The eyes of man were made for glory. His soul hungers for something worth seeing. This world is a war of spectacles.

Man is a watching creature, a born admirer, a natural worshiper. It is why he gazes at the stars, climbs to the top of mountains, explores underwater worlds, travels to new and untamed lands — he craves vistas. It explains why he pays good money to pack into sports arenas, stares for hours at television screens, pays homage to the flaming horizon, and sings with Adam at the naked frame of Eve — he was made to see wonders.

Human eyes have had an appetite from the beginning. Consider Eve’s fall: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes . . . she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6). Eyes delighted; sin committed. The pattern holds with her and Adam’s children. When man exchanges the glory of God, he does so for images (Romans 1:23) — for that which intrigues the eye, something seen, a glory exchanged.

Ravenous, then, are the eyes of man. Like the belly, they hunger. Like the throat, they thirst. Like the feet, they wander, searching after something — anything — worth beholding. But in a world of images, he still hasn’t found what he is looking for. One wonder will be replaced by another and another. “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man” (Proverbs 27:20).

But oh, how often humanity conceives its happiness backward. We think to achieve, to be somebody celebrated and revered — this fills the golden chalice with lasting happiness. But man is no dog to live for pats on the head. Just the opposite. Man is a creature who looks out the window through the rain, searching for something to enthrall him. To first see, not be seen; to chiefly admire, not be admired; to fix one’s gaze beyond earth’s horizons — this is the happiness so few ever find.

Back of Glory

Scripture testifies that some famished eyes looked above and found the true object of their desire.

Such ones climbed mountains to exclaim at the heavens, “Please show me your glory!” (Exodus 33:18). Such souls, when surrounded by danger and violence, wrote, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after . . . to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4). These eyes faced east and begged to see what would soothe their reason for being — in this world and the next. “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness,” sang David. “When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness” (Psalm 17:15).

“Show me your glory! Satisfy me with your beauty! Show me your face — even beyond the grave — and it is well with me.”

But Old Testament saints, at best, viewed only the backside of divine glory. God tells Moses, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). The only glory that can satisfy man’s insatiable craving is the glory that would kill him to behold. So Moses hid in the cleft, seeing his back and hearing his name, but God’s face he did not see.

Face of Glory

Yet the story was not done. The glory that Moses could not see the face of, the beauty too fatal for fallen eyes, was born at Christmas. Wonder of wonders.

“The glory that Moses could not see the face of, the beauty too fatal for fallen eyes, was born at Christmas.”

To a little town named Bethlehem arrived the God no one had ever seen. The only God, who was eternally at the Father’s side — he has made him known (John 1:18). Christ — “the image of the invisible God,” the blinding light of God’s glory, “the exact imprint of his nature,” the very face of God’s beauty — became flesh and dwelt among us (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3; 2 Corinthians 4:4–6). “And we have seen his glory,” the astonished apostle writes, “glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Now, this all-Glorious One came down to us, as Moses came down from the mountain to Israel, veiled. His glory during his incarnation and humiliation was beheld not as much by sight as by faith. It stood as the marvel of angels that the thrice-holy one on the throne, possessor of all riches and glory, should grow up in the world of men “like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). The King veiled his majesty in human flesh, disguised his splendor, hid his name, and dwelled among the poor, diseased, and condemned.

But the eyes of faith came to see more than just a Jewish man. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah!” Jesus exclaims after Peter identifies him as the Christ. “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

Yet even his disciples were slow to see him. Philip requests of Jesus, “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” “Have I been with you so long,” Jesus replies, “and you still do not know me, Philip?” (John 14:8–9). Then, with weight enough to break the world’s back, he utters, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” When Philip heard the words and saw the works and beheld the Person born in Bethlehem, he should have seen the face of the one who dwells in “unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16).

Seeing Heaven Himself

The sight of Jesus in all his glory alone can satisfy the eyes of men. Overhear Jesus’s prayer hours before the cross. He bends to ask that his disciples be given heaven’s crown jewel. What is that?

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

“The sight of Jesus in all his glory alone can satisfy the eyes of men.”

Jesus wants his people to enjoy the sight their soul was made to see: the glory of God, shining forth in his glory, forever. He desires it — so much so that nails through the hands, the feet, the soul will not stop him from obtaining it. Here is the ultimate something worth seeing. Here is glory beyond hyperbole, said Thomas Watson.

