Jonathan Edward's view of History

Jonathan Edwards wrote in the treatise "A Call to United Extraordinary Prayer" about how God is driving history to its ultimate end of God establishing His Kingdom of truth and righteousness.

...All the changes brought to pass in the world from age to age, are ordered by infinite wisdom, in one respect or other to prepare the way for that glorious issue of things, when truth and righteousness shall finally prevail, and he whose right it is shall take the kingdom. All the creatures in all their operations and motions continually tend to this. As in a clock all the motions of the whole system of wheels and movements, tend to the striking of the hammer at the appointed time. All the revolutions and restless motions of the sun and other heavenly bodies, from day to day, from year to year, and from age to age, are continually tending thither as all the many turnings of the wheels of a chariot in a journey tend to the appointed journey's end. The mighty struggles and conflicts of nations those vast successive changes which are brought to pass in the kingdoms and empires of the world, from one age to another, are as it were travail pangs of the creation, in order to bring forth this glorious event. And the scriptures represent the last struggles and changes that shall immediately precede this event as being the greatest of all as the last pangs of a woman in travail are the most violent.

Gloria and Luke 15:10

"Gloria!" I shouted at a quickly receding figure on the sidewalk.
"Jeff" replied Gloria as she bounced to a stop and turned around. "Guess what?" she asked as she walked towards me.
"You made a decision." I asserted tentatively.
"Yep, I'm a Christian." Gloria smiled. We were talking outside near Currier Hall. It was May at the end of the spring semester of my fourth but not my final year at the University of Iowa. It was a perfect spring day in Iowa.
She was my neighbor on the dorm floor. Her roommate was the girlfriend of the guy across the hall from me. We all hung out together at the dining hall and in our hall. She had been talking to some Christian friends of mine. We had sporadic conversations throughout the semester about my beliefs. Her biggest sticking point was what would other people think.
"You know what I keep thinking about?" She queried. Her eyes sparkled as she teased me.
"I don't know." I replied.
"You told me once that thousands of angels would rejoice if I became a Christian. I keep thinking about all those angels cheering."
"Luke 15:10" I said, remembering the conversation. I looked at her. She seemed at peace. Her faced beamed with heavenly joy. I'd never seen anyone so happy. I said, "I'm sure they are. Rita and the gang must be really happy."
She said softly, "Thank you, Jeff."
"You're welcome." I replied. She walked away. She graduated that semester. I never saw Gloria again.

I understood the economy of heaven better that day. God rejoices before angels over repenting sinners. Angels rejoice before God at His rejoicing. Heaven will be an eternal rejoicing of saints and angels over a God who is joying over them.

Jonathan Edwards on the Beauty of the Church

This is a quote from The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. The authors are describing Edwards's aesthetics. This passage is poignant about how Edwards viewed the Church.

As the saints perceive and respond to God's beauty, they themselves acquire a beauty that is "The moral image of God in them." The beauty of the saints consists in a comprehensive and well-ordered moral and spiritual character, free from disproportion and deformity, so that they become "proportioned Christians." As Edwards noted in Religious Affections: "Another thing wherein those affections that are truly gracious and holy, differ from those that are false, is beautiful symmetry and proportion." Similarly, in Charity and Its Fruits, Edwards spoke of the concomitant development of various virtues or of "Christian graces concatenated together." Faith, love hope humility, repentance, thankfulness, reverence, submission, patience, contentment, meekness--these and all other graces of the Christian life grow together and not in isolation. The spiritual beauty of the saints consists in a complex of discrete though interrelated virtues.

As each saint responds to the beauty of God, so each responds to the beauty of other saints. For one person's consent to being is not isolated from that of another person, and "it is naturally agreeable to perceiving being that being should consent to being." As a result, there is a multiplying effect of consent and beauty within the community of the saints. Each saint not only consents to God but to the consent of other saints to God--a process that comes to consummation in heaven. The holy community, joined together in unity, is a community of consent that possesses its own special beauty. For "union is spoken of in Scripture as the peculiar beauty of the church of Christ," and "tis one of the most beautiful and happy things on earth, which indeed makes earth most like heaven." Krister Sairsingh writes: "The church is the community which re-presents the divine community of consent. And in this human community of co-consenters to being in general, the divine glory becomes visible." Conrad Cherry comments that, Edwards's "theory of virtue brought into symbiotic relation the beauty of the cosmos, the beauty of human morality, and the beauty of divine benevolence."

