The Seeking Church, Part 7

August 6, 2008

We live in an age where prayer is thought of as an action that is performed rather than the life of the soul in pouring itself out to God as a result of the work of the Spirit in the soul. There is no merit to be obtained by performing the ritual of prayer and uttering sounds in the air, but instead we must learn again in our time that prayer is the act of a child of God in seeking God Himself. Prayer may seek God on the behalf of other people, but it must always be done while seeking God and His glory above all. Without love for God primarily there is no true prayer at all. In contrast to many methods and ways of modern instruction on prayer, here are the words of Arthur W. Pink on the prayers of Paul.

Finally, let me point out a striking omission. If all the apostolic prayers be read attentively, it will be found that in none of them is any place given to that which occupies such prominence in the prayers of Arminians. Not once do we find God asked to save the world in general or to pour out His Spirit on all flesh without exception. The apostles did not so much as pray for the conversion of an entire city in which a particular Christian church was located. In this they conformed again to the example set for them by Christ: “I pray not for the world,” said He, “but for them which thou hast given me” (John 17:9). Should it be objected that the Lord Jesus was there praying only for His immediate apostles or disciples, the answer is that when He extended His prayer beyond them it was not for the world that He prayed, but only for His believing people until the end of time (see John 17:20, 21). It is true that Paul teaches “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all [classes of] men; for kings, and for all that are in authority” (1 Timothy 2:1, 2a, brackets mine) -in which duty many are woefully remiss-yet it is not for their salvation, but “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (v. 2b, ital. mine). There is much to be learned from the prayers of the apostles.

Now the words of Pink in the above quote may shock us and sound hard or even non-Christian. What we must ask ourselves, however, is whether he is right about what he says about the apostolic prayers and the prayers of Christ. We must always remember that in prayer as well as all of life the Great Commandment is to be our guide. Well, someone might retort, but we are also commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. But that is not an argument against Pink’s position at all. The greatest thing we can do for anyone is to love God and to pray for His glory. In fact, we need to hear I John 5:2: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.” We cannot even love the children of God apart from loving God. In our day we think that we love God when we do nice things for human beings but Scripture tells us that we love human beings when we love God. While the two should not be separated, this should at least tell us of the proper order our hearts should have in prayer.

The judgment of God is upon the professing Church and He has turned His face from it. We can do all of the nice and helpful things we can do but until we are seeking the Lord Himself He will not turn His face toward us. The only hope that the professing Church has to find God is to seek God. The only hope the professing Church has is to turn from all of its self-seeking ways and pray that God would give it a heart to seek Himself. The only hope that the professing Church has in pleasing God is if it repents of trying to please God in its own power and seeks the power of God to dwell in it.

There are several things in this provocative statement by Pink that we could look at, but we will look at just a few. The first thought that comes to mind is the difference between the prayers of Christ and His apostles and of the prayers of the professing Church today. As noted previously, we spend a lot of time praying about the physical problems that people have while the apostles prayed for the glory of God in the spiritual strength and growth of souls. We spend a lot of time praying for the salvation of particular sinners and also of larger groups while the apostles prayed for believers. I can imagine that some will think that this sounds like hyper-Calvinism or some sort of fatalism. However, what we must strive for is the biblical teaching on the subject. I would challenge anyone to take the time to read the New Testament and take note of all the prayers listed in it. On one side of a sheet of paper they would list all of the prayers for the salvation of the world and on the other side of the paper list all of the prayers for believers and for believers to know God. This would settle the issue beyond doubt.

The issue at hand is that the modern professing Church is so man-centered that it cannot see anything beyond what it can see and count. This means that it prays for what it can see and count. It believes that its primary task is in evangelism and so all that it does is focused on that. The primary task of the Church is the glory of God. Jesus Himself said that the world would know that we are His disciples when we have love one for another (John 13:35). In the book of Acts it was the Holy Spirit being poured out that drew men to hear the Gospel and then to send them out into the world. It is the Church alone that can be revived (bring life again) since it alone had true life before. It is only when the Church is revived that people then flood to the Church. It is only when the Church is filled with the living God that people will come to the buildings of the Church to seek God rather than entertainment.

It is only when the Church is seeking the living God that the Church has anything to say to the world. The greatest act of good that the Church can do for the world is for the world to see the Church seeking God first. It will do the world no good if it sees the Church seeking the world more than it seeks God. The world will not see God until the Church has been filled with God Himself. As long as the professing Church seeks the world and ignores God as its truest and greatest love the world will mock the professing Church because it does not see God in Her. The truth of the matter is that the world is right about the professing Church. God is not in the professing Church because She is under His judgment and He has turned His face from Her. The professing Church knows that something is wrong but it is trying to cure the problem by working to please God and doing things for Him. The world just sees the people in the professing Church as fools. We are fools if we seek the world and physical things rather than seeking the living God. What do we really seek in our hearts when we pray?

While it may seem counter-intuitive, the professing Church is in deadly error in praying for the world and not for the glory of God and the spiritual growth of God’s people. When it prays in this way it simply shows that it does not understand what Scripture teaches on prayer nor does it understand how sinners come to God. Let me ask again where we see in Scripture the type of praying like we see in the average “prayer meeting” at the local church? We simply don’t see it at all. In Scripture we see that God is sought. After all, to understand the Gospel is to understand that it is God who must draw sinners to Himself. Praying for the glory of God and praying for the saints of God to mature and to be instruments of His glory is the biblical and the best way to pray in terms of the local church and in terms of sinners truly coming to Christ. The most biblical way that a local church will reach the lost with the Gospel is seeking and praying for the glory of God to be manifested in the spiritual growth of His people. A local church is the body of Christ and it is through a local church that Christ Himself is manifested when it is being the body of Christ. People don’t come to Christ by hearing the facts alone, but by seeing Him manifested.

