The Book of Proverbs - Part 2 (F F Bruce)

This is the second part of Bruce's introduction to the book of Proverbs. It was originally published as F.F. Bruce, “The Wisdom Literature of the Bible: The Book of Proverbs (continued),” The Bible Student ns 22.3 (July 1951): 116-118.

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Many of the sayings in the Book of Proverbs, taken by themselves in isolation from their context, might be regarded as samples of ordinary worldly wisdom such as the proverbial lore of all nations provides in abundance. The warning against becoming surety for a stranger (Prov. 6:1-2; 11:15) is something that one can learn from experience in any part of the world; while simple people in all ages have proved the blessedness of the saying:

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is,
Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith (Prov. 15:17).

But it is not merely as counsels taught by experience that these and many other sayings are included here. In the context in which they appear in the Book of Proverbs the wisdom that they enshrine is seen to be an aspect of the wisdom of God which is the main subject of the whole work. The lessons learned from experience are lessons taught by God; experience is one of His methods of teaching. When the matter is viewed thus, the Book of Proverbs is recognized as a storehouse of spiritual and not merely secular teaching. We may think of the spiritual teaching of Proverbs under a number of heads.

First of all comes the teaching of the book about the being and character of God.

Nowhere is it deemed necessary in the Book of Proverbs to prove the existence of God; God’s existence is the basic postulate of the book, as it is of the whole Bible. Nor is it deemed necessary to prove the unity of God; it is taken for granted that there is but one God. This God has created all things:

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
By understanding He established the heavens (Prov. 3:19).

The Creator of all is also the Disposer supreme:

The lot is cast into the lap;
But the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord (Prov. 16:33).

His purpose cannot be thwarted, whatever the plans of men may be:

There are many devices in a man’s heart;
But the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand (Prov. 19:21).

He is omniscient, and nothing escapes His attention, especially in all that affects mankind:

The eyes of the Lord are in every place,
Keeping watch upon the evil and the good (Prov. 15:3).

And, above all, He is righteous and merciful; He delights in righteousness and mercy on the part of men, and everything that is unrighteous or unmerciful is an abomination in His sight. The wisdom of God is so imbued with the ideal of righteousness that it is as much ethical as intellectual in quality:

All the words of my mouth are in righteousness;
There is nothing crooked or perverse in them (Prov. 8:8).

And those who learn the divine wisdom show now well they have learned their lesson by manifesting righteousness and mercy in their lives and actions; this is the fear of the Lord, which is the first lesson taught in Wisdom’s school.

God takes care of His people:

The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish;
But He thrusteth away the desire of the wicked (Prov. 50:3).

In particular, the destitute and underprivileged have a special place in His interest:

Rob not the poor, because he is poor,
Neither oppress the afflicted in the gate:

For the Lord will plead their cause,
And despoil of life those that despoil them (Prov. 22:22-23).

He is the true defence of men, “a shield to them that walk in integrity” (Prov. 2:7):

The name of the Lord is a strong tower;
The righteous runneth into it, and is safe (Prov. 18:10).

He is the Hearer of prayer (15:29); the Rewarder of righteousness and mercy (19:17); the One whose blessing is enrichment in itself (10:22).

Men ought therefore to render Him grateful worship and show their appreciation of His goodness:

Honour the Lord with thy substance,
And with the firstfruits of all thine increase (Prov. 3:9).

But sacrifice is no substitute for uprightness:

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord;
But the prayer of the wicked is His delight (Prov. 15:8).

To do justice and judgment
Is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice (Prov. 21:3).

Men’s truest gratitude to God lies in their manifesting the character and conduct that He delights in, and in putting all their trust in Him. Time and again throughout the book an attitude of complete confidence in God is inculcated: “whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he” (Prov. 16:20).

Thus all that the Book of Proverbs teaches about God is not only in complete agreement with the teaching of the Law and the Prophets, but is also seen to be in harmony with the teaching of the Gospels, where we read that the tithing of mint and anise and cummin is no substitute for judgment and mercy and faith; and that a confident trust in God is the attitude which He delights to find in men.

(To be continued)

© 1951 F.F. Bruce

The Book of Proverbs - Part 1 (F F Bruce)

F F Bruce is most well-known as an inter-testamental and New Testament scholar. It is not often that you find material by him on the Old Testament. So it came as a pleasant surprise to me that he wrote a short three-part introduction to the book of Proverbs in The Bible Student in 1951. While not as comprehensive as some other introductory material I have seen, I like the way in which he teases out the purpose of this book and some of its major themes which Bruce very ably links to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. It was originally published as F.F. Bruce, “The Wisdom Literature of the Bible: The Book of Proverbs,” The Bible Student ns 22.2 (April 1951): 76-77.

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The Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible is entitled Mishlé Shelomoh—‘the Proverbs of Solomon’ - from the words with which it opens. The wisdom of Solomon was itself proverbial, and his gift for proverbial utterance is recorded in 1 Kings 4:32 ff: “And he spake three thousand proverbs... and he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: He spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.”

The word translated ‘proverb’ is Heb. mashal, which has a wider sense than that which we usually associate with ‘proverb’. Its root meaning is ‘to resemble’, and so it might be rendered ‘similitude’ or ‘parable’. And this is the character of many of the proverbs in this book, the point of which consists in a comparison between two situations, e.g. “As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him” (Prov. 10:26). The word mashal is as applicable to the parables of a greater than Solomon as to the proverbs of Solomon himself.

The Book of Proverbs contains seven smaller collections. These are:

(i) chapters 1 to 9, a number of passages in praise of wisdom, entitled “The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel”. Indeed, the whole paragraph, 1:1-6, forms the title both to this smaller collection and to the complete book.

(ii) chapters 10:1-22:16, another collection of shorter and more isolated saws, entitled “The proverbs of Solomon”.

(iii) chapters 22:17-24:22, entitled (in the Septuagint) “The words of the wise”.1 This is followed by a short section, 24:23-34, which bears the title, “These also are sayings of the wise”, and forms an appendix to it.

(iv) chapters 25 to 29, a collection similar in character to No. ii, and entitled “These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out.” Presumably they had circulated orally before Hezekiah’s time. Hezekiah’s reign appears to have been a period of considerable literary activity in the southern kingdom, in spite of the Assyrian menace.

