November 18, 2009: Toward A Robust View Of God’s Sovereignty: The Fatal Flaw In Tim Keller’s Grace Narrative
I’m a big Tim Keller fan, and enjoy reading whatever the brilliant pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan writes. For a while now I’ve been recommending his book The Reason For God as the best nonfiction I’ve seen in years. But after reading a bold article by John Piper taking on C. S. Lewis (Hey! Who does Piper think he is?), I’m feeling bold myself this morning, and so will bleat a theological complaint I’ve had for a while against Keller.
I object to Keller’s grace rhetoric. Not that I am against grace – heavens no! I favor magnifying, and oppose diminishing, the role of God’s grace in the salvation of our souls. All I want to do is point out an area where grace rhetoric tends to dismiss - or perhaps just overlook - the claims of divine sovereignty.
In his essay “The Advent of Humility” in the December 22, 2008 issue of Christianity Today, Keller writes,
There are two basic narrative identities at work among professing Christians. The first is what I will call the moral-performance narrative identity. These are people who in their heart of hearts say, I obey; therefore I am accepted by God. The second is what I will call the grace narrative identity. This basic operating principle is, I am accepted by God through Christ; therefore I obey.
The problem here is that Keller ties human obedience to acceptance by God, whether as a motive (“I’ll obey so that God will accept me”) or as a reason (“I’ll obey because God has accepted me”). It seems to me that Keller sets up these alternatives as a binary choice. That is, he does not say there are three narrative identities, or fifty, but two, both of which comprehend obedience as something inextricably bound to God’s acceptance of us. It’s just a question of which comes first, or which drives the other, or which serves as the other’s foundation.
But I believe it is best to take obedience off the acceptance grid altogether, and let “acceptance by God” be irrelevant for determining either the motive for or the cause of our submission to him. God should be obeyed because he is God, because as Creator he has the sovereign right to command (and we have the corresponding obligation to obey) whether or not he accepts us, whether or not he shows us grace. I’ll call this the “sovereignty narrative identity.”
It is possible to embrace the sovereignty narrative as the ground for all of one’s moral obligations. C. S. Lewis did that before he ever became a Christian! In 1929 he reluctantly came to believe in God (though he did not yet believe in Jesus or the afterlife), and immediately recognized that he had to submit to the commands of the Absolute. He bowed the knee to the Ultimate and Personal God even though he knew nothing of grace nor approval nor reward in connection with that God.
Years later in Surprised By Joy Lewis wrote, “The commands were inexorable, but they were backed by no 'sanctions.' God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since,…He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do for us but for what it is in itself…If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, ‘I am.’”
That is exactly correct. The answer is not “Because then I will approve of you,” nor “Because I have received you with grace,” but rather “Because I am God.” It is good that we let grace motivate our gratitude and praise and affection, but when we let it motivate our obedience we come perilously close to diminishing - if not dismissing - the divine demand for submission that knows no other foundation than the sovereign rule of God. Obey God even if he hasn’t shown you grace and never will. Obey God even if you are damned! Who are you to hope for (or respond to) some kind of approval before you’ll obey? Obedience must not concern itself with what it can get (or has already gotten) out of God.
Lewis expresses the value of the sovereignty narrative in a wonderfully provocative spiritual exercise where he writes, “I think it is well, even now, sometimes to say to ourselves, ‘God is such that if (though it’s impossible) his power could vanish and His other attributes remain, so that the supreme right were forever robbed of the supreme might, we should still owe Him precisely the same kind and degree of allegiance as we now do.’” That is right. We would have to obey God even if he couldn’t lavish upon us the benefits of his grace.
Think about it in terms of the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 – a favorite story of Keller and other “grace narrative” preachers. (See Keller’s mostly excellent book, The Prodigal God, an extended sermon on this parable.) Imagine an alternate ending in which the son returns from his disastrous experiment in loose living and sees from afar that his father’s farm is in ruins. He is told that his father has lost everything and is in poor health. Now he knows that not only will his father not clothe him in finery and throw him a party - he won't even be able to give him a servant's job. What should the son do now?
He should proceed to the house and fall at his father’s feet and beg forgiveness anyway! Why? Because that is his father. It does not matter whether the father chooses to show him grace, or even (contra the story and contra divine reality) he is even capable of showering him with tangible signs of it. It is enough that the man is his father and that he is good. His grace and his power to manifest grace in pleasing ways are glorious things to celebrate, but they are quite beside the point when it comes to the question of why a son should submit to his father’s will.
Permit one more illustration of this idea:
Suppose we ask some men, “Why are you faithful to your wives?” One answers, “Because if I’m faithful to her, then she’ll be faithful to me.” That’s the performance narrative. I do this good thing and have a right to expect her approval and response. Another man says, “I’m faithful to her because she has already been so good to me! How could I not be faithful to someone so kind and dear?” That’s the grace narrative. It sounds a lot better, but I still don’t like it.
Most accurately, a man must be faithful to his wife simply because she’s his wife! That’s the sovereignty narrative. It understands that the institution of marriage itself holds sovereign claim over a man’s obligation to faithfulness. Neither the wife’s anticipated response nor her gracious initiative are granted any relevance in the matter. (They are relevant to a good many other things, but not as motives or inspirations for fidelity.) Thus a good man who is happily married might say, “Well it is certainly true that she is loving and kind and gracious and that she would never cheat on me in a million years. But that’s another matter, and it doesn’t answer your question. I’m faithful to her because she’s my wife. I can’t cheat on a wife.”
Be like that with God. Obey him because he is God.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
November 10, 2009: But Didn’t Jesus Forgive The Unrepentant?
It sure looks like Jesus forgave unrepentant people while he hung on the cross. He prayed “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). The first martyr, Stephen, said much the same as he was being stoned to death: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60). These may be the two most remarkable utterances ever spoken by man. Think about it: if you were a Fort Hood soldier bleeding to death on the ground last week from bullet wounds inflicted by Nadal Malik Hasan as he praised the hell-bound angel of darkness known as “Allah,” would you be saying, “Lord Jesus, forgive him”? Probably not. My instincts would not be to forgive the demon-spewing maggot but rather grab a gun so I could shoot him in the head.