Let us look at a business model by analogy. Let us say that a restaurant named XYX was successful and so the owner starts a second restaurant. Before long he starts a third and then a fourth and so on. What is it that could be a cause of the restaurants he has already started failing? It would be if the business began to be more concerned with growing than it was with the quality of the food and the quality of its employees. The professing Church has become so focused on growing that it is neglecting the Church itself. We have become so focused on the world that we have neglected the body of Christ. It is the body of Christ that must be strong for it to truly reach the world in truth and love.

The local churches must learn about true prayer. True prayer is to spend time seeking God Himself and His glory through the strengthening of His people. The apostles were said to have turned the world upside down and yet the biblical record has them praying for believers and the local churches in virtually every case. Paul asked for prayer concerning his preaching and that is one of the best ways for concerned people to pray for the lost. We must begin to pray for preachers and the preaching of the Word of God. We must begin to pray for the preaching of the Word of God because we desire God Himself to be exalted in the preaching.

Again we must notice that prayer is the desire of the heart and the love of the heart. We cannot just decide to start praying in this way and start uttering words that are much like the words of the apostles and think that is prayer. What we must do is to see that this is the way we should pray and then begin to humble ourselves and seek the Lord for hearts that desire Him enough to pray in this way. If we do not desire these things out of love for God and for the body of Christ, then we will not truly pray them. We must have hearts that are broken from self and the ways of the modern professing Church or we won’t have a prayer at all (literally and figuratively).

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The Ramifications of a Man-centered God

August 6, 2008

What can Soli Deo Gloria (to God alone be the glory) mean apart from the God who is focused on Himself and loves Himself with an infinite love within the Trinity? We know that Scripture commands human beings to love God with all of their beings by doing all to His glory (I Corinthians 10:31). We know that human beings are told that nothing they can do apart from love is of any true benefit (I Corinthians 13:1-8). We are also told that we are to be holy as He is holy and that we are to be like Christ. We are told in many places that God does what He does to glorify Himself and that He will not give His glory to another.

If God is not doing all to the glory of His name out of love for Himself, then He is commanding men to do as their Great Commandment that which He is not doing. He would also be commanding them to be unlike Himself and so their holiness would not be in being holy as He is holy. In the modern day we have this unhealthy and ungodly tension going on. There is a plethora of teachers within the professing Church that want to tell men to be God-centered in some way and yet they teach as if God is man-centered. Whether this is seen or not in the people, it certainly causes a terrible confusion at best. However, most likely what it does is put man at the center in reality even though he says he is putting God at the center in theory. We may use words that say we are doing it to the glory of God but our hearts are decidedly and “lovingly” (self-love) in the pursuit of self. We even have teachers within the professing Church that teach that we must love ourselves in order to love others. The Scripture, however, teaches that we must deny self in order to follow Christ and that we must love God to love others.

Let me mention but one name in this context. James Dobson is a very popular figure within modern Christendom. He is a psychologist whose organization brings in millions and millions of dollars each year. Yet his teaching is built upon the self-love model and certainly has the very appearance of being very man-centered. He speaks about God as if God is focused on man and his needs. He speaks of the believer being able to find self-worth because Christ has died for that person. It used to be that a true believer had confidence in his or her salvation because of a God that was great enough and loved Himself enough to die for sinners and save them by grace alone. If a human being is able to look at the cross and discover his or her worth in that, then the cross of Jesus Christ was not by grace alone. That means that the Gospel is not one of grace alone either and sinners are not justified by grace alone through faith alone but by grace and worth. The value that is assigned to man as a cause for the cross is the value deducted from grace. God sent Christ to take human flesh and go to the cross not to declare the worth and value of human beings, but to show how committed God is to His own glory. When human beings look at the glory that shines in Christ at the cross, they are to realize that He did this to the praise of the glory of His grace (Ephesians 1:5ff).

We must begin to focus out thoughts, hearts, theology, and our practices upon the glorious teaching of a God-centered God who loves Himself and does all for His own glory. If God does not truly do all for His own glory, then we have no model to follow. If God does not truly do all for His own glory, then we are left up to our own efforts and works to do what we can because God may not be working His grace in us by the life of Christ in order that we would be strengthened by grace to do all for His own glory. The ramifications of a man-centered God are enormous for our theology. If God does not do all for His own glory then the cry of Soli Deo Gloria during the Reformation was and is a meaningless phrase in reality. If God does not love Himself and seek His own glory above all, then why should human beings who are made in His own image and are commanded to do all things for His glory? Scripture teaches us that falling short of His glory is what sin really is (Romans 3:23). Can we imagine God Himself falling short of His own glory and doing something that was not for that?

Reformed theology must start and end where God starts and ends which is that all is to be done for His glory. This is what Luther and Calvin did. Whenever Reformed theology focuses on academics, morality, the family, or whatever more than the glory of God in truth it has a wrong focus. We can raise our children in a sterile environment and teach them how Christians behave and they can become little Pharisees quite easily. Unless we teach them that all their morality and all of their correct theology is nothing but sin apart from a heart that loves God and intends His glory in all it does they will become little Pharisees. We can be Reformed in creed but be Pharisees indeed apart from this all important teaching of Holy Scripture. If God loves Himself and His glory and does all to the glory of His name, then the life of Christ in us and the fruit of the Spirit being worked in us will work for no other love and no other goal. No matter what else we do, if we do not love God and strive to manifest His glory in all things we are not like God in holiness and love. We are like the devil who does all for himself.

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The Truth of God’s God-Centeredness

August 4, 2008

Reformed theology in history has been thoroughly centered upon God. In modern times it seems as if a slippage has occurred and we are not longer centered upon God. The problem, however, is that men speak highly of God and of Christ but do so in a man-centered way. What we must see is that all the attributes and glory of God are defined and set out by how they relate to God rather than to men. For example, we smile when we hear a worldly person say that a God of love would not send anyone to hell. However, when we speak of the love of God as if it is defined by His love for sinners, we are essentially doing the same thing. We are defining the love of God in a man-centered or man-measured way. As an infinite God, His love can only be measured by infinity. We can see signs of His love toward human beings, but until we see His love as measured only by His love for Himself we will not understand the cross of Christ either.