(McClymond and Mcdermott, pp. 100-101)

I don't fully understand these thoughts, but it interesting to ponder that Edwards had several conflicts with his contentious congregation. This congregation eventually kicked him out from his pastorate and yet Edwards sees the Church as beautiful.

Calvin on Deacons

Calvin saw 2 classes of deacons in the church. One type that administer the gifts to the poor and the other type that took care of the poor.

The care of the poor was committed to deacons, of whom two classes are mentioned by Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, "He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity;" "he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness," (Rom. 12: 8.) As it is certain that he is here speaking of public offices of the Church, there must have been two distinct classes. If I mistake not, he in the former clause designates deacons, who administered alms; in the latter, those who had devoted themselves to the care of the poor and the sick. Such were the widows of whom he makes mention in the Epistle to Timothy, (1 Tim. 5: 10.) For there was no public office which women could discharge save that of devoting themselves to the service of the poor. If we admit this, (and it certainly ought to be admitted,) there will be two classes of deacons, the one serving the Church by administering the affairs of the poor; the other, by taking care of the poor themselves. For although the term "diakonia" has a more extensive meaning, Scripture specially gives the name of deacons to those whom the Church appoints to dispense alms, and take care of the poor; constituting them as it were stewards of the public treasury of the poor. Their origin, institution, and office, is described by Luke, (Acts 6: 3.) When a murmuring arose among the Greeks, because in the administration of the poor their widows were neglected, the apostles, excusing themselves that they were unable to discharge both offices, to preach the word and serve tables, requested the multitude to elect seven men of good reports to whom the office might be committed. Such deacons as the Apostolic Church had, it becomes us to have after her example. (Calvin’s Institutes. Book 4, Chapter 3, Section 9)

Calvin notes that deacons and elders(bishops) were selected by the suffrage of the people.

Luke relates that Barnabas and Paul ordained elders throughout the churches, but he at the same time marks the plan or mode when he says that it was done by suffrage. The words are, "Cheirotonesantes presbuterous kat' ekklesian", (Acts 14: 23.) They therefore selected (creabant) two; but the whole body as was the custom of the Greeks in elections, declared by a show of hands which of the two they wished to have. Thus it is not uncommon for Roman historians to say, that the consul who held the comitia elected the new magistrates for no other reason but because he received the suffrages, and presided over the people at the election. (Calvin’s Institutes Book 4, Chapter 3, Section 15).

House Church Movement in Scotland (1547-1559 A. D.)

I found this second-hand book at the Haunted House Bookstore called The Story of the Scottish Reformation by Renwick. It was published in 1960. I knew very little about the Reformation in Scotland and it was very cheap so I bought it. I found a historical parallel. The growth of the Church in Scotland foreshadowed the house church movement in China during the 1960s and 1970s. The French captured the Castle of Saint Andrews in the 1550s, which was a haven for the Reformation leaders. The leaders were made galley slaves and many thought the Reformation movement would die. However God is not bound by circumstance. Renwick described what happens:

When the Castle of St. Andrews was captured by the French it seemed as if the cause of the Reformed Church was lost. Scotland was virtually governed by the French, and the Roman Church seemed permanently established. Indeed, throughout all Europe, the the Protestant faith was at its lowest ebb. Yet the amazing fact emerges that, at this very time when the Protestant movement in Scotland was without a leader, the Reformed doctrines took an ever-increasing hold upon all classes. Thus, when, in 1555, John Knox returned from Geneva for a visit of a few months, he was overjoyed to find great masses of the people thirsting for the gospel. This he related in a letter to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Bowes, and declared they were 'night and day sobbing and groaning for the bread of life. If I had not seen it with my eyes in my own country, I could not have believed it. Depart I cannot until such time as God quench their thirst a little'.

Renwick pointed out that this time of exile was good for Knox too. Although he suffered horribly as a galley slave, when he was released he made it to mainland Europe and met with the Reformation leaders. He came back to Scotland a well-trained, and bold leader. Knox and the other leaders most probably had made wise plans, but God chose His own way. (Proverbs 16:9)

When the Chinese Communist regime kicked out the missionaries in the 1960s, many thought the Church in China would die. However, the church went underground and grew.

Sproul on the Christian's Main Business of Life -- Romans 12:11a

R. C. Sproul comments on Romans 12:11a:

My translation of the next phrase reads not lagging in diligence (v. 11a). An older translation reads "not slothful in business" (KJV). We are not to be lazy in business; however, Paul is not talking about commercial enterprise. The word business comes from the term busy-ness, which means we should be busy people, busy with the things of God. Jonathan Edwards gave a sermon about pressing into the Kingdom of God. "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take by force" (Matt. 11:12). Edwards said that those who have come to Christ have been born again and given a spirit of zeal to pursue the things of God with a sense of urgency and with hunger and passion. Therefore, it is the duty of every Christian to press into the kingdom of God, making that the main business of life. The kingdom of God cannot be a secondary interest for a true Christian. We are to be diligent and active in the things of God.

p. 423-424. St. Andrew's Expositional Commentary.