But if, as his victim, I desired Hasan’s death rather than his absolution, I’d be in pretty good company with the martyred saints of Revelation 6. They pray to God saying “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the earth and avenge our blood?” (Verse 10). What an interesting prayer! If Christians are always supposed to forgive the unrepentant - if Jesus’ and Stephen’s requests are the norm and our refusal to forgive displeases God - then these saints’ petition should certainly meet with divine rebuke. But they don’t. Instead, the next verse indicates that God approves of their prayer for vengeance: “Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.” (Verse 11).
Funny thing God doesn’t say to them, “What a shoddy bunch of saints you are! Why can’t you just forgive your killers the way my Son did, the way Stephen did? Haven’t you learned that you’re supposed to be nice to people who murder you?”
The question that intrigues me is how to reconcile Jesus’ and Stephen’s remarkable plea for forgiveness with the saints’ more natural plea for vengeance. Is there any way for both to be right?
I think a big piece of the explanation (there are probably other pieces I’m missing) concerns knowledge. Knowledge matters. It is true that Jesus said “Father forgive them,” but it is also true that he immediately gave the mitigating circumstance: for they do not know what they are doing.
These people did not know they were crucifying the Son of God. They (or at least many of them) thought they were doing a good thing: they were ridding the land of a dangerous heretic. They were ignorant. They would have done differently if they had known better. About 20 years later the Apostle Paul explained that if the rulers of this age had understood God’s wisdom, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Corinthians 2:8). And he could know that for sure because he himself had once been one of the ignorant! He told Timothy that though he was once a “blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man,” he was shown mercy “because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.” (1 Timothy 1:13).
But what if Paul had acted not out of “ignorance and unbelief” but with full knowledge that he was doing the devil’s work? Would he then have received preemptive grace, grace that opens the door ahead of time by crediting a possible future repentance? I don’t think so. In fact, I believe we have a biblical control that answers this thought experiment for us: Judas. People who crucified Jesus did not know what they were doing, and were pardoned, whereas Judas, who spent three years with Jesus and knew exactly what he was doing, was condemned. (Jesus even said it would have been better for him if he had never been born – Matthew 26:24.)
This theme of “He doesn’t know any better – let it pass” versus “He does know better – let him be condemned!” occurs a lot in Scripture.
For example, in Acts 17, Paul tells Gentile pagans that they shouldn’t think that “the divine being is like gold or silver or stone,” (verse 29), and that “In the past God overlooked such ignorance”. He did? God sure didn’t overlook it when the Israelites worshipped idols! That nation was judged a lot, and harshly, for worshipping gods of wood, metal and stone. But meanwhile Gentiles “got away with it” because at the time they didn’t know any better (until now: Paul continues, “but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” – verse 30).
Or consider the deliberate double standard in 1 Corinthians 5:9-11. Paul doesn’t mind it in the least if you associate with sexually immoral greedy swindling idolators – as long as they are unbelievers who don’t know any better. But if they’re Christians and behave like that, then you are supposed to shun them to the point of not even sitting at the same table with them. They should know better. They don’t get forgiven (or even tolerated) until they repent.
That same chapter tells the ugly story of a supposedly Christian Corinthian man who was sleeping with his stepmother. Paul does not command forgiveness for this unrepentant pervert but rather excommunication. It’s a last-ditch effort to try to bring him around. Those who would forgive the unrepentant fornicator would not be doing him any spiritual favor, but rather enabling a “sin unto death” (see 1 John 5:16) that would imperil the man’s soul.
In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul orders the forgiveness of a man who has been restored to fellowship after being punished. (Whether it's the same man we don't know). Paul writes, "The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow." (Verses 6 and 7). Whatever the circumstances of this man's punishment and restoration, it should be noted that Paul's instructions concerning him are utterly incompatible with the doctrine that we must forgive people no matter what they do, even if they don't repent. If that were true, then Paul would not be instructing the Corinthians to forgive this man, but rebuking them for not having done so already!
The forgiveness of wicked men that Jesus offered while on the cross and that Stephen uttered while being stoned to death are not normative in all circumstances. They are limited to particular ones - especially those in which ignorance plays a part. Most of the time, badness must be rebuked and turned away from before we can forgive it.
It sure looks like Jesus forgave unrepentant people while he hung on the cross. He prayed “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). The first martyr, Stephen, said much the same as he was being stoned to death: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60). These may be the two most remarkable utterances ever spoken by man. Think about it: if you were a Fort Hood soldier bleeding to death on the ground last week from bullet wounds inflicted by Nadal Malik Hasan as he praised the hell-bound angel of darkness known as “Allah,” would you be saying, “Lord Jesus, forgive him”? Probably not. My instincts would not be to forgive the demon-spewing maggot but rather grab a gun so I could shoot him in the head.
But if, as his victim, I desired Hasan’s death rather than his absolution, I’d be in pretty good company with the martyred saints of Revelation 6. They pray to God saying “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the earth and avenge our blood?” (Verse 10). What an interesting prayer! If Christians are always supposed to forgive the unrepentant - if Jesus’ and Stephen’s requests are the norm and our refusal to forgive displeases God - then these saints’ petition should certainly meet with divine rebuke. But they don’t. Instead, the next verse indicates that God approves of their prayer for vengeance: “Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.” (Verse 11).
Funny thing God doesn’t say to them, “What a shoddy bunch of saints you are! Why can’t you just forgive your killers the way my Son did, the way Stephen did? Haven’t you learned that you’re supposed to be nice to people who murder you?”
The question that intrigues me is how to reconcile Jesus’ and Stephen’s remarkable plea for forgiveness with the saints’ more natural plea for vengeance. Is there any way for both to be right?
I think a big piece of the explanation (there are probably other pieces I’m missing) concerns knowledge. Knowledge matters. It is true that Jesus said “Father forgive them,” but it is also true that he immediately gave the mitigating circumstance: for they do not know what they are doing.
These people did not know they were crucifying the Son of God. They (or at least many of them) thought they were doing a good thing: they were ridding the land of a dangerous heretic. They were ignorant. They would have done differently if they had known better. About 20 years later the Apostle Paul explained that if the rulers of this age had understood God’s wisdom, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Corinthians 2:8). And he could know that for sure because he himself had once been one of the ignorant! He told Timothy that though he was once a “blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man,” he was shown mercy “because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.” (1 Timothy 1:13).