When we measure the love of God by human beings, we have just set out standards for how God is to love us. We have put limits on His love by our own understanding. We think that if hard trials come then God does not love us when in fact true love will bring hard trials because they are good for the soul. When we define love by ourselves that is a reason that we will not see the love of God and will lead to great misunderstandings and disappointments. Many people have lost loved ones in some form of crime or “accident” and immediately said that they would never serve God or go to church again. Our theology has suffered the same type of train wreck in that we look upon God through human centered lenses. Modern theology, which includes Reformed types as well, is not prepared to deal with the true and living God because they do not see that God loves Himself as triune and does all for His own glory. The very beauty of God is His love for Himself as triune, which is His holiness. If we adjust our theology to make God’s love focus on men, we have not only adjusted a doctrine but have entered into idolatry.

We tend to look upon men like John Calvin or Jonathan Edwards as too severe. The reason is that they did not look at God as man-centered but instead said that God was God and as such He was God-centered. God appears severe when the fallen mind looks upon Him and judges Him by fallen human standards. But when God is seen in the light of His glory, which is His own God-centeredness, what appeared as severe has the glow of divine beauty. Many recoil at the teaching of the wrath of God and of the doctrine of hell, but that is because they see things from a man-centered focus. Scripture tells us that as the smoke of the torments of the damned rise the saints of God praise Him (Revelation 18:20-19:6). When people begin to see God as God-centered and that His justice and love are focused on Himself, it changes everything. Fallen man as a result of being fallen is focused upon himself as the center of all things and wants to judge all things by himself. When fallen man looks at the biblical teachings of God, fallen man hates them because they teach a God that is centered upon Himself and not man. This leads to various forms of theology that are man-centered because the biblical teachings are adjusted to fit with the self-centeredness of man. Reformed and conservative theology that is not thoroughly God-centered will do this too.

We are told that God is a perfectly blessed or happy Being. We are told that Jesus the Christ is His Beloved Son. We are also told that Christ is the very outshining of the glory of God (Heb 1:3). We are also told that when a person loves and believes in Christ that person can have unspeakable joy that is full of glory (I Peter 1:8). What we must see is that it is in beholding the Son as He shines forth the glory of God that God Himself has great joy in. God the Father beholds Himself as He shines forth or images forth His glory in the Son and He is utter delight, joy, and love in this. The Son is ravished by the glory that He shares with the Father and loves and delights in the Father. A theology that is going to deal with God honestly and biblically is a theology that has to deal with those things as absolute facts and as the absolute and unalterable truth. Any theology that does not have God focused on God as God and loving God supremely as God is a theology that is not dealing with the truth of God.

Reformed theology in our day is dealt with by technical theologians and historians. What we need, so to speak, is someone skilled in theological aesthetics. What we need are people who behold the beauty of God to write on God Himself. What we don’t need is more and more of the man-centered drivel that is pouring forth from the presses. Some of that drivel comes to us in the guise of Reformed theology. We must be broken from our self in order to follow Christ who is the shining forth of the God-centeredness of God. We must be broken from our man-centeredness in order to preach and teach with a clarion call of the God who loves Himself and therefore there is a Gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone. Apart from a God who loves Himself and His holiness consisting in that, there is no true foundation for the Gospel at all regardless if the person is Reformed or not.

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Preaching Must Display the Glory of God

August 2, 2008

“This view or sense of the divine glory, and unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel, has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity… He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively; he not only argues that they are divine, but he sees that they are divine; he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists; for in this glory, which is so vastly and inexpressibly distinguished from the glory of artificial things, and all other glory, does mainly consist the true notion of divinity: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty. They therefore that see the stamp of this glory in divine things, they see divinity in them, they see God in them because they see that in them wherein the truest idea of divinity does consist.”

(Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections p. 298)

The statement by Edwards that “he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists” is another enormous statement with ramifications for preaching and theology. If our preaching and teaching primarily consists of teaching people the facts about things, this is woefully inadequate if Edwards is correct. The glory of God is not seen in teaching facts alone, but God is only seen when His glory is displayed. It is not enough to set forth a fact about God, we must teach the truth in a way to shine forth the glory of God. This is why we are to preach Christ as the shining forth of the glory of God rather than as a man-centered Deity who has done all He can do. We must know that all of our illustrations and stories may move the feelings of people but they do not in and of themselves shine forth the glory of God. It is in preaching and teaching in a way that the glory of God shines that the divinity of God shines forth in a self-evident manner. It is true, however, that no man can be the final cause of God shining His glory in the minds and hearts of other human beings. But preaching is a means of grace and when the intent in preaching is to shine the glory of God that is the means of grace of it being done. Preaching the letter of the law and preaching information only is the means to hardening and to pride (I Corinthians 8:1).

It is only when the true glory of God is set out, declared, and then admired is the truth of God then seen to be the truth of God. As Edwards says, “God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above “em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty.” It is not just that God is more beautiful than all other things, but He is infinitely exalted above other things by His divine beauty and chiefly by His divine beauty. It is the sight of that glory that men and women see divine things and see God (spiritual sight of the soul by faith) in them. In our churches today we are not showing forth the true glory but we are teaching morality, intellectual theology, and intellectual exegesis. Exegesis is meant to draw out what the text is really about rather than to expound some things about the text and show how that text intellectually fits in with the rest of Scripture. God has given His Scriptures in order to reveal Himself and His glory. If a preacher did not set out the truth of the glory of God in a text, that preacher has failed in his exegesis no matter how technically accurate he was.