(v) chapter 30, entitled (as we should probably translate) “The words of Agur the son of Jakeh of Massa”. Massa was a region in North Arabia, referred to in Gen. 25:14 and 1 Chron. 1:30, and mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions; the name may survive in the modern Masani, northeast of Dumah. Agur may have been one of the “children of the east” mentioned in I Kings 4:30. A number, of the sayings of Agur are cast in a readily recognizable fourfold pattern; cf. verses 11-14, 15b-16, 18-19, 21-23, 24-28, 29-31.

(vi) chapter 31:1-9, entitled “The words of Lemuel king of Massa, which his mother taught him” (so R. V. margin, as in 30:1), and therefore probably emanating from the same quarter, as the preceding collection. The maternal advice in this brief section urges that a king, to perform his duty properly, must avoid the temptations of wine and women.

(vii) chapter. 31:10-31, an acrostic poem celebrating the praises of the virtuous woman, or ‘woman of worth’. Each of the 22 verses of this section begins with the corresponding letter, of the Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew text gives no clue to the authorship of this poem.

The Septuagint exhibits a different order here and there, but the order of the Hebrew text is preferable. Thus, the Septuagint places Collection iv between Collections vi and vii, and thus makes it appear that Solomon himself was the author of the acrostic in praise of the ‘woman of worth’ - which, in view of his unhappy matrimonial career, is hardly likely. An equally unconvincing change of order in the Septuagint is the placing of the appendix entitled “These also are sayings of the wise” (24:23-34) between verses 14 and 15 of chapter 30.

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1 This is the section which shows closest contact with the Wisdom of Amenemope, mentioned in our previous paper. In its original form it seems to have contained 38 small sections, and the difficult verse 22:20 is now generally held to mean “Have I not written for thee thirty sayings?” The Wisdom of Amenemope contains the passage: “Consider these thirty chapters”. Put, whatever the literary relationship, the Hebrew writer preserves an independent outlook.

(To be continued)

© 1951 F.F. Bruce

Rescuing Theology From The Theologians (Gerald Bray)

This article was first presented as the John Wenham Lecture at the Tyndale Fellowship Associates Conference in July 1998. Bray is concerned that modern theologians are putting ordinary Christians off "theology" altogether by making it "inaccessible" to the latter. His penetrating take on modern-day theologians and prospective theologians is worth our serious consideration. The answer to such a concern may come as a surprise to most of us. He suggests that "theology" may actually be rescued by clear, simple, and passionate "preaching" which will make theology accessible to everyone. I certainly found his emphasis on the need to "wed" theology and preaching compelling. This is an article for everyone, but especially for theologians, preachers and pastors, and those aspiring to be one of these. This article was printed as Gerald Bray, “Rescuing Theology From the Theologians,” Themelios 24.2 (February 1999): 48-57.

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It is a great honour for me to have been invited to deliver the third annual John Wenham lecture. I knew John Wenham personally and had the privilege of working fairly closely with him over a number of years, an experience which left me, as indeed it left all those who knew him, with a deep appreciation of his love for the Lord and his total dedication to the cause of the Gospel in the world of academic scholarship. He was a man who could have attained high positions in both the university and the church if he had been prepared to compromise his beliefs, but to the end of his days he remained faithful to what he knew to be true and he never lost any opportunity to communicate his learning and his enthusiasm to others.

Few things were dearer to John Wenham’s heart than his desire to share Christian truth with as many people as possible, and I am certain that he would have had a good deal of sympathy with the title of today’s lecture. Rescuing theology from the theologians indeed!

Few disciplines have suffered more from the follies of its practitioners than this one has, and yet none is more important for the eternal destiny of the human race. We can get to heaven without knowing anything about computer science, molecular biology or geophysics, but to be deprived of the knowledge of God is to be deprived of eternal life, and theology is nothing if it is not about knowing God.

This, I think, is where we have to begin. After all, if theology were not particularly important, it would not really matter whether the experts dwelt in a world of their own or not. I must confess that I feel this way about such disciplines, (if that is the word for them), as sociology and literary criticism. I do not much care whether the doctors of these things are comprehensible or not, because I know in my heart that I shall go on talking to other people and reading their books whatever the experts might say. Perhaps, in the final analysis, it is better that I cannot understand them, since that way they do not impair my enjoyment of the things they are trying to analyse.

Now there are many people who think that theology is in the same category as the social sciences and the humanities. Does it really matter, they ask, what learned theologians are saying if I have a personal knowledge of God in my heart and a living relationship with him in my life? What need is there for me to complicate the obvious, or to reduce the existential reality of spiritual experience to cold, abstract propositions? In one sense, of course, such people have a point - there is no need to do this at all. An illiterate grandmother in New Guinea who has met with Jesus is a greater theologian than a university professor of the subject who has not, and I have no doubt whatever that I shall meet more of the former in heaven than the latter. Without a personal experience of God, theology is a waste of time - indeed, it is quite meaningless. You can drive a car without knowing anything about car mechanics - most of us do, in fact - but what would be the point of studying car maintenance if you have no car to maintain, have never seen one and perhaps even doubt whether such things exist?

The first qualification for any true theologian is a personal encounter with the living God, which can only come as his Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, points us to the righteousness which has been won for us by Christ’s atoning sacrifice, and assures us that the prince of this world has been judged by the Father’s acceptance of that atonement. Once we are clear about that, we can go on to the rest, but only once we are clear, because the rest is really no more than an elaboration and application to different areas of life of the great themes of the gospel. What I am saying here is nothing new. The Apostle Paul threw everything away, and told his people that he would still throw everything away, if only he could have the surpassing knowledge which was his in the love of Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:7-8). The great medieval doctor of theology, St Thomas Aquinas (1226-74), stopped writing his great Summa of theology when he had a vision of the living God, and no power on earth could persuade him to take up his pen again, because what he had seen and known went beyond anything which could be described by the human mind.

