The security of God's love

Where do we find security in our relationships of love? I'd suggest that there are usually two places:

1. A high view of ourself - we think we've got something so attractive about us that love is the natural way people should relate to us. We are good looking, we're witty we're intelligent or we know the right people. In short we have something to offer.
2. A low view of others - we think that they need us. Perhaps we trust that our girlfriend will never dump us because she can't deal with being alone, or that a friend will always be happy to meet up because they have a constant need to talk to someone... anyone.

I think we apply these human ways of thinking to God. They manifest themself like this:

1. Some kind of legalism. Either human beings in general are basically lovely, or if everyone doesn't merit love, at least we do by virtue of who we are or what we've done.
2. Some kind of doctrine of divine necessity. In order to be true to who he is, he had to love us. Perhaps he needed an object to love, perhaps he needed to display his glory. It is probably less common that legalism, but it is out there as an idea.

In contrast to both of these the Bible says that God loved us totally freely. We don't deserve his love and he didn't need to give it, but still he set his love on us.

As Susanna Wesley says:

[God] is being itself, and as such must be infinitely happy in the glorious perfections of his nature from everlasting to everlasting; and as he did not create, so neither did he redeem because he needed us; but he loved us because he loved us

(cited in p. 61, Fred Sanders, Embracing the Trinity)

That final phrase is almost lifted from Deuteronomy 7 where, if you follow the logic through, Moses says the same thing:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers (Deut 7:7-8)

Speaking to a friend today he confessed that there is something slightly terrifying about that. God seems to leave us nothing to grasp hold of in order to give us security of his love. We can't point to something in ourselves or in the rules of logic. He simply asks us to trust him personally.

Except, he does do more than that, as the verse in Deuteronomy suggests. He makes an oath. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews says:

"when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us." (Heb 6:17-18)

He voluntarily ties his love into his unchangeable nature. In the past he wasn't bound to love us, but now he has freely bound himself to love us in his word of promise.

And when you heard 'word' in that last sentence, I hope you know where you need to go!

This promise is supremely found in the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, who suffers in our place and is raised again for our justification. All so that we can be adopted and joined into the divine life. So now if we are 'in Christ' God cannot cease to love us without denying his own self, and God's love for us is even more secure than the universe.

As Karl Barth says:

He loves them with the same eternal love with which He loves the Son (Jn. 17:23 ["I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."])." (my bold, CD IV, 2, 758)

Picking up on the distinction I made in a previous post, God the Father's freely placed love-for-the-unlovely church becomes bound, by the Son's mission in the Spirit, to his love-for-the-lovely Son; and that love-for-the-lovely is so integral to his being that it is as secure as his existence!

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

The fact of assurance

Well did James Denney once observe that whereas assurance is a sin in Romanism, and a duty in much of Protestantism, in the New Testament it is simply a fact.

(JI Packer, Knowing God)

Some rough notes on knowing, and dealing with doubts

Esther Meek, drawing on Michael Polanyi, argues that we know people and things as we focus on them by integrating particular clues into a pattern. For example we know God by connecting together numerous dots into the pattern of a person who we commit to in faith.

In apologetics the clues may be personal experience, arguments, historical evidence, and even the Scriptures itself, but the focus is God himself. In discussions about assurance of salvation the clues may be good works you have done, the promise in the sacraments, the words of absolution of a brother, but the focus is the cross and resurrection for your salvation. In leading bible studies the clues may be literary structure, historical details, personal experience, but the focus again must be Jesus.

Both the clues and the focus are important to our act of knowing, as can be seen when we examine doubts in particular.

Doubts arise when we focus on the clues, or fail to focus through the clues:

I think we can distinguish two doubt-producing movements in connection with the clues of our integrations. One is reverting to focus on the clues. The other, closely related one is feeling like, in our integration, that we are not in touch with our clues.

How we respond to the doubts depends on which mistake we are making.

There are two ways to respond to doubts, and those responses, on the surface appear to contradict each other. One is to try once more to look through the clues, reintegrate to the focus. The other is to take some time to look at the clues. In the end, I think that we cope by alternating these two movements, and that they are just the movements that make up good learning.

If we are obsessing with the clues, we may need our gaze lifting. To reintegrate the focus. We can help people do this by pointing out the beauty of Jesus, and relating to him in our daily life and worship.

First, we should try once more to look through the clues. We know enough about the act of knowing to see that it ought to feel uncomfortable to look back at the clues. When we look back at the particulars, we can feel that in themselves they don't account fully for the pattern we have seen in them. Of course they don't, for it wasn't looking at them in themselves that prompted our integration; it was living in them and looking through them. To look at them is not to see the things on which our pattern was based. We access truth, and can only properly assess it, as we live in the pieces of the pattern in our bodies. If looking at the pieces makes us feel doubtful, there is good reason for it: the pieces, without our living in them, aren't the starting point of our successful effort.