Audio Recordings of C. S. Lewis (BBC)

Here are 2 short recordings of two C. S. Lewis BBC talks that were given during the World War 2. These talks were put into print, collected, published later as "Mere Christianity."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHxs3gdtV8A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoU5_MQOU0&feature=related

Hawking/Mlodinow on the Godless Creation of the Universe

From the The Grand Design

We will describe how M-theory may offer answers to the question of creation. According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science. Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states at later times, that is, at times like the present, long after their creation. Most of these states will be quite unlike the universe we observe and quite unsuitable for the existence of any form of life. Only a very few would allow creatures like us to exist. Thus our presence selects out from this vast array only those universes that are compatible with our existence. Although we are puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense the lords of creation

(p. 9, Hawking and Mlodinow)

C. S. Lewis on the Universe

Brian Green thinks Christians place man in the center of the universe, but as C. S. Lewis points out God is greater and more infinite than any universe or multiverse that Man can dream up.

The size and emptiness of the universe which frightened us at the outset of this book, should awe us still, for though they may be no more than a subjective by-product of our three-dimensional imagining, yet they symbolise great truth. As our Earth is to all the stars, so doubtless are we men and our concerns to all creation; as all the stars are to space itself, so are all creatures, all thrones and powers and mightiest of the created gods, to the abyss of the self-existing Being, who is to us Father and Redeemer and indwelling Comforter, but of whom no man nor angel can say nor conceive what He is in and for Himself, or what is the work that he 'maketh from the beginning to the end'. For they are all derived and unsubstantial things. Their vision fails them and they cover their eyes from the intolerable light of utter actuality, which was and is and shall be, which never could have been otherwise, which has no opposite.

(C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 159)

Comparing Herman Witsius (Theologian) and Brian Greene's (Cosmologist) views on Man's purpose.

Brian Greene defines significance in this way:

Some people recoil at the notion of parallel worlds; as they see it, if we are part of a multiverse, our place and importance in the cosmos are marginalized. My take is different. I don't find merit in measuring significance by our relative abundance. Rather, what's gratifying about being human, what's exciting about being part of the scientific enterprise, is our ability to use analytical thought to bridge vast distances, journeying to outer and inner space and, if some of the ideas we'll encounter in this book prove correct, perhaps even beyond our universe. For me, it is the depth of our understanding, acquired from our lonely vantage point in the inky black stillness of a cold and forbidding cosmos, that reverberates across the expanse of reality and marks our arrival.

(p. 10, The Hidden Reality)

Witsius defines why God created Man:

The soul of man was formed for the contemplation of God, as the supreme truth, truth itself, and to seek after him, with all the affection of his soul as the supreme good, goodness itself; and it may be said truly to live, when it delights in the contemplation of that truth, and in the fruition of that goodness.

(The Economy of the Covenants Book I, Chapter V, Paragraph XIV).

So we might ask ourselves, what source of significance seems more compelling: getting to know an universe or even multiverse that seems increasingly cold and forbidding or to pursue knowing an infinite and personal God who creates us and invites us with open arms to know Him?

Calvin on Work and Prayer

In the Institutes Calvin elaborates on the Lord's Prayer. He explains why we have to pray for our daily bread even though we have good jobs and can provide for ourselves.

When we ask God to give us, the meaning is, that the thing asked is simply and freely the gift of God, whatever be the quarter from which it comes to us, even when it seems to have been specially prepared by our own art and industry, and procured by our hands, since it is to his blessing alone that all our labors owe their success.

(Institutes, Book III, Chapter XX, Paragraph 44).

God as our father.

I thought about my dad the other day. He was going through some family issues. I then thought about my sons and I reflected that a man cannot know the depth of a father's love for his children until he has children. Of course, I then remembered how incredible it was that God voluntarily sent His own only begotten Son to die for us. I could not comprehend the pain both the Father and the Son suffered for us. It was even more incredible that God adopted us as His children and that He loved us as His children.

