The Beloved Holy Spirit has been given to believers by the Father and the Son to guide us, to comfort us, to teach us, to conform us to Christ. What greater, more glorious gift could God have given to His people?! Though we are evil, we know how to give good gifts to our children. How much more is the loving, Heavenly Father willing to give His Spirit to those who ask Him in humility in Christ (Luke 11:13).

Puritan Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) wrote on the importance of believers entertaining this sweet and glorious Guest, or “Blessed Lodger”, who has come to live within God’s people. There should be no friend nearer or dearer than the Spirit of Christ who lives within us. Sibbes wrote, “There is nothing in the world so great and sweet a friend that will do us so much good as the Spirit, if we give Him entertainment.” What does giving Him entertainment mean? For Sibbes, entertaining meant to welcome with hospitality and nurture a friendship or relationship with the indwelling Spirit. We can have no fellowship with the Father, except through Christ our Mediator; we can have no fellowship with Christ, except by His Spirit.

Think about this: What does it mean when you have a beloved friend, family member, or important person in your home? You prepare for them, you give your best for them, you give your best to them, and you desire to make them feel “at home”. In fact, you go to quite the trouble and “fuss” oftentimes to make some feel at home, and to desire them to come back. Entertaining the Spirit, according to Sibbes, is similar. It is nothing less than giving your all, your best, making a divine “fuss” to make Him feel at home within you. Do you treat the Beloved Guest who lives ‘in’ you because of the love of God in Christ in a special, hospitable way?! Do you converse with Him, seek His advice and wisdom, give thanks together with Him, and talk together about the Lord Jesus Christ?

Here are some reasons to cause you to think about this important guest, and seek to entertain Him. He is the cause of all holiness in you. Anything good in you, any good ideas, any good character, any good thoughts, or desires to do good are all because of His work in you. By nature, there is nothing good in you, nothing good that comes from us. But this sweet and beloved Friend has produced good in you. Entertain Him with thanksgiving. By nature the desire for holiness has been extinguished in man. Do you desire to look like Jesus, to be like Jesus– this is the work of the Spirit. Entertain Him with humble service. Do you understand God’s Word, particularly are you a recipient of the Gospel in power and truth? This is the work of the Spirit. Entertain Him by seeking His power to live for Jesus with all of your heart according to the Word of God. Is your heart tender, and do you mourn over sin, and seek to show compassion to others? This is the work of the Spirit! Entertain Him by seeking more of Him; seek Him to be more joyful, more full of Christ and His Word! (Eph. 5:18ff; cf. Col. 3:17ff).

Entertaining the Spirit is also importantly being careful not to grieve Him (Eph. 4:30). Believers can grieve the Spirit when they resist his teaching, direction, strengthening, and/or comfort from Him. Let us submit our hearts, thoughts, and behavior to Christ. Whatever we are commanded to do in God’s Word, particularly as we hear from Christ in preaching, let us hear and obey the Spirit, not grieving Him who has sealed us. Let us do all that He teaches us to do cheerfully and obediently as He gives us the grace and power. His goal is to lead us to Christ, and to teach us Christ’s Word, and comform us to the likeness of Christ. Let us keep in step
and “walk with Him” (Gal. 5:16, 25). Hear Sibbes’ plea for Christians today

“Oh give him entrance and way to come into his own chamber, as it were to provide a room for himself!”

In Christ’s love,
Pastor Biggs

From Your Pastor

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever…Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls…We have an altar…Through Him…let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise…” (verses from Hebrews 13)

The Gospel of Jesus Christ never changes. It is the same today as it was for those brothers and sisters who lived before us. This great and glorious Gospel will never change, and it is to this good news that we must ever be learning and believing. Jesus offers Himself on our behalf as a once-and-for-all sin offering, as our only hope for salvation, and is committed to purifying us and making us holy as His people (Heb. 10).

God has given Shepherd Leaders to guide and guard according to God’s Word. It is the primary task of God’s shepherd-leaders to make this Gospel known, to teach the people this good news and all of its implications (Heb. 13:7, 17; cf. 5:11-6:3). As the risen Jesus proclaimed: “All authority has been given to me…Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them all that I have commanded you to do, knowing I am with you until the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20 summary). God’s chosen, appointed shepherd-leaders guide the people by God’s Word, teaching them all Christ commanded, ministering and declaring what God has said in His most holy, inerrant, and inspired Word (Heb. 13:7, 17; cf. 1:1-2). As they do this, the people of God are to obey and submit to them as unto the Lord, knowing that the Great Shepherd of the sheep has appointed them for this service to Him. They guide the people of God to Christ, our only altar, and guard the people from error (Heb. 13:9-10).

Christ is our altar. All the altars in the Bible, throughout redemptive history, pointed forward to the once-and-for-sacrifice for sin that Jesus Christ would make for all His people for all time (Heb. 9-10). Altars were given to the church “under age” in the Old Covenant to be the place where sacrificial blood would be offered on behalf of sinners. The Shepherd-Leaders are not to teach the people of God to come “forward to an altar” found in the front of the church, or to “come to the altar at the Lord’s Table” but to go to Christ alone who is our altar in heaven. Jesus is not only our High Priest (Heb. 8:1), He is our sacrifice (Heb. 9), and He is our altar (Heb. 13:10).

The Lord’s Table is furnished with provision from the heavenly altar! Because we have an altar, there is always the promise of forgiveness in Christ, the constant communion of prayer wherever we are, and the knowing Christ is with us by His Spirit (Heb. 13:5). We do not believe that the Lord’s Table is an altar, but we do believe that on the Lord’s Table, when we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we have the provision made available by Jesus our altar, to feed us and to spiritually grow us by His grace. Although the table is not the altar, Christ is, and we have all the spiritual benefits of Christ our altar. This the shepherd-leaders guide you to frequently to give you more of Christ as you receive Him by faith.

Let us offer sacrifices of Thanksgiving! (Psa. 107:22). As God’s shepherd-leaders guide us through God’s Word, and guard us from error, so they lead us to our altar who is Christ. As a response, the people of God are called to make sacrifices upon this altar who is Christ. These sacrifices are pleasing to God (Heb. 13:15-16). These sacrifices do not add to our salvation. Our salvation is completed in Jesus Christ (“It is finished.”); the sacrifices are not atoning sacrifices, for Christ has atoned fully for our sins (1 John 2:1-2; Heb. 9:26; 10:12, 26; 13:11). These sacrifices are offered up to Christ our Mediator, and with pure hearts that have been changed by Christ that are eager to please God and glorify Him. These are not perfect sacrifices, but they are acceptable through Christ’s perfect mediation for us.

As we approach the time of the Thank Offering in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church consider how God has provided you faithful shepherd-leaders in our church. Consider how many faithful shepherd-leaders are serving Christ our altar in establishing Gospel-preaching churches here in the United States and around the world. Consider how the ministers teach God’s people of the hope we have in salvation in Christ alone. And let us respond as God’s people at KCPC to those who serve faithfully, teaching the Word of God, by sharing generously what we have with them (Heb. 13:16). Let us obey and submit to them as unto the Lord by tangibly helping to support financially the ministries and missions of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (Heb. 13:17). Let us pray for them regularly and with fervency (Heb. 13:18-19). Think on God’s generosity in raising up your faithful shepherd-leaders in the OPC who preach to you God’s Word, who lead you to your only altar who is Christ, and who teach you to live sacrificial lives that are pleasing unto God.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever!”

In Christ’s love,
Pastor Biggs

Dear Family in Jesus,

Let us seek to flourish and thrive in being magnanimously generous in our giving. As we learned in Zechariah 6:9-15, we have been set free from slavery as God’s people to give our gifts to the LORD in gratitude! Because of God’s grace to us, let us more eagerly desire to honor and glorify God in Christ by “crowning” our King in the extension and advancement of His Kingdom, to the ends of the earth! Jesus is our Priest-King, the Branch of Righteousness God has given for His people to be made holy, who has promised to build us up as His holy temple (John 2:19ff; 1 Peter 2:6-11; cf. 1 Cor. 3:16ff; 2 Cor. 6:14-16) to complete fully the glory He has begun in us.

Yes, this is a message on giving. I am unashamedly writing as your pastor for you to think about giving and generosity. No, please do not put in trash and delete this email; please don’t set your “spam” settings to anything from Pastor Charles on giving! :-)  I realize that giving is more than financial giving but this is a message on financial giving (you can also give your time and talents, etc). I do commend you, dear KCPC family, on your kindness and mercy and the grace of God that I see in you!

However, I am prayerfully seeking to consider, plot, scheme, plan and help you so that you will be stirred up to love and good works as we are commanded to do! (Heb. 10:24-25). I realize that sometimes talking about giving and generosity stirs folks up to other things, not so much love and good works, but I trust the Spirit that He will guide you in this. So, please read on….Stop and pray and ask God to help you to consider these things with open minds and hearts. First of all, open your heart to the gospel in Christ:

Let me encourage you concerning generosity and giving today, especially as we prayerfully consider the THANK OFFERING to be received in the next couple of weeks, and as you think about how you would like to increase your giving and seek to be more generous toward God in the new year! Remember to give yourself sacrificially to God and others because Christ has given Himself for you so that you might be abundantly rich in Him. Your treasure is in heaven with Jesus; Your life is hidden with Christ in God! Rejoice!! (Matthew 6:24ff; Col. 3:1-4).