It is not enough to talk about and use the word “glory” a lot, but instead the glory of God must be set out in its beauty. The people in the pews are bombarded moment after moment by the beauty and desirability of the world. When they come to hear the Word of God, they need to hear the distinguishing beauty and glory of God set out so that they will not be so tempted by the allure of the world. Preachers are bombarded by the things of the world too and they need to be caught up with the glory of God in order to be kept from being captured by the allure of professionalism and of large packages and of a church growth mentality. As long as preachers talk of a god that is focused on human beings, they are doing nothing but feeding the minds of people with an idol and people are being hardened into idolatry in the name of Christianity. This is also done with hard preaching and preaching on sin and morality as the Pharisees did. If the distinctive thing about God is His beauty and glory, then the distinctive thing about true preaching is the same thing. The same thing is true with Reformed churches. People are hardened under conservative morality and conservative theology if they are not lifted up to see the glory of God. It is not just that Pelagians and Arminians do this, but Reformed people are guilty of this. The bottom line is that if we are not preaching what is distinctive about God then we are not preaching the true God. No matter how much intellectual truth or orthodoxy is declared from Reformed pulpits, the true God is not being declared when His distinctive beauty and glory is not preached. We always point the finger at other people for our problems, but perhaps we should be pointing our fingers at the image we see in the mirror. Truth apart from His glory hardens hearts.

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The Seeking Church, Part 6

July 31, 2008

The professing Church simply must turn from seeking itself while using the name of God to seeking God for Himself. There will be no true revival or true life within the Church until this happens. But of course this will not happen until our hearts are broken before God and are turned by Him to Himself. There is no prayer apart from a heart that prays and there is no prayer apart from the love of the heart. But God is sovereign over the heart and not just external events. We must learn to seek the Lord for broken hearts in order to seek Him. We must learn to seek the Lord for His love for Himself to be put in our hearts so that we seek Him out of love. We simply must wake up and realize that prayer is not saying words to God and it is not asking God for the things we want, but instead it is the heart groaning forth its desires for God Himself and for His glory to be manifested in us and through us.

The following quote is from A.W. Pink’s writings on the prayers of the apostles:

Note also the catholicity of them. Not that it is either wrong or unspiritual to pray for ourselves individually, any more than it is to supplicate for temporal and providential mercies; I mean, rather, to direct attention to where the apostles placed their emphasis. In one only do we find Paul praying for himself, and rarely for particular individuals (as is to be expected with prayers that are a part of the public record of Holy Scripture, though no doubt he prayed much for individuals in secret). His general custom was to pray for the whole household of faith. In this he adheres closely to the pattern prayer given us by Christ, which I like to think of as the Family Prayer. All its pronouns are in the plural number: “Our Father,” “give us” (not only “me”), “forgive us,” and so forth. Accordingly we find the Apostle Paul exhorting us to be making “supplication for all saints” (Eph 6:18, ital. mine), and in his prayers he sets us an example of this very thing. He pleaded with the Father that the Ephesian church might “be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:18, ital. mine). What a corrective for self-centeredness! If I am praying for “all saints,” I include myself.

Let us look at some of the points that Pink points out. First, by “catholicity” he just means that the prayer is for all the Church or church rather than just for me. This is very important in terms of our hearts. We are commanded to love God with all of our beings. If we are constantly praying for things for ourselves-even if we attach spiritual reasons to them-we show that we love ourselves more than God and think of God as more of a genie that carries out our personal wishes. Instead, however, what we must do if we love God is to love His glory and His people who are the expression and manifestation of His glory. If we love the glory of God and His people more than anything else, that is what the longings of our hearts will cry out to Him for. Our love must be for God’s glory that shines in and through Christ and so it will be for the body of Christ which is the Church. If we truly love God we love His Son and if we love His Son we will love His bride and the other children of God.

From this point we can see why the prayers of Paul were so often for the whole household of the faith. He does not just want what is good for another person; He wants what is good for a whole church and all of God’s people. We must also realize that what is the true good of a single person is what is good for the whole and what is good for the person and the whole is God Himself. When we pray for ourselves as individuals we are actually not praying what is best in the big picture for ourselves as individuals. If our chief love is God Himself then what is best for each person is the glory of God. God’s glory is manifested through His people as whole and not just individuals. The more the glory of God is manifested through the local church and the Church as a whole the better that is for the true love of believers.

True prayer must be seen as the person and each local church seeking the Lord for Himself and not just for things. When people begin to truly seek the Lord for Himself, this is a sign that they love God and other people in truth. We hear much in our day about speaking the truth in love, but not so much about loving in truth. There is no true love apart from the truth. We must learn to pray in truth in order that there would be true love. We must learn to pray in true love so that there will be truth. The true way to love others is to pray for what is true and what is good for them. When we are seeking the glory of God out of true love for Him and for it to be manifested in and through others, only then are we are praying for others in accordance with knowledge, truth, and love. It is not just that it is important to pray for others in some general way, but it is utterly vital to pray for others in accordance with the glory of God and of true love. Just uttering words for the physical welfare of another is perhaps one of the worst things we can do for them in terms of the bigger spiritual picture. If God does heal them apart from working a true spiritual good in their soul, the illness does them no real good and it may even increase their pride. We simply must pray for others and think of them in terms of a group which is always in terms of the glory of God.

The second point is that this kind of praying is in accordance with the model prayer that Christ has given us. As Pink points out, all of the pronouns in that prayer are plural. The disciples came to Christ and asked Him to teach them how to pray. The model prayer that He gave them used plural pronouns. We should note that surely this means praying for others and ourselves as a whole but also that this points to corporate prayer as well. For one person that is part of a body to pray mostly for self is for the eye of the body to pray for itself and ignore the rest. If we focus on physical things we are ignoring what is truly important in prayer and that is the soul which is the very dwelling place of God. Christ has taught His body (the Church) to pray in a way that is beneficial for the whole body which is the instrument of His glory in the world. In praying for the body of Christ one is praying what is in accordance with the model prayer of Christ. God uses the whole body and so we are to pray for the whole body rather than just ourselves and our favorite person.