But what if Paul had acted not out of “ignorance and unbelief” but with full knowledge that he was doing the devil’s work? Would he then have received preemptive grace, grace that opens the door ahead of time by crediting a possible future repentance? I don’t think so. In fact, I believe we have a biblical control that answers this thought experiment for us: Judas. People who crucified Jesus did not know what they were doing, and were pardoned, whereas Judas, who spent three years with Jesus and knew exactly what he was doing, was condemned. (Jesus even said it would have been better for him if he had never been born – Matthew 26:24.)
This theme of “He doesn’t know any better – let it pass” versus “He does know better – let him be condemned!” occurs a lot in Scripture.
For example, in Acts 17, Paul tells Gentile pagans that they shouldn’t think that “the divine being is like gold or silver or stone,” (verse 29), and that “In the past God overlooked such ignorance”. He did? God sure didn’t overlook it when the Israelites worshipped idols! That nation was judged a lot, and harshly, for worshipping gods of wood, metal and stone. But meanwhile Gentiles “got away with it” because at the time they didn’t know any better (until now: Paul continues, “but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” – verse 30).
Or consider the deliberate double standard in 1 Corinthians 5:9-11. Paul doesn’t mind it in the least if you associate with sexually immoral greedy swindling idolators – as long as they are unbelievers who don’t know any better. But if they’re Christians and behave like that, then you are supposed to shun them to the point of not even sitting at the same table with them. They should know better. They don’t get forgiven (or even tolerated) until they repent.
That same chapter tells the ugly story of a supposedly Christian Corinthian man who was sleeping with his stepmother. Paul does not command forgiveness for this unrepentant pervert but rather excommunication. It’s a last-ditch effort to try to bring him around. Those who would forgive the unrepentant fornicator would not be doing him any spiritual favor, but rather enabling a “sin unto death” (see 1 John 5:16) that would imperil the man’s soul.
In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul orders the forgiveness of a man who has been restored to fellowship after being punished. (Whether it's the same man we don't know). Paul writes, "The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow." (Verses 6 and 7). Whatever the circumstances of this man's punishment and restoration, it should be noted that Paul's instructions concerning him are utterly incompatible with the doctrine that we must forgive people no matter what they do, even if they don't repent. If that were true, then Paul would not be instructing the Corinthians to forgive this man, but rebuking them for not having done so already!
The forgiveness of wicked men that Jesus offered while on the cross and that Stephen uttered while being stoned to death are not normative in all circumstances. They are limited to particular ones - especially those in which ignorance plays a part. Most of the time, badness must be rebuked and turned away from before we can forgive it.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
November 3, 2009: God’s Prerequisites For Forgiveness
Suppose you are a sinner and you ask some Christian pastor what you have to do to be forgiven by God. What do you think he would say?
Specific answers would vary from pastor to pastor of course. But probably all of them would talk about confessing your sin and turning from it. I think I would quote 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I’d mention the tax collector who cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” and the crucified criminal who said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Both men received forgiveness from God. The God we worship stands eager to forgive all who despise their sin and confess it to him.
But imagine now a pastor who responds, “Oh, no, no, no, you misunderstand! You don’t have to do anything to be forgiven by God. You don’t have to say anything, confess anything, believe anything, turn from anything, or even think anything. That is because he has already forgiven you! It’s a terrible mistake to think you’ve got to admit fault or be sorry for what you did. And you certainly don’t have to change your behavior, or even intend to change it. In fact, you could even say to God, ‘I don’t want your forgiveness' - and he would still forgive you anyway! That is because God forgives the unrepentant. He just forgives everybody no matter what they do.”
Those of you who love the Bible would recoil in horror, because you know that that is not how God forgives. It really takes very little investigation to discern that the Bible teaches - with vigorous consistency - that the unrepentant wicked are condemned while the humbly penitent are shown grace. This theme shines on practically every page of Scripture in one form or another.
Which is why it continues to amaze me that so many Christian teachers insist that we ourselves must forgive people who sin grievously but who do not repent. A highly respected and nationally syndicated preacher said that in his sermon a couple weeks ago. I wonder if it will occur to him someday that he is unintentionally suggesting to his congregation that the way God forgives us is pretty shabby. We can do better than God! Though God insists on repentance, we should be much more loving than that.
In the March 9, 2005 issue of Christianity Today, Rev. R. T. Kendall actually said yes to the question “Can I forgive those who have betrayed me if they are not repentant?” He wrote, “If we wait for those who have hurt us to repent first, we will almost certainly wait for a long, long time.” Well, yes, we may indeed have to wait a long time – but that is exactly what God does! Sometimes he waits decades for us to come to our senses and bemoan our sin. Jesus compared his Father to the compassionate father in Luke 15 who patiently waited his prodigal son’s return, and who forgave the young man the instant he came back. Kendall, regrettably, finds such waiting inappropriate, because “We...give ourselves a justification to stay bitter the rest of our lives.” No we don’t - that’s the old sleight-of-hand I mentioned last week, the confusion that equates “forgiveness” with “releasing yourself from bitterness” (and therefore understands “not forgiving” as “choosing to remain bitter.”). But that is not what forgiveness means. Forgiveness is the act of canceling an offender’s debt regardless of how you feel about it. Just because you lack bitterness does not mean you have forgiven, and just because you still have angry feelings doesn’t mean you haven’t.
The basic template for forgiveness, divine and human, is laid down in Luke 17:3 where Jesus says, "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” The second “if” in that sentence must be allowed to stand as our Lord spoke it and not edited to “whether or not.” That is, Jesus did not say – nor would it have occurred to him to say - “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and whether or not he repents, forgive him.” The proper response to sin is rebuke, just as the proper (and gracious) response to repentance is forgiveness.
That point is nailed down in the next verse, where Jesus says, “If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." While our forgiveness should be inexhaustible, just like God’s, it should also be conditioned on the offender’s repentance, just like God’s.
Should there be any other strings attached to our grace? Absolutely. That is part of the lesson of the parable that Jesus told about forgiveness in Matthew 18:31-35. There a man owed a king a million dollars and couldn’t pay it. He begged for mercy and patience, and the king kindly forgave the debt completely (but conditionally, as we find out later). Then the same man went out and throttled a servant who only owed him a hundred dollars. The servant likewise pleaded for patience and mercy, but the man didn't give it. He had the servant thrown in debtor‘s prison.
