http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15797662/how-to-not-return-evil-for-evil
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Three Hundred Years of Holy Resolve: The Enduring Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards
It was exactly three hundred years ago today.
On the frigid night of December 18th, 1722, the teenager dipped his quill in the ink jar and began to write. He probably cupped his hands toward the warm lantern for a moment first, just to make his fingers more agile in the chilly air. Then he began to compose. Jonathan Edwards was just 74 days past his nineteenth birthday when he wrote the first batch of his famous resolutions.1
His brain was swirling with holy ambition. Edwards had completed his graduate coursework at Yale in May and had desired to enter into the public ministry, just as his father, Timothy Edwards, and grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, had done before him. Just a few months earlier, in August of 1722, the younger Edwards had arrived in New York City, 150 years before any skyscrapers were built, to preach his first series of sermons. By all accounts, those sermons were excellent.2
Edwards had been called to New York to attempt to pastor a Presbyterian congregation that had recently experienced a church split. In the bustling port city, Edwards had found success in preaching his earliest sermonic orations as well as finding true friendship and spiritual companionship in the home of his host family. His heart was alive, and his spirit was on fire for Christ. He was ready to commit his whole life, as well as his eternal soul, to the service of God.
His quill carefully drew out the first few lines of ink on the page:
1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.3
That night, in a steady hand and in the same color of ink, Edwards wrote out the first 35 of his resolutions. He would add several more that week and then continue the practice of adding new resolutions for the better part of the winter. As the calendar flipped from 1722 to 1723, Edwards had written nearly forty such resolutions:
7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.
42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this 12th day of January, 1722–23.4
Spiritual Ecstasy and Discouragement
Edwards would later look back on this period as the most beautiful experience of his personal sanctification.5 His faith was growing so quickly that he could practically chart the progress. In fact, that is exactly what he tried to do. Each time he wrote out new resolutions, he marked his progress along the same lines in his diary.6 The two documents — the diary and the “Resolutions” — would have a symbiotic relationship. As he yearned for holiness and found himself wanting, he would make new resolutions, and then monitor his actual progress in his personal journal, keeping track of his successes and failures along the way.
Over time, however, Edwards found that his failures were far more in number and of a more serious kind than he had feared.
Jan. 20, sabbath day. At night. The last week I was sunk so low, that I fear it will be a long time, ’ere I shall be recovered. I fell exceedingly low in the weekly account. I find my heart so deceitful, that I am almost discouraged from making any more resolutions. Wherein have I been negligent in the week past; and how could I have done better, to help the dreadful, low estate in which I am sunk?7
As the spring turned to summer, existential questions began to threaten his spiritual tranquility, and he began to experience trepidations and palpitations of heart related to the defense of his master’s thesis — his Quaestio — and the looming necessity of securing a full-time pastoral call. That in addition to coping with the heartache of falling in love with a younger, beautiful girl, Sarah.8
As it turned out, these first forty or so resolutions wouldn’t be enough to buoy his soul as he dealt with these somewhat typical coming-of-age strains on heart and mind. His soul ached, and his temptations raged against him. So he wrote more resolutions.
When the heat of the summer of 1723 was at its peak, and the honeybees began to feast upon the goldenrod and sedum plants, Edwards had written a full complement of seventy resolutions. And then suddenly — as abruptly as he had started — he stopped.
He never wrote another resolution again.
‘Resolutions’ as Inspiration
There is no doubt that the “Resolutions” are inspiring. This is why they have been printed over and over again, published in the genre of classical devotional materials.9 Men and women for generations now have felt they have met Edwards personally in this short, tract-length document, resonating with the emerging pastor’s soul-deep yearning for Christ. How can we not be inspired when we read such resolutions?
52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.
53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer.10
But what so many readers (including the present writer) find so profound and awe-inspiring from the pen of the forthcoming prodigy, Edwards felt as a burden on his soul. The more he resolved, the more he failed himself and his God. He couldn’t live up to his own standards. He simply could not will himself to breathe the thin air of spiritual Zion all the time, dwelling long on the mountain of God’s holy presence. Since his resolutions pointed out his own sin as much as they pointed toward his own faithfulness, Edwards needed to find another way forward before his resolve fled away with the retreating summer sunlight.