Here is why redeemed beings have eyes: to see and savor Jesus Christ in his uncloaked glory. This is why we have mouths: to sing back to him praise unending. In his presence, faith will flee at that face whose intensity retires the sun: “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23).

Sight That Makes Us Happy

The ache of men’s eyes sends them many places. The eyes of man rove the beauties of this world, restless. Only here, beholding Jesus — now by faith, soon by sight — do we find the beatific vision, the sight that makes eternally happy. Where are you looking, this Christmas, to satisfy your soul?

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8) — can you imagine anything better? In the closing chapter, we read, “They will see his face” (Revelation 22:4) — is there a better happily-ever-after? This is not the only joy heaven holds, but it is the best. His kingly countenance, concealed no longer, is heaven’s consummation for both unfallen angel and redeemed man.

“Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty” (Isaiah 33:17). We will not see him as he was in Bethlehem or in the streets of Jerusalem; we will see him as he is in royal beauty (1 John 3:2). There is a great deal of difference, Jeremiah Burroughs comments, “between seeing the King at an ordinary time, and seeing of him when he is in his Robes, with his Crown upon his head, and his Scepter in his hand, and set upon his Throne, with all his Nobles about him in all his glory” (Moses His Choice, with His Eye Fixed upon Heaven, 537).

And this sight of him transfigured will not merely satisfy but transform. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Burroughs again: “A deformed man may see a beautiful object, and that sight shall not make him like that beautiful object; but the sight of God shall make the soul glorious, as God is glorious” (581–82).

Seeing him as he is, we will join the seraphim in wonder, shouting holy! and worthy! until we threaten to burst with happiness. Available to us is the Face of glory, not the back; an eternal gaze at his beauty, not a passing glimpse. Now we may see in a mirror dimly, “but then face to face.” Now we know in part; then we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).

This is the glory whispered at Christmas, sung at Easter, shouted in eternity — the glory profound enough to satiate our souls and make us happy forever.

We are born with a knack for spotting the failures of others, and we’ve been conditioned to develop that skill. Identify specks from a distance? No problem (even as we somehow persistently struggle to see our own planks). And life gives us plenty of specks to spot. Life on earth, for now, means a life surrounded by failures.

Amazingly, the Christian gospel is not too grand and lofty for these regular disappointments, for the dark and painful nooks and crannies of real life. In fact, Paul’s grand epistle to the Romans — one of the greatest letters ever written — points us to the specks, uncovering such relational challenges as proof of the power of Christ’s person and work.

In Romans 14 and 15 in particular, Paul addresses emerging fault lines between Christians over adiaphora (literally “not differences” regarding the essence of our faith but various nonessential issues). Such matters are not clear instances of sin — plain violations of Christ’s law, like lying or stealing — but differences of opinion (sometimes even of conviction), like whether to observe certain holy days or not, or whether to eat meat or drink wine that had been sacrificed to idols. In the first century, these issues related to the epoch shift from the old covenant to the new. Some differences, as in Galatians, were of the essence of the faith; others were not.

Though Romans 14–15 speaks to controversies that are not differences of the essence of Christianity, Paul doesn’t overlook them, ignore them, or treat them flippantly. Rather, he sees in them an opportunity to bring the very heart of the faith to bear on Christ’s people, by focusing on how we treat one another despite such differences. Paul dignifies the pain and grief such differences of opinion can cause by bringing to them the greatest possible remedy and solace: Christ himself.

To the Strong (and the Weak)

Elsewhere we have instructions for what to do when a brother sins against us (Matthew 18:15–22). But what about when others aggravate us with errors and immaturities that are not plain instances of sin? And what if these are not simple differences of opinion but of conviction?

In Romans 14–15, Paul does believe that one group is right, so to speak, and the other wrong, in terms of the truth of the matter. One group he calls “the strong”; the other, “the weak.” He concedes, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself” (Romans 14:14). So, as he writes elsewhere, “If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience” (1 Corinthians 10:27). However, if your host announces, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat — not for your own sake, but for the sake of your host, lest you confuse and confirm him in soul-destroying idolatry. In other words, consider his eternal good, not just your own momentary appetite and ability to exercise freedom.