When the king heard of the matter, he rescinded the original pardon that he had given the first man. There had been a string attached to it, a string which, verbalized, would sound like “Because I forgive you when you beg mercy from me, you must now forgive others when they beg mercy from you.”
Biblical forgiveness has conditions and strings which, when ignored, leave us with emotional mush rather than true grace. When you give no-strings-attached forgiveness to unrepentant people, you have not imitated your Father in heaven but rather simply enabled more wickedness and irresponsibility. And you may also have tempted yourself to wonder why God isn’t as nice and as loving as you.
I can imagine all kinds of objections to what I have written above (“But didn’t Jesus forgive unrepentant people from the cross?”), and will be happy to address those points next week.
Suppose you are a sinner and you ask some Christian pastor what you have to do to be forgiven by God. What do you think he would say?
Specific answers would vary from pastor to pastor of course. But probably all of them would talk about confessing your sin and turning from it. I think I would quote 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I’d mention the tax collector who cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” and the crucified criminal who said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Both men received forgiveness from God. The God we worship stands eager to forgive all who despise their sin and confess it to him.
But imagine now a pastor who responds, “Oh, no, no, no, you misunderstand! You don’t have to do anything to be forgiven by God. You don’t have to say anything, confess anything, believe anything, turn from anything, or even think anything. That is because he has already forgiven you! It’s a terrible mistake to think you’ve got to admit fault or be sorry for what you did. And you certainly don’t have to change your behavior, or even intend to change it. In fact, you could even say to God, ‘I don’t want your forgiveness' - and he would still forgive you anyway! That is because God forgives the unrepentant. He just forgives everybody no matter what they do.”
Those of you who love the Bible would recoil in horror, because you know that that is not how God forgives. It really takes very little investigation to discern that the Bible teaches - with vigorous consistency - that the unrepentant wicked are condemned while the humbly penitent are shown grace. This theme shines on practically every page of Scripture in one form or another.
Which is why it continues to amaze me that so many Christian teachers insist that we ourselves must forgive people who sin grievously but who do not repent. A highly respected and nationally syndicated preacher said that in his sermon a couple weeks ago. I wonder if it will occur to him someday that he is unintentionally suggesting to his congregation that the way God forgives us is pretty shabby. We can do better than God! Though God insists on repentance, we should be much more loving than that.
In the March 9, 2005 issue of Christianity Today, Rev. R. T. Kendall actually said yes to the question “Can I forgive those who have betrayed me if they are not repentant?” He wrote, “If we wait for those who have hurt us to repent first, we will almost certainly wait for a long, long time.” Well, yes, we may indeed have to wait a long time – but that is exactly what God does! Sometimes he waits decades for us to come to our senses and bemoan our sin. Jesus compared his Father to the compassionate father in Luke 15 who patiently waited his prodigal son’s return, and who forgave the young man the instant he came back. Kendall, regrettably, finds such waiting inappropriate, because “We...give ourselves a justification to stay bitter the rest of our lives.” No we don’t - that’s the old sleight-of-hand I mentioned last week, the confusion that equates “forgiveness” with “releasing yourself from bitterness” (and therefore understands “not forgiving” as “choosing to remain bitter.”). But that is not what forgiveness means. Forgiveness is the act of canceling an offender’s debt regardless of how you feel about it. Just because you lack bitterness does not mean you have forgiven, and just because you still have angry feelings doesn’t mean you haven’t.
The basic template for forgiveness, divine and human, is laid down in Luke 17:3 where Jesus says, "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” The second “if” in that sentence must be allowed to stand as our Lord spoke it and not edited to “whether or not.” That is, Jesus did not say – nor would it have occurred to him to say - “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and whether or not he repents, forgive him.” The proper response to sin is rebuke, just as the proper (and gracious) response to repentance is forgiveness.
That point is nailed down in the next verse, where Jesus says, “If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." While our forgiveness should be inexhaustible, just like God’s, it should also be conditioned on the offender’s repentance, just like God’s.
Should there be any other strings attached to our grace? Absolutely. That is part of the lesson of the parable that Jesus told about forgiveness in Matthew 18:31-35. There a man owed a king a million dollars and couldn’t pay it. He begged for mercy and patience, and the king kindly forgave the debt completely (but conditionally, as we find out later). Then the same man went out and throttled a servant who only owed him a hundred dollars. The servant likewise pleaded for patience and mercy, but the man didn't give it. He had the servant thrown in debtor‘s prison.
When the king heard of the matter, he rescinded the original pardon that he had given the first man. There had been a string attached to it, a string which, verbalized, would sound like “Because I forgive you when you beg mercy from me, you must now forgive others when they beg mercy from you.”
Biblical forgiveness has conditions and strings which, when ignored, leave us with emotional mush rather than true grace. When you give no-strings-attached forgiveness to unrepentant people, you have not imitated your Father in heaven but rather simply enabled more wickedness and irresponsibility. And you may also have tempted yourself to wonder why God isn’t as nice and as loving as you.
I can imagine all kinds of objections to what I have written above (“But didn’t Jesus forgive unrepentant people from the cross?”), and will be happy to address those points next week.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
October 27, 2009: A Lament Over The Woeful Subjectivizing Of Forgiveness
The following paragraph appeared in last week’s newspaper. What do you think of it?
Speaking publicly for the first time about his slain parents, Garrard McClendon said Friday that he has forgiven their killers. “Yes, my parents were murdered, but I have already forgiven the perpetrators,” the CLTV host told the Tribune. “I just want them to face justice.”
I don’t want to seem cold or unfeeling, so before I analyze McClendon’s statement let me say that he appears to be a very good man. I am deeply impressed that someone who has experienced such terrible grief can say that he has forgiven his parents’ murderers. I honor McClendon, and I wish him well.
But he’s not making any sense when he says, “I forgive the perpetrators - I just want them to face justice.” That is a contradiction in terms.
When contemplating forgiveness it is good to keep in mind the image the Bible uses for it. The Bible explains forgiveness in terms of canceling a debt. So, for example, if you owe me ten dollars, and I forgive you that debt, it means you don’t have to pay me the ten dollars anymore. But if I say, “I have forgiven your debt - I just want the ten dollars back,” you would be puzzled: “Wait - I don’t understand – are you forgiving me the debt or aren’t you?”