Looking Outward
Some Edwards scholars believe that he quit writing his resolutions on August 17, 1723, because his “canon” was complete with the round biblical number of seventy. I think this conjecture is somewhat plausible. But I also think there is more to it. My own studies of Edwards’s personal writings have led me to conclude that he simply could not bear the pressures of his own heightened determinations.11
“To resolve was one thing, but to depend and rely upon Christ was another.”
When taken alone, the “Resolutions” are a powerful document indeed — even (and rightly) inspiring. But when reading his diary alongside the “Resolutions,” as synchronous and complementary documents, it seems that Edwards was building up spiritual pressures that his own soul was not able to withstand. The process of continually grading himself on paper may have become more than he could tolerate. Such periods of deep self-evaluation, when most honest, only proved that Edwards needed more and more grace. In other words, he could not live up to his own standards. To resolve was one thing, but to depend and rely upon Christ was another. And so, Edwards grew in his understanding of the daily necessity of dependence upon divine grace as superior to determination and resolution alone.
Along with this deepening understanding of his own sin and God’s grace, Edwards simply got busier and had less time to gaze in the spiritual mirror of his “Resolutions” and diary. His responsibilities in the church grew significantly when he was ordained to serve under Solomon Stoddard, and then again when he eventually became the solo pastor of the Northampton Church, one of the most significant congregations in the region. He did end up marrying the beautiful young woman he fell in love with as a teen. They had a large number of children, even by eighteenth-century standards (ten!). Edwards became preoccupied with preaching innumerable sermons, writing treatises, drafting letters, meeting with other ministers, and counseling his people’s distraught souls. He found that he was simultaneously growing as a believer, as a husband, as a father, and as a pastor.
And God was at work too in amazing ways that far transcended his own inward fascinations. A true revival began to occur — first in Northampton (1735) and then all across the Colonies (1740–42). Edwards had less occasion and opportunity to stew anxiously inwardly, even as it became more apparent that God was working outwardly all around him. This change in focus seems to me to be evidence of his spiritual maturity rather than any loss of devotion.
Relentless Reliance
At about age 40, a more mature Edwards could look back upon his 19-year-old self and write,
My longings after God and holiness, were much increased. Pure and humble, holy and heavenly Christianity, appeared exceeding amiable to me. I felt in me a burning desire to be in everything a complete Christian; and conformed to the blessed image of Christ: and that I might live in all things, according to the pure, sweet and blessed rules of the gospel. I had an eager thirsting after progress in these things. My longings after it, put me upon pursuing and pressing after them. It was my continual strife day and night, and constant inquiry, how I should be more holy, and live more holily, and more becoming a child of God, and disciple of Christ.12
True enough, the New York period had been a time of spiritual ecstasy for him. A veritable mountaintop. Edwards put these thoughts and other reflections together in a document that would become known as his “Personal Narrative.”13 This is one of the most important extant documents regarding Edwards’s own mature spiritual introspection. His own son-in-law, Aaron Burr Sr., had asked him to share more deeply about his soul’s growth over the years. In a key statement regarding his spiritual ecstasies during his period of time in New York City, Edwards makes a significant admission about the time in which the “Resolutions” were drafted. Listen carefully for the way Edwards acknowledges some imbalance in his spiritual life:
I sought an increase of grace and holiness, and that I might live an holy life, with vastly more earnestness, than ever I sought grace, before I had it. I used to be continually examining myself, and studying and contriving for likely ways and means, how I should live holily, with far greater diligence and earnestness, than ever I pursued anything in my life: but with too great a dependence on my own strength; which afterwards proved a great damage to me. My experience had not then taught me, as it has done since, my extreme feebleness and impotence, every manner of way; and the innumerable and bottomless depths of secret corruption and deceit, that there was in my heart. However, I went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness; and sweet conformity to Christ.14
In these crucial words, Edwards looks back fondly on the spiritual fervor that he had as a young man. He does not regret the resolutions, nor does he recant any of their lofty spiritual aims. As such, the “Resolutions” were well-founded.