In Romans 15:1–7, Paul specifically addresses “the strong,” who know in faith and conscience all food and drink to be clean. Sure, both groups are flawed. Paul’s strategy, however, is to begin by addressing the strong, and charge them to take the first step toward peace. Paul appeals to them to rise above “the failings of the weak,” even as he acknowledges that these are genuine failings. And as he does so, he clarifies the truth of the matter for “the weak” who are listening in.

Our tensions today may not be the ones that hampered the church in Rome in the first century, but we have plenty of fault lines and unnecessary divisions of our own. So what might we learn from these verses for not simply bearing with the blind spots of others, but, even more, as those who are “strong,” to literally carry the failures (Greek ta asthenēmata bastazein) of the “weak” (Romans 15:1)?

The Call

First is the calling to love. Appeal as he does, Paul does not see this as just an opportunity — take it or leave it — but as an obligation. As Christians we owe each other love, which, for the strong, means “to bear with the failings of the weak” (Romans 15:1). In fact, it would be sin to violate Christ’s law by failing to love. Christians are not obligated to eat meat or not, or celebrate certain feasts or not, but we are obligated to love one another. “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8). “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Pork, wine, and holidays are optional; Christian love is not.

“Pork, wine, and holidays are optional; Christian love is not.”

Yet Paul doesn’t leave such love unqualified or unspecified. He gives terms, an example, and the source of power.

The Terms

After the call to love neighbor comes the terms of this love: “for his good, to build him up” (Romans 15:2). The obligation to love does not require the Christian to make others feel loved on human terms. Christ sets the terms. We love with others’ good in view, as God defines good, not the whims or momentary preferences (or demands!) of sinners. The Christian call to love is not to cater to immaturities or unbelief, or to coddle sin, but to view our neighbors with the mind and eyes of Christ and love them for their good, to build them up in Christ.

“The obligation to love does not require the Christian to make others feel loved on human terms.”

This call to higher pleasures for our neighbors than their whims is also a call for our higher pleasures in our loving them. To the strong: don’t just give in to the weak’s immediate wants — or to your own. Love seeks the eternal (rather than momentary) good both of neighbor and of ourselves. Which leads to Paul’s striking example in Romans 15:3: “Christ did not please himself.”

The Example

When it comes to inconvenient, uncomfortable love, Jesus provides the greatest example and model imaginable. “It is noteworthy,” writes John Murray, “how the apostle adduces the example of Christ in his most transcendent accomplishments in order to commend the most practical duties” (Romans, 516).

On his knees, with sweat pooling like drops of blood, Jesus did not give into his own immediate wants in Gethsemane. Rather, he came to embrace the divine will, and with it the timeless good and upbuilding of others. He did not choose momentary desires, whether his own or others’. Surely, in the moment, the disciples, if given the choice, would have been eager for Jesus to flee. Peter had said, “Never, Lord!” when first hearing of the cross; the disciples were not yet able to conceive of how Christ’s death could possibly lead to greater joy.

At a basic level, pleasing himself would have meant giving in to his own momentary (very natural and human) desires to avoid death, especially the utter torture of death on a cross, and worst of all, the sense of separation from his Father. Yet in the garden, Jesus abandons his human desires for self-preservation and wills the divine will. He chooses it. In saying to his Father, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42), he makes the divine will his own (as man). At one level, he very much does not want this, but at a deeper level he does, even as Isaiah 53:11 prophesied: “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.” So too, Hebrews 12:2 confirms that in the anguish and horrific distress, it was, at bottom, the holy pursuit of joy that animated and sustained his obedience: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross.”

This does not mean we counsel Christians, contrary to Paul’s letter and Christ’s life, to “please yourselves.” Rather, we say that God in Christ is so deeply and enduringly pleasing that we are freed from “pleasing ourselves” in relation to others. Pleased in God, and knowing that in Christ he is pleased with us, we are liberated to turn our eyes from ourselves to others and their genuine needs, and to love them for their good and upbuilding.

The Power

Finally, marvelous as Christ’s example is, Paul presses even deeper. He not only says that Christ succeeded in love but shows us how. What enabled Jesus, as man, to look past his initial human desires to the joy set before him on the other side of torture and death? He trusted in the word of his Father.