Behold the riches of God in Christ Jesus—all that Christ has is yours! You are a recipient of every spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus!

^ESV Ephesians 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Beloved in Jesus: Remember that because of God’s love to you in Christ, give faithfully in your tithes and offerings. Give yourself back to Jesus who has given Himself for you (Rom. 12:1). Your tithes and offerings are tangible and concrete displays of the giving of yourself back to God in response to His Gospel promises to you in Christ. You are God’s precious treasure and possession; give yourself fully back to Him (Romans 5:6-11). If you have been redeemed you are not your own. Say it: “I am not my own; I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:5-7).

Give gratefully to God to the needs that we have in our congregation and the larger denomination; give out of a heart saturated by God’s mercy to you in Jesus Christ. Meditate and think on how many ways God has blessed you. Say with the Psalmist: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me…!”

Psalm 103: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Forget not all His benefits…how easily we forget God’s mercies to us in Jesus—so make a point of remembering!

In this year alone, God has blessed KCPC in many ways! He has given us new covenant children, new members, even covenant children who have professed their faith. There have been relationships healed, stronger marriages, growth in grace, the faithful ministry of the word, and weekly administration of the sacrament, a closer and more affectionate fellowship at KCPC, the forgiveness of sins, the awakenings of hearts of the need for more grace and prayer, and many other blessings- -and this is just a short list of what God has done in our congregation.

Now think about your own life; your own family. How many mercies? Think of (5) mercies to you and your family; stop. Do it right now. Think about it. I encourage you to make a list of what God has done in your life and is doing presently! Be thankful; be grateful!!

The point in this exercise is to stir you up to love and good works! (Heb. 10:24-25). Now think about how you can more effectively give yourself to God and show Him your love by your giving and generosity to others. As God has abundantly given to you, now go and give voraciously and lavishly and sacrificially to others!

In your giving, always REMEMBER THE GOSPEL! Let the following encourage you in your prayer and planning to the Thank Offering, in your giving practices here at KCPC, especially during Thanksgiving and in the new year!

Meditate on God’s goodness to you and your family in the Gospel- -DAILY. You may use these scriptures:

CHRIST HAS MADE US RICH!

^ESV 2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

We were impoverished, poor and naked before God, without any righteousness to offer him, and nothing but a weight of guilt, sin and debt to God. Christ put aside all of his glorious riches to make us abundantly rich and gloriously clothed in Him.

CHRIST HAS GIVEN US HIS MIND

Remember our ONE-ness in the Gospel (Others’ interests should be more important than our interests)! We are united to one another in one body by Christ’s Spirit:

^ESV Philippians 2:2-4: …Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Let us give to each other because we are one body in Jesus at KCPC. May there never be needs in our congregation that we are aware of, that we do not seek as a congregation to provide together. There should never be anyone in our midst with known needs that are not met. If we cannot be generous to our brothers who we are united with and serve with together, how can we ever serve our enemies and the world as we are called to do?!

CHRIST HAS GIVEN US FAITH AND WORKS IN OUR UNION WITH HIM

Remember Your Faith and Your Love being demonstrated in your works

^ESV James 2:14-18: What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Remember to prove your love to Christ and one another; this is biblical. You say you love God, show it! Jesus said: “If you love me, keep my commandments.”

^ESV 2 Corinthians 8:8 I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.

^ESV 2 Corinthians 8:24 So give proof before the churches of your love and of our boasting about you to these men.

Remember Proverbs 11:24-25

^ESV Proverbs 11:24-25: One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.

“Objections” as to why you cannot or do not (will not!?) give!

You say: “But I’m really already stretched financially!”

If you’re “stretched”, God knows it and will provide for you; you can never out-give God! Hes is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides! Your giving is an act of faith, and this same grace will be returned to you. In fact, it is through sacrificial giving that you learn more about how to be content in whatever situation and to have Christ strengthen you (look at the larger context of Philippians 4:10-23). The Apostle Paul teaches that we can do “all things” in Christ who strengthens us, and that means all things whether we living in abundance or need. God promises this:

^ESV Philippians 4:19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

^ESV 2 Corinthians 8:14-15: …Your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. ¹⁵ As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”

You say: “But I tithe, isn’t that enough?!”

Thanks be to God for your tithing; that is a great start! But let us learn that the tithe was to show our utter dependence upon God for all things; that all that we have or will ever possess comes from God (1 Cor. 4:7), and that we are to learn not merely to give a tithe (10%) but learn to be willing to give all of ourselves and our possessions and belongings (nothing we should hold on too tightly! Luke 14:26ff). In other words, giving is for us to avoid idolatry and weighing ourselves down on our pilgrimage by prosperity. Giving is to give back to God as steward-managers of God, recognizing the danger of having too much stored away that might tempt us to lean on our savings plan rather on the God who has saved us!

“Come, follow me…” Jesus says.

You say: “But, I am in so much debt.”

Most of our lives we have some sort of debt.  God knows this. We can prayerfully and wisely seek to be debt free, but often the cause of our debt is because we are more consumers by nature than producers. Consumers are takers who want instant gratification and so we buy, and buy, and buy…. (I include myself in this temptation, 1 Cor. 10:13). We are often guilty of buying, because we hope for some peace or joy or satisfaction that we believe buying will give to us (but this is a lie).

In contrast, Producers will allow for delayed gratification. Producers are givers who want to be steward-managers of God’s resources and produce as much out of it as possible. Producers know that their giving will bless many and have eternal rewards and pay heavenly dividends; they produce for the Gospel’s sake. Consumers want for self; producers want to extend Christ’s kingdom. Most of our lives we will be a bit of both, consumer and producer. But seek consciously and prayerfully to budget not only for your debts, and to pay them off as best as you can, but also budget for your giving, so that you can become more of a producer for the kingdom than a mere consumer.

Wisdom has shown that oftentimes the Christian who is more of a consumer in the marketplace than a producer, is more of a consumer in the church than a producer-giver (meaning that there is a deeper root sin that has usually caused the debt and constrains the giving and generosity, and probably the progress in your sanctification as well).

Let us pray and seek to pay our debts faithfully, but let us put God first in our priorities, and seek to produce more for His kingdom, and trust Him to pay off the debt. If you have tremendous debts, ask God to search your heart, Psalm 139-style, and if there is anything greed, consumerism, selfishness to be repented of, then by all means, get to it and find mercy and grace in Christ (Heb. 4:16).

Remember we are commanded to seek first the Kingdom of God, and therefore we are to seek to be producer-stewards of God’s kingdom gifts (see Matthew 25:14ff also for caution and wisdom):

^ESV Matthew 6:33-34: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

You say: “But, I can give so little.”

Give your “widow’s mite”; give your few fish and single loaf of bread; give what you can and watch and pray that Jesus in His grace might multiply what you give. Perhaps your small gift will be received, seen, etc. and someone with much more would give because they saw you give little of what you have!? If there is readiness to give, it is from God and acceptable:

^ESV 2 Corinthians 8:12 For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

EXCEL in the grace of giving generously!

^ESV 2 Corinthians 8:7 But as you excel in everything– in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you- see that you excel in this act of grace also.

Let us show our love for God, our love for one another, and the abundant grace of joy and thanksgiving we have by giving tangibly to needs.  Continue to be faithful to tithing, giving and generosity in general.

If you do not at least tithe 10% and you’re regularly being fed spiritually and being served by others at KCPC then ask God to search your heart and to teach you by His Spirit why you’re being disobedient to the clear teaching of Scripture. If you’re tithing but doing it in a self-righteous, smug spirit, or with an unwilling heart, ask God to search your heart and to teach you by His Spirit why you’re being disobedient to the clear teaching of Scripture.

“Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”

^ESV 2 Corinthians 9:6-8: The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all contentment in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Believe.

Do you believe that you can be MAGNANIMOUSLY GENEROUS and that Jesus can be your ultimate portion and possession and treasure- -and that you can be a greater giver?

“Didn’t I say that you would see the **GLORY** of God if you just believed?”- John 11:40

Let us show our love for God in our giving and generosity. All things are possible with God! He will do above and beyond what we can ever ask or imagine by the power of His Spirit (Eph. 3:20-21).

In Christ’s love,
Pastor Charles

496^th Anniversary of the Reformation of the 16^th Century

This month we have the privilege of celebrating the 496^th anniversary of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. October 31^st is the occasion when many Reformed congregations gratefully remember the Spirit of God’s work through Martin Luther in nailing his 95 Theses on the church door at Wittenberg Germany that was the means through which God brought a fresh discovery of His Gospel to His church. The Reformation was one of the greatest revivals in the history of the church.