It may seem paradoxical to say so, but the attitude of Paul and Aquinas is one which ought to be shared by every theologian - as indeed it is, by those who truly know God for themselves. For who can describe that wonder in anything like adequate terms? And who can be content with a shadow of that reality when once he has experienced it in its fullness? Even the most clever intellectual reconstruction pales before the glory of the God whom it is trying so hard to describe, and theologians, more than anyone, ought to be aware of the feebleness of their efforts with respect to the object of their inquiry. For in no other discipline must the description inevitably fall so far short of the reality; nowhere else must the gap between theory and practice yawn quite so widely as it does here.

So why bother with theology at all? The first, and main reason that we are forced to do so is evangelistic. Theology is a means given to us by God for helping us to distinguish in our minds what is true from what is false in the statements which are made about him. Perhaps we need not make any statements at all, but we all do, and we must know whether what we say is right or wrong. Of course, our statements will never come anywhere near the true experience of God himself; theological argument by itself has never converted anybody, nor can it. But having said that, it still has an important role to play in preparing our minds to receive an experience of the living God. It does so, primarily by warning us what we must and must not expect. We are told for example, that the One with whom we have to do is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, all good, all loving, all gentle and all patient.

None of these things means anything until we have met him, because our minds are unable to comprehend what such a being would be like. But when we do meet God, we recognize who he is and what he is like, because the pieces of the mental jigsaw finally slot into place. He is the one who corresponds to all the clues, and indeed who far surpasses them. True theology can only be the fruit of human experience of God, but this experience is not the preserve of any one person. Nor is it possible for any one of us to have a full and exhaustive understanding of him. Even if we restrict ourselves to the things which have been revealed about God, and refrain from idle speculation about him, it is still true that none of us knows or understands everything. Even within the parameters of his self- revelation, God remains far greater than we are, and his revelation is a challenge to us to explore him more fully, as much as it is a confirmation of what we have already experienced.

I want to look at this more carefully because I believe it is here that so many of our modern difficulties have arisen. We are so focused on personal experience that it is hard for us to imagine that we all have much more to learn - and that much of the learning which we still have to do is written down for us in Holy Scripture, if only we had eyes to see it. For example, every once in a while I come across some poor person who tells me that he or she no longer experiences the same things that he or she knew at an earlier stage in the Christian life. People who once spoke in tongues no longer do so, but do not understand why. Others, who once found it no trouble at all to read several pages of the Bible at a stretch, now have to exert themselves to plod through a single chapter. And so on. In trying to help such people, I usually say that it may be that God is challenging them to go on to higher things in the Christian life, that they have been deprived of their earlier enjoyments not because they have sinned or grown cold, but because they are being told that it is time for them to move on. A large amount of the spiritual dryness which we experience is ultimately due to the fact that God is working in us at levels that we do not understand, and until we can penetrate them and see the wonder of his work in the secret places of our hearts, we shall go about looking for him, as the bride in the Song looked for Solomon, but we shall not find him. Growth is an essential part of life, but it is seldom (if ever) apparent to the one who is doing the growing. Theology is a sketch of what spiritual growth should be like, giving us a kind of checklist of the things which we still have to experience for ourselves.

Theology can only perform this function, of course, if it is the faithful reflection of the collective experience of the Church. This experience is twofold. First of all, I believe that God has been bringing his people to increasing maturity down through the centuries. This does not mean that he is constantly giving us new revelations, but that he is helping us to understand existing revelation more deeply. A classic example of this is the question of slavery. Even the apostles accepted it, although they knew that all men were ultimately created equal in God’s sight. But today we are no longer prepared to tolerate it because God has educated our collective conscience to the point where we abhor something that the first followers of Jesus made provision for. Likewise we are far more sensitive today to the many weaknesses of the human race which we find in handicapped people, though this was not so much the case in Biblical times and it is remarkable how little is said about them in the Scriptures.

The spiritual maturing of the Church finds its outward expression in the development of theology, as does the particular experience of certain individuals. For example, some unknown person in ancient times came to the realisation that God is a trinity of three persons in one being, or substance, and this insight has been canonized for us in the classical formulations of our faith. Similarly, someone else suddenly understood that Jesus of Nazareth was one divine person in two natures - divine and human, and that too, got transmitted to subsequent generations by way of theology. Of course not everyone, then or now, shares these understandings, and some have openly rejected them as either inadequate or wrong. But enough people over a long period of time, and from very different social and cultural backgrounds, have resonated with them as authentic expressions of Biblical revelation that we can say that they are true in a way which goes beyond the limitations of any one pattern of thought. That is why they have entered our theological inheritance as touchstones of what we call orthodoxy - a word which means ‘right worship’. For if we truly know God as he is, and if we are worshipping him in the right way, these are the things that we shall believe and confess about him. There is a great deal more to it than that, to be sure, but there is nothing less, and it is our theological perception which provides us with the bottom line of authentic Christian experience.

Orthodoxy is a word which has nasty connotations to some people, but in actual fact it is nothing but a checklist of essential truth. I say ‘truth’ in the singular, rather than ‘truths’ in the plural because ultimately all truth is one, and orthodoxy cannot be broken down into component parts. This is perhaps most easily understood by giving an example. You all know the chorus, ‘Jesus is Lord’:

Jesus is Lord! Creation’s voice proclaims it!
For by his power, each tree and flower
Was planned and made.
Jesus is Lord! The universe declares it!
Sun, moon and stars in heaven
Cry ‘Jesus is Lord’.

The impulse for this chorus comes from two parts of Scripture - it is a combination of Psalm 19 and Philippians 2:11, and so can claim to be ‘Biblical’, at least superficially. Of course, no-one is naive enough to believe that if you go out to look at the sky you will hear the planets shouting ‘Jesus is Lord’, but it is not the poetic licence to which we must object here. The real problem with this chorus is that it claims that the message of redemption, which is what ‘Jesus is Lord’ proclaims, can be heard in creation―in other words, that a person can come to a knowledge of Christ without the proclamation of the Gospel. The result is therefore heresy, made up by putting selected truths together in the wrong way. I know that many people will find this hard to swallow. Whoever wrote the chorus was presumably not intending to come up with that, and I am sure that is true. Most people who sing it do not come to that conclusion either, and that is also no doubt true, though whether it is because they have meditated deeply on the words, I somehow doubt. Most people I know like the tune and never get any farther than that. I know as well as you do that probably nobody has been led into heresy as a result of singing this chorus, and yet it is still potentially dangerous because it is theologically wrong. The subtlety, and therefore the great danger, of heresy is not that it is so palpably false that no well-meaning person would ever go near it. On the contrary, heresy is usually made up of half-digested truths, juxtaposed in ways which lead to the wrong conclusions.