“Growth, we might say, is better tracked over decades and years than weeks and days.”
At the same time, maturity as a husband, father, and pastor was just as necessary to his soul’s growth. He was enabled to see his own heart over a longer period of time than the “Resolutions” allowed him. He recognized that zealous resolve necessarily needs to be balanced by a relentless reliance on God’s ever-patient grace. That lesson would be learned over an extended trajectory of service, suffering, and daily reliance upon God’s goodness for us in Jesus Christ. Growth, we might say, is better tracked over decades and years than weeks and days.
He had learned experientially an incomparable lesson about sanctification: Jonathan Edwards needed more than his seventy resolutions for Christ. He needed Christ himself.
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My Husband Left Me — How Do I Respond?
Audio Transcript
Good Monday morning. Thanks for joining us again. Well, we happen to be in a season on the podcast looking at some mature issues, and those issues are rather bleak. Not by design — it just ended up that way providentially in the questions we have on the table. Last Monday, we looked at whether we can be angry at God when life doesn’t turn out the way we hoped it would. That was APJ 1828. Then we looked at how to overcome anger in the home. That was APJ 1829. And last time, on Friday, a wife asked about how to confront some deep, ongoing sin patterns in the life of her husband. That was APJ 1830.
And that brings us to today. A young wife writes in. She was betrayed. And now she endures the lingering pain of a husband who left her for another woman. Here’s what she writes: “Pastor John, hello, and thank you for taking my question. I’ve been struggling for two years to find the right biblical approach to this, and hope that perhaps you can afford me some clarity. My husband, once a professing believer in Christ, left our three young girls and me for another woman. He divorced me a little over a year ago. Throughout this journey, I have struggled with an appropriate, God-honoring response to his ongoing sinful and hurtful behaviors toward our daughters and me. I am torn between a righteous anger and ‘tough love,’ as Jesus showed by turning tables in the temple, and an unconditional grace, as in turning the other cheek, loving my enemies, and 1 Peter 2:23. What is the biblical approach to responding to such betrayal and unrepentant sin?”
Let’s start with some things that Jesus says about forgiveness and about loving our enemies.
Full Forgiveness and Enemy Love
Forgiveness in its fullest form involves two parties, one of which has sinned against the other and is repenting and asking for forgiveness. And the other was sinned against and is graciously granting the forgiveness being sought through repentance. We see a picture of this in Luke 17:3–4: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
So that’s a picture of the two-way street: wronging and repenting, and forgiving. And forgiveness in the fullest sense is only possible when there is that kind of repentance.Then we ask, “Well, what’s required of us if the person who has sinned against us does not repent?” And the answer is that we are called to love our enemy. In a sense, you could call this a kind of forgiveness because forgiveness in its essence means letting something go. Don’t use it to return evil for evil or to hurt another person.
But this one-sided mercy is not forgiveness in the fullest sense. And so the New Testament has other ways of describing how we relate to people who wrong us and either don’t care (they’re just thumbing their nose at us), or they don’t think they wronged us. We call this different names. The New Testament calls it patience, long-suffering, forbearance, or enemy love.
And to be clear, when Jesus speaks of loving our enemies, he doesn’t have in mind warm feelings of admiration or approval. Instead, Jesus gives three examples — or maybe better, three explanations — in Luke 6:27–28. He says that loving our enemies involves this: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” So three things: do good, bless, pray for.
So what we’re called to do toward those who have wronged us or continue to wrong us is to wish their ultimate good — which might involve temporary pain, like prison. I mean, he’s not saying there’s no consequences for sins and crimes — it might be some discipline from the church or some justice in society. But he is saying, “Wish their ultimate good.” That’s what bless means, and that’s what we pray for. And then put that into action by doing good — that is, seeking to treat them in ways better than they deserve.
Four Objections Overcome
Now, I can think of numerous objections that might come up of why such forgiveness or love toward people who have wronged you, like this particular betraying of a husband that is so painful, why it would be so hard. Or maybe we would feel it to be even wrong to treat a person as well as Jesus says we should.