[...] So, one remedy for doubt is to stop looking at the clues, striving again to look through them, to get back inside them.

If we are feeling our focus on God is lacking connection to our thinking and experience we may need to examine these clues close to hand.

We are most familiar with this effort as plain old study and analysis, examining the underpinnings of our claims and actions to understand the what and the how of the whole thing. Analysis is not all there is to knowing - identifying knowing with analysis, I believe, has been the central mistake of the modern model of knowledge. Clue scrutiny is not an end in itself, nor can it or should it be lifted out of the context of the larger picture that is knowing: humans engaging the world through patterns. But seeing analysis as a key instrument for the sake of a larger reintegration to a focus actually reinstates it, no longer as master, but more helpfully as servant.

Why is studying the clues valuable and important, if real knowing is living them, not looking at them? The clues that make up our integrations, you might say, are liable to get their feelings hurt if you forget them. They are happy being subsidiary, but you ignore them or take them for granted to your peril. We vector through them, but we never leave them behind.

We can also see how knowing happens well by thinking about playing an instrument:

It happens on the piano bench. I've watched my [daughter begin] cranking out a Scott Joplin rag with her usual confidence [and then] she must have stopped and thought what she usually never though about: How do I figure out what the note is?

[...] Piano teachers have told my daughters: Don't stop thinking about what you are doing when you are practising. Plan for what to do if autopilot fails you under pressure. Scrutinize your fingers and your fingering carefully in problem passages. Then put it back together. [Mature musicians] have a well-developed connection between the artistic and analytical sides of their brain.

Good connections and continual movement is the key to a growth as a Christian. So in knowing "we move back and forth between both directions, from the clues, and to the clues... back and forth, back and forth". I would argue that this reflects much of what the Christian life is. A continual back and forth and building of connections until they meet completely in the cross and resurrection of Jesus where everything meets. Another example would be law and Gospel, repentance and faith, death and life, OT to NT.

(Quotations from pp. 169-172, Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know: The philosophy of knowledge for ordinary people)

Are we sure assurance should be sought for?

[To S]

Luther's whole theology was driven by the question of how he could be assured of God's favour - how he could know that he was saved. He even defined faith as including assurance of salvation.

Our theology is shaped by the questions we asked. Was that the wrong question for Luther to be asking? Should we expect Christians to be sure of their salvation? Perhaps it is even unhelpful.

In contemporary Evangelicalism you could often assume that good emotions, and positive feelings are the primary purpose of all Christian activities. So we don't even think if there is anything wrong with Luther's question. But it is a question we should ask. Why is assurance of salvation essential to Christian faith?

Off the top of my head I would give two answers:

1. It honours God as truthful. To not be assured of your salvation is to call God a liar, because he promises just that in the Bible, the words of Christians, and the sacraments. "when the soul firmly trusts God's promises, it regards him as truthful and righteous. Nothing more excellent than this can be ascribed to God [this is the] very highest worship of God" (Martin Luther, The Freedom of the Christian).
2. It is the only way anyone will do good works. We will never be motivated to do truly good works by mere command, even less by fear. Unless we are sure that we have all that we need we will look first to shoring up our own salvation, before seeking to serve others. Unless we know for sure that God loves us we will not love him in return. A few quotes:

"For what reason is faith, as trust in God's promise [of our forgiveness], given priority over all works? In what way does it alone make all works good? Because it alone - and thus God alone, who establishes faith - breaks open the nature of the sinner as one curved in on himself; only he can loosen the fist that is clenched so tightly, so that my existence on behalf of others becomes natural once again and takes place with 'passion and love.' The imagery of receiving and passing on to others brings us to the foundational motif of Luther's understanding of God, that of categorical gift: through the Son, God in the Spirit gives himself to us as Father, in every sense of the word, so that we do not hoard and keep for ourselves what is given to us, which is what we do as sinners, but instead pass it on to others" (p. 283, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

"if we recognize the great and precious things which are given us, as Paul says [Rom. 5:5], our hearts will be filled by the Holy Spirit with the love that makes us free, joyful, almighty workers and conquerors over all tribulations, servants of our neighbours, yet lords of all." (pp.304f, Martin Luther, The Freedom of the Christian)

"It is impossible to love God until the forgiveness of sins is first grasped by faith. For the heart that truly believes that God is angry is unable to love God until he is shown to be reconciled. For as long as he terrifies us and appears to be casting us into eternal death, human nature cannot bring itself to love such a wrathful, judging, and punishing God. It is easy for complacent minds to fabricate some foolish dreams about love [...] But in its agony and its battles the conscience experiences the emptiness of such philosophical speculations." (p. 126, Apology of the Augsburg Confession)

How can we be sure of God's love?