When we truly forgive someone it means that we don’t require payment for the debt, and we don’t demand that the individual face justice. That’s what it means to forgive.
Perhaps this can best be understood if we think about what we are asking for when we beg God to forgive us. If a sinner pleads mercy from God, he would not be comforted if God said, “I have forgiven you - but you’re still going to hell. Receiving my forgiveness doesn’t mean you don’t face my justice.” The sinner might respond, “Well, Lord - excuse me for not getting this - but just what do you mean when you say, 'I have forgiven you'?" And if the Lord answered, “I mean that I don’t bear you any personal animosity. I mean that, though you are going to hell, I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve just decided to let go of all that bitterness and anger and not let it weigh me down anymore. In fact, I have a real peace about this,” then the sinner would probably fall on his knees and beg for an upgrade. “Oh Lord, could you please give me the kind of forgiveness where I don’t go to hell?”
That in fact is the kind of forgiveness God offers. It is objective - blessedly so: “Therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1). God’s forgiveness is not simply a statement about God’s state of mind with regard to us. It is an objective and consequential canceling of debt, a removal of condemnation, a full satisfaction of justice. It benefits the sinner in (eternally) tangible ways, and stands as a model for how we should forgive. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." (Colossians 3:13).
But decades of sloppy preaching have subjectivized forgiveness to the point where, for many people, it no longer means an objective transaction where a debt is canceled or a sentence is overturned, but merely expresses the way the victim of an injustice feels.
How far this subjectivization goes may be illustrated by a sermon I heard last week by a nationally renowned preacher. He claimed that we can forgive people who are now dead. He explained that though you cannot be reconciled to a deceased person who (say) molested you when you were a child, you can still forgive him in the sense that you release him from your bitterness.
Well, ok, but the problem is that you can toss a bushelful of nonsense into that obscuring phrase “in the sense that.” I mean, I’m seven feet tall in the sense that feet are 10 inches long. I have a body fat index of 5 percent in the sense that all numbers are equal to their squares. You see how easy this is? Unless the phrase “in the sense that” legitimately connects to what follows, all it does (in theological discussions) is throw verbal cloaks over meaning shifts that rob words of their power and (eventually) doctrines of their orthodoxy.
Forgiveness is not (in any sense) a “letting go of personal bitterness.” We need to pick a different word or phrase for that (how about “letting go of personal bitterness”?). Then the word “forgive” can maintain its biblical force and magnitude. When we water down the word “forgive” to the point that, without fear of contradiction, we can speak of forgiving our debtors (but they had better pay up), forgiving our enemies (but I want them in jail), or forgiving great-granddad (though he’ll never know about it), then all we’ve done is put an inappropriately strong label on a subjective state of mind. And if we keep thinking of forgiveness in those vague, pastel terms, it won’t be long before the statement “God forgives vile sinners” loses all its wonder, glory and comfort.
Properly understood, the word “forgive” packs a wallop whose force must be protected from subjectivizing diminishment. Garrard McClendon has not forgiven his parents’ murderers – nor should he. God himself does not forgive unrepentant murderers, but sends them to hell (1 John 3:15; Revelation 21:8). We are not more righteous than God. And we can’t even theoretically forgive dead people (there are no biblical examples of this) - we can only stop thinking bitterly about them, which is a completely different thing.
When you forgive someone, you really and truly let him off the hook. It is not reflexive (you’re not letting yourself off the hook) but transitive (it’s something you do to someone else). It is not merely subjective (a spiritual task completed inside your own head) but objective as well (the offender reaps tangible benefit - like not owing you money any more, or seeing the charges against him dropped.)
And if your forgiveness is to be like God’s, it must insist on repentance, and it must be conditional. Seriously. More on that next week.
The following paragraph appeared in last week’s newspaper. What do you think of it?
Speaking publicly for the first time about his slain parents, Garrard McClendon said Friday that he has forgiven their killers. “Yes, my parents were murdered, but I have already forgiven the perpetrators,” the CLTV host told the Tribune. “I just want them to face justice.”
I don’t want to seem cold or unfeeling, so before I analyze McClendon’s statement let me say that he appears to be a very good man. I am deeply impressed that someone who has experienced such terrible grief can say that he has forgiven his parents’ murderers. I honor McClendon, and I wish him well.
But he’s not making any sense when he says, “I forgive the perpetrators - I just want them to face justice.” That is a contradiction in terms.
When contemplating forgiveness it is good to keep in mind the image the Bible uses for it. The Bible explains forgiveness in terms of canceling a debt. So, for example, if you owe me ten dollars, and I forgive you that debt, it means you don’t have to pay me the ten dollars anymore. But if I say, “I have forgiven your debt - I just want the ten dollars back,” you would be puzzled: “Wait - I don’t understand – are you forgiving me the debt or aren’t you?”
When we truly forgive someone it means that we don’t require payment for the debt, and we don’t demand that the individual face justice. That’s what it means to forgive.
Perhaps this can best be understood if we think about what we are asking for when we beg God to forgive us. If a sinner pleads mercy from God, he would not be comforted if God said, “I have forgiven you - but you’re still going to hell. Receiving my forgiveness doesn’t mean you don’t face my justice.” The sinner might respond, “Well, Lord - excuse me for not getting this - but just what do you mean when you say, 'I have forgiven you'?" And if the Lord answered, “I mean that I don’t bear you any personal animosity. I mean that, though you are going to hell, I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve just decided to let go of all that bitterness and anger and not let it weigh me down anymore. In fact, I have a real peace about this,” then the sinner would probably fall on his knees and beg for an upgrade. “Oh Lord, could you please give me the kind of forgiveness where I don’t go to hell?”
That in fact is the kind of forgiveness God offers. It is objective - blessedly so: “Therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1). God’s forgiveness is not simply a statement about God’s state of mind with regard to us. It is an objective and consequential canceling of debt, a removal of condemnation, a full satisfaction of justice. It benefits the sinner in (eternally) tangible ways, and stands as a model for how we should forgive. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." (Colossians 3:13).
But decades of sloppy preaching have subjectivized forgiveness to the point where, for many people, it no longer means an objective transaction where a debt is canceled or a sentence is overturned, but merely expresses the way the victim of an injustice feels.