So let me address four of those objections that might arise, particularly for this wife. And I think maybe even this will even clarify what’s really involved in such a relationship of betrayal and forgiveness.
No Injustice in Eternity
Here’s the first one. It just seems unjust that, in a sense, the guilty person has gotten away with so much, a great wrong, without paying any serious price, while leaving a lot of devastation in the wake. Now, the biblical answer to that objection and that heartfelt concern is that God, in his universe, never lets anybody get away with anything — never. Nobody gets away with anything. The way we can sleep at night, knowing that it seems like someone has gotten away with murder, is this promise in Romans 12:19: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”
Now that’s a promise: “I will repay.” What that means is that God will settle all accounts with absolute justice, and nobody ever gets away with anything when you take all of eternity into account. When we refuse to enact vengeance ourselves, God takes up our cause and performs, eventually, everything that needs to be done so that there’s perfect justice. Therefore, we dare never say, “Well, I guess they just got away with it.” Nobody ever gets away with anything. But the burden of settling accounts is lifted. It’s lifted from us and put on God’s shoulders, who does all things well. He will settle accounts either in hell, or he has settled accounts on the cross. Nobody gets away with anything. That’s the first objection that God overcomes with this promise of justice.
Forgiveness Versus Trust
A second objection to this kind of forgiveness that feels so hard — or this enemy love — is that we simply cannot trust the person who has wronged us. Now, the answer to this objection is that forgiveness and trust are not the same thing. You can genuinely forgive while not yet trusting again.
“Forgiveness and trust are not the same thing. You can genuinely forgive while not yet trusting again.”
I don’t say this will be easy. It won’t be easy. A person might say, “You have not really forgiven me, because you’re holding this over my head in not trusting me.” But the response to that is this: “I’m not holding the guilt of past acts, or sin, or hurt over your head. I forgive you for that, and I pray God will, and I wish you well. What I am dealing with is not a past guilty act but a present concern that your character does not warrant a present trust. You may gain that trust eventually, but it has not yet been established.”
That’s my answer to the objection “It’s just too hard to trust.” And I’m saying forgiveness and trust aren’t the same.
Love and Abhorrence
A third objection to forgiveness and love that’s so hard is that the action, the wrong, was so abhorrent to your heart — that is, you still recoil inside with disgust or abhorrence toward it. Now, the answer to that objection is that genuine love and abhorrence of evil are not mutually exclusive, not even in the same heart at the same time. I’ve always been amazed at Romans 12:9, at what Paul puts back-to-back. He says this: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil.” That’s amazing that he would put love and abhorrence next to each other in the same command, in the very same verse, back-to-back. “Let love be genuine. Abhor . . .” — it’s a big word. I mean, it’s not the word hate. It’s really emotionally a strong word in Greek.
“It is possible to bless, and pray for, and do good to a person whose destructive attitudes and actions we abhor.”
It is possible to bless, and pray for, and do good to a person whose destructive attitudes and actions we abhor. That’s my answer to the third objection.
Deep Wickedness, Glorious Forgiveness
Finally, a fourth objection might be, “Look, Pastor John, my children, who’ve been abandoned and betrayed by their dad, need to know how evil the action of their father was, and that doesn’t seem loving to him or maybe to them to tell them.” Now, I think that’s one of the hardest issues in dealing with a divorce while trying to maintain some kind of relationship between the children and both parents, especially when one of them has grievously, maybe abhorrently, sinned. So much will depend on how old the children are, and how much they can understand, and what their own spiritual maturity is.
But I would say that it is essential that the evil of the betrayal not be minimized, because in order for forgiveness to be as glorious as it is, evil must be as wicked as it is. Therefore, as the children are able, we try to make both of those clear: the evil of the sin, and the beauty of the forgiveness — because of how the Lord has forgiven us.
And so it may be that, in the end, even at one of the most painful points in the tragedy, the gospel can shine brightly in the lives of our children.
