The Scriptures regularly use the metaphor of a body to speak about human social life. The church is the body of Christ, with many members (1 Corinthians 12). Marriage is a “one flesh” union — that is, one whole body that is made up of a head and a body (Ephesians 5:22–30). Indeed, we can consider the whole household in bodily terms, with the husband as the head and the wife and children as the various distinct members.

At times, discussions of headship and bodyship are reduced to the question of authority and submission. And while authority and submission do flow from and fit within the metaphor of the body, deeper reflection on the relationship between the head and the body enables us to see more acutely how authority and submission are practically lived out. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll focus largely on a household, though the principles are relevant for any type of social body: church, school, business, or political body.

Begin with the obvious. The head and body are profoundly interdependent. You can’t have one without the other. No one wants a bodiless head or a headless body. As God himself said in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Thus, from the outset, our goal is to recognize how deeply woven together our understanding of headship and bodyship must be. Head and body are complementary; they fit each other.

Additionally, the whole body has a purpose, a mission. In Genesis 1, the mission of the initial household is to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). The body as a whole does not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of God’s mission in the world.

Headship

With these two truths in mind, let us reflect on the function of the head in relation to the body. We can summarize the head’s role under two headings, one largely internal and the other largely external. First, the head (the husband in this case) orders or structures the whole body for its purpose through presence, words, and actions, and empowers the members of the body to fulfill their calling. Second, the head maintains the body’s boundaries, represents the body to other bodies, and is responsible for the well-being of the body as a whole.

The head is thus responsible for organizing and structuring the body for its purpose. The head orients the body and directs the body. The head must therefore know what the body’s purpose is, and keep that purpose in mind as he seeks to empower the rest of the members for their particular purposes.

More Than Words

Crucially, the head doesn’t do this organizing work merely by words (as important as words are). We mustn’t think of the head as someone who barks orders. Instead, the head’s words and actions emerge from the head’s presence with the body. The head orients and orders the body the way that the earth orients and orders the moon. Here then is an image: like a planet with its moon, a husband guides his home through his gravity. If he does so faithfully, the moon orbits properly. If he is unfaithful, the moon wanders into disorder.

“Like a planet with its moon, a husband guides his home through his gravity.”

Or we might use a musical image. The head sets the tone; he lays down the beat. He establishes the rhythm. It may be a steady beat that makes beautiful music; it may be a melody line that enables glorious harmony. Or it may be off-beat and out of tune and result in nothing but noise. But one way or the other, the head establishes the rhythm and melody.

Or a final image. The head works like the body’s immune system. An immune system doesn’t merely fight off infection; it regulates the body’s functions, maintains the body’s boundaries, and defends the body from attack by recognizing and deploying appropriate measures.

Faithful Presence

A faithful head’s influence is present even when he’s absent. When Dad is at work, and Mom is disciplining the kids, his presence stands behind hers and empowers her action.

On the other hand, an unfaithful head can be present in body and absent in spirit. He may be in the room, but his passivity makes him light and weightless, and thus his wife and kids do what is right in their own eyes. His abdication and lack of initiative leave a gap that causes much misery. Or, conversely, perhaps his domestic tyranny oppresses and drowns out all other music.

Such images help us to contextualize the head’s authority in his household. While it may include issuing commands when appropriate (as when a father tells his child to do something), the bigger picture involves skillfully and competently taking initiative to marshal the body’s resources for its purpose and gladly sacrificing for the sake of the body and its mission. Such is faithful headship.

Bodyship

Turn then to the notion of bodyship. Like headship, the body’s role can be summarized in terms of internal and external dimensions. First, the body receives the initiating presence, words, and actions of the head and makes them fruitful by providing feedback, input, and counsel to the head. Second, the body glorifies and fructifies the head’s efforts by keeping in step with the head, carrying out the head’s will, and extending and amplifying the whole body’s influence in the world.

Receiver and Glorifier

This is a fundamental truth: the body receives in order to give more. It does not just receive and return. It receives and glorifies. It receives and beautifies. It receives and amplifies. And, in considering marriage as a one-flesh union, the most obvious way that the body (the wife) does this glorification is in procreation itself. A husband is the gardener, and his wife is the garden. He sows his seed; she receives it and bears fruit (in the form of children).