Woolly thinking of one kind or another may go on for generations, and only blossom into error when some clever person comes along to draw the logical conclusions from what he thinks is generally believed. In the early church, for example, the great Arian heresy, which held that Jesus was a creature and not God, emerged after centuries of a vaguely-held belief that the Son was inferior to the Father, and therefore not fully ‘God’ in the strict sense of the term. For a long time, people held together their worship of Jesus, on the one hand, with this subordinationist theology on the other, and never really tried to harmonise the two, so that when Arius thought he was just tying up loose ends, a lot of people were ready to believe him. In fact he created a heresy which proved to be one of the hardest to combat in the history of the church, precisely because so many ordinary people thought that what he was saying sounded right.

This is why a chorus like ‘Jesus is Lord’ is dangerous. Even if it makes little or no difference to us, it is a concession to woolly thinking which will one day meet its Arius, and then it will become clear that years of accepting that sort of thing have inadvertently prepared the ground for false teaching. It is the task of a good theologian to point this sort of thing out, even if it is unpopular at the time, and warn the church against falling into complacency, which is the prelude to error. When it is doing its job properly, theology trains the Christian mind to be on the lookout for possible trouble, as well as challenging believers to explore dimensions of their faith which may not yet have occurred to them. So far I have been making out the case for good theology, but I am well aware that for many people today the problem is that so much of what passes for theology is bad or worse.

Theologians tend to be noted for their unbelief, even on the rare occasions when they can be understood, with the result that many of the keenest believers today have a fear and an aversion to the subject. In some quarters it may even be thought that these two things go together - the more concerned you are to win people for Christ, the less time you will have for subtle argumentation which is liable to end up in heresy or unbelief. Conversely, the more theology you read, the less interested you will be in evangelism.

I am well aware of this situation and I believe that it is a tragedy for the church. In one sense, there is not much any one of us can do about it, since problems like this one are the result of many decades, even centuries of development, and barring an upheaval like the Reformation, are unlikely to disappear quickly. The liberal theological establishment with which we are blessed has just as strong an instinct for self-preservation as anyone else, and it will not give up its power easily. Students and others will continue to face the dilemma of having to be conversant with their doctrines on the one hand, so as not to appear ‘ignorant’ of current thinking, and yet keep themselves mentally and spiritually pure on the other. The latter task inevitably means developing antibodies to the prevailing establishment position, and this is never easy.

Many conservative students end up speaking the language of the liberal establishment whether they want to or not, and hanging on to their convictions may be almost impossible. I cringe, for example, every time I hear a supposedly conservative scholar talk about the ‘Easter-event’ instead of the Resurrection, because the former term is just a way of accepting that something extraordinary happened at the first Easter without specifying what it was. It has become an acceptably neutral term in academic discourse, but it shunts personal conviction to one side in a way that the blunter term ‘resurrection’ does not. And the minute you move away from the bluntness of theological tradition to the supposedly neutral ground of modern scholarly dialogue, you have in fact taken a step down the road towards unbelief.

Another serious problem is that in such an atmosphere, orthodoxy can all too easily appear as a defensive reaction which has nothing but negative things to say, and so it can become very unattractive, even to those who might otherwise be disposed to accept it. The feeling that an orthodox theologian is usually a determined heresy-hunter, totally lacking in anything like a sense of humour and completely unable to see anybody else’s point of view, is unfortunately too widespread for us to be able to ignore it. Such people do exist, alas, and they may do more harm to the cause of Christ than those who openly attack it.

There is nothing quite so off-putting as the inquisitor who burns people at the stake out of love for them, because he would rather see their bodies burn in this world than their souls burn in the next!

I do not want to dwell on perversions of this kind, but I think we have to recognise that they do exist and that they have given the cause of orthodox theology a bad name. The answer is not to turn away from orthodoxy as if it is a hopeless cause best left to die its long overdue death, but to do what we can to use it to rescue theology for the church in the right way. An important key to this is good communication, and often the people best equipped to do it are the preachers and teachers in our churches. One of the main tasks of the preacher, and one of the main reasons why a preacher should have the best theological training available, is that they are supposed to be able to unpack abstract theology in a way which will mean something to the person sitting in the pew. That this classical understanding of the preacher’s role now sounds strange to many people is a sign of just how far we have departed from the traditional Reformed understanding of the professional ministry. I spent twelve years of my life training men and women for the Church of England, and I have to say that it was a constant uphill battle―not so much against the prejudices of the students as against the unwillingness of the powers-that-be to take the notion of a professional preaching and teaching ministry seriously. It often seemed that, as far as they were concerned, a guitar, an annual reservation at Spring Harvest and a smattering of current psycho-sociological jargon was all the well-equipped pastor would ever need! Certainly that is all that some of them had, and one can only wonder at the sort of ministry which must result from that.

I am saying this because I believe that the best way to rescue theology from the theologians is to preach it in a clear and compelling manner. Karl Barth (1886-1968) once said that if theology could not be preached, then it was not theology at all. That is profoundly true, and ought to serve as the touchstone by which we measure whether any particular doctrine or theological system can meet the expectations placed upon it. Perhaps before I develop this theme further, a word about the nature of preaching is in order. Effective preaching has three co-equal elements.

The first of these is good exegesis, the right interpretation of the Biblical text. Any form of address which is not the exposition of a Biblical text is not really preaching at all. I know that styles differ and that it is possible to preach thematically, as well as verse-by-verse through a particular book. But any sermon which does not open up to us a portion of God’s Word has no right to the name, however true or uplifting it may be in other ways. As a nineteenth-century wit put it, congregations come to hear the ministry of the Word, not the words of the minister, and we must be very careful to insist on that high standard as much as we can.