I was reading Calvin's Institutes this morning. Calvin was teaching on the Lord's Prayer. He wrote the following about how God is our Father and prayer:

The first thing suggested at the very outset is, as we have already said (sec. 17ñ19), that all our prayers to God ought only to be presented in the name of Christ, as there is no other name which can recommend them. In calling God our Father, we certainly plead the name of Christ. For with what confidence could any man call God his Father? Who would have the presumption to arrogate to himself the honour of a son of God were we not gratuitously adopted as his sons in Christ? He being the true Son, has been given to us as a brother, so that that which he possesses as his own by nature becomes ours by adoption, if we embrace this great mercy with firm faith. As John says, "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name," (John 1:12). Hence he both calls himself our Father, and is pleased to be so called by us, by this delightful name relieving us of all distrust, since no where can a stronger affection be found than in a father. Hence, too, he could not have given us a stronger testimony of his boundless love than in calling us his sons. But his love towards us is so much the greater and more excellent than that of earthly parents, the farther he surpasses all men in goodness and mercy (Isaiah 63:16). Earthly parents, laying aside all paternal affection, might abandon their offspring; he will never abandon us (Ps. 27:10), seeing he cannot deny himself. For we have his promise, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Mt. 7:11). In like manner in the prophet, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee," (Isaiah 49:15). But if we are his sons, then as a son cannot betake himself to the protection of a stranger and a foreigner without at the same time complaining of his father's cruelty or poverty, so we cannot ask assistance from any other quarter than from him, unless we would upbraid him with poverty, or want of means, or cruelty and excessive austerity.

(Institutes Book 3, Chapter 20, Paragraph 36).

Witsius on the Love of Our Neighbor

Witsius asserts that our love of God would dictate that we love our neighbor since our neighbor bears the image of God.

For, he who loves God, cannot but love His image too, in which he clearly views express characters of the Deity, and not a small degree of the brightness of his glory. Again, whoever loves God, will, by virtue of that love, seriously wish, desire, study, and as much as in him lies, be careful, that his neighbour, as well as himself, be under God, in God, and for God, and all he has, be for his glory. Again, whoever loves God, will make it his business, that God may appear every way admirable and glorious; and as he appears such most eminently in the sanctification and happiness of men, 2 Thess. 1. 10. he will exert himself to the utmost, that his neighbour make advances to holiness and happiness. Finally, whoever sincerelv loves God, will never think he loves and glorifies him enough; such excellencies he discovers in him, sees his name illustrious, and so exalted above all praise, as to long, that all mankind, nay all creatures, should join him in loving and celebrating the infinite perfections of God. But this is the most faithful and pure love of our neighbour, to seek that God may be glorified in him, and he himself be for the glory of God. Hence it appears, that the love of our neighbour is inseparably connected with that of God, If therefore it flows from the nature of God, to enjoin us the love of himself, as was just proved; it must likewise flow from the nature of God to enjoin us the love of our neighbour.

(The Economy of the Covenants).

Witsius on the Image of God in Man

Witsius defines what the Image of God means in reference to Adam before the fall.

But if we take in the whole extent of the image of God, we say, it is made up of these three parts. 1st, Antecedently, that it consists in the spiritual and immortal nature of the soul, and in the faculties of understanding and will, 2dly, Formally and principally, in these enduments, or qualities of the soul, viz. righteousness, and holiness. 3dly, Consequentially, in the immortality of the whole man, and his dominion over the creatures. The first of these was, as one elegantly expresses it, as precious ground on which the image of God might be drawn and formed: the second, that very image itself, and resemblance of the divinity: the third, the lustre of that image widely spreading its glory; and as rays, not only adorning the soul, but the whole man, even his very body; and rendering him the lord and head of the world, and at the same time immortal, as being the friend and confederate of the eternal God.

(p. 57, Witsius, Vol. 1)(Book I, Chapter II, paragraph XI))

Witsius on holiness

Witsius points out that holiness is not just abstaining from sin, but a fervent desire to please, to know, and to enjoy oneself in God.

It is finely observed by a learned man, that true holiness is not only opposed to hypocrisy or simulation, or to typical purity, but that it denotes a holy study of truth, proceeding from the love of God. For, osios, to which answers the Hebrew TJSPT,signifies in Scripture, one studious in, and eager after good. This true holiness,therefore denotes such a desire, of pleasing God, as is agreeable to the truth known of, and in him, and loved for him.

(Note that osios is a Greek word for holiness. JT)

p. 54, Witsius, "The Economy of the Covenants"

Herman Witsius on Man's Purpose

This an old translation of a latin text so it is hard to read. However, it has good ideas about the ultimate purpose of Man.