A lot of people are very 'down on themselves'. They clearly need words of affirmation and assurance that God really does love them. But that doesn't mean that we stop telling people they are sinners. Only through judgment will we experience God's love. And, as PT Forsyth put into words, only when a person has seen the magnitude of God's holy anger against us will that love be real and trustworthy to the person who can never see how he could be loved.

If God's love were not essentially holy love, in course of time mankind would cease to respect it, and consequently to trust it. We need not a fond love, but a love we can trust, and for ever [...]

the sinner could not trust a love that could not justify itself as holy. It is the holiness in God's love, I urge, that alone enables us to trust Him. Without that we should only love Him, and the love would fluctuate. For we could not be perfectly sure that His would not. It is the holiness in God's love that is the eternal, stable, unchangeable element in it - the holiness secured for history and its destiny in the Cross. It is only the unchangeable that we could trust; and there alone we find it. If we only loved the love of God, we should have no stable, eternal, universal religion. But we love the holy love He established in Christ, and therefore we are safe with an everlasting salvation.

(pp. 113-137, The Work of Christ)

Ultimately, the person who is down on himself can only be sure "because the father not only says but pays" (p.111, ibid)

Miserable multifaceted Christians

As a society, and as churches we so often do not do a good job of helping people with depression or other mental illnesses.

I want to talk about some things I've learnt about how we can do better. I have in mind particularly Christians who have depression which is often accompanied by a lack of assurance. In fact these two things often feed off each other. I'm sorry for the narrow focus, but that is where most of my experience is.

I think we can mess up by either treating this sort of misery purely as an illness requiring professional help and medication or as purely 'spiritual' problem requiring preaching the word of the gospel into people's lives. However, the medical profession almost never addresses the 'spiritual' questions because it does not share the beliefs of the sufferer. The church can do far more than the medical profession can ever do. Whereas the church cannot prescribe medication and provide professional advice it can do a lot to address both the problem of belief and the illness (although you cannot really separate them).

To move out of misery we have to recognise that human-beings are multifaceted and take an approach which responds to that.

However the first and most important step for the miserable Christian is to step outside of his/herself. Otherwise you will only reinforce the position you are in. Once you step outside of yourself then address yourself and the different aspects of your being that make you up (these are a bit schematic and overlap so forgive me):

1. Intellectual beings

Conservative Evangelicals are probably unlikely to forget this. However, it is essential to address false beliefs that we are carrying which may lead to our lack of assurance, and remind ourselves of what we may have forgotten. Particularly helpful is to remember a few different aspects of (justification by) faith:

(a) faith => we are not saved by works
(b) faith => we are not saved by our feelings
(c) faith => our hope is future. We must not expect to experience salvation fully now (e.g. 1 Corinthians 13:12).

Really, people can say they believe this, but probe just a little in your heart and others and you see we often doubt it, and that is cancerous.

2. Emotional beings

Preaching to ourselves must not just be intellectual. It must involve mediating and savouring truths. Turning over and over in our minds and hearts how good God is towards us in his beloved Son. However, emotions are not all so rational. That is why Luther so often suggests listening to music to troubled friends. Entertainment (not just electronic, but physical and social) has a amazing power to change our mood all by itself.

3. Social beings

This was also a favourite suggestion of Luther. Spend some time with friends. Don't succumb to extremely strong desire to hide away and avoid company. Seek it out for both light conversation and to talk about your struggles so they can encourage you. Be open to hearing their encouragement, and believe their encouragement and absolving words to have all the authority of Christ's (Matthew 18:18). To the friend of a miserable Christian, remember one of the most helpful things you can do is stick by them. Just being there is essential. Keep seeing your friend regularly even though frankly it can be an incredibly dispiriting experience for you.

4. Physical beings

Our physical health has a remarkable power to affect our psychological and spiritual health. Ensure that you get enough sleep, but don't sleep too much. Ensure you get exercise, but not too much. Identify other things that affect you physically (food you eat, coffee, Coca-cola [I kid you not]) and adapt your behaviour. Finally, professional medical advice, and prescribed medication often has an essential role to play in controlling our chemical balances.

5. Creaturely beings

We did not create ourself and we cannot heal ourself either. God is in ultimate control despite the devil's power, and so prayer is probably the most important thing we can do for ourselves, and others to do for us.

I probably ought to say something about 'spiritual warfare' and habits as well, but that will do. I probably also ought to say that often there is no 'cure' for the misery, and it never goes away. It can sometimes only be kept under control. Circumstances and illness bring out our lack of faith in making us doubt our assurance. However, that is not to say that happy Christians are any more holy for their happiness. It may be that their happiness would crumble much more easily if it had to face difficult experiences.