As heirs of this reformation and revival, and as those thankful for the knowledge of the Gospel of grace, there are five fruits that are worth memorizing and remembering each year at this time. These five fruits of the Reformation are five “solas” or “alones” that are important for us never to forget. These “solas” highlight God’s absolute mercy and passionate grace for His dear, lost and helpless children who He has rescued through the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. The ‘solas’ are ‘Sola Scriptura’ (Scripture Alone), ‘Sola Fide’ (Faith Alone), ‘Sola Gratia’ (Grace Alone), ‘Solus Christus’ (Christ Alone), and ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ (To God be Glory Alone!). Let’s look briefly at each of these:

Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone stresses that the God-breathed-out, inerrant Word of God is foundational and sufficient for all life and godliness (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:3-4). Biblical creeds and confessions are helpful aids to God’s people, and we embrace tradition insofar as it is taught in Scripture. Scripture alone means that the last word and final authority for matters of life and doctrine are to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture is to be preached by the power of the Holy Spirit as a primary means of saving and sanctifying sinners (2 Tim. 4:1ff).

Sola Fide: Faith is a gift of God, an instrument whereby believers receive as a gift all of the perfect righteousness that we need to stand before a holy God. The righteousness God requires is the righteousness found in Christ (Rom. 3:24-26, 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:21). Faith alone stresses that Christ does all the work that is required for one to be saved, and we receive this as a gift. We are not saved through faith and our works, but through Christ’s works alone received by faith. However, it is important to note that while we are saved by faith alone, we are saved not by a faith that is alone; it is a working faith that responds to God’s grace with obedience (Eph. 2:8-10).

Sola Gratia. Grace alone teaches that we are not saved in our cooperating with God in salvation. We are utterly helpless and unable to do anything good before God in our sinfulness (Rom. 3:23). Apart from Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5) and without the gracious, initiating, powerful work of God through HIs Spirit drawing us no one can be saved (Matt. 11:25-27; Tit. 3:4-7; John 6:37, 44). Our salvation is from beginning to end because of God’s mercy, not because of anything God might foresee in us (Rom. 9). We are saved by grace through faith, not of works, so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9).

Solus Christus. Christ alone emphasizes that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Christ has done all for us that we could never do, nor would want to do in our sinful fallenness. Christ is to be glorified and thanked for His good works for us. Christ is to have our ultimate focus and gratitude (Heb. 12:1-2) because of all He has done for us in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension to God’s right hand. While others may place undue and unbiblical emphasis on saints, Mary, and even angels, our hearts are centered on Christ alone as our loving Savior, Bridegroom, and friend.

Soli Deo Gloria. All that has been achieved for our salvation is to bring glory, honor and praise to the Triune God alone! (Rom. 11:33-36; Rev. 4:11; 5:9-11). We were made for His pleasure, and now live for HIs glory in gratitude for what He has accomplished for us in Christ.

As a congregation, let us memorize these five ‘Solas’ of the Reformation, and reaffirm them, and unashamedly make them known as God’s pilgrim people on the way to the Heavenly City.

In Christ’s love,
Pastor Biggs

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

– ^KJV Colossians 3:1-2

The Christian life is a pilgrimage; it is a journey home. Here on our pilgrimage we must watch and pray, we must let nothing draw our affections off God in Christ (Matt. 26:41; Luke 21:34). We must agonizingly struggle against temptations within and without, in wholehearted dependence and full reliance upon the Holy Spirit who is with us as the comforting presence and sustaining power of Christ. We have been redeemed, but we await a Heavenly City, a Heavenly Country as our inheritance in Christ, where we will live in bliss with the Triune God for all eternity (Heb. 11:13-16; Rev. 19-22).

When we arrive home, we shall see Jesus face to face, we will be safe and secure from all alarm, and we will come to the completion of our sanctification process in Him (Phil. 1:6; 3:9ff; Jude 24-25; 1 Thess. 5:23-24). When we see Jesus our Bridegroom face to face this will culminate and consummate in the complete satisfaction of all of our soul’s desires (Rom. 8:18-25)! When we arrive home, Jesus, our Precious Savior, and Glorious Bridegroom, will welcome us as the Bride that He has redeemed, and bought, and transformed by His Spirit (Rev. 1:4-8).

The Bible teaches us that when we see our Beloved Bridegroom with our own eyes, we will be transformed fully and completely to be like Him! We are lovely in His sight now, but when we look upon Him and behold Him, we will be made beautiful and fully holy like Him. The Bible teaches us that it is this longing and desire of seeing Him face to face, and being made completely like Him that motivates us to holiness and purity in Him now:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. – 1 John 3:2-3

As we travel on our pilgrimage now, knowing Jesus is with us–our ever-loving, ever-faithful Immanuel, God “with us”–so we long to get home. But how do we get home not merely safely as we desire, but joyfully and with delight in this present age? Particularly as we do know from Scripture and experience how many dangers, toils, and snares there can be in the Christian life?! We are to keep our eyes upon Jesus now by faith, meditating upon His love for us, and seeing His goodness with eyes of faith as He is held out to us in preaching and in Holy Scripture. We are to learn to meditate upon Heavenly blessings that we already possess to a certain degree in Christ, that will become fully ours in heaven (see Col. 3:1-3).

As the Puritan forefathers taught us, we are to have “heaven in one eye” throughout our earthly pilgrimage, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:1ff)!J. R. Beeke and R. J. Pederson. Meet the Puritans: With a Guide to Modern Reprints (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), xxiii. We long to see the place that Christ has been preparing for His Beloved Bride. In fact, with the Holy Spirit, or in the Spirit, we cry together: “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:17). Richard Sibbes wrote

This life is a life of desires and longings, the marriage with Christ shall not be consummated until heaven.Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 228.

J. I. Packer wrote in his wonderful book A Quest for Godliness: “Basic to [the Puritans] pastoral care was their understanding of the Christian’s present life as a journey home, and they made much of encouraging God’s people to look ahead and feast their hearts on what is to come.”J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 334. See for example: Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, and Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest. Believers ought to meditate upon the glories that are to be revealed to us in Christ, and then in us and for us in Christ as heirs of all of His wonderful blessings. This can affect our hearts with deep love, desiring to be good stewards of our time and seeking to please Him with the gifts and grace.

Heaven in our destination—where Christ is now—and this is the home we truly long for. The soul that has tasted God’s goodness in Christ doesn’t want heaven merely as His reward, but His reward is God in Christ. He wants Christ first, before all things, without the taint and hindrance of sin upon His affections, preventing him from loving Christ as much as he can imagine, and would like to (Psa. 16:5; Rom. 7:25; 1 Cor. 2:9). For the believing, mature soul, heaven is heaven, because His Beloved Bridegroom Christ is there. Richard Sibbes wrote so beautifully: “It is the presence of God that makes all things sweet and comfortable. What makes heaven to be heaven, but because God is there?Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 228.

We should ponder this future grace to be revealed to us each day of our lives here to motivate us to more love, and more holiness, and consistent service for Him!  John Owen wrote that the best preparation for the glory we shall be exposed to in eternity, is by gazing now upon the glory of Christ in preparation of heaven. This spiritual desiring through mediation upon Jesus as He is revealed in His Person and Work will transform us and prepare us for heaven as Jesus prepares heaven for us. He wrote:

For if our future blessedness shall consist in being where He is, and beholding His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory.John Owen, The Glory of Christ, in Works, I: 275.

As we behold Christ by faith now in our communion with Him, we will long to have our conjugal love consummated in heaven. Our communion with Him will make us cry out the more vehemently for His return. We desire to see Him face to face increasingly more. This will help us to be sober-minded, watchful, and constantly looking to the skies to behold His glory (1 Pet. 4:7; Matt. 26:41; Mark 13:32-39; Rev. 1:5ff).

“Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!”

– Rev. 22:20

Speaking of only human experiences that are lovely and enjoyable, when a Bridegroom here on earth is engaged to be married, he plans, prepares, longs for the day of marriage and consummation with his beautiful bride. This earthly experience is a shadow, a prototype of the Heavenly Marriage and the wonderful, eschatological consummation that is to be revealed by Christ to His Bride! (Psa. 45; Eph. 5:21-32). It is our privilege and duty in Christ Jesus, to long and look forward to this Great Day, the Wedding Supper of the Lamb where all will be rejoicing and bliss (Rev. 19). Thomas Shepard wrote that it is the Christian’s duty to be

…Constantly and continually ready to meet Christ and to enjoy communion with Him. Because we are betrothed (espoused) to Christ, we ought to be in a constant and continual readiness to meet Christ, and to have immediate communion with Him.Thomas Shepard, Parable of the Ten Virgins, 68-69.

In the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25, we are taught that those who are full of expectation for the return of the Bridegroom are those who are truly full of the Holy Spirit, and are being matured under His influences to be preparing and ready and watchful and alert without distractions from dissipation, drunkenness, and the cares of this life (Matt. 25:1-13; Luke 21:34). The believing and watchful soul of the bride should possess both desire and hope as she awaits the return of the Bridegroom! Thomas Shepard wrote that there are two affections of the soul that chiefly look to a good absent: desire and hope. Hope is like the eye that goes out and looks, and desire is like the feet that runs out and longs. By hope and desire, we go forth to meet the Bridegroom.Thomas Shepard, Parable of the Ten Virgins, 112. Do you have this kind of hope and desire in Christ?