How far this subjectivization goes may be illustrated by a sermon I heard last week by a nationally renowned preacher. He claimed that we can forgive people who are now dead. He explained that though you cannot be reconciled to a deceased person who (say) molested you when you were a child, you can still forgive him in the sense that you release him from your bitterness.
Well, ok, but the problem is that you can toss a bushelful of nonsense into that obscuring phrase “in the sense that.” I mean, I’m seven feet tall in the sense that feet are 10 inches long. I have a body fat index of 5 percent in the sense that all numbers are equal to their squares. You see how easy this is? Unless the phrase “in the sense that” legitimately connects to what follows, all it does (in theological discussions) is throw verbal cloaks over meaning shifts that rob words of their power and (eventually) doctrines of their orthodoxy.
Forgiveness is not (in any sense) a “letting go of personal bitterness.” We need to pick a different word or phrase for that (how about “letting go of personal bitterness”?). Then the word “forgive” can maintain its biblical force and magnitude. When we water down the word “forgive” to the point that, without fear of contradiction, we can speak of forgiving our debtors (but they had better pay up), forgiving our enemies (but I want them in jail), or forgiving great-granddad (though he’ll never know about it), then all we’ve done is put an inappropriately strong label on a subjective state of mind. And if we keep thinking of forgiveness in those vague, pastel terms, it won’t be long before the statement “God forgives vile sinners” loses all its wonder, glory and comfort.
Properly understood, the word “forgive” packs a wallop whose force must be protected from subjectivizing diminishment. Garrard McClendon has not forgiven his parents’ murderers – nor should he. God himself does not forgive unrepentant murderers, but sends them to hell (1 John 3:15; Revelation 21:8). We are not more righteous than God. And we can’t even theoretically forgive dead people (there are no biblical examples of this) - we can only stop thinking bitterly about them, which is a completely different thing.
When you forgive someone, you really and truly let him off the hook. It is not reflexive (you’re not letting yourself off the hook) but transitive (it’s something you do to someone else). It is not merely subjective (a spiritual task completed inside your own head) but objective as well (the offender reaps tangible benefit - like not owing you money any more, or seeing the charges against him dropped.)
And if your forgiveness is to be like God’s, it must insist on repentance, and it must be conditional. Seriously. More on that next week.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
October 20, 2009: What (Or Whom) Are You Ashamed Of?
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.” I’m sure that’s true, because you can almost define a person’s character by the things that shame him. Or that don’t shame him.
Moral degenerates aren’t ashamed of anything they do. Solomon said that the adulteress “eats and wipes her mouth and says, 'I've done nothing wrong.’” (Proverbs 30:20). Jeremiah condemned his generation in similar terms, saying, “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:15). One indication that you have become depraved is that you can do something bad and not be embarrassed about it.
Some people are embarrassed by the wrong things. My sons went to a high school with spoiled rich kids - they told me that when a teacher suggested that students visit an Aldi’s to do an assignment on budgeting, several girls literally gasped out loud. Aldi’s? Are you kidding? What if someone saw me there? The mere appearance of poverty would plunge them into a death spiral of shame from which they would not know how to break free. I told my boys they could have piped up at that moment, “Aldi’s is where Dad buys all our food!” - and thus guaranteed themselves a safe ostracizing distance from classmates who despised the poor.
My mother always said that the person who is ashamed of being poor is the same as the person who is proud of being rich. She was right.
Speaking of mothers, I have a real hard time reconciling myself to parent shame. I don’t mean being ashamed of a parent who is a drunk or an abuser or a pervert – that shame is understandable and legitimate – I mean the embarrassment that many (especially teenagers) seem to feel over the mere fact that their parents exist and dare to occupy space. The attitude that says “Mom! You’re embarrassing me! Go over there and be invisible!” should be squashed like a bug lest we indulge our children’s temptations to violate the fifth commandment. Sometimes we just need to tell them, “Look. You will honor me - both in private when we are all by ourselves, and out in public when all the world is looking on.”
Forbidding our children to be ashamed of us despite the fact that we are desperately uncool is good training for them not to be ashamed of God. No one is less cool than God. That is why even some committed Christians are embarrassed to admit their faith publicly, or put a word for Jesus in their conversations at school or work or recreation (or on the internet). The shame of being pegged as one of those insufferable religious people is too much for some of us believers to bear. But we should get over it. Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26). Be ashamed, be very ashamed, of your sin. But don’t be ashamed of Jesus.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.” I’m sure that’s true, because you can almost define a person’s character by the things that shame him. Or that don’t shame him.
Moral degenerates aren’t ashamed of anything they do. Solomon said that the adulteress “eats and wipes her mouth and says, 'I've done nothing wrong.’” (Proverbs 30:20). Jeremiah condemned his generation in similar terms, saying, “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:15). One indication that you have become depraved is that you can do something bad and not be embarrassed about it.
Some people are embarrassed by the wrong things. My sons went to a high school with spoiled rich kids - they told me that when a teacher suggested that students visit an Aldi’s to do an assignment on budgeting, several girls literally gasped out loud. Aldi’s? Are you kidding? What if someone saw me there? The mere appearance of poverty would plunge them into a death spiral of shame from which they would not know how to break free. I told my boys they could have piped up at that moment, “Aldi’s is where Dad buys all our food!” - and thus guaranteed themselves a safe ostracizing distance from classmates who despised the poor.
My mother always said that the person who is ashamed of being poor is the same as the person who is proud of being rich. She was right.
Speaking of mothers, I have a real hard time reconciling myself to parent shame. I don’t mean being ashamed of a parent who is a drunk or an abuser or a pervert – that shame is understandable and legitimate – I mean the embarrassment that many (especially teenagers) seem to feel over the mere fact that their parents exist and dare to occupy space. The attitude that says “Mom! You’re embarrassing me! Go over there and be invisible!” should be squashed like a bug lest we indulge our children’s temptations to violate the fifth commandment. Sometimes we just need to tell them, “Look. You will honor me - both in private when we are all by ourselves, and out in public when all the world is looking on.”