The third point has already been made in a sense but it is that when we truly pray for the church (local) and the Church (all true believers) are we then truly praying for ourselves in the proper realm. Each person is part of the body and is not a separate entity of self. If we love Christ and His body more than anything else, then our prayers must be for the body and yet we are in the body and so we are praying for what is best for ourselves. When one part of the body suffers, it all suffers. When the body as a whole is in good health, then each part is in health. Each individual part is under the judgment of God because the professing Church as a whole is under the judgment of God. We must learn that if we desire true revival and for God to turn His face toward us we must have our hearts turned to pray for His glory and the good of His body. True Christians have to learn that each person is not an island and that when true believers are not prayed for it is not praying for the body or ourselves either. Most importantly, when we are not praying for the body we are not truly praying for the glory of God in the world.

What kind of heart is it that is engaged in prayer like this if it is more than just words? We must be instructed to know how to pray but our hearts must be taught of the Spirit to truly do this. We have to begin to ask God to teach our hearts to pray. We must begin to seek the Lord to give the body a true love for Christ and His Bride in order to pray out of a heart of love. Until we learn the real connectedness of true believers in Christ we will not understand that when we pray for others and ourselves to know the love of Christ which passes understanding we are praying in such a way that the body of Christ is built up. Ephesians 4:16 teaches us something about this: “from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” It is only when each part is working as it is supposed to be working does the body as a whole grow in Christ which is termed “building up of itself in love.” Let us meditate on verses like that and see that our hearts must be broken from our present ways and practices in order to truly love and in order to truly pray. American individualism is very strong in the professing Church but to the degree it is strong is to the same degree that the Church has been weakened.

What must we do to have a heart that desires the glory of God through His people rather than to focus on ourselves as individuals? We must be broken from our self-centeredness and our self-love. It is easy enough to stop what we are doing and start uttering different words, but the heart has to be changed. God alone can change our hearts and God alone is the only source of love that can pour forth His love in our hearts. Until we see how utterly wicked it is for us to “pray” in the ordinary way, we will not be broken from our self-centered and selfish prayers. Until we are broken from hearts that desire things for self and will be religious for self too, we will not know what it means to truly commune with God in prayer. Until our hearts are broken from our religious duties and religious prayers apart from Christ we will not know what it means to seek His glory by praying for His people. Again, we can say the words but these are things that must be done from the depths of the soul. Our true prayer is the deepest desire of the heart and God sees that deepest desire as our real prayer rather than hearing the words. We can say many words in what we call prayer but our deepest desire will be heard. Until God changes our hearts and gives us desires for Himself the desires of our selfish and wicked hearts will be our real prayers. God will justly hate them.

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What is a Spiritual Sight of God?

July 31, 2008

“This view or sense of the divine glory, and unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel, has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity… He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively; he not only argues that they are divine, but he sees that they are divine; he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists; for in this glory, which is so vastly and inexpressibly distinguished from the glory of artificial things, and all other glory, does mainly consist the true notion of divinity: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty. They therefore that see the stamp of this glory in divine things, they see divinity in them, they see God in them because they see that in them wherein the truest idea of divinity does consist.”

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, p. 298

In this post we will continue looking at this marvelous statement by Jonathan Edwards that should help people see what a spiritual sight means. It is possible to adhere to all the Reformed statements (in a general way since all do not teach the same exact thing on all points) and yet miss the real issue with theology. The truth of Scripture cannot be derived from historical studies and logical deductions, but it must be given by the grace of God. In the modern day we tend to think that a person knows something if the person can regurgitate the information on a test or give some verbal credence to the fact that s/he has the information in his or her brain. But Edwards tells us that divinity chiefly consists in a view or sense of the divine glory and its unparalleled beauty. To state this differently, we do not know God or theology because we can state the facts about God or theology, but we only know God and theology if we have a view or sense of the glory and beauty of Him. This is a far different thing than teaching people some facts about the Bible in a class. This is something that God alone can give.

Edwards says that the glory and beauty of God are what distinguishes the glory of God and true theology from all that is artificial. The beauty of nature in the natural sense, though it shines with the glory of God in truth, is of far more beauty to most people than that of theology. Modern biblical study and theology has devolved into historical studies of differing types of criticism and the only glory is that of the intellect of the person that is doing the study. It is no wonder that people would rather look at the ocean or mountains than engage in a Bible study like that. Of course there are other kinds of Bible studies that people have which seem to look at the Bible and simply look for moral commands to obey. So people do not see the true glory of God in those methods and end up living an external religious life or simply following what they think of as natural beauties or glories.

I Corinthians 2:9-14 gives insight into this: “‘THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.’ For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

As we fight through texts like this, we must wrestle with what is spiritual and what is not. That which is spiritual is that which the Spirit reveals about things that are truly spiritual. The Spirit of God alone can give us understanding of the things of God. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit because they are foolishness to him. Now, if we approach this from what Edwards says, we can see at least one way that this makes sense. The mind is not out of the picture, but the mind only receives what appears as good or as beautiful to it. So the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ has no beauty to it and so no desirableness to the natural man and so it appears foolish to him. But those in whom God opens the mind and their heart to see His glory as it shines out in the Gospel of His glory in Christ, they are ravished by His beauty and delight in His glory. They now understand with delight that the Gospel is beautiful and desirable because it shines with the very glory of God. True spiritual insight, then, is to see the glory of God in the Gospel and doctrine. The Spirit gives believers love and joy in God Himself.

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Mysticism or a Spiritual Sight of God’s Glory?

July 29, 2008

“This view or sense of the divine glory, and unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel, has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity… He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively; he not only argues that they are divine, but he sees that they are divine; he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists; for in this glory, which is so vastly and inexpressibly distinguished from the glory of artificial things, and all other glory, does mainly consist the true notion of divinity: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty. They therefore that see the stamp of this glory in divine things, they see divinity in them, they see God in them because they see that in them wherein the truest idea of divinity does consist.”