The more the believer’s affections are drawn to Christ, and long to be with Him for all eternity, the more He will vehemently, and even violently (Matt. 11:12: “the violent take it by force!”) will seek heaven above all things. The soul smitten by love for Christ has “set its affections on things above where Christ is at the right hand of God” because it knows that when Christ appears, then glory that has begun in regeneration will be fully consummated! (Col. 3:1-4). The believing soul longs for heaven so much that it cannot rest on this journey in complacent and contented satisfaction until it embraces Christ in heaven. Sibbes wrote:

For the soul of a Christian, like Noah’s dove, cannot rest in any glory here, till it return to the ark, till it come to the enjoyment of perfect glory, and have blissful communion with Christ forever and ever in heaven.Richard Sibbes, The Brides’ Longing, in Works, VI: 536.

As we love Christ sincerely as Mediator here on our journey home, we shall see Him as our treasure that must be obtained. There will be an increased and longing desire to be ever closer to Him.Thomas Neast, ibid., I: 182-83. He wrote that a true and longing love for Christ will never be languishing but always be growing as it feeds on Christ; gains confidence of access to Christ, and to God the Father through Him. As we grow in His love and His likeness so we will learn to cry with the Psalmist from the heart:

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”

– ^ESV Psalm 73:25

Christ will become our chief desire, the chief longing of our hearts as we grow in God’s grace and love. We will say: “Deus meus est omnia” or more particularly to our Great Savior and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ we will cry out:

“Christus meus est omnia!” or,

“Christ is my all!”Thomas Neast, ibid., I: 182-83.

When it seems our hearts are growing dull or apathetic, let us remember Richard Sibbes’ advice:

When you find your hearts dull and cold, and inactive to do good. Then fetch fire…from the Second Coming of Christ, from the love of God in Christ, from the love of His appearance. Oh, rouse up and quicken your hearts with such considerations….Those that desire the coming of Christ exercise themselves much in holiness because they exercise themselves in the beginning of heaven here on earth.Richard Sibbes, The Brides’ Longing, in Works, VI: 551, 555.

But we must be careful to remember that we are not home yet, and so let us be careful that our hearts not grow cold as we await; let us be alert, watching dissipation and drunkenness and distractions from the cares of this life that seek to take our affections of Christ and place them on the world, or something fleshly (Luke 21:34).  Shepard wrote: “Spiritual defilement and disobedience to God is a forsaking of the husband, a total secret forsaking of Christ.Shepard, Parable of the Ten Virgins, 65. Jesus tells the Church at Ephesus in the Book of Revelation that they had lost their “first love”: “…Thou hast left thy first love” (Rev. 2:4). The kind and gracious Lord Jesus Christ calls them to repentance, to return to the service that they had before they fell away into sin where their hearts were engaged and desirous of things other than Christ.

This reminds the soul that Christ is our first love, and there are works that follow in pleasing Christ as our “First Love”, but there are also many things that compete for this primacy of place, and the soul must be aware of this. Holy love is to remember that Jesus is the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega of our salvation who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His precious blood and has made us a Kingdom, priests to His God and Father (Rev. 1:5-6). Shepard poignantly asked professing believers:

Where is your heart? Have you not lost your love, your first love? ….The soul is prepared to meet Christ…if the soul has lost its affections [for Christ], it recovers them from the creatures who stole them away from Christ.Shepard, Parable of the Ten Virgins, 72.

What is the believer’s specific hope when the Bridegroom returns? Shepard raises our affections with a glorious answer!

All our sinful deformities will be taken away, and He shall adorn His Bride in perfect beauty. Jesus will openly acknowledge His Bride and declare His love for her before the world. He that has made it His glory to confess Christ in a holy life, Christ will confess him before God and the angels, and so before all the world. Jesus will say: ‘I have given them that glory, united them, and made them flesh of my flesh, that the world may know thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me.’ Christ has been desiring after them in glory (John 17:24), now, their desires being fulfilled…now He rejoices with exceeding joy…He shall rejoice over you with loud singing!Thomas Shepard, The Parable of the Ten Virgins, 514, 515, 517.

Because we have this great hope in Christ Jesus, let our affections burn hot in vehement passion for Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us seek to be affected from deep within our hearts, so that we, in light of His abundant goodness and grace, because of His glorious beauty and majestic grace, we might offer to Him our most perfect sacrifice! Because He was broken for us, and in love laid down His life for us, let us offer up to Him our most valuable possession—our very selves—and let us, with the woman in Mark 14, give our hearts to Him, in undivided and wholehearted devotion to our Loving Bridegroom!

Let us seek to gaze at His beauty by faith (Isa. 33:17; Heb. 12:1-2), becoming like Him, and learning to love Him more increasingly, and serving Him with all that is within us—for His glory, and our enjoyment.

Amen.

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Biggs

Although the soul of man is most happy and satisfied in God, not all find this happiness in Jesus! What makes Jesus so lovely, so glorious and beautiful to some—and yet so reprehensible to others? We know externally as a man “[Jesus Christ] had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men” (Isa. 53:2b-3). Jesus in His glorious Person came to His world, and it did not know Him, He came to His own people, but His own people did not receive Him (John 1:10-11). The Bible testifies to man that “Jesus is “wonderful”! “He is altogether lovely or desirable!” (Song of Solomon 5:16).

Jesus’s holiness makes Him lovely and beautiful. His holiness is beautiful and desirous only to the regenerate, those who are in Him, who desire to be like Him, whose affections have been inclined toward Him, who love Him, and cherish Him. But for the unregenerate and the sinful, those who reject God from their hearts and seek after mere created things to satisfy their longings and fulfill their needs, Jesus is reprehensible. Jesus is reprehensible, even offensive, because they hate holiness, and they hate the light that exposes their sins. “Men loved evil rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

Only holy people can desire to look on holiness; only people who have been made alive in Christ by His Spirit can desire after Christ and His holiness. Although Jesus cloaked His glory and divested Himself of His glorious privileges as God in the His incarnation (1 Tim. 3:16; Phil. 2:6-8), nevertheless, He is glorious in His humanity, and beautiful as the perfect and holy man, desirous to all those who are redeemed and desire holiness. As Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) said:

All the spiritual beauty of His human nature: His meekness, lowliness, patience, heavenliness, love to God, love to men…compassion…all is summed up in His Holiness.¹Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections. Ebook (Dover Publications, 2013), Kindle Location, 3124-139.

Edwards taught that only saints and angels can truly appreciate God’s holiness fully manifested and revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. This sight and gaze on this beautiful holy man will melt our hearts and begin to make us humble like Him. The only place in Holy Scripture where Jesus speaks of Himself and His character is when he says:

“I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29).

To be more like Him! Holy people are affected and attracted by holiness, especially when it is beheld in Christ. Jesus is beautiful and glorious because He is the image of the invisible God, the visible form of the Holy Father clearly revealed (Heb. 1:3; John 1:14-18, 14:9). Therefore, his character that is revealed in His love to the Father and to other sinners, His meekness, devotion, kindness, humility, all of his characteristics are holy and reveal what holy people can aspire to by His Holy Spirit.  Thomas Watson (1620-1686) wrote,

Faith is an assimilating grace….Looking on a bleeding Christ causes a soft bleeding heart; looking on a holy Christ causes sanctity of heart; looking on a humble Christ makes the soul humble (my emphasis).²Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, pg. 219. Quotes in Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, Ebook, Kindle Location 19574-590.

The more one beholds the loveliness and beauty of Christ’s attractiveness, the more one desires and is attracted to this holiness—and is transformed! As Thomas Brooks (1608-80) wrote, “A holy man…can never be holy enough.”³Brooks, Works, IV: 107-108. “To be a holy person is to know a holy Christ, to be in love with a holy Christ…”⁴Brooks, Works, IV: 129. Holiness is the excellency of all a man’s excellencies, and was the first suit that ever was put upon the back of man’s nature before the fall into sin.⁵Brooks, Works, IV: 163, 169. Holiness will render you most beautiful and amiable like your Savior!⁶Brooks, Works, IV: 169-71. Holiness will inflame a person to pursue it more and more:

The beauties of holiness do so affect him and inflame him that he cannot but desire to be more and more holy. Lord, saith the soul, I desire to be more holy, that I may glorify thy name more, that I may honor my profession more, and that I may serve my generation more. Lord, I desire to be more holy, that I may sin less against thee, and that I may enjoy more of thee; I would be more holy, that I may be more prevalent with thee, and that I may be more victorious over all things below…A man desires more holiness, so a man of holiness earnestly prays for more holiness (Psa. 51:2,7).⁷Brooks, Works, IV: 108.

A sight of this glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, this beautiful humility and meekness will “melt and humble the hearts of men, wean them from this world, draw them near to God, and effectually change them,” Edwards wrote experientially.⁸Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections, Ebook. Kindle Location, 3221-233. A glimpse and experience of this holiness found in Jesus, received by faith in the believer, will humble the soul and wean the soul from all other competitive, created glories that compete for Jesus’s love and affection. Edwards wrote that true spiritual understanding is possible only for a believer, and it results in tasting God’s goodness in Christ. True spiritual understanding is

…A cordial sense of the supreme beauty and sweetness of the holiness or moral perfection of divine things, together with all that discerning and knowledge of things in religion that depends upon and flows from such a sense.⁹Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections, Ebook. Kindle Location, 3347-359.