Secondly, good preaching is rooted and grounded in Christian doctrine. This is the aspect which I am giving special emphasis to in this lecture, but it must not be divorced from its context. Christian doctrine is the systematic exposition of Scripture, and its importance for preaching is that it provides the framework within which the particular passage and sermon being preached must be placed. It is not possible to deliver a complete guide to theology every time one stands up in the pulpit, but the true minister of the Word will always have their theological framework in the background to challenge the reading of the text in preparation for the message. What does this passage tell us about God? About who he is, what he is like and what he does? What does it tell us about humanity and its need of God? And what does it tell us about the way in which God has met this need? These are the fundamental points of theology, and they make a nice list of questions for the preacher to reflect on during preparation.

We do not often realise it, but the real effect of any sermon will lie in the degree to which it is theologically grounded, and theologically coherent. It is because so few preachers today have any real notion of these things that so much preaching is ineffective, even if it manages to be entertaining, erudite and encouraging. These three “e’s” are all very well, but it is the fourth “e” –effectiveness - which counts in the end, and that can only be measured by the substance of the message, in other words, by its theology.

Now I do not for a minute wish to suggest that, after getting a good theological education, a preacher has a licence to blind the congregation with erudition. This is the common failing of young theological college graduates, who can usually be detected a mile off. I have a personal rule about this―if a preacher refers to ‘the meaning of the Greek’ during the sermon, there is trouble ahead. Quite apart from the fact that it will probably be inaccurate, this sort of thing is not the mark of superior intelligence but of inferior digestion. I do not mean that the preacher should not study Greek, read commentaries and absorb as much of the background information as possible for the exposition. Of course any preacher should. The trick, however, is so to absorb this material that it becomes second nature, that it gets transposed in heart and mind into something which is genuinely believed, and can therefore be expressed with conviction in the preacher’s own words. The message, in other words, should come from the heart as well as from the mind, and the heart does not speak Greek.

What is true of a foreign language is of course equally true of registers of English which do not communicate. It is always a humbling experience to read a computer manual, even the kind expressly written for ‘dummies’, and to discover that one does not understand a word of it, even though it is in ‘English’. Preachers have to remember that for most people, theological text books read in much the same way as a computer manual, and adapt them accordingly. It would of course be nice if everyone knew what an infralapsarian antediluvian postmillenarian apocalyptic Arminian is, since you never know when you might meet one, but surely there is a simpler way of explaining the concept?

Theologians fear simplicity because they think that it might be too simplistic, or detract from the majesty and the mystery of their high calling, but this is nonsense. The profoundest theologian of the NT is also the simplest―the Apostle John. Just listen to what he says: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... In him was life, and the life was the light of men ... The Word became flesh and we beheld his glory ...’. A three-year old child can follow this without difficulty, but at the same time the most ancient of philosophers cannot plumb its depths. To put it another way, everyone is fed by these words, and not even the biggest appetite goes away hungry.

An incomprehensible theologian is a contradiction in terms, because his theology is unpreachable - nobody will understand it. I have to read more than my fair share of it, and if ever I get a chance - in a book review, for example - I always condemn it unreservedly, even if I happen to agree with what the author is trying to say. Indeed, perhaps I condemn it more severely in such cases, because there can be nothing more distressing than to find that the words of eternal life are being hidden behind a veil of obfuscation so thick that no-one can gain access to them. I am not suggesting that the answer is to simplify everything to the point of caricaturing the truth. What I want to see is clarity, comprehension and communication. Bear these in mind, and the good preacher will not go far astray.

Finally, the third element in a good sermon is application. If you have good exegesis and excellent theology but cannot apply it to the needs and concerns of your hearers, then you are not only wasting your time, you are confirming your congregation’s worst fears - that theology and everything to do with it is basically irrelevant to everyday life. I believe that this has been a major problem in Britain over the past generation. If you want to know why so many Evangelicals have gone charismatic, you really do not have to look any further than the so-called Neo-Puritan movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The greatest representatives of this School - Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, for example, or Dr Jim Packer - never had any trouble in gaining and keeping an audience. But their myriad disciples killed it with lifeless imitations. Often the only thing such people’s sermons have in common with those of Dr Lloyd-Jones is their extraordinary length, and this is not what people want. Unable to find spiritual satisfaction in long-winded messages, they went for easier options - the quick-fix blessing and a licence to behave absurdly in public without attracting any laughter or negative comments.

An ability to communicate is essential to any good preacher, and it is the ultimate test of any theology. Is this, or is this not changing my life? If the answer is no, then forget it - it is not the real thing. It will be apparent from this, I hope, that the last thing I have in mind is pandering to the wishes of the congregation. No preacher is there merely to tickle the ears of his people or to satisfy them with the platitudes and prejudices which they already believe. True preaching must be a challenge - not a destructive, iconoclastic harangue which does nothing but reinforce the preacher’s sense of spiritual superiority in their own eyes, and give the people the unspoken conviction that he or she is really a hypocrite, but a penetrating and positive analysis of the human heart which is primarily designed to heal and restore, not to uproot and condemn. This can only be achieved if the preacher is conscious that in the first instance preaching is always preaching to oneself, because the preacher needs to hear the word of grace every bit as much as those who come to listen do. Being convicted by their own words is the ultimate test both of truth and of communicability, for what will come across more than anything else is the sense that here we are dealing with a person of a humble and a contrite heart.

This is a tall order, but ultimately the only way to rescue theology, whether it is from the theologians or from anyone else, is to live it out in a convincing way. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and while none of us is perfect, each of us has the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts by faith, and therefore the potential for turning abstract theory into a living and vibrant reality.

Well, I have given you quite a bit to chew over and no doubt also more than a little to react to. My brief was to rescue theology from the theologians, or at least to point out how this might be achieved. Whether I have succeeded in offering a way forward, only time and experience will tell. May God bless you as you seek to serve him more deeply in your life, and as you strive to grow more fully into the image of him who alone is the way, the truth and the life.

© 1999 Gerald Bray

Every Man Must Be A Theologian (John H Gerstner)

Dr. John H. Gerstner earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and pastored several churches before accepting a professorship at Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary, where he taught church history for over 30 years. He served as a visiting professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and adjunct professor at Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Dr. Gerstner was also professor-at-large for Ligonier Ministries for many years. I first became acquainted with him through our common interest in Jonathan Edwards. At a time when I was reading Edwards' works (the two volumes published by Banner of Truth Trust), it came to my knowledge that Dr Gerstner was actually working on editing the vast material of Edwards which were yet unpublished then. I subsequently had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by Dr Gerstner himself on (you guess it) Jonathan Edwards. Since then, as and when I am able to locate an article or an essay by Dr Gerstner, I will make it a point to read it. I have found his writings always "heart-warming", down-to-earth, and very readable. He has the ability to also make some very profound Biblical truths simple enough for ordinary Christians. This article is one such example. It forms the introductory chapter of his book, Theology for Everyman (Chicago: Moody Press, 1965).