We can consider a number of images to help express her role in relation to his. He is the breadwinner; she is the breadmaker. He is the sun; she is the moon, who reflects and extends the sun’s light where the sun is not. He forms; she fills. He sets the melody; she brings the harmony. He empowers her; and she uses that power to enlarge the domain of their household.

Excellent Influence

Crucially, the body provides input and influence on the head, for good or for ill. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and they fell into grave evil. Nabal did not listen to the voice of his wife, and he fell into grave evil. A husband is the head, and he can lead his family into ruin (like Adam) or into glory (like Jesus). A wife is the body, and she can influence the head for misery (like Eve) or for good (like the woman in Proverbs 31).

The book of Proverbs provides a fruitful way to consider what it means to faithfully live as men and women. The book itself is counsel from a father to a son, a king to a prince. The prince has two quests: he is to seek wisdom, and he is to seek an excellent wife. And throughout the book, the choice is before him: listen to Lady Wisdom or to Lady Folly. Hearken to the Excellent Wife or to the Adulterous Woman.

“She is no doormat. She is the glory and the glorifier. She takes what is good and makes it better.”

The prince is the head; he will order and structure and guide and direct his kingdom. But he is not autonomous; he will be influenced for good or ill. So in his quest, after hearkening to the voice of Lady Wisdom for 30 chapters, the Excellent Wife walks down the aisle in Proverbs 31.

She is no doormat. She is the glory and the glorifier. She takes what is good and makes it better. While she is called to follow the direction and leadership of her husband, her wisdom and action are essential to the fruitful household. Her glad-hearted submission, eager help, and wise counsel are all employed for the sake of the household and God’s mission.

Beautiful Design

Thus, we end where we began. In his wisdom, God has designed us to fit together, to complement one another, in order to accomplish his purposes. Husbands, as faithful heads, guide, order, and direct the household. Wives, as faithful bodies, amplify, glorify, and extend the household in the world. And both do so eagerly, sacrificially, and with great joy for the glory of God.

Tucked away in Psalm 16 is a shocking statement:

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. (Psalm 16:3)

“All my delight?” Could King David mean that? Could he really mean that all of his delight is in the people of God? He could. He says the saints are “the excellent ones.” This word is an important word, found throughout the Bible. Elsewhere it is translated as majestic.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1)

So then, as the name of the Lord is majestic and excellent, so the people who bear that name are majestic and excellent.

Ordinary and Majestic

This word for majestic (or excellent) can also be translated as mighty or noble. It’s often linked to glory, power, and magnificence. Mountains, ocean waves, massive cedars, great cities — all of these are described in the Bible as majestic. When used of people, the word often refers to princes, rulers, and lords, those who have official positions of authority over others.

David Mathis explores the meaning of this biblical term as applied to God:

In our language, as in biblical terms, the word captures not only greatness but also goodness, both bigness and beauty, awesome power together with pleasant admiration.

“God’s people have a kind of grandeur about them, one that calls forth awe and wonder.”

God’s people have a kind of grandeur about them, one that calls forth awe and wonder from David. Such grandeur may not be visible physically, but, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, someday it will be. “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship” (The Weight of Glory, 45).

When Dante encounters the apostles Peter and James in Paradise, he bows down before these “great and glorious princes.” After an encouragement from his guide Beatrice, he raises up his eyes “unto those mountains that had bowed them” (Paradiso, canto 25, lines 38–39). Dante, like David, is awed and delighted by the saints, who are as majestic as mountains.

Mankind and My Odd Neighbor

It’s important to note that David doesn’t delight in the saints merely as they will appear in glory; he delights in the saints “in the land.” In other words, these are real people, on earth, at the present time. How easy it is to love mankind in general, and yet how difficult to love particular individuals. As the old joke says, “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” The Christian variation of this is to love what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “the visionary ideal of community” (Life Together, 27). But this idealized abstraction is merely a wish-dream, and the moment it comes into contact with concrete people, it vanishes like a mist.