This sense that Edwards speaks of distinguishes true Christians from mere hypocrites. The sense, or taste that one has in Christ of God’s beauty and holiness in Christ is more than a mere notional or mental or intellectual knowledge of God in Christ; it is experiential; it is the kind of knowledge that “surpasses knowledge” as the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:17-19: “…To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

To be more with Him! As we are increasingly attracted to Jesus’s holiness, we will desire to be with Him more in intimate communion of prayer and praise and fellowship (Col. 3:1-4). Believers will desire to enjoy more fellowship with Jesus, to rest in His love, to experience a foretaste of heavenly fellowship in communion with Him now. We will want to realize more of our conjugal union between us and Jesus Christ by His Spirit. John Owen used very tender and intimate terms to describe the biblical relationship believing souls have in their union with Christ, using the imagery of a Bridegroom and a Bride (cf. Eph. 5:27-32; see Song of Solomon). He said that believers’ communion with the Son of God is to know that,

Christ makes himself over to the soul, to be his, as to all the love, care, and tenderness of a husband; and the soul gives up itself wholly unto the Lord Christ, to be his, as to all loving, tender obedience…. ‘Poor Harlot,’ saith the Lord Christ, ‘I have bought thee unto myself with the price of mine blood; and now, this is that which we will consent unto—I WILL BE FOR THEE, AND THOU SHALT BE FORE ME, and not for another…¹⁰John Owen, Communion with God, in Works, 2:56.[10]

To do more for Him! The holiness that we see in Jesus Christ by faith makes believers desire to be more like Him, to be more with Him, and to do more for Him. In union with Christ Jesus, there is nothing that the Christian desires more than to please His Heavenly Father. We live our lives making it our “aim” to please Him (2 Co. 5:9). Once the sweetness of Jesus’s love is tasted and experienced to a certain degree, this love will manifest itself in obedience (John 15:14: Our Lord says: “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”). Thomas Shepard (1605-1649) wrote: “…The [satisfied and holy] soul will return in all fruitful obedience to the Lord, when he receives the sweet of the love of the LORD.” Henry Scougal (1650-1678) wrote:

The love of God is a delightful and affectionate sense of the Divine perfections, which makes the soul resign itself wholly unto Him, desiring above all things to please Him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with Him, and being ready to do or suffer anything for His sake, or at His pleasure. Though this affection may have its first rise from favors and mercies of God toward ourselves, yet doth it, in its growth and progress, transcend such particular considerations, and ground itself on His infinite goodness…¹¹Henry Scougal. The Life of God in the Soul of Man. (Scotland, Great Britain: Christian Heritage Books, 1996; reprint), 55.

Thomas Shepard wrote “That He loves me…fetches warmth and life into my heart….Love Christ, and you will never be weary of doing for Christ (emphasis mine)…What kindles love so much as this comprehending knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and His love, this will make a man a burning beacon of love, make a man melt into love.”¹²Thomas Shepard, Parable of the Ten Virgins, (Grand Rapids, MI: Soli Deo Gloria Books, an imprint of Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 61. Holy love for Christ makes one do holy works for Christ. This love makes us want to be more holy, but also gives us a deeper and heartfelt desire to serve Christ in order to please Him. Thomas Brooks wrote: “Holy love is very laborious. Nothing makes a Christian more industrious, painstakingly diligent in the service and ways of God, than holy love.”¹³Thomas Brooks, ibid., IV: 120-21. Brooks wrote:

Holy love will make us to pray and to praise, it will make us wait and work, it will provoke souls to study Christ, to admire Christ, and to live to Christ, to lift up Christ, to spend and be spent for Christ, and to break through all difficulties that it may come nearer to Christ, and cleave closer to Christ.{[(|fnote_stt|)]}Thomas Brooks, ibid., IV: 121.,/fn>

As we grow in Christ as believers, we will desire to delight in Him and to serve Him wholeheartedly. We will make it our aim to please Him. The maturing Christian realizes increasingly more and more that He was “created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared beforehand for him to walk in” (Eph. 2:10). The maturing Christian who is being dazzled by the beauty and influenced by the love of God will realize that she is possessed of Christ to be pure and zealous for good works, and that this, too, is the good news of the glorious Gospel: We are redeemed by His love to serve Him with passion:

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (emphasis mine). – ^ESV Titus 2:11-14

To be continued…Part VI: The Affectionate Journey Home to the Beloved

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Biggs

“My son, give me thine heart…” (Prov. 23:26, KJV)

“The great contest of heaven and earth is about the affections of the poor worm which we call man….Affections are in the soul as the helm in the ship; if it be laid hold on by a skillful hand, He turneth the whole vessel which way He pleaseth.”¹John Owen, Spiritual Mindedness, in Works, VII: 395, 397.

Holy affections lead to holy desires that seek to live holy and happy lives before God. Pastor and theologian John Owen (1616-83) wrote that “the chief work of a Christian is to make all his affections, in all their operations, subservient unto the life of God (Rom. 6:17-18) …And every affection is originally sanctified according unto the use it is to be of in the life of holiness and obedience.”²Owen, VII: 419. God calls His Beloved “to be Holy as He is Holy”; the goal of our renewed affections is holiness (Lev. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:15-16). True believers want to be like Christ.

We must remember that in tasting and seeing the Lord is good, and enjoying the experiential element, that we do not forget the end goal is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We are to enjoy God most faithfully by seeking to obey Him and live for Him by His grace for God’s glory; this is what makes the regenerate person truly happy. We should not forget that the Holy Spirit’s main ministry is not to give thrills but to create in us Christ-like character.³J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 31.

The Puritans desired for us to desire and know God, and to commune with Him, and to be spiritually thrilled by Him by tasting His goodness experientially, but their main focus was on becoming like Christ. The Puritans were mature in their holiness, and wanted God’s people to possess this same maturing holy character for the glory of God.⁴Ibid., 23. J. I. Packer writes that the Puritans “exemplified maturity, and they had integrated lives committed to glorifying God and growing in holiness.” The Puritans taught that the best way of cultivating holy affections, and growing in holiness and sincere obedience to Christ was through communing with the Persons of the Triune God. This sweet and holy communion was particularly achieved as the believer meditated on the beauty and grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ with the eyes of faith. The Puritans encouraged believers to “keep their eyes on Jesus” the Author and Perfector of our faith! (Heb. 12:1-2).⁵See Ambrose, Isaac. Looking Unto Jesus: A View of the Everlasting Gospel (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1986). Also John Owen. The Glory of Christ and Communion with God in Works, Volumes … Continue reading This gazing upon Christ would produce Christ-like holiness and happiness even in the direst and desperate circumstances that the believer might experience.

The Bible teaches us in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” This means that there are degrees of transforming glory whereby the soul is changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ through gazing with eyes of faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are to seek to grow in to maturity into our Head who is Christ (Eph. 4:11-16), to seek to be like Jesus in our lives, and to make our calling and election sure by increasing by degrees in our qualities and Christ-likeness through faith (2 Pet. 1:3-11). The Puritans taught this was primarily obtained by looking to Christ.⁶Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 13. Packer wrote that “to get the love of Christ in focus changes one’s whole existence.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) wrote: “The least glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ does more to exalt and ennoble the soul” than anything else in this world. “This knowledge is that which is above all others sweet and joyful…This light gives a view of those things that are immensely the most exquisitely beautiful, and capable of delighting the eye of understanding. This spiritual light is the dawning of the light of glory in the heart.”⁷Jonathan Edwards, A Divine and Supernatural Light, in Works, II: 17-18. As we behold Jesus in His glory and loveliness and beauty, our affections are ravished and our desires deepened for Him, so we desire to be like Him. We want to have the same loveliness and beauty He possesses. We desire Him to think of us as more lovely as a bride prepares herself for her bridegroom. We want God to say “You are my Beloved…in whom I am well pleased” not merely in our justification, or being made right with God in our union with Jesus in His holiness, but also in our sanctification. As Pastor Thomas Doolittle (1630-1707) said: “Love produces assimilation.” To love Christ is to desire to be like Him!⁸Rev. Thomas Doolittle, A. M., “Assurance is Possible,” in Puritan Sermons 1659-1689 (Wheaton, Ill.: Richard Owen Roberts, 1981), 1:261. Doolittle wrote that the signs of true love to God … Continue reading

John Owen taught that beholding Jesus in His beauty, loveliness and holiness was the principal exercise of our faith, and the only truly satisfying, safe and joyful way to go through both life and death. He said that this beholding of Jesus in His glory was “one of the greatest privileges and advancements of believers, both in this world and unto eternity”.⁹Owen, The Glory of Christ, in Works, I: 286. He wrote that “our apprehension of this glory is the spring of all our obedience, consolation, and hope in this world.”¹⁰Owen, Christologia, in Works, I: 243. The beholding Christ by faith will prepare us spiritually for heaven in growing us up in maturity and holiness of life.¹¹Owen, The Glory of Christ, in Works, I: 291. The looking to Christ with spiritual eyes of faith will grow us and mature us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Owen wrote: “No man can by faith take a real view of this glory, but virtue will proceed from it in a transforming power to change him ‘into the same image,’ 2 Cor. 3:18.” As the soul is fixed and focused in its thoughts and contemplations on Christ, it will become increasingly holy, serene, and spiritual.¹²John Owen, The Glory of Christ, in Works, I: 292.