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, p. 298

Edwards argues in this paragraph and its own context that it is the glory and beauty of God exhibited in the Gospel that convinces minds of the divinity of the things exhibited. While some might argue that Edwards is a mystic in his argument here, I would argue that Paul sets the same type of argument out in Scripture. Jesus taught us that unless one is born again that person cannot see the kingdom. If we look at the new birth as giving the soul a faculty of spiritual sight, then we can see that Edwards is arguing along the same line as Jesus. The book of Hebrews speaks of the ancient people as seeing ahead and of Moses as “considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (11:26). If Edwards is overly mystical to some, then Moses was too. There is a spiritual sight of the soul that gives it a view of the divine glory and of an unparalleled sense of beauty in the Gospel and of the things of God. In fact, the text that Edwards based his work on the Religious Affections is I Peter 1:8: “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”

In the I Peter text something is going on that is beyond the physical view of the eyes and yet something that leads to a true love and a true faith. It is something that leads to a rejoicing that is with joy inexpressible and is full of glory. Hebrews speaks of men living by faith in things that were not seen. By that we can be safe in saying that they did not see them with their physical eyes. We are also told to walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). But if faith is the sight of the soul rather than the physical eyes, then this means something totally different than a blind leap into the dark. It means that true faith is built upon spiritual realities and the soul lives upon the sight of spiritual realities rather than what the physical eyes see. This can be seen by reading Hebrews 11 over very carefully. The people in that Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11) lived by the sight of the glory of God and not by the data that their senses derived for them.

The statement by Edwards that follows this sentence, I think, should be interpreted in the sense of the above paragraph. “He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively.” Edwards is not talking about seeing the divine glory with the physical eyes, but with the spiritual sight or the eyes of the soul which is a view or sense of the divine glory. The people in Hebrews 11 had a view and sense of the glory of God and were willing to trade their lives and all they had to follow that divine glory. This was far more than an intellectual or logical glory. This was far more than a glory that the historian can pull from the rotting pages of old books. This is a sight and sense of glory that God alone can give to the soul. When God opens the eyes of the soul to spiritual things, people then know God in a way that is different than the conclusion of an argument. It is God giving the soul a sight of His glory and it is God that is giving the soul a drink of His beauty and utter majesty.

The soul does not need to be deeply humbled in order to derive God from a logical argument, but it must be deeply humble for God to give it a taste of His love for His Son by grace. The soul must be deeply humbled and broken to receive grace as grace can only be received rather than earned in any way. The soul must be truly humbled rather than to work up a false virtue of humility which passes as humility in many corners. Theology and Reformed theology too can have a type of logical glory to it that is derived by deduction and hard work. Without knocking that in all ways, what we must assert is that God alone can give us a sight of His glory. God alone can open the eyes of the soul to see His beauty and give it a drink of His glory. In other words, this is true Reformed theology.

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What is Truly Convincing: Seeing the Beauty and Glory of God

July 26, 2008

“This view or sense of the divine glory, and unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel, has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity… He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively; he not only argues that they are divine, but he sees that they are divine; he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists; for in this glory, which is so vastly and inexpressibly distinguished from the glory of artificial things, and all other glory, does mainly consist the true notion of divinity: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty. They therefore that see the stamp of this glory in divine things, they see divinity in them, they see God in them because they see that in them wherein the truest idea of divinity does consist.”

(Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections p. 298)

The view of Christianity presented by Edwards in this quote is staggeringly different than almost anything heard in our day. In our day God is barely more than a divine genie handing out what people want as long as they jump through the proper hoops. In our day God is the great conclusion to an argument that is presented to convinced people that God exists. But Edwards says that a view or sense of the divine glory and beauty in the Gospel is what has the tendency to convince minds. Whether a person follows classical or pre-suppositional apologetics, the focus is on convincing the mind in a way where God is the conclusion of the argument. Without tossing those out altogether, Edwards tells us that what really convinces people is the beauty of what is exhibited in the Gospel, which is the divine glory. In other words, what truly convinces people of the Gospel is the beauty and glory of God in the Gospel. A person can be convinced that God is true and that the Gospel is true, but still that person does not believe in a saving way. What must happen is for the person to see the glory of God in the Gospel in order to understand and love the glory of God that shines in the Gospel.

In a very real and true sense the Gospel has virtually been lost in the modern times. We want to argue from logic, history, or in some way apart from setting forth the Gospel in a God-centered methodology. We have made the leap from the command to make disciples of all nations or people groups and have turned toward a man-centered focus and methodology. It is as if the very glory of the Gospel is all about man and what God has done for man. Once that focus and methodology has taken over, the heart of the Gospel has been lost. God is the heart of the Gospel and He is to be the focus and the methodology. He is not to be the focus and the methodology just in order to get people to make a decision, but He is to be the true focus. The Gospel is all about God and His glory. If we take people away from the glory of God in the Gospel, we have just taken out the heart of the Gospel and so we are not proclaiming the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

II Corinthians 4:3-4 sets out the peril of a gospel that does not focus on the glory of God: “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.” This Scripture tells us that the devil blinds the minds of the unbelieving to the Gospel so that the true Gospel is veiled to those who are perishing. We simply must get this. But why is it veiled and what is hidden from them by that veil? Those who are perishing have been blinded so that they might not see the light of the Gospel. What is that? It is the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. In other words, the devil does not mind if people heart the words and historical facts of the Gospel, but he works to keep people blinded to the glory of the Gospel. He does that because what convinces people of the Gospel is the glory of God shining in the face of Christ.

