’t know what to speak on. I am taking a class on the history of Christian interpreters. We are not only looking at major figures in Christendom’s history but how they understood the bible, what they saw to be important, what they presupposed when they approached this text. You can approach this text with certain commitments, for better or for worse. Sometimes these commitments come from secular philosophies. Other times our commitments we bring to the text actually come from the text. This is the way it ought to be, I am becoming more convinced. This is how the Bible makes more and more sense. We don’t check at the door the knowledge of God and his world that we learn from Genesis when we deal with Jeremiah. So, I am in the class and I am reading up on Bernard of Clairvaux and am struck by his treatise On Loving God. As a Christian, I find that one of the things that increase my joy in the gospel is finding out how Christians, long before I was ever a twinkle in my mother’s eye, knew better and loved greater the things that I am only now coming across. As G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy, “I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before.” This morning I would like to look with you at the topic of true religion, of saving faith, of genuine love for God through the eyes of a man who lived almost 1,000 years before you and I did. What can we learn from Bernard? Was he right about everything he said?
Some things to stay attentive to as we dive into Bernard is the primacy of his view of God and his commitment to the importance of our love for God. Born in into a family of French nobility in 1090, Bernard decided to leave all the wealth of this world and follow God into the monastery when he was 22yrs old. Bernard became a mystic, and because of this you will see a strong focus on the experience of loving God. He was a monk who lived in a time where scholasticism was the air he breathed, so we also see a care for God’s word and a desire to interpret faithfully. Now, Bernard had some questionable features, for sure. To name a few, so that we know we are dealing with a fellow sinner, (1) he supported the crusades against the Turks; (2) he is known for his devotion to Mary which helped set a precedent in Catholicism that we would be kind to say is less than biblical; (3) he also interpreted the Bible with a heavy use of allegory- a method many in our time would and do properly frown on. In my limited study of church history it baffles me and then humbles me to think that some of the greatest Christian leaders have had moral blind spots that from our perspective are quite hideous. How could John Calvin be involved in, though in a somewhat limited way, the burning of heretics at the stake? How could Jonathon Edwards, who is in such agreement with Bernard on some issues we will look at today, endorse slavery? This ought to humble us and cause us to search our hearts. We must not throw out the good with the bad, for if we did we could learn from none!
The main aspect from his treatise that I would like to discuss this morning is what he called the ‘four degrees of love’ that can be experienced in your and my life. Bernard believed that what characterized the spiritual condition that we as humans live in more than anything is two things: the object of our love and the motive for our love. Loving God was all-important to Bernard. We can see this from a famous hymn he wrote called O Sacred Head Now Wounded. Discussing this will not only clarify your understanding of salvation itself but will, I hope, give many of us new fuel and direction in our pursuit of sanctification.
The first degree of love is the heart condition of an unbelieving person.
Lets pause for a moment and notice with me that Bernard is assuming that faith includes an affective or moral component. I happen to be in agreement with him. But let’s be clear what we are saying. He is not saying that love is the same thing as faith. We are not justified by love but by faith alone. But this is worth thinking through. What kind of faith is saving faith? What separates our belief in the one God from the demons’? Is it merely a degree of certainty? As though we really, really believe in God instead of just kind of believing in him like the demons. Well, I think it includes a kind of certainty that Jesus died and was raised again, but its more. The demons believe that Jesus died and rose again, but they hate it! John Calvin would want to say that the defining characteristic of saving faith believes not only that Jesus died and rose again but also trusting that redemption in Jesus was for you!—to accept it as such; to lean on it. Calvin seems to stay clear of mentioning explicitly the affective component of faith because he is being cautious to distinguish faith that justifies from what the Roman Catholic Church of his day contended for: namely, that deeds of love justify us before God. Here is where Bernard and even Jonathan Edwards take it a step further than Calvin—and I think they are right to do so. Bernard says,
But the believing soul longs and faints for God; she rests sweetly in the contemplation of Him. She glories in the reproach of the Cross, until the glory of His face shall be revealed. Like the Bride, the dove of Christ, that is covered with silver wings (Ps. 68.13), white with innocence and purity, she reposes in the thought of Thine abundant kindness, Lord Jesus; and above all she longs for that day when in the joyful splendor of Thy saints, gleaming with the radiance of the Beatific Vision, her feathers shall be like gold, resplendent with the joy of Thy countenance.