Nor was it becoming God to form a rational creature for any other purpose than his own glory; which such a creature, unless wise and holy, could neither perceive nor celebrate, as shining forth in the other works of God; destitute of this light, and deprived of the endument, what could it prove but the reproach of his Creator, and every way unfit to answer the end of his creation. All these particulars the wisest of kings, Eccles. vii. 29. has thrown together with a striking simplicity, when he says; “Lo! This only have I found, that God hath made man upright.”

---

pp. 51-52, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, Volume 1, Herman Witsius.

Herman Witsius and Baby Dedications

I was browsing a book by Herman Wits (or Witsius). He was a 17th century Dutch theologian. I found in the introduction that the publishers inserted a brief biography of Wits's life. Two passages about his parents came to mind when I was watching the baby dedications at church yesterday.

The parents of our Witsius, having vowed to devote a child to the ministry, did Upon the birth of this son, call him after his grandfather, praying, that in Herman the grandson, might be revived the spirit of the grandfather; and that, endued with equal, if not superior talents, he might imitate his example.

The grandfather was a famous preacher and theologian at that time. Here's the second quote:

The care which these pious parents took of young Witsius during his tender infancy, was not intermitted as he began to grow; for, being still mindful of their vow, they brought him up in a very pious manner, instructing him in the principles and precepts of religion and Christian piety.

I used to dream when my boys were young and it was obvious they both were much smarter than I, that they would go into physics or engineering. When they were older, I thought IT would be a good field for them. I did not even dream, let alone pray, that they should go into theology so they can serve in the ministry and further God's kingdom.

Another thought, are we as parents and our church as a whole as concerned about our children's spiritual growth as Wits's parents were about their child?

Brainard meditates on using one's time well.

David Brainard writes in his journal about the benefits of using one's time well. At this point in his life he is living in a Native American village on the pre-revolutionary frontier of America. His home is a shack that he just finished with his own hands. He suffers from TB and loneliness.

"Thursday, Aug. 4. Was enabled to pray much, through the whole day; and through divine goodness found some intenseness of soul in the duty, as I used to do, and some ability to persevere in my supplications. I had some apprehensions of divine things, that were engaging, and which afforded me some courage and resolution. It is good, I find, to persevere in attempts to pray, if I cannot pray with perseverance, i.e. continue long in my addresses to the Divine Being. I have generally found, that the more I do in secret prayer, the more I have delighted to do, and have enjoyed more of a spirit of prayer: and frequently have found the contrary, when with journeying or otherwise I have been much deprived of retirement. A seasonable, steady performance of SECRET DUTIES IN THEIR PROPER HOURS, and a CAREFUL IMPROVEMENT OF ALL TIME, filling up every hour with some profitable labour, either of heart, head, or hands, are excellent means of spiritual peace and boldness before God. Christ, indeed, is our peace, and by him we have boldness of access to God; but a good conscience void of offence, is an excellent preparation for an approach into the divine presence. There is difference between self-confidence or a self-righteous pleasing of ourselves -- as with our own duties, attainments, spiritual enjoyments -- which godly souls sometimes are guilty of, and that holy confidence arising from the testimony of a good conscience, which good Hezekiah had, when he says, "Remember, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart.' `Then (says the holy psalmist) shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all thy commandments.' Filling up our time with and for God, is the way to rise up and lie down in peace."

Witsius against Perfectionsim

Witsius likened the remains of the flesh in the Christian life to the nations that Israel did not drive out of the land as reported in "Judges." God uses the remains of the flesh to test us and to train us. Witsius lists out a few reasons God allows the influence of the flesh in the Christians life:

But known to God are the reasons of his conduct, in dispensing the operations of the Spirit of grace in believers, so that the remains of the flesh are not entirely expelled in this life, For, 1st. He would by this, shew the difference between earth and heaven, the time of warfare and of triumph, the place of toil and of rest, that we may the more earnestly long for our translation out of this valley of sin and misery into the heavenly country, where every thing shall be made perfect; and may with open arms, embrace death, which will bring us to the perfection, crying out with the apostle; "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me form the body of this death?" Rom. vii.24.

The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man Volume II by Herman Witsius (p. 47).

Dorothy L. Sayers on Work and Vocation

Sayers wrote a lot of articles on work. This is from "Why Work?"

The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work – by which She means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is church embroidery, or sewage farming. As Jacques Maritain says: “If you want to produce Christian work, be a Christian, and try to make a work of beauty into which you have put your heart; do not adopt a Christian pose.” He is right. And let the Church remember that the beauty of the work will be judged by its own, and not by
ecclesiastical standards.

http://faith-at-work.net/Docs/WhyWork.pdf