Int'resting

A few months ago, I listened to a radio rebroadcast of the Rev. Alan Jones (the dean at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral) interviewing Karen Armstrong. They spoke of belief, not (as Jones quoted Armstrong) as "10 impossible things to believe before breakfast" but as "that which we give our heart to." Credo, Armstrong pointed out, comes from the word for "heart."

Belief, therefore, isn’t a set of tenets we must accept or an intellectual exercise but an emotional relationship, a commitment to love.

From Lindsay Crittendon's recent post at Image Blog.

"For the love of the Father is the only rest of the soul."

I've begun reading John Owen's Communion with the Triune God, with a plan to discuss it in some manner here at the blog. A number of people will undoubtedly be doing this, since we're all cadging for a free copy. Notice, for example, the hard-working Adrian Warnock.

I'm only 3 chapters into the book, and I must say it makes me shake my head in wonder at times, for the writing is rich and deep. Chapter 3 in particular has stopped me in my tracks. I don't intend to recapitulate the whole of Owen's argument here, but I did want to dwell for a moment on a particular point from chapter 3. On page 111 there is a section headed, "The Requirement of Believers to Complete Communion of the Father in Love." I've reread this section three times now and I can't get over it. Owen makes two points here about true communion with God.

1. Believers must receive the love of the Father.
2. Believers must return love to the Father.

On point 1 above, Owen makes this incredibly simple and yet profound statement:

How then is the love of the Father to be received, so as to hold fellowship with him? I answer: By faith. The receiving is the believing.

Owen explains that the receiving is through Christ; in other words, that Jesus mediates the Father's love to us. And it is by faith that we receive it. To receive is to believe. He writes:

Would believers exercise themselves herein, they would find it a matter of no small spiritual improvement in their walking with God.

But don't let that word "exercise" fool you. Owen is talking about "rest." He writes, "For the love of the Father is the only rest for the soul." Owen is saying that there can be no true communion with God unless the point is settled in our hearts. As Brennan Manning often asks, "Do you know how much the Father loves you?"

Owen says that through Christ we are offered rest for the soul, and we receive that rest by trusting in Christ. He is "the procuring cause." By him the believer has access to the Father and

... into his love; finds out that he is love, as having a design, a purpose of love, a good pleasure toward us from eternity--a delight, a complacency [peace], a goodwill in Christ.... The soul being thus, by faith through Christ, and by him, brought into the bosom of God, into a comfortable persuasion and spiritual perception and sense of his love, there reposes and rests itself. And this is the first thing the saints do, in their communion with the Father[.] (p. 113)

Chew on that for a while, saints.

Believing

I want to spend some more time on the words of Jesus to his disciples "on the night he was betrayed." John records them in his Gospel at chapters 14 through 17. I suggested in an earlier post that Jesus gave special prominence in his talk that night to three things: believing, loving, and abiding. I called this "the triad of discipleship." Now, perhaps these are three words for the same thing, three facets of the same diamond, but I want to take them one at a time and look closely at what Jesus says about each one.

But before doing so I want to insert this routine disclaimer: I am the least methodical of bloggers. As I have said many times, I blog by the seat of my pants. These are not the refined thoughts of one who has meditated long and understands well, but the earnest musings of one who wishes to understand Jesus and follow him. It helps me to write these things down, and this blog is the place I do that.

When you read the Scriptures, always keep the context in mind. What is going on around the particular text at hand. In this case, remember this: this is Jesus’ last evening with his disciples before his arrest, peremptory trial, and brutal execution. The fear and horror of the next 24 hours is going to be acute for them all, but especially of course for Jesus himself. He knows full well what he is facing, and he knows also that it is what he came to do. Though the sheer agony of what lay ahead must already have been roiling in him, his tone now is calm and reassuring. All of his concern at this moment is for his disciples. He needs to tell them that what is about to happen is not an end, but a beginning. He needs to stay their hearts against fear and despair. He needs to prepare them not only for the next 24 hours, but for their lives as missionary Gospelizers thereafter.

So Jesus' first words that night were about his going. He wanted them to see it in the proper perspective. He tells them that he is going away (what horror and what glory is contained in those two words!), but nevertheless that they should not be troubled, because though he and they will be separated for a time, he is going to prepare a place for them. In other words, he is insuring their eternal destiny with him.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Notice Jesus' emphasis on believing, and on the content of their believing. If they don’t believe him in this matter, they’re going to be "troubled" indeed. If they don’t believe him now, then there will be no way for them to comprehend what is about to happen to him and to them. All the violence, all the blood, will only confirm them in utter despair.

What Jesus is about to endure is the work he was sent to do. And in doing it, he brings many sons to glory. That is the joy he sees beyond the agony, and for which he endured the agony (Heb. 12:2). That was the reason for his coming, and it is the ground of hope for all his disciples. Jesus has insured our eternal destiny, and he is coming again to take us there. If we don’t believe this, the horror and confusion of this world, and the apparent victories of evil that happen all around us, are going to bring us to despair. "Troubled hearts" only scratches the surface of what we would be feeling.

So what do I conclude? Believing in Jesus is a matter of first importance for the disciple, and it has fundamentally to do with believing what Jesus has accomplished and where he is now. And this stays and steadies the troubled heart.