Forbidding our children to be ashamed of us despite the fact that we are desperately uncool is good training for them not to be ashamed of God. No one is less cool than God. That is why even some committed Christians are embarrassed to admit their faith publicly, or put a word for Jesus in their conversations at school or work or recreation (or on the internet). The shame of being pegged as one of those insufferable religious people is too much for some of us believers to bear. But we should get over it. Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26). Be ashamed, be very ashamed, of your sin. But don’t be ashamed of Jesus.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
October 13, 2009: On Praising Spouses
I am not going to praise my spouse on this page today. I won’t. She has asked me not to, and I will honor her request. She tells me that whenever I speak highly of her it makes her uncomfortable because she does not feel worthy of my public compliments. So I’ll grant her wish and honor the petition that so clearly springs from her sweet humility and modest self-effacing character and mild feminine deference and all those other qualities of decorum and grace that make me giddy with delight and keep me praising God daily both for the raptures of matrimonial ecstasy and the calm joys of settled peace that by his favor he has brought into my life through her like she were a rushing cascade of abundant cool waters to a desert-starved and soul-weary traveler.
But praise her? No - I said I wouldn’t do that, and I won’t.
So let me instead encourage you to praise your spouse, if you have one and can scrape together a single good thing to say about him or her.
I’ll be brutally frank about the thing that brought this topic to mind: discussions that apparently take place among married women. I have never been privy to one of these discussions, obviously - but enough reports have filtered back to me over the years to make me wonder if one of the prime topics of conversation is “All The Things That Are Wrong With My Husband.” I even asked a woman the other day if she knew anyone who spoke highly of her mate. She did not say “Oh sure, lots!” but paused a while and scanned her memory until she could come up with a name. The sad thing is that it involved a Christian woman married to an unbeliever. (I think, “Dang. There’s got to be good Christian husbands out there whose wives extol their merits.”)
Some spouses, of course, are just plain losers and there is nothing good to say about them. Nabal (1 Samuel 25) was like that, and his poor wife Abigail had to run to David and say, “My husband is a jerk! Please don’t kill us!” (Nabal then did everybody a favor by falling over dead.) And Gomer (in Hosea chapters 1-3) was a filthy cheating whore, so her husband probably did not go around telling friends, “Well, at least she’s a good cook.”
Those of you who are married to Nabals or Gomers are exempt from the command to say good things about your mates. We don’t want you to lie.
For the rest of you, contemplate applying Philippians 4:8 to your marriages. It reads, “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”
There’s biblical precedent for praising your husbands and wives. Abraham said to Sarah, "I know what a beautiful woman you are” (Genesis 12:11). The widow of a prophet told Elisha, “You know [my husband] revered the Lord” (2 Kings 4:1). Ruth and Boaz said nice things about each other in public. Solomon and his beloved had the screaming hots for each other, and sang each other’s glories in exquisite detail (Song of Solomon). Lemuel quoted a happy husband who says, “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all” (Proverbs 31:29).
In 1971 my mother wrote an article for the Chicago Daily News in which she praised her husband (as always, I’ll make copies available upon request). One of the things she praised him for was praising her! Among the good things he did (which she framed as “advice for husbands who have more love to offer than money”):
- Make a small production out of it when you introduce her to anyone.
- Smile and nod in agreement when she’s complimented.
- Bristle when you detect even a slight criticism of her.
- If she’s a great housekeeper and you’re a disorganized one, don’t attempt your own reformation. Just brag about her fantastic ability to all her friends.
I don’t know about that last one. I think Mom just got carried away with her own rhetoric, because it seems to me that all great housekeepers - male or female – do in fact appreciate it when their disorganized spouses attempt personal reformation. So maybe she exaggerated a little on that.
But as for the concluding observation, who among us doesn’t like having our fantastic abilities bragged about to all our friends?
I am not going to praise my spouse on this page today. I won’t. She has asked me not to, and I will honor her request. She tells me that whenever I speak highly of her it makes her uncomfortable because she does not feel worthy of my public compliments. So I’ll grant her wish and honor the petition that so clearly springs from her sweet humility and modest self-effacing character and mild feminine deference and all those other qualities of decorum and grace that make me giddy with delight and keep me praising God daily both for the raptures of matrimonial ecstasy and the calm joys of settled peace that by his favor he has brought into my life through her like she were a rushing cascade of abundant cool waters to a desert-starved and soul-weary traveler.
But praise her? No - I said I wouldn’t do that, and I won’t.
So let me instead encourage you to praise your spouse, if you have one and can scrape together a single good thing to say about him or her.
I’ll be brutally frank about the thing that brought this topic to mind: discussions that apparently take place among married women. I have never been privy to one of these discussions, obviously - but enough reports have filtered back to me over the years to make me wonder if one of the prime topics of conversation is “All The Things That Are Wrong With My Husband.” I even asked a woman the other day if she knew anyone who spoke highly of her mate. She did not say “Oh sure, lots!” but paused a while and scanned her memory until she could come up with a name. The sad thing is that it involved a Christian woman married to an unbeliever. (I think, “Dang. There’s got to be good Christian husbands out there whose wives extol their merits.”)
Some spouses, of course, are just plain losers and there is nothing good to say about them. Nabal (1 Samuel 25) was like that, and his poor wife Abigail had to run to David and say, “My husband is a jerk! Please don’t kill us!” (Nabal then did everybody a favor by falling over dead.) And Gomer (in Hosea chapters 1-3) was a filthy cheating whore, so her husband probably did not go around telling friends, “Well, at least she’s a good cook.”
Those of you who are married to Nabals or Gomers are exempt from the command to say good things about your mates. We don’t want you to lie.
For the rest of you, contemplate applying Philippians 4:8 to your marriages. It reads, “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”
There’s biblical precedent for praising your husbands and wives. Abraham said to Sarah, "I know what a beautiful woman you are” (Genesis 12:11). The widow of a prophet told Elisha, “You know [my husband] revered the Lord” (2 Kings 4:1). Ruth and Boaz said nice things about each other in public. Solomon and his beloved had the screaming hots for each other, and sang each other’s glories in exquisite detail (Song of Solomon). Lemuel quoted a happy husband who says, “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all” (Proverbs 31:29).
In 1971 my mother wrote an article for the Chicago Daily News in which she praised her husband (as always, I’ll make copies available upon request). One of the things she praised him for was praising her! Among the good things he did (which she framed as “advice for husbands who have more love to offer than money”):
- Make a small production out of it when you introduce her to anyone.
- Smile and nod in agreement when she’s complimented.
- Bristle when you detect even a slight criticism of her.