Lewis identifies the demonic strategy in such a temptation. Screwtape encourages his young protégé to exploit the gap between glorious expressions like “the body of Christ” and the actual faces in the next pew.

Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. . . . Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. (The Screwtape Letters, 6–7)

“How easy it is to love mankind in general, and yet how difficult to love particular individuals.”

David’s celebration in Psalm 16 avoids precisely this disappointment. David is not confessing his delight in an abstraction, in a wish-dream community. The majestic ones that have captured his delight are the saints in the land, near at hand, singing out of tune with their double chins and odd clothes. David looks upon them and says, “Majestic. Excellent. All my delight.”

Captured by God for God

How is David able to do this? How can he see majesty in such mundane simplicity? Because David knows that these are saints. That is, they are not merely the excellent ones; they are the holy ones. What draws David’s delight is that God’s people are set apart for his purposes.

These people reflect, however imperfectly, the majesty and glory and beauty of God’s own holiness. Henry Scougal once said, “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” And so, David looks upon those who love God, he sees their worth and excellence, the majesty of their souls, and he says, “These are my people, and I love them.”

Jonathan Edwards said much the same thing. When we love something, we love when others love that same thing. That’s why fans of the same sports team immediately hit it off. The mutual joy forms the foundation of a new friendship. How much more when the object of our mutual admiration is God himself?

What heightens and advances the pleasure of society is the excellency and the love of those with whom we converse. But the saints are the excellent of the earth; they are possessed of excellency of the highest kind, and they only are endowed with true excellency. Proverbs 12:6, “The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor”; and 17:27, “A man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.” And certainly in such conversation is the greatest delight to be found. Psalm 16:2–3, “My goodness extendeth not to thee; but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.”

And as religion makes lovely, so it begets love, the purest and most ardent. Nothing so much tends to charity, peace, mutual benevolence and bounty as Christianity, and therefore nothing so much sweetens human society. (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 109).

Do We See Nobility?

David’s celebration, then, becomes an exhortation to us. It forces us to ask questions of ourselves and to seek God’s help in being conformed to the image of Christ. Do we see nobility in the simplest of saints? Do we delight in the saints in our land, particularly in our local church? Do we delight in actual people — quirks, warts, and all? Do we delight in them for their holiness and majesty, and do we delight in them in hopes of spurring them on to greater holiness and majesty?

If not, then perhaps we should turn Psalm 16 into a prayer.

Lord, we say to you, “You are our Lord; we have no good apart from you.” Help us to find your goodness in your people. Make us to know your holiness reflected in your saints. Lead us to see the worth, excellency, and majesty of each and every Christian that we meet, from the great to the small, from the strong to the weak. And then fill us with the joy of Jesus himself, who takes pleasure in you and in his people with all his delight.

When you think of examples of biblical courage, who comes to mind? Perhaps Abram leading his 318 fighting men into battle to rescue his nephew Lot? Or perhaps young David and his sling facing off against Goliath? Or perhaps Peter and the apostles standing before the Sanhedrin and boldly promising to obey God and not men?

All of these would be good answers. But here’s another, courtesy of the apostle Peter himself: Sarah, the wife of Abraham. In his letter to the churches in Asia, Peter commends Sarah as a model for her spiritual daughters who “do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (1 Peter 3:6). Sarah is a prime example of biblical courage and fearlessness, and exploring the expression and source of her courage can strengthen women of God today.

Her Well-Ordered Soul

What form did Sarah’s courage take? It began in what Peter calls “the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:4). This is not a personality trait (as though God prefers introverts to extroverts). There’s nothing inherently virtuous in being a shy wallflower. Instead, “a gentle and quiet spirit” refers to mental fortitude, emotional strength, and spiritual composure. This sort of woman has a well-ordered soul, one that is composed and content in her calling and station.

“‘A gentle and quiet spirit’ refers to mental fortitude, emotional strength, and spiritual composure.”

A quiet spirit is the opposite of a loud one. Consider Solomon’s warnings about the forbidden woman, the adulteress: “She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home” (Proverbs 7:11). The apostle Paul issues a similar warning about women who are “idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not” (1 Timothy 5:13). The opposite of such loud, discontented, wayward women is those who “marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander” (1 Timothy 5:14).