So Bernard seems to be right in saying that faith includes more than just certainty in God’s existence or in Jesus’ vicarious death, it involves a delight in it. We don’t just believe that God’s abundant kindness is for us in Christ, we repose in it, we relish it. What once seemed foolish now seems like wisdom and righteousness. Edwards says the difference between saving faith and demonic faith is like the difference between someone who knows propositionally that honey is sweet and the one who has actually enjoyed the sweet savor of honey. This makes sense of passages like 2 Timothy 4:7-8 and Ephesians 1: 18 and Ezekiel 36:26.
According to Bernard what characterizes an unbeliever the most is love of self. The object is self and the motive is a selfish one. He says,
At first, man loves himself for his own sake. That is the flesh, which can appreciate nothing beyond itself.
In this stage of love we are blind not only to God but blind to who we are. We don’t see God as glorious and we don’t discern the dignity of who we have been created to be. Bernard would also add that because we don’t see our God-given dignity—having been created higher than beasts—we also don’t live in line with that knowledge. Having the wisdom to recognize the high honor of humanity includes recognizing all that we have been given, every capacity we have to function as humans has been given by God. And we squander these gifts when we don’t recognize them as such.
The second stage of love, according to Bernard is when a person begins to come under a conviction of their absolute dependence. They recognize that they are given light to see, food to eat and air to breath. Everything they need to live and to exist is a gift. In stage two, the object of love changes but the motive stays the same. The object of love, according to Bernard, moves away from self and onto God. Here the person begins to recognize that God exists and that God expects righteousness from us. He or she recognizes their utter contingency and God’s transcendence. They begin to devote themselves to God and religion so as to benefit from it. This is what to do, so they think, to rid themselves of guilt, to get out of hell, to do as they ought. This, so they think will make them happy. While loving God, the person in this stage is doing it merely for reasons of the flesh. God is a means to an end.
. . . he perceives that he cannot exist by himself, and so begins by faith to seek after God, and to love Him as something necessary to his own welfare. That is the second degree, to love God, not for God’s sake, but selfishly.
Bernard argues that in this stage only fear and self-interest motivate the person. He makes it very clear that these cannot convert the soul—only charity can.
Now comes the transition to the third degrees of love.
But when he has learned to worship God and to seek Him aright, meditating on God, reading God’s Word, praying and obeying His commandments, he comes gradually to know what God is, and finds Him altogether lovely. . .
For Bernard, this makes all the difference in the Christian life! How wonderful a thing this is! How many have began to follow God, become moral, develop faith, and while committing themselves to the rigors of religiosity, they are blown out of the water by the grandeur of God’s glory!
So, having tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is (Ps. 34.8), he advances to the third degree, when he loves God, not merely as his benefactor but as God.
In this degree of love, God remains the object of affection but the motive changes. The reward for loving God is no longer something temporary and other than God, but it is God himself. Bernard is emphatic on this point. This is the degree of love that ought to characterize Christians.
Whosoever praises God for His essential goodness, and not merely because of the benefits He has bestowed, does really love God for God’s sake, and not selfishly
God is the reward. This is the goal of Christianity for this life. We have just finished hearing him say that charity is the thing that causes conversion, not fear or self interest. We have also heard him say that the transition from the second to the third degree of love is gradual. I would like to argue that this degree of love is the degree that signals regeneration, real salvation in the soul. It’s hard to say for sure what he means, Bernard is not dogmatic here. His purpose for this treatise is not the same as, say, Jonathan Edwards Religious Affections. Edwards aim was to separate the chaff from the wheat of pure religion, saving faith. This was in response to the many attacks after the great awakenings that the whole movement was just a bunch of commotion—just enthusiasm. These attacks were usually in response to wild and disorderly excesses used by pastors and lay people to force or fake powerful effusions of the Holy Spirit. Edwards would have none of this. He had to challenge it!
Now pastor Colin just preached on regeneration and he emphasized that it is not a gradual process, it is the instantaneous work of God in us whereby we become new creations. Bernard, I think, is only saying that from our perspective this transition from the second to the third degree of love is gradual. I would imagine that though many of you would affirm that God’s regenerating work is immediate, you would also testify from your own experience that you couldn’t pinpoint the exact date you began to love God for his own sake. That’s the way it was for me, there were some serious turning points for me, but it was a real process from my vantage point.