- If she’s a great housekeeper and you’re a disorganized one, don’t attempt your own reformation. Just brag about her fantastic ability to all her friends.
I don’t know about that last one. I think Mom just got carried away with her own rhetoric, because it seems to me that all great housekeepers - male or female – do in fact appreciate it when their disorganized spouses attempt personal reformation. So maybe she exaggerated a little on that.
But as for the concluding observation, who among us doesn’t like having our fantastic abilities bragged about to all our friends?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
October 6, 2009: A Note On The Pursuit Of Happiness
Suppose you are single and contemplating marriage, and a benevolent angel visits you and tells you that if you marry you will be exactly as happy in the future as if you had remained single. The pros and cons of your marriage will balance each other perfectly – all joys on the one side will match (but not exceed) sorrows on the other.
Do you marry?
I think a Christian would want to ask the angel, “Well, what does God want me to do?” Now the angel says, “In your case God doesn’t care. Oops – sorry - let me rephrase that. He cares about you, of course, it’s just that he’s fine with it either way, whether you marry or remain celibate. Both options are equally obedient.”
So, do you marry? Or is there anything else you would like to ask the angel?
While you think about that, let me recommend an essay by C. S. Lewis, “We Have No ‘Right To Happiness’” in his book, God in the Dock. It would give me some happiness to mail you a copy of it upon request, because it is good and will benefit you and you will be a better person if you take its lessons to heart.
Lewis writes about people who do despicable things like have affairs and leave their mates because doing so makes them happy - and happiness is a thing they regard as a sacred right. Actually, they only regard their own happiness as a sacred right. If someone slandered them, for example, they would howl in protest and not be placated if their enemy explained, “But it made me happy to tell all those lies about you!”
Lewis’ essay debunking the right to happiness is the last thing he ever wrote. He died a few days later.
Lewis was a happy man, by all accounts – jovial, courteous, laughed a lot, brightened every room he entered. All the Lewis biographies say that about him, and every written remembrance alludes to his broad generosity of spirit. But Lewis hardly ever seemed to plot a course of action merely on the basis of what would make him happy. In fact, he even got married as a favor to a friend! American author (and single mom) Joy Gresham asked him if he would marry her so that she would not be deported from England when her visa expired. Though perfectly content as a 58-year-old bachelor, Lewis agreed to the marriage-in-name-only (no rings, private civil ceremony, they lived apart) just so that she could stay in England with her boys.
Then Joy got cancer, and Lewis took her into his home. He cared for her until she died two years later. He fell deeply in love with her, and cherished her as much as one person can cherish another. Read A Grief Observed, written right after her death, and unless your heart is made of stone you’ll want to cry for him, the loss hurt so bad.
The last thing Joy said to Lewis before she passed away was “You have made me happy.”
That’s what I’d like to ask the angel about in the hypothetical situation I propose above. Regardless of whether marriage advances my happiness, what about my spouse? Will she have greater joy for having married me? If so, then by all means let’s do this! If I am to marry, please let it be to someone who can say to me on her deathbed (or when I’m on mine), “You have made me happy.”
Romans 14:7 says that none of us lives to himself alone. That is as it should be. Do good, and let the prospect of other peoples’ happiness determine the course of your actions and decisions. You might get a good share of your own happiness on the rebound. And if not, well, don’t worry about it. If you trust in Jesus Christ you’ll have a whole eternity to bathe in joys and ecstasies that will drown every sorrow you have ever known.
Suppose you are single and contemplating marriage, and a benevolent angel visits you and tells you that if you marry you will be exactly as happy in the future as if you had remained single. The pros and cons of your marriage will balance each other perfectly – all joys on the one side will match (but not exceed) sorrows on the other.
Do you marry?
I think a Christian would want to ask the angel, “Well, what does God want me to do?” Now the angel says, “In your case God doesn’t care. Oops – sorry - let me rephrase that. He cares about you, of course, it’s just that he’s fine with it either way, whether you marry or remain celibate. Both options are equally obedient.”
So, do you marry? Or is there anything else you would like to ask the angel?
While you think about that, let me recommend an essay by C. S. Lewis, “We Have No ‘Right To Happiness’” in his book, God in the Dock. It would give me some happiness to mail you a copy of it upon request, because it is good and will benefit you and you will be a better person if you take its lessons to heart.
Lewis writes about people who do despicable things like have affairs and leave their mates because doing so makes them happy - and happiness is a thing they regard as a sacred right. Actually, they only regard their own happiness as a sacred right. If someone slandered them, for example, they would howl in protest and not be placated if their enemy explained, “But it made me happy to tell all those lies about you!”
Lewis’ essay debunking the right to happiness is the last thing he ever wrote. He died a few days later.
Lewis was a happy man, by all accounts – jovial, courteous, laughed a lot, brightened every room he entered. All the Lewis biographies say that about him, and every written remembrance alludes to his broad generosity of spirit. But Lewis hardly ever seemed to plot a course of action merely on the basis of what would make him happy. In fact, he even got married as a favor to a friend! American author (and single mom) Joy Gresham asked him if he would marry her so that she would not be deported from England when her visa expired. Though perfectly content as a 58-year-old bachelor, Lewis agreed to the marriage-in-name-only (no rings, private civil ceremony, they lived apart) just so that she could stay in England with her boys.
Then Joy got cancer, and Lewis took her into his home. He cared for her until she died two years later. He fell deeply in love with her, and cherished her as much as one person can cherish another. Read A Grief Observed, written right after her death, and unless your heart is made of stone you’ll want to cry for him, the loss hurt so bad.
The last thing Joy said to Lewis before she passed away was “You have made me happy.”
That’s what I’d like to ask the angel about in the hypothetical situation I propose above. Regardless of whether marriage advances my happiness, what about my spouse? Will she have greater joy for having married me? If so, then by all means let’s do this! If I am to marry, please let it be to someone who can say to me on her deathbed (or when I’m on mine), “You have made me happy.”
Romans 14:7 says that none of us lives to himself alone. That is as it should be. Do good, and let the prospect of other peoples’ happiness determine the course of your actions and decisions. You might get a good share of your own happiness on the rebound. And if not, well, don’t worry about it. If you trust in Jesus Christ you’ll have a whole eternity to bathe in joys and ecstasies that will drown every sorrow you have ever known.
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