Edwards saw something that was biblical and that we must see in our day if we are to see biblical revival. We must get beyond the information of the Gospel and point people to the glory of God that shines in the face of Christ in the Gospel. We can preach the external facts of Christ and the cross until we are blue in the face and we will not have touched on the most important part. In fact, we can preach the external facts of the Gospel and all that will happen is that people will make external professions and be external Christians. A person can be in line with all the historical facts of the Reformed confessions and still see nothing of the glory of the Gospel. John Owen wrote on the glory of Christ as did Edwards. We must preach the glory they did or we won’t preach the same Christ.

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The Seeking Church, Part 5

July 23, 2008

We are looking at how Paul prayed but also the heart that it took to pray these prayers in truth and love. This is all in the context that the modern professing Church is in a dire spiritual condition, which means that it is under spiritual judgment, which means that God has turned His face from the professing Church and has turned Her over to Her own methods and strength. The Church is to be the body of Christ and it cannot function apart from the wisdom and source of love and strength that the Head of the Church alone can give. When the Head of the Church has withdrawn, then it is given over to running around with a lot of religious activity that more resembles a chicken with its head cut off that makes a lot of noise with useless and pointless activity than it does a group that is driven by the love of God and guided by His wisdom. The Church must get back to true prayer and that prayer must be prayer of the heart that is taught by the Spirit rather than another activity and program.

Paul prayed in Philippians 1:9-11 that “our love may abound more and more, that we might be sincere and without offense, and be filled with the fruits of righteousness.” To be extremely repetitive we must ask make the point again that anyone can simply repeat these words. A person could memorize these words and repeat them for hours over and over. But what does that do if it is the language of religious works? What we must do is to get beyond saying these things for ourselves and others to where we begin to long for these things for others and ourselves. That will only begin to happen when the Lord breaks our hearts from our own strength and self-reliance and we begin to seek Him to conform our hearts to these desires.

To pray that our love would abound more and more is to realize that we have no source for love in ourselves and that our source is God alone. It is to realize that our love does not abound and that we need the grace of God to have love abound. We must see that true love is only in those that are born of God and know God (I John 4:7). We must see that the love of God only comes to us through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) and that love is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22ff). We must see that to pray for our love to abound more and more is to first pray for God to pour out His love in our hearts so that we will have true love in our souls. We must not be satisfied with just a little love, but we must pray for this love to abound to us so that it may abound within us and then pour out to others so that the love of God may be glorified through us. But we also know that we will never have the grace of love in our souls until our hearts are broken and humble. The Holy Spirit does not work the fruit of His love in the souls of the proud because all of the love of God comes to sinners by grace and God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. This should simply ring in our ears and hearts.

The professing Church must realize that to pray this prayer of Paul in truth is to pray for each person to be humbled and broken. We are nothing more than liars if we presume to pray for the love of God to abound in us if we are not going to seek the type of heart that God requires before He pours His love in. What are we if we will say these words for other people and not seek the kind of heart this prayer requires? Let me get very close to the pride and self-centeredness of our hearts here. We pray many times for things we are not willing to truly seek. It makes us feel very spiritual to pray for missions but we are not willing to go and we are not willing to do anything toward it. We may be willing to go but are we really willing to seek brokenness in order to go to them with love? We can speak much of evangelism and then some are willing to practice some form of it, but are we ready to seek true brokenness and true humility in order to be filled with the love of God in order to truly reach them? Are we really willing to seek utter brokenness from self in order to be a true sacrifice to God? It is much easier to think we are serving God by going around to people and telling them a message. That is nothing more than attempting to give God a blind and maimed sacrifice when He commands a perfect animal. We will do anything but seek to have our hearts truly broken from pride and self as God wills unless it will look good. We will make great sacrifices and do great labors with God’s name attached, but we will not seek true brokenness from our own self-sufficiency.

Our very text (Philippians 1:9-11) tells us why Paul was praying for himself and for them that their love would abound more and more. The reason that he gives is so that “we might be sincere and without offense, and be filled with the fruits of righteousness.” We must note this very, very carefully. Unless we are abounding in love, we are not truly sincere. Without this love of God abounding in us, all of our religious labor is not sincere. When people go out with programs of evangelism and they don’t have the true love of God in their souls they are not sincere. When we preach the Word of God and when we do our programs or religious rituals each Sunday we must have the love of God abounding in us or we are not sincere in doing them. Biblical sincerity will only happen when there is biblical love. Biblical love will only be in the soul when the source of love Himself lives in that soul and gives Himself to that soul.

Another reason the text gives us that we must have love abounding in us is so that we will be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Whatever is moved from love for self is the fruit of self. Whatever is moved by the strength of self is the fruit of self. Whatever is done by the wisdom of self is the fruit of self. Whatever is done in our own sufficiency is the fruit of self-sufficiency. Surely it is clear that we must have hearts that are utterly broken from love for self, the strength of self, the wisdom of self, and the sufficiency of self in order to take up our cross and follow Christ and in order for what we do to be the fruits of righteousness. If Christ is our righteousness then He is the One that works righteousness in us rather than self. If the fruit of love is by the Holy Spirit, then He alone can work the love in us that bears the fruit of righteousness. Surely it is so obvious that if we are going to pray this prayer of Paul in sincerity we must have hearts conformed to Christ in order to do so. Are we really willing to lay down everything we are and stand for in order to have the life of Christ? Are we really willing to lay down our religious reputations in order to seek God in truth? Are we ready and willing to confess before all that all we have done before is nothing but the fruit of self and our righteous acts are as filthy rags that make us unclean in His sight? Are we willing to confess our sins as David did and lay aside all hope in ourselves and lay low at the cross and ask God for grace apart from one single worthy thing in us or one worthy thing we have done? If we are not ready to do those things, we cannot pray this prayer in sincerity and we cannot do one thing in the name of God in sincerity. We must have hearts that seek the Lord or we are idolaters in seeking ourselves.