Paul represents Jesus living out and drawing strength from Psalm 69:9 in Romans 15:3: “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” Note the Godward orientation and God-centeredness this brings to Christ’s great act of love (and to our little ones). And the way the power to endure came to him was not simply through truth but through Scripture. With his uniquely holy, sinless human mind, Jesus might have theologized and philosophized in any number of ways to put his calling, and excruciating pain, into a larger perspective. Surely he could have preached to himself in many creative ways. But in his moment of greatest duress, he turns to the very words of God (in this case, captured in Psalm 69). Which prompts Paul to write, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the [comfort] of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). Like Jesus did.

The God of endurance and comfort awakened persevering love in his own Son through the instrument of his written word. Jesus was comforted and given strength to endure by rehearsing Scripture. And so it will be for us. Just as the soul of Christ himself was fueled by what was written in former days, so we also fill our tank on God’s promises, to free us from selfishness and sinful self-regard, to both know what is truly for our neighbor’s good and building up, and to “not please ourselves” but gladly do it. The God of endurance and comfort himself does the miracle in and through us by his word.

As Christ Has Welcomed You

Such a “disinterested” pursuit of joy in the good of others (called love) leads, in time, to Christians strong and weak living in “harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:5–6).

Our rising above our own whims and initial preferences, like Jesus did, glorifies him and his Father. After all, this is precisely how Christ welcomed us: by not pleasing himself in the garden but trusting God’s words to take the (much!) harder path for our good. So Murray asks, “Shall we, the strong, insist on pleasing ourselves in the matter of food and drink to the detriment of God’s saints and the edification of Christ’s body?” (517).

The joy of not pleasing ourselves comes not only when a neighbor is needy, but even when he’s in error or the need stems from his own defective faith and conscience. While dying to our rights, liberties, and selves cuts against almost every impulse of our age, we learn instead, in Christ, to “welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Romans 15:7).

Audio Transcript

How do we overcome half-hearted spiritual laziness? That’s the question today and Thursday. And speaking of zeal for God, I should first mention again that this October we’re celebrating the Reformation — Martin Luther’s great stand against the pope and against Rome’s spiritual abuses and theological errors. But Luther didn’t stand alone. Other men stood for this same cause, before and after him — people like John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, and John Calvin. And many other lesser-known names paid the ultimate price in the Reformation — men and women, even teenagers, who stood against Rome, and who bled and were burned and drowned for it.

These stories of sacrifice are our focus in the month ahead, in a 31-day tour you can complete in just 5–7 minutes each day. It’s called Here We Stand. You can subscribe to the email journey today by going to desiringGod.org/stand. Or just go to desiringGod.org and click on the link on the top of the website. I hope you’ll join us in remembering the price paid for the spiritual blessings and religious liberties we enjoy today.

Speaking of church history, this Saturday marks Jonathan Edwards’s birthday — his 321st, to be exact. Not a monumental year, but certainly a monumental man in your life and theology, Pastor John. Edwards was a pastor and theologian in New England during the First Great Awakening. His God-entranced theology and preaching became a powerful influence in your life over fifty years ago. And evidently that is still the case because just this last spring you delivered a commencement address at Bethlehem College and Seminary and again quoted Edwards as a key example of what you were trying to get across to those students in a message all about zeal. Revisit that message for us, and tell us what Edwards teaches us about overcoming spiritual laziness.

J.I. Packer wrote a blurb in 1986 for the cover of the first edition of the book Desiring God, and it said this: “Jonathan Edwards, whose ghost walks through most of Piper’s pages, would be delighted with his disciple.” Well, I really liked that endorsement very much — but it’s an open question to me whether Jonathan Edwards would be delighted with me as his disciple. But what’s not an open question is that he walks like a ghost through all my pages. That’s true, and in fact, the origin of that message that I gave at Bethlehem College and Seminary was not first from Edwards.

When You Really Want to Obey

I’ll get to Edwards in just a minute, but here’s where it came from. That message on zeal came from some morning meditation — maybe fifteen minutes of meditation — on Romans 12:6–8, where Paul says, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them,” and then you list gifts, and the last three go like this: “the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

“Seek to magnify the worth and the greatness and the beauty of the Lord in all that you do.”