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Laymen sometimes think they need not be theologians. That, however, is a very great mistake.

They do need to be theologians; at least, they should be amateur theologians. In fact, that is the one vocation every man is obliged to follow. A layman does not need to be a plumber, a carpenter, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, a laborer, a housewife. These are all possibilities, not necessities. A layman may be one of these or the other as he chooses. But he must be a theologian. This is not an option with him but a requirement.

A Theologian Is One Who Knows About God
Why do we say that a layman must be a theologian? Well, let us first of all realize what a theologian is — that is, an amateur theologian. A theologian is a person who knows about God. A lay theologian is a person who has a true knowledge of God which he understands in nontechnical, nonprofessional, nonacademic terms. However, such a person is truly a theologian. Is it not clear why a layman must necessarily be a theologian? Is there anyone, layman or otherwise, who does not need to know God? Does the Scripture not say, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent” (John 17:3)? It is, then, no mere option with a layman whether he will be a theologian or not, whether he will have eternal life or not; it is no option with him whether he will know God or not. The knowledge of God is necessary to eternal life. And if eternal life is necessary for every man, then theology is also necessary for every man.

If a theologian is a person who knows God, then by reverse reasoning a person who is not a theologian does not know God. There is no shame in a layman‘s being told that he does not know carpentry, or plumbing, or medicine, or law, or teaching, or the ways of a housewife; but there surely is the greatest of shame in a layman‘s being told that he does not know God. Furthermore, there is more than shame; there is very great danger. The Scripture says that to live apart from God is death. And just as the text quoted says it is life eternal to know God and Christ, another passage in the same book says that they who do not believe in Jesus shall not see life and, furthermore, the wrath of God abides upon them: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

“Well,” the layman may say, “look here, you‘ve slipped in a new term on us. That last passage talks about faith and not knowledge. It says except a person ‘believe‘ in the Son. It does not say anything there about ‘knowing‘ Jesus.” That is true, the passage does not use the word “know.” It does speak about “belief” or “faith” rather than “knowledge” or “reason.” But have you ever believed in somebody or something about which you knew nothing? Is it possible to have faith in Christ unless we know who Christ is? Is it not clear, therefore, that this passage, though it does not state expressly the necessity of the knowledge of Christ, certainly states it implicitly? So, we say that if a person does not have a knowledge of God and Christ it is not only a shame but a peril to his soul, not only in this life but in the eternity which begins at death.

Everyman May Be a Theologian Without Being Saved!
“But,” the layman exclaims, “do you mean to tell me that if I do not have the knowledge of God I shall perish, and that if I do have the knowledge of God I will live forever? Do you mean to tell me that if I am a lay theologian all is well with my soul, whereas if I am not I am doomed forever?” No, we have not said exactly that. Let me call your attention to what we did actually say, and then let me add a comment relevant to one of your questions. We did say that without knowledge of God there is no eternal life, but only eternal death. That is true. And we did say that if we do not know God and Christ we will perish. That is true. However, it needs to be brought out now that there is knowledge and knowledge. The knowledge of which the Scripture speaks so approvingly we may call “saving knowledge.” But we gather from other passages of Scripture which we have not yet cited that there is also a false knowledge which, far from being saving knowledge, is actually damning knowledge. But it seems to me we are now ready for a closer consideration of this theme. Let me, therefore, lay down this statement and devote the rest of this chapter to demonstrating it. The statement is this: A layman may have knowledge of God and not be saved, but he can never be saved without knowledge of God.

There is much to show that a layman may have theology without having salvation, For one thing, the Bible says in many places that frequently persons have a knowledge about God but do not know God. Thus, for example, the Scripture exhorts us to be not only hearers of the Word but doers also (cf. James 1:22).

This implies that it is possible to hear, or learn, or know, without doing. It goes on to tell us that only the doing of the Word is profitable, again carrying the implication that persons may hear the Word and understand it without actually doing it and therefore without being profitable.

Again, Paul speaks in Romans of those who hold the truth in unrighteousness (1:18). That is the same as to say that some persons know God (and indeed in this very context Paul does speak of knowing God) and yet do not worship Him nor are they being saved by Him. So, we learn that while their knowledge is sufficient to condemn them, they are not saved by it.

In the parable of the sower and the seed recorded in Matthew 13, our Lord tells of differing responses to the presentation of the gospel. While the wayside soil represents those persons who seem virtually not to hear what is preached, or not to learn what they are taught, still the other two types of useless soil represent persons who do hear and do understand but who nevertheless do not bring forth fruit. Thus the shallow, rocky soil does represent a person who receives the Word, as Jesus says. He receives it with gladness and even seems to respond favorably to it for a while. But when he is beset by difficulties, he repudiates the knowledge which he does have. So we see in his case an individual who knows but does not do, who understands the way of salvation but does not attain to salvation. The thorny soil represents a person who understands and apparently even very deliberately understands and accepts the message but whose knowledge is crushed out in the subsequent contest between that message and his lusts, which are represented by thorns in the soil. But there can be no doubt that he not only has knowledge but deep and penetrating and not merely superficial knowledge. Nonetheless, his knowledge is choked out and the man does not obtain to salvation.

There are many other instances of the possibility of knowing the truth without being saved. But we will take one, that of the Pharisees, and use it as our prime exhibit. The layman will immediately say, “Ah, but the Pharisees were religious teachers and cannot fairly be called laymen.” This we admit. But we will also go on to insist that our point is certified all the more by the fact that the Pharisees, as professional theologians, had even greater knowledge than laymen could be expected to have — and yet the Pharisees perished. Remember, we are attempting to show that it is possible to have theological knowledge without being saved. If we can show that one who is regarded as a professional (who has far more religious knowledge than a layman may be expected to have) may yet perish, how much more evident is it that any knowledge that a layman can reasonably be expected to obtain can by no means guarantee his salvation. Jesus approved of the Pharisees in many ways because they attempted to honor Moses‘ law — and often did — and teach his precepts to the people. However, they came under Christ‘s withering indictment, “Woe unto you Pharisees, hypocrites,” so often that we are led to believe that as a class these highly knowledgeable individuals were not practitioners of their science and therefore were doomed to condemnation. Jesus said to them, “How can you escape the damnation of hell?” (Matt. 23:33).

