April 2004 Archives

Those of you who know me know my background with Christian Hedonism. This was written on a forum, but I wanted to offer it to those of you who still check my site every once in a while. It’s nothing really new that some of you who have read Desiring God or have read some of my previous entries already know about. But perhaps it might strike a chord with you in a fresh way.

In some sense the most benevolent, generous person in the world seeks his own happiness in doing good to others, because he places his happiness in their good. His mind is so enlarged as to take them, as it were, into himself. Thus when they are happy, he feels it; he partakes with them, and is happy in their happiness. This is so far from being inconsistent with the freeness of beneficence, that, on the contrary, free benevolence and kindness consists in it.

Jonathan Edwards

As I was reading the “soulmate” thread, I was hearing several different perspectives on relationships and regarding our happiness or our denial of it in order to love someone.

I submit that if we abandon our pursuit of our own happiness, especially in the pursuit of a spouse, we cannot love them as God would want us to. This is a dangerous and risky statement because it’s open to incorrect application, hence I want to develop this idea.

Our society today has so elevated the idea that we must “follow our heart” instead of “our head” that it has made marriage stand on the foundation of pure romantic ecstasy, the initial “buzz” of a relationship which God has designed to assist in bringing two people together. This has resulted, at the least, in many marriage break-ups because once the initial, intense feelings that this person has caused subside, they begin looking elsewhere to get that same buzz. We do know that biblically this cannot be the only thing that holds a marriage together.

So there are those who have heralded biblical ideas like “self-denial” and such which are part and parcel to a biblical marriage. They correctly have identified that marital love is more than mere feelings. And that is true. Love in Ephesians 5, it is argued, is expressed in self-denial. So the key, they say, is to abandon your own happiness and sacrifice for your spouse.

The good of this popular teaching is that there is help in recognizing that love is more than feelings. It is a choice. But the harm it is causing is that love is not only a choice. It cannot be, otherwise the husband who dutifully chooses to buy roses for his wife on their anniversary yet has no feelings for her does not truly love her. He is a hypocrite when he gives her the roses and says “I love you.” To hold up FEELINGS and CHOICE as if they are opposites, or that one alone is genuine love is erroneous, unbiblical, and destructive not only to healthy marriages, but healthy relationships all around.

I think this is why we read things like “He who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28) and “A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels” (Proverbs 31:10). I think a more biblical way to speak of love would be to say: deny your own self-centered and exclusive pleasures and rather pursue your joy in the joy of your beloved. Christ’s love for the Church is illustrated clearly by His self-denial in Ephesians 5, but we err if we stop there and say, “So, husbands should deny themselves.” There’s an aim of Christ’s Self-denial, and that’s found in v. 27. “So that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Why did Christ deny Himself temporary pleasures? To receive an eternal pleasure.

In conclusion of my opening remarks, we must conceive of self-denial as denying ourselves tin for the sake of gaining silver. We must not abandon our happiness, but rather regulate it in such a way that we make our spouse’s happiness our joy, so that when they are happy, we are happy. Truly, loving your wife is like loving yourself.

If you have thoughts, fire away. Disagree? Let me hear of it. I really think that the tenor of self-denial in the Bible is always an exchange of a deceitful, lesser pleasure in return for a genuine, greater pleasure. And if we say that we must deny our in-born desire for pleasure rather than aim it at what is ultimately most satisfying and pleasurable (namely, Christ Himself) we can neither love Christ nor love others as we ought. Jesus Himself went to the cross “for the joy that was set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2) and “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11).

5 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world? 7 But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not do evil that good may come? — as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:5-8)

I’m not going to attempt to unpack all that’s in these verses (as that would be quite impossible), or even much of it (as that would take more time than I have). Other people have done a better job at explaining this very difficult passage. No, I bring it up as a compliment to yesterday’s update.

I believe Paul’s point is to dispel a misapplication of two truths we find in the Scripture, namely

1. God’s righteousness is magnified when He judges the unrighteous acts of men, and
2. God is just to inflict wrath on unrighteousness even when it results in Him being glorified.

One of the misapplications is clearly stated in v. 8, that if God is glorified in judging unrighteousness, then we are doing Him a favor by sinning because He is glorified, and therefore He cannot judge us.