I read that and I turned to my wife, who was sitting with me in the living room there, and I said, “Noël, what’s the common denominator between contributing generously, leading zealously, and showing mercy cheerfully? What’s the basic point in saying, ‘Do what you do generously, do what you do zealously, and do what you do cheerfully’?” She said, “Well, you really want to do it. You’re not being forced. You’re not half-hearted. You’re all in.” I thought, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.”

The transformed mind from Romans 12:2 not only discerns “what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” — it really wants to do the will of God. It’s all in, 100 percent, with the will of God. It’s not a half-hearted doing of the will of God. If God’s will for you is to contribute, do it generously. If God’s will for you is to lead, lead zealously. If God’s will for you is to do mercy, show mercy, do it cheerfully, not begrudgingly.

So, what Paul is getting at is that the renewed mind, the mind of Christ in Christians, this transformed mind is not only able to recognize what is the will of God but also is inclined how to do it — how to go about the will of God. God’s will is not simply that we do the right thing but that we do it with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might. That’s the point of those verses. That’s what got me thinking about zeal.

It’s not surprising, then, that the very next verse, Romans 12:9, says, “Let [your] love be genuine. Abhor what is evil.” In other words, really love and really hate. Don’t let your love be half-hearted and unreal, and don’t let your recognition of evil simply be a mild disapproval. Abhorrent — it’s a very strong word. This is the only place it’s used in the New Testament. It’s the way zeal responds to evil — abhorrence. Then to make it crystal clear what he’s so concerned about, one verse later, in Romans 12:11, he says, “Do not be slothful in zeal” — same word as in Romans 12:8 — “be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” So, the great object of the lives of believers is the Lord: “serve the Lord.” Seek to magnify the worth and the greatness and the beauty of the Lord in all that you do.

But what burns in Paul’s heart, as far as I can see, is that we serve the Lord in a certain way — namely, that we not be lethargic or slothful or lazy or half-hearted or sluggish or lukewarm in the way we serve the Lord, or the way we do everything, for that matter. So, that phrase “be fervent in spirit” literally means “boil” — “boil in the spirit.” In fact, the word “fervent” is the Latin word for “boil,” and Paul is saying, “You don’t get a pass if your personality is phlegmatic.” That’s an old word. If you were born passive, as a couch-potato-type person, you don’t get a pass. This is not a comment on your personality. This is a command for all Christians. Whatever your personality, make it work for you. When you know the will of God and you resolve to do it, which is what Christians do, be all in. Do it all the way. Do it with all your might and all your soul. Do it with zeal, ardor, fervency, eagerness. Pray that your spirit would boil with zeal for the will of God and the glory of God.

The Zeal of Jonathan Edwards

Now, here we come: Edwards. I was about fifteen minutes into my meditation on Romans 12, making notes in my little journal that I keep beside my chair, and I realized there was a ghost walking through my mind. He’s really there. Yes, it’s the apostle Paul. Yes, it’s the Holy Spirit. There’s another ghost, and his name is Jonathan Edwards — and he wrote seventy resolutions when he was nineteen. I read those resolutions decades ago, and only one of them could I quote verbatim to this day — only one, because it’s short, but it’s also very important.

Resolution #6: “Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.” Let me say it again: “Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.” Every time I read that sentence, my heart rises up with zeal and says, “Yes, yes. O God, don’t let me waste my life with lukewarm, half-hearted efforts to do anything.” “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with [all] your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). I think that resolution is just a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 9:10. Or Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work heartily” — from the soul — “as for the Lord and not for men.”

“God’s will is not simply that we do the right thing but that we do it with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.”

Lest we think that this resolution to “live with all my might while I do live” was simply an overstated nineteen-year-old expression of youthful energy, seventeen years later, as a pastor in North Hampton, Edwards preached a sermon entitled “Zeal an Essential Virtue of a Christian.” I just reread it a few days ago just to stoke my engine on this. The text was Titus 2:14: “[Christ] gave himself for us . . . to purify for himself a people who are zealous for good works.” He didn’t die simply to make us able to do good works. He died to make us passionate about doing good works. That’s what it says: not half-hearted.

So, in conclusion, the booster rocket that sends zeal for good works — in fact, zeal for everything we do — into orbit, this booster rocket is: Christ died for this. He died for this. Christ gave himself on the cross to create a people with zeal — zeal for good works, zeal for the glory of the Lord. This is what pleases the Lord. He died for it. So, I pray that all of us will join Jonathan Edwards and say, “Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.”