Everyman Cannot Be Saved Without Being a Theologian!
If the above is enough to indicate that persons may have divine knowledge without being saved, let us on to indicate the still more pertinent truth — that no one can be saved without the knowledge of divine truth or theology. This is stated very explicitly in Romans 10:17. Here Paul says, “Faith cometh by hearing.” That is as much as to affirm that there can be no belief except first the Word of the gospel is proclaimed. The context of this explicit statement confirms that implication. It is a missionary context in which Paul is urging Christians to take the gospel to the world, reminding them that if they do not do so these people cannot be saved — because faith comes by hearing. In I Corinthians we read that it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save men. Again, says Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). And, after commanding the disciples to teach whatsoever He had taught them, our Lord Jesus commissioned them to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19-20). That is the same as to say that it is by means of the faithful proclamation of the whole counsel of God that the world is to be discipled to Jesus Christ. Consider again how our Lord prays in His farewell discourse, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). In this final prayer for those who were not yet of His fold but who were to come into His fold, our Lord prayed that they might be made holy by means of the Word of God. Though the Spirit of God was to be given anew as soon as Christ went to Heaven, even the Holy Spirit was not to sanctify except by means of the Word of God. So that while the letter of the Word may be devoid of the Spirit and therefore futile, the Spirit does not work savingly apart from the Word. The Word is called “the sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17) Again, in II Thessalonians 2:13 we read, “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” There we are told very plainly that even the eternal predestination of God is accomplished by the instrumentality of truth. People are not brought to life whether they know or do not know. They are not given salvation whether they believe the truth or not. On the contrary, God chose them to salvation through “belief of the truth.”

The Scripture abounds in so many passages which indicate this same truth that it seems to be laboring the matter unduly to add any further discussion of this emphatic point of the Bible. We may safely conclude that though men may know the truth and not be saved, they cannot be saved except they know the truth.

My dear laymen, laymen must be theologians. No, they need not be professional theologians. They need not study Greek and Hebrew. They need not necessarily be able to teach other people. But they must he theologians. That is, they must know God. They must have sound knowledge about God. They may not excuse themselves from having clear and correct opinions about the Deity on the ground that they are not ordained to full-time church work but have been called to some other service.

The duty to be theologians is common to all of us. The difference at this point between laymen and ministers is a difference not of kind but of degree. It is an error of Rome which teaches that there is a difference of kind between priests and people. With the Bible, the Protestant church teaches that the Bible itself was given not solely to the clergy but to all the people of God. We of the clergy have greater obligation, not sole obligation. So far as time permits, and to the degree that your obligations to this world allow, in that measure must you be familiar with the truth of God. For that knowledge, God will hold you responsible in the day of judgment. While you need not read this book or any other particular book except the Book, the Word of God itself, I hope you will read this book to help you in your study of the Bible and in your gaining a sound knowledge of God. But I remind you that while this book may give you some knowledge of God by means of which you may be saved, this book and no other book (indeed, not even the Bible itself) can save you. This truth of God must be loved, must be embraced, and must be yielded to if the person who has saving knowledge is to be saved by it. One theologian has written that it is not enough to “understand” but you must also “stand under.” For the truth of God is a Person — a Person who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). A true theologian, therefore, is a person who knows The Person. Everyman must be a theologian.

Xmas and Christmas (C S Lewis)

This essay by Lewis remains one of my all-time favourites at Christmas not only for its wit and humour but also for the profound and serious message it conveys to me, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, about the true meaning of Christmas. Its brilliance has not been lost on me all these years and I thought it an appropriate time to have it posted here with Christmas just a few days away. I first heard this essay read by someone who happened to have a copy of it. When I was able finally to get my hands on it some years later, I made it a point to introduce it to others. Once, I actually had the whole essay printed for a Church newsletter. Lewis’ short essay did make me think seriously about whether I should stop sending Christmas cards (which, fortunately or unfortunately, I have), and even whether I should celebrate Christmas in the way most Christians and Churches do. I confess that Christmas does not hold the same place I use to accord it when I was a younger Christian. By the way, a key to unlocking who Lewis was writing about is the word “Niatirb” which, if reversed, spells “Britain” (just in case you did not notice). This essay is published as "Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter From Herodotus" in C S Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 301-303.

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And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival; guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest, and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchaser’s become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, “It is not lawful, O stranger, for us to change the date of Chrissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.” And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, “It is, O Stranger, a racket”; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

Copyright©1970 by the Trustees of the Estate of C S Lewis

The Weight of Glory - Part 2 (C S Lewis)

This is the second part of Lewis’ sermon on “The Weight of Glory”. If you have not read the previous post, please do so before you read this. The sermon is published as “The Weight In Glory” in C S Lewis: Screwtape Proposes A Toast And Other Pieces (Collins: 1977), pp 94-110.

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The promises of Scripture may very roughly be reduced to five heads. It is promised, firstly, that we shall be with Christ; secondly, that we shall be like Him; thirdly, with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have “glory”; fourthly, that we shall, in some sense, be
fed or feasted or entertained; and, finally, that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe – ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God’s temple. The first question I ask about these promises is: “Why any of them except the first?” Can anything be added to the conception of being with Christ? For it must be true, as an old writer says, that he who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only. I think the answer turns again on the nature of symbols. For though it may escape our notice at first glance, yet it is true that any conception of being with Christ which most of us can now form will be not very much less symbolical than the other promises; for it will smuggle in ideas of proximity in space and loving conversation as we now understand conversation, and it will probably concentrate on the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of His deity. And, in fact, we find that those Christians who attend solely to this first promise always do fill it up with very earthly imagery indeed – in fact, with hymeneal or erotic imagery. I am not for a moment condemning such imagery. I heartily wish I could enter into it more deeply than I do, and pray that I yet shall. But my point is that this also is only a symbol, like the reality in some respects, but unlike it in others, and therefore needs correction from the different symbols in the other promises. The variation of the promises does not mean that anything other than God will be our ultimate bliss; but because God is more than a Person, and lest we should imagine the joy of His presence too exclusively in terms of our present poor experience of personal love, with all its narrowness and strain and monotony, a dozen changing images, correcting and relieving each other, are supplied.