A human being made in God’s image is made for happiness, and the soul of man will persistently seek after and pursue happiness. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) wrote that happiness is desirable by all men, and naturally grafted in every man; it is “the center of all the searchings of his heart and the turnings of his life.”¹³Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 211. Tragically, because of the fall, and the sinful rebellion of man against God, men will seek to find happiness in all the wrong things and people. A human being can never see, and thus never be satisfied and drawn in their affections toward Christ without the work of the Holy Spirit. But once the soul is regenerated, it can only be happy in this holiness; it can only be truly satisfied and happy as with “fat and rich food” (Psa. 63:5) in Christ, enjoying a degree of holiness with Him.

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) wrote that a soul can never be truly happy until he is truly holy.¹⁴Thomas Brooks, Works, IV: 246. Because man was created for God, and because God is holy, man can never know true happiness until He is like God. Man’s soul was to reflect God, and to rest in God, and to be satisfied with God. There is nothing in this creation that was designed to take the place of God and bring full satisfaction and enjoyment in the soul, but God. Therefore, one cannot be truly happy unless one is truly holy—that is, to be like God.

The soul in Christ can never be miserable and empty with God in Christ. Brooks wrote, “If you have holiness nothing can make you miserable; but if you lack holiness, nothing can make you happy.”¹⁵Brooks, Works, IV: 300. Holiness is its own reward, says Brooks. Holiness gives to the soul blessed “sights, sweet tastes…secret love-tokens…comfort and joy.”¹⁶Brooks, Works, IV: 174.  Sibbes wrote that God is goodness itself. He is all excellency, beauty, and goodness. Nothing can make us happy but drawing near to God (Psa. 73:28). The more we are convinced of God’s goodness, the better we are; for God’s goodness tasted and felt by the soul, does ennoble it, as a pearl set in a gold ring makes it the more rich and precious.”¹⁷Sibbes, The Saints’ Happiness, in Works, VII: 71.

Sibbes wrote that God “planted in man by nature a desire of holiness, and a desire of happiness…”¹⁸Sibbes, A Fountain Sealed, in Works, IV: 412-13. Love and delight carry the soul with them…”¹⁹Sibbes, A Fountain Sealed, in Works, IV: 419. He wrote, “Delight is most transcendent for pleasantness…God in Christ…is delightful and sweet…God be never so beautiful in Himself, if He be not beautiful to us in Christ, and in His Church.”²⁰Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works,, II: 229-30. Let us gaze on the beauty of God in Christ, such as the mercy and love in Christ, the grace and love in Christ. Sibbes wrote affectionately that if we would see the glory of God, it appears most in God’s grace, mercy, and lovingkindness as it is revealed in Christ (Ex. 34:6).²¹Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 230. When our affections are drawn in love to Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the Gospel, there will be a humble and reverent admiration, and “admiring love.”

The more we are with God in communion with Him, we desire Him more, and we desire to be freer and freer from the pollution of our sins. Although we are united to Christ by faith, and there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, nevertheless, we as believers still struggle with remaining indwelling sin. If we keep our communion with God, our desire for holiness can only increase. Sibbes counseled believers that as we increase in our desires for God and in our holiness, then we should turn our desires into prayers for further mortification and freedom from indwelling sin. “As many desires as we have, let them be so many prayers; turn our desires into prayers to God.”²²Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 222. Our prayer ought to be: “Spirit of God, make me love the best things—give me an appetite and hunger for the best things!!”

Richard Sibbes wrote that love was the “first-born affection.” Love breeds desire of communion with God that causes joy and rejoicing in Him, and then the heart of man will pant after God as the deer pants after the water springs (Psa. 42:1).²³Sibbes, The Saints’ Happiness, in Works, VII: 69. Sibbes taught that there was a movement toward, or inclination driven by love that brought joy, and then obedience.²⁴Sibbes, The Saints’ Happiness, in Works,, VII: 70. Sibbes encouraged believers to have a holy eyesight, that is, a spiritual eyesight given by the Holy Spirit to see the beauty and glory of Christ (cf. Psa. 45:1ff). How can we see the beauty of God? Spiritual senses, spiritual eye-sight and spiritual taste that are given by the Spirit of Christ.²⁵Sibbes, Breathing After God, in Works, II: 238. Sibbes wrote that the Spirit must help us to see the beauty of Christ through the ordinances, to shine on us in the face of the Son. He wrote: “Of sight comes love. David had spiritual eyes, and he desired to feed his spiritual eye-sight with the best object that could be, for therein is the happiness of man.”²⁶Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 237. We can strengthen our spiritual senses through prayer, and through meditating on God’s goodness and love to us in Jesus Christ.²⁷Sibbes, Breathing After God, in Works, II: 238-39. Let us desire to confess with the Psalmist:

“One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; 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 enquire in his temple” – Psa. 27:4, KJV

Holy affections lead to holy desires that seek to live holy and happy before God.

Are you desirous of communion with God? Do you desire to be like Christ more than anything else in this world? What is your true heart’s desire? Do you live holy before Him in reliance upon His grace? Are you happy?

To be continued…Part V: The Affections and the Beauty of Holiness, Part 2

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Biggs

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” – 1 Peter 1:2-3

Why do we have affections? We have affections that move us like this because we are made in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-28). God has built into our souls a desire for communion and fellowship with Him. As our forefather Augustine (354-430) said warmly about our hearts: “Thou [O God] movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.”¹Aurelius Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, ed. Whitney J. Oates, in The Basic Writings of Saint Augustine 2 Vols. (New York, NY: Random House Publishers), II:3. Similarly, Puritan forefather Richard Sibbes wrote that the soul is “never at rest till it rests on Christ. Then it is afraid to break with Him or to displease Him, but it grows zealous and resolute, and hot in love (my emphasis)…”²Richard Sibbes, The Saints’ Happiness, in Works, VII: 69.

God has placed affections in our souls similar to His own affections. We were created to desire Him and to be satisfied in Him. As God delights in Himself as the Triune God, so He “built us” to delight in Him and find a similar complacency, joy and happiness. Apart from God, the soul can never be completely happy and content. Our affections are enflamed with passion as our hearts seek to be satisfied and happy in God. Richard Sibbes in his affectionate and gracious sermon entitled “The Spouse, Her Earnest Desire” described fellowship and communion with the Triune God in these ways: Fellowship with God was a “sweet banquet”, a time for desires to be satisfied and to desires to be increased, a “sweet taste of the love of Christ,” a “longing desire”, “love tokens” from God, and a love that was “sweeter than wine”.³Richard Sibbes, The Spouse, Her Earnest Desire After Christ, in Works, II: 200-208. Notice the use of language of delicacies and delights, of food and drink and love and fellowship. Some of the sweetest of created pleasures and treasures from God are used to lift up our eyes and hearts to the Living God, in order to understand the joy and delight we can have in Him alone. In other words, we are to taste with our souls the goodness and kindness and mercy of God from deep within our hearts!

Sibbes uses this descriptive language that conjures up in our imaginations the aromas of a delightful banquet, the warm embrace and loving fellowship of friends and family, the morsels of delicacy that are tasty in our mouths and satisfying in our bellies, and are beautifully described so our soul’s will be affected as God’s people to enjoy our Glorious Bridegroom and to see His loveliness in all of His beauty! (cf. Psa. 45). Because of God’s love for sinners in Jesus Christ, He has formally and finally betrothed Himself to us in love (Hos. 2:14-21). We are to respond as redeemed lovers (said with all reverence) to our Lord and Husband, with the quiet, gentle and content submission of a loving wife.

Thomas Shepard (1605-1649) wrote of Jesus Christ our desirous Bridegroom who is a “match made in Heaven”: “Here is a match for you; choose Him, get your affections, if entangled [with worldly, mere created objects and things that do not satisfy], to come off if ensnared.”⁴Thomas Shepard, The Parable of the Ten Virgins, 41. Once we taste of God’s love in the Bridegroom, these desires are to a certain degree satisfied, and once satisfied, the soul desires much more of Him. Richard Sibbes wrote:

“If there were but a taste, there would be a further desire of growth in that love. In fact, Christ will have the whole heart and the whole affections, or He will have neither heart nor affections. We are to be undivided in our hearts, and wholly devoted unto Him for His pleasure—for our pleasure!⁵Richard Sibbes, The Spouse, Her Earnest Desire After Christ, in Works, II: 205-207.

What will motivate us to seek this love in Christ? Simply, the motive to seek Him will begin when we realize His unfailing and unrelenting and untiring effort to seek us out and find us even while sinners—to condescend to live and die for us, even while His enemies (Rom. 5:6-11; 1 Jo. 4:7-19). His amazing and unbelievable love for sinners makes us love Him. The Bible teaches us that we love because God first loved us (1 Jo. 4:19). This love is an electing love that is rooted in eternity past in the affections and love of the Triune God. In other words, our love, affections, and desires that we have for God is because He first set His affections and desires upon us in Jesus Christ. This was because God desired to glorify Himself through us, in and through our affections and desire for Him. “To the praise of His glorious grace” in Jesus (Eph. 1:6).