If we were to stop for a moment and say, okay we know the transition from the second to the third degree of love is significant, we think we are talking about what distinguishes conversion, but how does this happen. How does one go from loving God for the sake of self to love God for God’s sake?
He addresses this question, for according to Bernard, God is . . .
. . . the efficient cause as the final object of our love. He gives the occasion for love, He creates the affection, He brings the desire to good effect. He is such that love to Him is a natural due; and so hope in Him is natural, since our present love would be vain did we not hope to love Him perfectly some day. Our love is prepared and rewarded by His. He loves us first, out of His great tenderness; then we are bound to repay Him with love; and we are permitted to cherish exultant hopes in Him. . .
In these words we hear Bernard giving us two answers. First we hear him say that God is the efficient cause of the third degree of love. God is the one who saves us. He gives all credit and glory to God alone for such a gift of restoration. He thoroughly believes that “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things!” Now, ‘how’ can be answered in at least two ways. The first is cause, the second is manor. Bernard just said that God is the cause of our love for him, now, how did God cause and prepare us?
Our love is prepared and rewarded by His. He loves us first, out of His great tenderness; then we are bound to repay Him with love; and we are permitted to cherish exultant hopes in Him. . .
Bernard says that God’s love and great tenderness revealed in the gospel of His son is the very thing that elicits our love for Him. God causes and prepares our love by a vivid and breathtaking display of His own.
Before moving on to the fourth degree, let’s take a look at some of the practical implications of these last points for two areas of the Christian life: sanctification and evangelism.
First, sanctification. How does this understanding of loving God aid us in our sanctification? Have you ever felt discouraged or even scared by the lack of warmth and zeal you sense in your heart to God? Bernard struggled with this. He long to have greater and greater affection for God, but too often he was plagued by indifference and worldly desires.
As a Life Group leader and a pastor for young adults here at the Orchard, I get people talking to me about this quite often. “Ryan, my love for God was white-hot those first years, but now it’s just waning, I feel dry and parched. What do I do?” What would you say? What kind of wood do you put in the furnace of your love for God?
Bernard’s answer is an abiding and stayed contemplation of God’s marvelous compassion shown on the cross. He asks,
What could result from the contemplation of compassion so marvelous and so undeserved, favor so free and so well attested, kindness so unexpected, clemency so unconquerable, grace so amazing except that the soul should withdraw from all sinful affections, reject all that is inconsistent with God’s love, and yield herself wholly to heavenly things?
Bernard reminds us that unlike the heathen who have some reasons to acknowledge their need to grow in love for God, we have more. Therefore, he says,
So it behooves us, if we would have Christ for a frequent guest, to fill our hearts with faithful meditations on the mercy He showed in dying for us, and on His mighty power in rising again from the dead.
They love all the more, because they know themselves to be loved so exceedingly. . .
How does this help us with temptation?
For it is meet that those who are not satisfied by the present should be sustained by the thought of the future, and that the contemplation of eternal happiness should solace those who scorn to drink from the river of transitory joys
Second, evangelism: How should the third degree of love, having God as the object and the reward/motive, change the way we share the gospel with people we care about?
According to Bernard, we don’t offer them something more or other or beyond God. It is ridiculous to think of offering someone eternal life and speak of God as though he is only the means to that end!
Listen to him,
For instance no one would hire a hungry man to eat, or a thirsty man to drink, or a mother to nurse her own child. Who would think of bribing a farmer to dress his own vineyard, or to dig about his orchard, or to rebuild his house? So, all the more, one who loves God truly asks no other recompense than God Himself; for if he should demand anything else it would be the prize that he loved and not God.
Or. . .
If you should see a starving man standing with mouth open to the wind, inhaling draughts of air as if in hope of gratifying his hunger, you would think him lunatic. But it is no less foolish to imagine that the soul can be satisfied with worldly things which only inflate it without feeding it.
So, lets not offer people worldly things which can only inflate them without feeding them. Offering someone anything other than all God is for them in Jesus is like offering to pay a hungry man to eat, he doesn’t want your money, he wants food. Offer him the thing he needs. Don’t make the thing he really needs the lever to get what he doesn’t need.