I turn next to the idea of glory. There is no getting away from the fact that this idea is very prominent in the New Testament and in early Christian writings. Salvation is constantly associated with palms, crowns, white robes, thrones, and splendour like the sun and stars. All this makes no immediate appeal to me at all, and in that respect I fancy I am a typical modern. Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. As for the first, since to be famous means to be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become a kind of living electric light bulb?

When I began to look into this matter I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures – fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation” by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child – not in a conceited child, but in a good child – as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse. Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years, prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures – nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment – a very, very short moment – before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero’s book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; “it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.” I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

And now notice what is happening. If I had rejected the authoritative and scriptural image of glory and stuck obstinately to the vague desire which was, at the outset, my only pointer to heaven, I could have seen no connection at all between that desire and the Christian promise. But now, having followed up what seemed puzzling and repellent in the sacred books, I find, to my great surprise, looking back, that the connection is perfectly clear. Glory, as Christianity teaches me to hope for it, turns out to satisfy my original desire and indeed to reveal an element in that desire which I had not noticed. By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants I have begun to learn better what I really wanted. When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.

Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being “noticed” by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament. St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him (I Cor. viii. 3). It is a strange promise. Does not God know all things at all times? But it is dreadfully reechoed in another passage of the New Testament. There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: “I never knew you. Depart from Me.” In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside – repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities. Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.

And this brings me to the other sense of glory – glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more – something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves – that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch. For you must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.

And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life. At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes – through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God’s creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will “flow over” into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading – thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body was made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

The Weight of Glory - Part 1 (C S Lewis)

It may surprise you to know that there are more serious treatments of “hell and judgement” than “heaven”. A quick browse at the index of most modern systematic theologies tell the tale. Robert L Reymond’s A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith lists “hell” but not “heaven”. Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology devotes four pages to “hell” but only one page to “heaven”. Stanley Grenz’s Theology for the Community of God has fourteen pages on “judgment and hell”, and “heaven” is barely mentioned. Leon Morris’ New Testament Theology does not list “heaven” in the index. The older systematic theologies fare no better. W G T Shedd’s Dogmatic Theology assigns eighty-seven pages to “eternal punishment” but only two pages to “heaven”. The Beveridge edition of John Calvin’s Institutes lists “hell” but not “heaven”. The greatest work ever on “heaven”, it is said, is Richard Baxter’s The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, written way back in 1650! The best modern treatment is Wilbur Smith’s The Biblical Doctrine of Heaven written in 1968. It would seem, therefore, that good serious treatments on the subject of “heaven” are rare. They are even rarer these days!

C S Lewis has probably written more on the subject of heaven than most modern theologians. His treatments are sprinkled all over his various books (for example, Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, The Great Divorce), including The Chronicles of Narnia (especially the last few chapters of “The Last Battle”). But the most famous of his treatments is a sermon entitled, “The Weight of Glory” preached in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on June 8, 1942. While understandably not a full treatment of the subject, it is nevertheless a brave one as Lewis attempts to stir up in us a yearning for heaven. He also lays bare some of our misconceptions of eternal rewards which I find helpful. Last but not least, his “evangelistic” challenge at the end is one we need to take more to heart.

The sermon is published as “The Weight In Glory” in C S Lewis: Screwtape Proposes A Toast And Other Pieces (Collins: 1977), pp 94-110.

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If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. There is also a third case, which is more complicated. An enjoyment of Greek poetry is certainly a proper, and not a mercenary, reward for learning Greek; but only those who have reached the stage of enjoying Greek poetry can tell from their own experience that this is so. The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just in so far as he approaches the reward that be becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward.

The Christian, in relation to heaven, is in much the same position as this schoolboy. Those who have attained everlasting life in the vision of God doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship; but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it at all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognized as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship.

But there is one other important similarity between the schoolboy and ourselves. If he is an imaginative boy he will, quite probably, be revelling in the English poets and romancers suitable to his age some time before he begins to suspect that Greek grammar is going to lead him to more and more enjoyments of this same sort. He may even be neglecting his Greek to read Shelley and Swinburne in secret. In other words, the desire which Greek is really going to gratify already exists in him and is attached to objects which seem to him quite unconnected with Xenophon and the verbs in μι. Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object. And this, I think, is just what we find. No doubt there is one point in which my analogy of the schoolboy breaks down. The English poetry which he reads when he ought to be doing Greek exercises may be just as good as the Greek poetry to which the exercises are leading him, so that in fixing on Milton instead of journeying on to Aeschylus his desire is not embracing a false object. But our case is very different. If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy.

In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such philosophies of Progress or Creative Evolution themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that earth can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in earth as it is. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a good way off in the future, thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever. Hence all the nonsense that Mr. Shaw puts into the final speech of Lilith, and Bergson’s remark that the élan vital is capable of surmounting all obstacles, perhaps even death—as if we could believe that any social or biological development on this planet will delay the senility of the sun or reverse the second law of thermodynamics.

Do what they will, then, we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? “Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.” But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world.

Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies. Our sacred books give us some account of the object. It is, of course, a symbolical account. Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience. The scriptural picture of heaven is therefore just as symbolical as the picture which our desire, unaided, invents for itself; heaven is not really full of jewelry any more than it is really the beauty of Nature, or a fine piece of music. The difference is that the scriptural imagery has authority. It comes to us from writers who were closer to God than we, and it has stood the test of Christian experience down the centuries. The natural appeal of this authoritative imagery is to me, at first, very small. At first sight it chills, rather than awakes, my desire. And that is just what I ought to expect. If Christianity could tell me no more of the far-off land than my own temperament led me to surmise already, then Christianity would be no higher than myself. If it has more to give me, I must expect it to be less immediately attractive than “my own stuff.” Sophocles at first seems dull and cold to the boy who has only reached Shelley. If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.

End of Part 1