This is a completely wrong conclusion from a correct premise. And lest I be misinterpreted from yesterday’s updates, I did not mean that we should rebel in order to bring God glory. Why not? Because He is glorified in pouring out His wrath upon us if that is the lifestyle we live. Paul hits upon this truth later in Romans 9:22-24.

22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory — 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

We see that God “shows” or “makes known” two things in these verses:

1. His wrath and power (v. 22)
2. The riches of His glory (v. 23)

He is glorified in both, but one is a means to another. Why does He make known His wrath and power? In order that the riches of His glory might be made known for vessels of mercy. That is God’s chief end in creation.

So, for those who say “Let us sin so that God may receive glory,” that is in indication of a vessel of wrath, not a vessel of mercy. In sinning, He glorifies Himself by pouring out His wrath on you. By contrast, He also glorifies Himself by showing you mercy and changing you so that you become conformed into His image. In other words: you can glorify God by receiving wrath or mercy. Which would you prefer?

Tying this into yesterday’s entry, even the sinful deeds that occur against us God uses for the express purpose of molding us more into His image. Not a single thing will happen that will throw off His great purpose of showing the riches of His glory to vessels of mercy. And we cannot look on our own past sin that we have repented of and experienced its consequences and say, “God won’t work that together for good.” Truly, we must “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). But neither should we view His plan for our life ruined because of our sin. His grace abounds even greater than sin (Romans 5:20-21). This is what Providence does: it governs and ordains human affairs such that it will result in the highest glory to His name in the highest happiness of His children.

I hope I’ve done a sufficient job to curb any erroneous thoughts that would encourage a vertiginous spirit toward God from what I wrote yesterday.

You should be aware that of late I have been finding a budding fascination with the Puritans. The word used to carry more of a negative connotation with me (as it does with much of the world), but now that I have actually read some of their writings, I am seeing an incredible worldview, a solid work-ethic, and an amazing grasp of the things of God.

One of the Puritans I am reading right now is John Flavel, and his work The Mystery of Providence. In it, Flavel argues that everything, down to the minutest detail, is ordained and governed by the Providence of God. I wanted to post something about a section I found interesting.

O what exact proportions do providences and Scriptures hold! Little do men take notice of it. Why did Cyrus, contrary to all rules of state policy, freely dismiss the captives, except to fulfil the Scripture (Isaiah 45:13)? So that it was well observed by one that, “as God hath stretched out the expansum or firmament over the natural; so he hath stretched out his Word over the rational world.” And as the creatures on earth are influenced by those heavenly bodies, so are all creatures in the world influenced by the Word, and do infallibly fulfill it, when they design to thwart it. [Emphasis mine]

John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, reprinted 2002), pp. 39-40

In other words, even those who think they are going to thwart God’s will are actually fulfilling it by their rebellion. This is a very difficult concept to grasp, as we must not err in accusing God of being the agent of sin, and we must recognize that even sin is not merely “salvaged” by God for His glory but rather it is an ordained means to it. Piper puts this same truth another way:

People lift their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion is unwitting service in the wonderful designs of God. Even sin cannot frustrate the purposes of the Almighty. He himself does not commit sin, but he has decreed that there be acts which are sin — for the acts of Pilate and Herod were predestined by God’s plan.

John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003 edition), pp. 35-36

Piper bases this observation off of Acts 4:27-28. He is saying exactly the same thing that Flavel is. I just found it interesting how Piper, more than three hundred years later, would come to the same conclusion.

That’s just an observation, I’m not going to dive into the any application yet other than to say: whatever happens today is not

1. a random happening of events, and
2. the design of fate, which has no conscious aim in history.

One of the great things, if not the great thing about Providence is that there is a designed aim in all the events in history, namely, the highest glorification of God in the highest satisfaction of His people. Yes, even the painful events of today, while they hurt, will result in greater joy in the future.

This is why Charles Spurgeon, the London pastor from 100 years ago said,

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes — that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens — that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence — the fall of… leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.

When Spurgeon was challenged that this is nothing but fatalism and stoicism, he replied,

What is fate? Fate is this — Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains, must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. Fate does not say that…. There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man.

As quoted from John Piper, Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?