This love was made complete by the Eternal Son willingly taking our nature unto Himself in personal, permanent, and holy subsistence and union to live and die for sinners; to be raised for His own, and to be enthroned at God’s right hand, having made purification for our sins (Heb. 1:3-4; 2:11-16). Jesus is the glorious God-Man who was given a people by the Father (John 17), who would be His beautiful and holy Bride. The Holy Spirit unites the sinner through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and gives to us His love, and His joy, and fellowship with God, who pours out God’s love into our hearts so that we get a “tang of the transcendent upon the heart” or taste of delight and joy in God’s love in and through the means of grace He has provided for us to grow (Rom. 5:5).⁶C. S. Lewis, Pilgrim’s Regress, 1933; quoted in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, Il.: Crossway Books, 1990), 15. Lewis wrote: … Continue reading

This love of God stirs us up to seek after God, and His glory and honor, and or inward communion with Him from the heart.⁷Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 220. This love is the fountain from which all the affections toward God flow. We are to be convinced by the Holy Scriptures, and through the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit that we are loved in Jesus Christ. From this love, flows forth all of our desires to come nearer to God, find our all in Him, and to commune with Him, to be like Him. John Owen valued the experience of communion with God as sweeter than life itself. For him, it was for him the ultimate delight.⁸John Owen, Works, II:24ff. John Owen taught that we must have this taste, or experience of God’s grace, in order to grow and flourish. He wrote:

Experience [of God’s love in Christ] is the food of all grace. Every taste that faith obtains of divine love and grace, or how gracious the Lord is, adds to its measure and stature.⁹Owen, Works, III:447-49.

Owen in particular, and the Puritan forefathers in general taught that if we are to make progress as Christians, we must have proper experiences or tastes of God’s love in Christ, or we will not grow. In fact, when times get difficult, one who has not tasted God’s goodness by the Spirit through the Word, will not endure; the “good fight” or daily, spiritual conflict in Christ will not seem to be worth the effort and sacrifice. Owen wrote:

Get an experience of the power of the Gospel, and all the ordinances of it, in and upon your hearts, or all your profession is an expiring thing; –unless, I say, you find the power of God upon your own hearts in every ordinance, expect not any continuance in your profession [of faith]. If the preaching of the word be not effectual unto the renewing of your souls, the illuminating of your minds, the endearing of your hearts to God,–if you do not find power in it, you will quickly reason with yourselves upon what account should you adventure trouble and reproach for it. If you have an experience of this power upon your hearts, it will recover all your recoiling, wandering thoughts, when you find you cannot live without it. It is so as to every ordinance whatever; unless we have some experience of the benefit of it, and the power and efficacy of the grace of God in it, we can never expect to abide in our profession of it (my emphasis).¹⁰Owen, Works, IX:237

By nature our affections are tainted and marred by sin, deformed and depraved, along with our minds and wills. By nature, sin has kept us from seeing the bright and wonderful light of God, and we cannot feel the warmth of the truth, nor are we inclined to move toward God. We cannot taste and see the Lord is good; we do not believe God is good in our sinful estate. Holy affections and desires are given to us in our regeneration as a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit that is implanted in our souls. We can grow by God’s Spirit, through His Word, as we do not merely know that God is faithful, but taste His faithfulness as we respond to His grace through His Word by our obedience. As we taste God’s faithfulness, we grow in our experience of God’s faithfulness, and so our faith continues to grow. We must taste and see the Lord is good toward us, and we must know the love of God in Christ that “surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:17-19). The Apostle prays for the Ephesian Christians in this way:

“…So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (my emphasis).

John Owen wrote that a true Christian should have the “most intense affections of our souls on the Person of Christ, being overcome until we are sick with love. He wrote importantly that the normal, growing Christian has “constant motions…toward Him with delight and adherence.”¹¹John Owen, Christologia: Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ, in Works, I:167. Jonathan Edwards wrote in his excellent sermon “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” that a man who has had the work of the Spirit upon his soul has, “…A sense (taste) of the gloriousness of God in his heart…a sense (taste) of the loveliness of God’s holiness….Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense (taste) of that loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace.”¹²Jonathan Edwards, A Divine and Supernatural Light, in Works, II: 16-17.

We can be thankful to God for this gift of communion with Him, to be able to taste and experience God’s goodness, because when we desire this, we can act upon these truths of Scripture by praying, and they can be increased.¹³Richard Sibbes, The Spouse, Her Earnest Desire After Christ, in Works, II: 207. Richard Sibbes wrote that if God gives the desire, He means to give the thing desired—therefore pray earnestly for it!¹⁴Richard Sibbes, Breathing After God, in Works, II: 225. One way that we can grow in our affections toward God and His Holiness revealed in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ is to stay fixed and focused in our communion with God through prayer until we experience a taste, or sense an enjoyment, or ravishment of our hearts, deep in our souls as we engage in our duties. Thomas Brooks wrote of fellow Puritan John Bradford,

“…That he could not leave a duty until he had found communion with Christ in the duty; he could not give off (quit) a duty until his heart was brought into a duty frame; he could not leave off confession until he had found his heart humbled and melted under the sense of his sin; he could not give over petitioning until he had found his heart taken with the beauties of the things desired, and strongly carried out (“carried away”) after the enjoyment of them. Neither could he leave thanksgiving until he had found his spirit enlarged… (my emphasis)”¹⁵Thomas Brooks, The Necessity, Excellency, Rarity, and Beauty of Holiness, in The Works of Thomas Brooks (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2001), IV: 148.

As we have learned, there is an important experiential element in obtaining a taste of God’s goodness in our duties and privileges such as prayer and the seeking after God in worship and means of grace.¹⁶The experiential element might be called “the ‘tang’ of the transcendent in the everyday that hits the heart,” as C. S. Lewis aptly put it! Quoted in Packer, Quest for … Continue reading We are to expect great things from God, and to seek Him until our hearts are merry with the reality and truths of how God is revealed to us in Holy Scripture. Our souls are responding with delight—we are delighting in the LORD! This may not happen every time we go to perform our duties in the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is good to seek to taste and experience these things, and ask each time for the Holy Spirit to be pleased to give them. It motivates us to want to have more of Jesus, and thus also to be more like Jesus. Thomas Shepard wrote: “Labor to find out the true sweetness [in Christ’s love]…a man’s affections, like streams, must run some way…It is a rule in theology, stop the affections from running to the creature [or mere created things], and in a sincere heart it will run unto Christ.”¹⁷Thomas Shepard, Parable of the Ten Virgins, 94.

John Owen, always the eminently practical believer and pastor, gave to us a summary of how we might contemplate and meditate upon Christ, so that He would dwell in our thoughts and affections. He taught that we are to engage in intense prayer for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation (see Eph. 1:15ff); to diligently study God’s Word to behold Christ by faith (see 2 Cor. 3:17-19); to have a sincere love and delight in these things revealed by God’s Spirit until our hearts are affected and we rejoice with ‘joy inexpressible and full of glory’ (1 Pet. 1:8); these meditations and contemplations ought to be attended with thankfulness and praise.¹⁸John Owen, Epistle to the Hebrews, III: 316-18. This will help us to taste and see the LORD is good! To say with Job: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you…” (Job 42:5).

Have you tasted that the LORD is good? More of this privilege in our next study!

Part IV: The Affections and the Beauty of Holiness

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Biggs

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” – ^KJV Colossians 3:2

What are the affections? Are they our “hearts”? Are they our “wills”? Are they our “emotions”? Our affections include all of these, but our affections might be described more specifically as the intersection between the mind or understanding, and the heart and will of man whereby our souls are embraced by God’s love, and are ignited to burn with love to live righteously for God in delight and joy. The affections are our soul’s understanding and embracing God’s truth, and our wills moving us to love and live for Him.

We speak of  being affectionate toward others, but our Puritan forefathers meant more than merely a kind and loving feeling toward another, although it is not less than this. To use a mechanical illustration, the mind and affections are like two cogs or gears that fit together that then move the body into action in a particular direction, with a force, and a goal of obtaining what is sought after. John Owen, in his work on the Holy Spirit in sanctification says that the sanctifying work of the Spirit “inclines and disposes the mind, will, and affections, unto acts of holiness…to make us meet to live unto God…It does not only incline and dispose the mind, but gives it power (Owen’s emphasis), and enables it to live unto God in all holy obedience.”¹John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in Works, III: 473.

John Owen (1616-1683) taught that our mind is the guide that leads the soul with light from God. He taught that our will is the governor who rules over the soul through conviction from the truth or light through the mind. With our minds we receive and are informed by truth; the mind receives truth and gets understanding by the light of God’s Word. The affections are not just receivers, but the part of our souls that is warmed by this light as the truth is received. There is light from the truth, but there is also fire, or warmth that comes forth from this truth. This motivates, or inclines our will toward the object of our desires, who is God, the glorious Creator and Redeemer of our Souls! Our souls find what they are looking for and seeking in Him. The mind and the affections move the will with a gracious force to pursue God.