Is God our ticket that we leave at the gate to enter the city with streets of gold? God is Spirit and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Will we walk past God in heaven to enjoy healthy bodies and restored relationships apart from Him? No! All of these good gifts in heaven will be springboards into greater a delight in God! So, when we share the gospel with people, we must lay before them the unseen, eternal, all-satisfying God as their all in all—not the stuff he gives!
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God!” 1 Peter 3:18
Now, lets move on to the fourth and final degree of love. Bernard thinks that the fourth degree is mainly reserved for heaven. Listen to his description of the transition from the 3rd to the 4th degree.
Speaking of the 3rd degree to begin with:
Surely he must remain long in this state; and I know not whether it would be possible to make further progress in this life to that fourth degree and perfect condition wherein man loves himself solely for God’s sake. Let any who have attained so far bear record; I confess it seems beyond my powers. Doubtless it will be reached when the good and faithful servant shall have entered into the joy of his Lord (Matt. 25.21)
Here we see the object of love now shift to self, yet our motive remains the same. What does he mean by this? It sounds potentially disastrous doesn’t it? It may help to remember that Bernard wanted to emphasize in the 1st degree of love where we love self for the sake of self that the problem is in large measure that we can no longer see ourselves rightly. We don’t see ourselves as made in God’s image. We don’t see ourselves, every gift and ability we have, as given by a kindly creator. What he is saying is that now in the 4th degree of love, this fallen and sinful perspective of self is reversed! Wonderfully reversed!
Let’s listen to him,
In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. Created first and then restored, I owe Him myself twice over in return for myself. But what have I to offer Him for the gift of Himself? Could I multiply myself a thousand-fold and then give Him all, what would that be in comparison with God?
What do you think about this? It’s clear, to be sure, from the narrow and broader context that Bernard is not saying the essence of heaven will be a focus on self. That would be a tragic misreading. No, he is saying that we will for the first time begin to see ourselves aright!
Here he makes himself crystal clear. . .
Here indeed is appeasement without weariness: here never-quenched thirst for knowledge, without distress; here eternal and infinite desire which knows no want; here, finally, is that sober inebriation which comes not from drinking new wine but from enjoying God (Acts 2.13). The fourth degree of love is attained for ever when we love God only and supremely, when we do not even love ourselves except for God’s sake; so that He Himself is the reward of them that love Him, the everlasting reward of an everlasting love
Now this is the degree of love that really jarred me. I have come to realize in these last years that I have grown a bit out of kilter in my passion to maintain a God-centered outlook on everything. This is language we use quite a bit in the church. We are God-centered, Gospel-centered people—and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So here is how I got out of kilter. I began to see myself only as a sinful wretch that God couldn’t bare to look at unless his merciful son twisted his arm to do so. This is an exaggeration for sure, but not an incredible one. I didn’t understand that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). I felt like I had to stand behind Christ, not in Him. I didn’t realize, at least subconsciously and practically, that there was never a moment since before the foundation of the world was laid that God did not have his love set on my. He purposed, before the world was made, to lavish me with indescribable depths of mercy and grace and kindness in His son.
John Calvin in his Institutes actually quotes Augustine to get his point across,
God’s love is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For it was not after we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son that he began to love us. Rather, he has loved us before the world was created, that we also might be his sons along with hi only-begotten Son—before we became anything at all. The fact that we were reconciled through Christ’s death must not be understood as if his Son reconciled us to him that he might now begin to love those whom he had hated. Rather, we have already been reconciled to him who loves us, with whom we were enemies on account of sin.
I can barely believe this! Here is where this 4th degree becomes important. When God says he loves you and sent his son to die for you, and you live like you aren’t worth a thing, that is called ‘unbelief’! Its sin. How many Christians hurt themselves with sinful behaviors because all they can see in the cross is God’s begrudging pardon rather than his inestimable eternal love for them?
The only thing I disagree with Bernard with respect to the 4th degree is the notion that it is almost wholly reserved for the life to come. In its fullness, yes, both love for God and self will only be consummated at Jesus’ return.
But I think this is so important for right now. How are you, Christians, supposed to see yourselves? If you are in Christ you must see yourselves as loved, adopted, provided for, safe, valuable, and secure in God’s favor. No one can snatch you out of the firm hand of His Fatherly love. And you must do all this in such a way that makes you repose in Him, glory in the cross, exult in his plan of redemption. You must love yourself for the sake of His glory.