Paul prayed in Colossians 1:10 “that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Do we desire hearts to pray this? Do we really desire hearts that desire to please Him in all respects? Wouldn’t we rather please ourselves in all respects? Wouldn’t we rather please God only to the degree it pleases us and fits our own comfort levels? Do we really desire to love God in all we do apart from our sinful self-love? Will we seek the Lord to be delivered from our wicked self-love in order to love Him enough to please Him in all respects? Is this really any different than the Great Command to love God with all of our being each and every moment? If we are going to pray like Paul, we need to seek hearts like Paul. If we are going to pray for ourselves and others to please Him in all respects, then we must seek hearts that will seek to love Him in sincerity so that this can be truly done. If we pray that we want to please God in all respects and we only do that in order that others would be pleased with how sanctified we are, we are again praying to ourselves and seeking the honor of men. That means we don’t want this prayer to be answered and we are deceiving ourselves and lying to God and others.

Paul prayed in I Thessalonians 5:23 this: “may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely.” Can we pray this in truth for ourselves? Until we are ready to be sanctified as God would have us to be sanctified, we cannot pray this in sincerity. It seems to be that the professing Church wants to be sanctified enough to get God to give it what it really wants. That is not sanctification at all but is a system of works designed to manipulate God in love for self. That is nothing but the idolatry of self. When even our sanctification is vile and wicked before God, we should not wonder that we are under His judgment. Are we so sure that we want God at all? If we desire God in truth and love, then it will require much pain of heart and many hours of seeking Him for a broken and humbled heart. If we don’t desire that, let us not fool ourselves that we desire God or true revival. We may want a comfortable life where we can pray comfortable prayers and have some form of comfortable morality that we call sanctification. But again, that is nothing more than a lie and a desire to escape hell in an easy and comfortable way.

Are we satisfied with moral kids even if they do not love God and do not pursue Him with panting hearts? Are we satisfied with living ordinary lives as long as we pay the bills, don’t rock the boat, and attend church on a regular basis? Do we pant after God and want to please God and be sanctified from the depths of our hearts? Are we satisfied to pray and perhaps pray long and with intensity if we do not obtain the object of true prayer which is God Himself? We must learn that the goal of prayer is not to pray and it is not to spend time in prayer, but to find God Himself. If we are not willing to seek God at all costs to self and our own comforts, we are not ready for true revival. If we are satisfied with a time of prayer and yet a prayer that has no repentance and no humbling of self, we do not desire true revival. Let us not kid ourselves any longer. There will be no true revival until the people of God truly pray. There will not be true prayer until we are living sacrifices from the depths of our souls.

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The Gospel Is the Beauty And Glory of God Displayed

July 22, 2008

“This view or sense of the divine glory, and unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel, has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity.” (Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections p. 298)

This statement should ravish our souls with the mere thought. May this type of thinking become greater and greater until the very glory of God sweeps through our land and the world with the beauty of His glory. Here we are given a hint at the very least as to what the beauty of the Gospel really is. Though it may appear presumptive to change the sentence of Edwards around, in an effort to show at least part of his meaning with more clarity I will do so. “The unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited to us in the gospel which consists in this view or sense of the divine glory has a tendency to convince the mind of their divinity.” The unparalleled beauty of the things exhibited in the Gospel can only be the divine glory. The beauty of the Gospel is not that it saves sinners from hell, but that it manifests and exhibits the Divine glory. The Divine glory is seen in the Gospel by what it is and by what it does, and the beauty of that glory shines in such a way that there is nothing that can approach the glory of it. It is indeed an unparalleled beauty that is exhibited in the Gospel.

Psalm 27:4 – “One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.”

Psalm 149:4 – “For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.”

2 Corinthians 4:4 – “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. 6 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.”

What do men see that render the Gospel desirable to them? What is it that Satan has to do to keep people from seeing the true Gospel? The true Gospel is all about the glory of God yet men teach it in such a way that the glory of it and the motives of it are aimed at the self-centered nature of man. In that case ministers are deceived and join hands with Satan in hiding the glory of God in a so-called gospel. We can preach and teach what is orthodox about the Gospel and yet miss the real issue. A man that is very orthodox can do a dissertation on the Gospel and yet miss what is the real issue with the Gospel. Our desire must be for the glory of God in all and we must desire and love His beauty and glory in the Gospel. If all we do is present men with self-centered motives about what is best for them, they have not been moved by the heart of the Gospel which is the glory of God. The unparalleled beauty of the Gospel is in the glory of God shining in the face of Christ. If people miss that, they have missed it all.

What is it that the soul is required to seek? It is “To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple” (Psa 27:4). What is it that will take a soul wrapped in the filth of sin and pride and make it beautiful to God? It is when “the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation” (Psalm 149:4). The Lord takes those ugly with sin and makes them beautiful in His eyes with salvation. What is it about salvation that makes them beautiful? It is because it is His glory that they are now clothed with. It is because it is His beauty that now resides in and shines through them. We can see this clearly in II Corinthians 4:6 when the Gospel is all about God who shines in hearts “to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” It is when the light of the knowledge (more than just intellectual) of God’s glory is seen in Christ from the heart that a person now truly knows the Gospel. It is then that the person is beautified with salvation and it is then that the soul desires nothing more than to behold the beauty of the Lord. The Gospel is a sight of the Divine glory in its beauty as it shines in the birth, life, cross/death, and then resurrection, ascension and mediating work of Christ. The devil is hard at work to get people to teach morality and orthodox theology in such a way that the glory of the Lord is not seen. He is hard at work to get people to see the Gospel as desirable for what it will do for them rather than the glory of God. Reformed theology is only beautiful to the degree that it shines with the beauty and glory of God. If it does not do that, it is deformed despite its orthodoxy. Let us never forget that the God who lives in sight of the beauty of His own glory displayed within the Trinity will never see anything else as beautiful other than Himself. Until souls feed upon the beauty of His glory they will not repent of their self-centeredness to being ravished by His beauty and glory. They will continue to be full of self like the devil.

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