We will start this post with more quotes from The Religious Affections (RA) of Jonathan Edwards:
“From what has been said, therefore, we come necessarily to this conclusion, concerning that wherein spiritual understanding consists; viz, that it consists in a sense of the heart, of the supreme beauty and sweetness of the holiness or moral perfection of divine things, together with all that discerning and knowledge of things of religion, that depends upon, and flows from such a sense. Spiritual understanding consists primarily in a sense of heart of that spiritual beauty… When the mind is sensible of the sweet beauty and amiableness of a thing, that implies a sensibleness of sweetness and delight in the presence of the idea of it: and this sensibleness of the amiableness or delightfulness of beauty, carries in the very nature of it, the sense of the heart… the sense of the heart, wherein the mind don’t only speculate and behold, but relishes and feels” (RA 272-273).
Here we see a direct and frontal attack on many forms of theology as taught today. A person could (hypothetically) have a perfect grasp of all the teachings of Reformed theology and even the major theologians and preachers of theology throughout history and still miss the most important issue of it all. God has such a beauty that is so far over and beyond what a historian or theologian can teach that truly the greatest of them all can teach nothing but the barest rudiments of the understanding. There is a beauty and sweetness that God alone can teach in the heart that makes all other knowledge either beautiful or perhaps simply pale in contrast. Mortal man can only point toward spiritual things of beauty and direct others toward them, but no mortal man can give another the sense of these things in the depths of the soul. In other words, the depths of true theology and true Reformed theology cannot be gained from the Puritans and the older Reformed theologians. While much can be gained by reading them, the truest knowledge of spiritual understanding can only be given by God Himself.
We can teach the creeds until they are perfectly known in one sense and even memorized backwards, but God alone can give a true spiritual taste of His glory that those things teach. We can teach men and women those things in terms of the word, but only the Spirit can give them a true sense of the beauty and glory of them. We must never let people rest in an outward understanding no matter how great that outward understanding is, but instead we must tell them about and point them to what true beauty is which God alone can give a relish for. A person in a local church is not truly taught unless the Holy Spirit gives that person a true spiritual taste of God in the teaching. A person in a seminary is not truly taught unless the Holy Spirit teaches that person what a true spiritual taste of God is and then gives that person a taste of it. The people in the pews that are truly converted are starving in their souls because we are giving them dry bread in the form of dusty dry orthodoxy and not pointing them to the true beauty of His glory. Many others are lost and yet assured of their salvation because they have an intellectual understanding of things only and so do not see the true glory of God. If they were given a sight of the true glory of God they would hate Him because He does not stand for their self-interests as they think He does now.
“Spiritual understanding primarily consists in this sense, or taste of the moral beauty of divine things; so that no knowledge can be called spiritual, any further than it arises from this, and has this in it. When the true beauty and amiableness of the holiness or true moral good that is in divine things, is discovered to the soul, it as it were opens a new world to its view. This shows the glory of all the perfections of God, and of everything appertaining to the divine being: for, as was observed before, the beauty of all arises from God’s moral perfections.” (RA 272-273).
As we see from this quote from Edwards, no knowledge can be called spiritual knowledge apart from this sense or taste of the moral beauty of divine things. We must also remember that eternal life is said to consist in knowing God and the Son (John 17:3). Surely, then, we can see that to know God must be a spiritual knowing rather than in knowing data given to us by some means. It is in knowing God by seeing His moral beauty which is His love for Himself which is His holiness that we can see how all things shine forth the love of God for Himself which is the display of His beauty and glory. This opens up an entirely new world to those with this spiritual view or to those with eternal life. These people see the true glory of God and how everything manifests this glory. Instead of seeing the beauty of things as they relate to self, they now see the true beauty of things as how they relate to God’s love for Himself which is His moral perfection.
How lovely the Gospel is when it is seen as the very display of God’s love which is truly only seen in His love for Himself as triune. A Gospel that thinks of the love of God as focused on man at the center is a gospel that makes God out to be an idolater. That is repugnant to the soul that loves God in the beauty of His love for Himself and sees God’s love for Himself as true holiness. Until the modern professing Church repents of teaching a man-centered god and its man-centered gospels, it will never see the true glory of God in its majestic glory with its majestic and delightful gushing forth of God’s love for Himself shared with sinners. It will never know that true repentance is being turned from man-centeredness to being focused on God’s God-centeredness. It will never know the Gospel of the glory of God in the outshining of it in Christ as discovered in the face of Christ. It will continue on its spiritual barrenness and ugliness of a man-centered though orthodox gospel that kills souls. Oh that God would give us a taste of the springs of living water as it flows from His infinite love for Himself!
God Loves... Himself 
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