"from faith for faith" -Romans 1:17
“When at first we taste the gospel, we indeed see God’s smiling countenance turned towards us, but at a distance: the more the knowledge of true religion grows in us, by coming as it were nearer, we behold God’s favor more clearly and more familiarly.”
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Jesus came to 'fulfill' the law and the prophets
What follows is an excerpt (slightly modified) from a small paper I turned in this last week on John Chrysostom. I was telling a friend of mine today at church how much I enjoyed studying him and he encouraged me to post my thoughts on my blog. So here it is . . .John Chrysostom (347-407 CE) was a man of notable influence. The ‘Golden Tongue’ was born in Antioch where he served as both deacon and presbyter and died exiled from Constantinople, where he served the church as bishop. Though almost two millennia separate him from the 21st century Christian, he nevertheless has something to say to us. He was a pastor, scholar, reformer, rhetorician, and a monastic (in lifestyle). He inherited the Origenian legacy mediated through Diodore of Tarsus of biblical fidelity and precision. With that said, he is also esteemed as the best example of the Antiochene school of approach to the Bible. He has been read and appreciated in literally every age of Christendom, including his own.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says that he came not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to ‘fulfill’ them. In what follows, lets look at Chrysostom’s exegesis by contrasting his approach to this important passage with the exegesis of an admirer of his, Geneva’s John Calvin.
What did Jesus mean when he said he had come to ‘fulfill’ the law and the prophets? This question has challenged not a few interpreters of Scripture. Though much of John Calvin’s theological system addressed the relationship between the Old and New Testament, in his commentary on Matthew 5:17 he describes only two ways that Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets.
Calvin
First, when Christ says he came to fulfill the law, according to Calvin, he meant that through his life, teaching, death and resurrection the old covenant was ‘confirmed and ratified.’ Far from abrogating it, the gospel is in agreement with the law.
Second, the way Christ confirmed and ratified the law was by making its meaning plain. In other words, redemption in Christ ‘gave substance to the shadows’ of the law. When the mysterious purposes of the law and the prophets were revealed in the gospel, the meaning and the intent of the law was actually established. Calvin quotes Jeremiah 31:33-34 to ground his argument. In this text regarding the new covenant God promises that the law will be written on the hearts of His people.
Chrysostom
Is Calvin in agreement with Chrysostom’s assessment of the law’s fulfillment in Christ? According to Chrysostom, Christ fulfilled the law in three senses.
First, Christ fulfilled what was promised and predicted in the law. Here he means that everything in the OT that promised fulfillment in the messiah both referred to Christ and was fulfilled in his actions (including his speech). Though Calvin would definitely agree with this in general, he does not mention it in his comments on Matthew 5:17. Interestingly, Chrysostom limits the predictive fulfillment of the law in Christ to the literal, not taking into account the typological sense. He focused on the birth of Christ fulfilling the predictive prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 rather than Christ being the ultimate antitype of the sacrificial system, for example.
The second sense of fulfillment is in two parts: (A) Christ fulfilled the law in that he kept it perfectly. There was no sin found in him. He fulfilled all righteousness. And also (B) in that it is granted to his people to keep the law through faith in Him. Chrysostom leans heavily on Romans 8:3-4 here, where Paul says that through faith “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Those who follow Christ are given power to keep the meaning and goal of the law through faith in him and by the life-giving Spirit.
The third sense Christ fulfilled the law was by elucidating it. According to him, this is the most likely meaning intended in Matthew 5. Jesus works to make sure it is clear that his teaching is not in contradiction to the law and the prophets, but ‘a drawing out, and filling up of them.’
This seems to be what Calvin is referring to by giving ‘substance to the shadows.’ The difference is that Calvin both elaborates on this point, making it a major emphasis in book II of his Institutes, and he subordinates it to the confirmation of the law. That is, in Calvin’s view, the elucidation or revealing of the law in the gospel serves the purpose of confirming, establishing and ratifying it. It functions instrumentally. Though nuanced a bit, Calvin aligns himself with Chrysostom’s interpretive heritage with respect to this rich biblical theme: the law’s fulfillment in Christ.
John Chrysostom was admired by Geneva’s reformer and deserves the same from us. Both his hermeneutical commitments and his manner of life are worthy of emulation, even over1500 years later! I continually have to guard myself against the assumption that new equals intelligent and old equals ignorant. Both Chrysostom and Calvin had masterful and profound understandings of how the testaments hang together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)