PS sorry Chris this is not the post I promised about creation, I'll do that one next but it will take longer to write.

Stop listening to yourself

I apologise in advance for the ridiculously long quotes in this post, but they are brilliant.

The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been repressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you’. Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have but little experience.

(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures, pp. 20f)

Martin Luther knew better than most how to talk your way out of spiritual depression. However, for him the devil was real and the one to have God's promises spoken to. However, God was also close at hand in the words of those who spoke in his name.

do not dwell on your own thoughts, but listen to what other people have to say to you. For God has commanded men to comfort their brethren, and it is his will that the afflicted should receive such consolation as God's very own [...]

Inasmuch, then, as God desires everyone to comfort his brother, and desires that such comfort be received with a believing heart, be done with your own thoughts. Know that the devil is tormenting you with them, and that they are not your thoughts but the cursed devil's, who cannot bear to see us have joyful thoughts.

Listen, then to what we are saying to you in God's name: Rejoice in Christ, who is your gracious Lord and Redeemer [...]

If you are convinced that [your own] thoughts come from the devil you have already gained the victory.

(pp.96f, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert [1534])

Slightly more seriously, Luther lays down how he dealt with his own doubts about whether he was one of the elect:

I know all about this affliction. I was myself brought to the brink of eternal death by it [...] I shall show you how God helped me out of this trouble and by what means I now protect myself against it every day.

First, you must firmly fix in your mind the conviction that such thoughts as yours are assuredly the suggestions and fiery darts of the wretched devil [...]

Secondly, when such thoughts assail you, you should learn to ask yourself, "If you please, in which Commandment is it written that I should think about and deal with this matter?" When it appears that there is no such Commandment, learn to say: "Begone, wretched devil! You are trying to make me worry about myself. But God declares everywhere that I should let him care for me [...]

Thirdly, if these thoughts nevertheless continue (for the devil is reluctant to give up), you too must refuse to give up. You must always turn your mind away from them and say: "Don't you hear, devil? I will have nothing to do with such thoughts. Moreover, God has forbidden me to. Begone! I must now think of God's Commandments. Meanwhile I shall let him care for me. If you are so clever in these matters, go up to heaven and dispute with God himself [...]

Fourthly, the highest of God's commands is this, that we hold up before our eyes the image of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Everyday he should be our excellent mirror wherein we behold how much God loves us and how well, in his infinite goodness, he has cared for us in that he gave his dear Son for us.

In this way, I say and no other, does one learn how to deal properly with the question of predestination. It will be manifest that you believe in Christ. If you believe, then you are called. And if you are called, then you are most certainly predestinated. Do not let this mirror and throne of grace be torn away from your eyes. If such thoughts still come and bite like fiery serpents, pay no attention to the thoughts or serpents. Turn away from these notions and contemplate the brazen serpent [John 3:14], that is Christ given for us.

(pp.115ff, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert [1534])

Incidentally, after some thought, I think that that last paragraph gets at what Paul means when he 'the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God' (Romans 8:16). The witness of the Spirit is not a feeling or voice in your head telling you that you are elect. It is externalised in the cry 'Abba, Father' (v.15; c.f 2 Cor 1:19-22, Luke 12:11-12). It is not subsequent to belief in the Gospel, but it is belief that the Gospel is true. That is why the Reformers (in contrast to some Puritans) made assurance inseparable from faith. For example, Calvin defines faith as 'a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit' (Institutes, 3.2.7) and Luther describes it as 'a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times' ("Preface to the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans" [1546] LW vol.35 p. 370)

Having said that Calvin understands the witness of the Spirit slightly differently to me (cf. his commentary on Ephesians 1:13 and on Romans 8:16 itself). He seems to see it more as unconscious change in the heart, but which is manifested in our calling upon God:

our faith has no true evidence, except we call upon God. It is not then without reason that Paul, bringing us to this test, shows that it then only appears how truly any one believes, when they who have embraced the promise of grace, exercise themselves in prayers.

However, it is notable that when Luther recommends clear 'practical' advice it is to listen to other people who speak with the Spirit's voice, and to call upon the Lord in joyful song.

When you are sad, therefore, and when melancholy threatens to get the upper hand, say "Arise, I must play a song unto the Lord on my regal [a portable organ] (be it the Te Deum laudamus or the Benedictus), for the Scriptures teach us that it pleases him to hear a joyful song and the music of stringed instruments." Then begin striking the keys and singing in accompaniment, as David and Elisha did, until your sad thoughts vanish. If the devil returns and plants worries and sad thoughts in your mind resist him manfully and say, "Begone, devil! I must now play and sing unto my Lord Christ."

(pp.96f, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert [1534])