Affections are very similar to what we would call desires or passions of the heart. Affections cause our hearts to be inclined in a particular direction toward something or someone, and then when it is attracted and is fixed, it will be disinterested and even repulsed by anything that would hinder the obtaining of the desire. Affections incline our wills, move our souls toward something, place our spiritual lives on a certain trajectory, to pursue after passionately, and desire vehemently.  Affections can make us have a passion or desire after God, and to desire after God is to desire passionately to be like God. This is why that a truly converted person, one who has been influenced by the saving work and power of the Holy Spirit will demonstrate a certain degree of loving desire and passion to not only know God, but to be with Him and to commune with Him to know Him, and to serve Him, producing works for His glory. Antinomianism cannot long exist in the heart of a true Christian that desires passionately to know and serve God!²For a recent excellent study of Antinomianism and it’s dangers for us, see Mark Jones, Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed … Continue reading

Affections are like emotions in that there is an emotional element to them, and they cause the soul to feel a certain inclination and love toward something or someone. Holy affections move us to love, rejoice, seek delight, and rest in God from the heart. When speaking about our affections toward God they describe the soul’s desire and inclination to know God, to meet with Him, to commune with Him, to have more of Him, to know that only God can ultimately satisfy and bring us complacent rest. John Owen wrote concerning love as a chief holy affection, that the “principle end why God endued our natures with that great and ruling affection [of love], that hath the most eminent and peculiar power and interest in our souls, was, in the first place, that it might be fixed on Himself—that it might be the instrument of our adherence unto Him…No affection hath such power in the soul to cause it to cleave unto its object, and to work conformity unto it.”³John Owen, Christologia, in Works, I:150. Our affections, when they are desirous of God in Christ, are never satisfied until they have obtained a certain degree of pleasure and communion with and in God.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), often considered the last of the great Puritans, wrote in his excellent treatise On the Religious Affections wrote making distinctions between passions, or mere emotions and what affections are:

The affections and the passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet, in the more common use of speech, there is some difference…Affection is a word…that seems to be something more extensive than passion, being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or the inclination…As all the exercises of inclination and will, are concerned either in approving and liking, or disapproving and rejecting; so the affections are of two sorts: they are those by which the soul is carried out to what is in view, cleaving to it, or seeking it; or those by which it is averse from it, and opposes it. Of the former sort are love, desire, hope, joy, gratitude, complacency. Of the latter kind are hatred, fear, anger, grief, and such like.

The Puritans were experts in understanding the workings of man’s soul. If the mind understands, and it understands by the help of the Holy Spirit that something is true and a truth that is good, then the soul will feel it, it will be affected by this understanding, and that will engage the affections to move and incline the will toward God; the will will vehemently (even violently) seek after God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that the violent take the Kingdom by force (Matt. 11:12). If the mind has been satisfied and saturated with the truth of God, it will mean sanctification of the soul by God’s grace. As our Lord Jesus prayed to the Father on the night of His betrayal: “Sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth” (John 17:17).⁴Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), I: 237.

To put it another way, truth received by the soul as true and good, should always be transformative. The truth as received by the power of the Holy Spirit is particularly “transformative truth”; it will not, it cannot leave the soul unchanged. As Richard Sibbes wrote thoughtfully as an example of Puritan thinking on the mind affecting the heart and the will of the soul of man:

Desires are the issues of the heart. Thoughts and desires are the two primitive issues of the heart, the births of the heart. Thoughts breed desires. Thoughts in the mind or brain, the brain strikes the heart presently. It goes from the understanding to the will and the affections. What we think of, that we desire it, if it be good. So thoughts and desires, they immediately spring from the soul; and where they are in any efficacy and strength, they stir up motion in the outward man. The desires of the soul, being the inward motion, they stir up outward motion, till there be an attaining of the thing desired, and then there is rest…When motion comes once to rest, it is quiet (satisfied). So desire, which is the inward motion, it stirs up outward motion, till the thing desired be accomplished, and then the soul rests in loving contentment, and enjoying of the thing desired.⁵Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 218.

The affections are powerful in this way. If possessed by God and ravished by His holiness, and satisfied in His love, then our affections will cause us to be motivated to seek Him, to pray to Him, to seek the means of grace, to love Him and others as ourselves, and to produce an abundance of good works for the glory of God.

Here are some questions to ask our souls to better understand our affections and what we are moving toward and desiring to determine what direction our wills are inclined. I invite you to ponder these questions slowly: “What do I find to be most lovely in my life?” “What is trying to fill me?” “What is my heart desiring to feed on?” “What do I daydream about?” “What arouses the passions within me?” “What am I being drawn toward?” “When I am doing nothing else, what direction does my mind (and heart!) tend to move?” “What brings me happiness?” “Where do I seek joy?” “What things possess me?” “What has caused my heart to ‘thrill’, ‘exult’ and ‘hope’ in lately?”     If one is a Christian, desires are helpful to discover our spiritual state and level of maturity. Sibbes (1577-1635) wrote that desires issue from our affections, and they show the frame of the soul more than anything in the world. He encouraged our souls to ask: “What is thy desire?” “What is the bent of thy soul?” Sibbes wrote “the bent and sway of the soul shows what a man is.”⁶Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 220-21.

Having a better understanding of our affections and how they work, should help Christians to understand why idolatry is so common, and so very deadly. If our minds are under the impression that evil is good, and good is evil, and we do not hear or heed God’s Word, but do what is right in our own eyes, our affections will love what is wrong, and ungodly; this will move us to love sin and be repulsed by what is good and true (cf. 3:19; Phil. 4:8). As William Greenhill wrote in Stop Loving the World, “When our affections are set on something, we love that thing.”⁷William Greenhill, Stop Loving the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 8.

In the regenerate person, there is a constant conflict to love the good, and to hate evil (as we see in Paul in Romans 7:15-26), but the mind must meditate upon the great and precious truths of Scripture, so that by the help and power of the Holy Spirit, the affections will be set upon doing good for the glory of God (Psa. 63:6; 77:3, 6, 12; Rom. 6:11, 17; Col. 3:1-4; Heb. 12:2-3). By nature, the will is bent toward and inclined to evil “always and continually,” said Owen.⁸John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in The Works of John Owen, D.D. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2006), III: 238-39. “True grace fixes the affections on spiritual things,” and produces a new bent “toward the spiritual” in regeneration.⁹John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in Works, III: 240. He wrote: “Saving grace fills up the affections with spiritual things, fills the soul with spiritual love, joy, delight…”¹⁰John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in Works, III: 240.

The Spirit must be sought for enlightenment in our souls; we must have eyes to see with our minds and hearts the goodness of God’s truth for us! (Eph. 1:15ff; 3:17-19; 2 Cor. 3:18; Psa. 119:18, 37). There will be a response of our souls to what we find most lovely, that draws our affections to it (Psa. 119:32, 34-37; Phil. 4:8). There will also be feelings and emotions, but more than that. Once we experience this, it begins not only to make us feel a certain way, it is more than an emotion, it has drawing power; it has a power to transform us, to assimilate us; it possesses us, and makes us live a certain way. This is not only knowing that God loves you, but knowing that He loves you in way that surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:19); it is not only knowing God is good, but a “tasting and seeing that God is good”! (Psa. 34:8).

As Christians, we want to resist ungodly evil influences, and live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age because of the grace of God that has set our souls free to understand the truth (Titus 2:11-14). We want the truth of God, by the Spirit’s help, to cause us to love the truth passionately, being obedient to God from our hearts. We want to say with the Psalmist: “It is good for me to be near to God” (Psa. 73:28) and “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart” (Psa. 119:34).  May our affections be kindled and set aflame by God’s holy Word, so that we have a passion for Jesus Christ! As John Bunyan (1628-1688) exulted in his excellent sermon ‘Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ,’:

Oh, the heart-attracting glory that is in Jesus Christ, when He is discovered, to draw those to Him who are given to Him of the Father…There is a heart-pulling glory in Jesus Christ.¹¹John Bunyan, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ, Puritan Paperbacks (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 73.{[(|fnote_end|)]}

Affections have great power in compelling us to love and to serve God in order to please Him. Affections of gratitude and warm devotion to Jesus will move us to seek Him, to pray, to want to share ourselves with Him. Our affections as they are drawn spiritually toward God and find satisfaction in His holiness, will find more desire and an earnest “breathing after” or “longing” or “seeking after” more of God and to please Him more and more! Let us seek a taste of this in Christ. As the Psalmist says: “Taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! (Psa. 34:8).

Part III: Tasting and Experiencing God’s Love in Christ

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Biggs

References[+]

References

↑1	John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in Works, III: 473.
↑2	For a recent excellent study of Antinomianism and it’s dangers for us, see Mark Jones, Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2013), particularly pgs. 89-96.
↑3	John Owen, Christologia, in Works, I:150.
↑4	Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), I: 237.
↑5	Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 218.
↑6	Richard Sibbes, A Breathing After God, in Works, II: 220-21.
↑7	William Greenhill, Stop Loving the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 8.
↑8	John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in The Works of John Owen, D.D. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2006), III: 238-39.
↑9, ↑10	John Owen, The Holy Spirit, in Works, III: 240.
↑11	John Bunyan, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