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Singing Sends Lovers of Christ to the Nations
Audio Transcript
When it comes to global missions, we Christian Hedonists camp on a couple of incredible texts in the Psalms. There we find a couple of texts that have deeply shaped Pastor John and how he thinks of the church’s mission to the nations. The first one is, of course, an Old Testament prayer for the nations. “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (Psalm 67:3–4). “Let the nations be glad” — that’s our prayer. But we don’t just pray to this end, because the psalmist also delivers a command to the people of God in relationship to the nations. It’s this: “Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!” (Psalm 96:2–3).
So, let the nations be glad as they see our gladness in God. That’s a powerful tandem of texts. The first text became the title of Pastor John’s classic book on missions: Let the Nations Be Glad. And the second text, the command, was Pastor John’s choice text he preached recently at the 2021 Getty Sing conference in Nashville. Here he is explaining the connection between our joy, our singing, and our reach to the nations. He begins with an illustration from his marriage. Have a listen.
When we traveled together, which we did yesterday, coming down here on the plane, and which we’ve done for 52 years together, I have said to her countless times in airports, on elevators, “I’m so glad that you can go with me. It makes me happy that we can do this together.” And do you know that never once, in five decades, has she said, “You are so selfish. It makes you glad that I’m along — makes you happy that we can do this together. You are so selfish. Makes you glad — makes you happy.” Never once has she said that. The reason that this conference exists is found in the answer to the question, Why would she never think to say that? Why would it never enter her mind to say that?
Giving Voice to Gladness
The worth and the glory that we see in others is measured by the gladness that we have in their presence. My pleasure in her presence is a tribute. It’s not selfishness; it’s celebration. My pleasure is a measure of her treasure to me. And so it is with God and worship. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him and his presence as our dearest friend. God has given singing to his people as one of the most precious and powerful expressions of our gladness in his glory.
“God has given singing to his people as one of the most powerful expressions of our gladness in his glory.”
It’s the gladness of Godward singing — especially through suffering, as Joni said last night. We say it again. It’s the gladness of Godward singing, especially through obedient suffering, that makes God’s glory shine most brightly. So, for those two reasons, I’m thankful to be here and that this conference exists.
Now my task, in these last few minutes, is to draw out some of the connections between the gladness of Godward singing and the finishing of the great task, of the Great Commission, to gather God’s elect from all the peoples of the world, or as Isaiah 35:10 says, to see all “the ransomed of the Lord . . . come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon on their heads.” So, I have five connections to draw your attention to. I’ll just point to them, and you can trace them out later, and I’ll give you a scripture for each one.
Singing Sends
First, the gladness of Godward singing sends the lovers of Christ to the nations. Psalm 96:2–4: “Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations” — while you’re singing, do that — “his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.” How many thousands of missionaries have heard their call in Psalm 96? “Declare his glory among the nations.” Do you hear that? “Declare his glory among the nations.” Sing to the Lord a new song — there, to them.
“The gladness of Godward singing sends the lovers of Christ to the nations.”
Every year at Bethlehem, when I was a pastor there for 33 years, we would have a missions conference, and at the close of the missions conference we gave an invitation to all those who in the conference for the last two Sundays had heard or felt what they sensed to be a compelling leading of the Lord to cross a culture, to take the gospel, spending the rest of their lives to do it. That’s a pretty high standard for an invitation. We would sing. We would stop. There would be no music, and no head bowed, and no eye closed, and I would wait. And Chuck, who helped me with that for so many years, was sitting over there as a precious partner in it, our worship leader.
And they’d come. They’d just get up out of their seats and come — twenty, fifty, one time two hundred. And then we’d get them connected with the nurture program. Then we’d close with a song:
We rest on thee, our Shield and our Defender!Thine is the battle, thine shall be the praise;When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,Victors, we rest with thee, through endless days.
That’s the hymn that the five Ecuador martyrs were singing when they were speared to death in 1956. And I believe with all my heart that as they walked to the front, uncertain and struggling, but sensing God’s leading to give their lives to world missions, that call was sealed with that song. Singing sends lovers of Christ to the nations.