In sum, Sarah-like courage begins with a composed soul, with firmness and emotional fortitude to be self-controlled — not brash, harsh, loud, or meddling, but sober-minded and strong in the face of dangers and potential fears. We might consider Peter’s commendation in light of an earlier exhortation, where he urges all of his readers to roll up the sleeves of their minds, be sober-minded, and set their hope fully on the coming grace of Christ (1 Peter 1:13). Such is the posture of Sarah’s spiritual daughters.

Feminine Courage in Action

Though such courage starts with the hidden person of the heart, Peter is clear that it becomes visible and manifest. He says that the well-ordered soul is a beautiful adornment for a wife — a beauty that is expressed not in the ostentatious and decadent way of the world, but in Sarah-like submission to her husband.

This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. (1 Peter 3:5–6)

Notice that submission involves both actions and words. Sarah obeyed Abraham, and she called him lord.

Modern people may chafe under such exhortations or roll their eyes. Our egalitarian culture has conditioned many to bristle at any talk of obedience (at least outside of very small children). The words submit and obey now carry infantilizing or patronizing connotations. For a wife — a grown woman — to obey her husband is to debase herself. For him to desire and expect such submission is boorishly arrogant and presumptuous. What a different world the Bible is.

When Equality Goes Awry

C.S. Lewis would undoubtedly say that our imaginations have been baptized by the democratic and egalitarian sentiments of our age, and this to our own harm. While recognizing the need for some measures of political equality, Lewis lamented and warned of the danger of an undue elevation of equality.

The man [or woman] who cannot conceive of a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other, the man who has never even wanted to kneel or bow, is a prosaic barbarian. (“Equality,” 9)

The submission of Sarah does not diminish her in the slightest. She obeys Father Abraham, the great patriarch, because she is Mother Sarah, the great matriarch. She calls him lord because she is his lady, his wife, his glory.

We ought to recognize the significance that Peter references Genesis 18:12: “So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’” What’s remarkable about Peter’s citation is how unremarkable the term is in the passage. The use of the honorific term lord is, in context, rather mundane. This is simply the way Sarah talks about her husband.

Two Questions for Christian Wives

In commending Sarah at this point, it’s not necessary that we bring back the use of the specific term lord. The particular term is a matter of custom and convention, differing across time and space. The more pressing issue is the heart, the orientation, the spirit from which the words come. And so, Christian wives would do well to ask themselves a couple of pointed questions.

How do you speak about your husband? Do you speak well of him to others? If someone’s perspective on your husband were based solely on your words, what impression would they have of him? In other words, is your speech marked by respect and admiration for him, or contempt and dishonor? What sort of heart does it reveal — a loud and discontented one, or a gentle and quiet one?

What’s more, how do you speak to your husband? Are his initiatives met with scoffing and scorn, or with eagerness and support? Do you take his words, efforts, and labors (even the weak ones) and seek to make them more fruitful, more abundant, more glorious? To use other language from Peter, is your conduct toward your husband respectful and pure (1 Peter 3:2)? Does it show proper holiness, regard, and esteem?

Bravery Before Warriors

Looking to Sarah as a model of submission, obedience, and respectful conduct and speech doesn’t entail that a wife join her husband in disobedience, or passively accept his negligence and folly.

“This sort of woman has a well-ordered soul, one that is composed and content in her calling and station.”

Just consider Abigail, a true daughter of Sarah if ever there were one. She recognized the ingratitude and idiocy of her foolish husband Nabal and immediately took action to save her household (1 Samuel 25:14–35). But she did so like Sarah, not like Abraham. Abraham showed courage by assembling 318 fighting men and leading them into battle. Abigail showed courage by assembling gifts and food and offering them to David with respect, honor, and gratitude while appealing to God.

In other words, Abigail, in seeking to rectify her husband’s sinful error and folly, showed the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Her soul was in submission to God, content in his kindness, and ready to speak and act with appropriate submission and obedience. And God blessed her.

Deepest Source of Courage

Sarah-like courage begins with a well-composed soul, the hidden person of the heart, and then expresses itself in respectful words and obedient conduct. But underneath the hidden person of the heart is something even more fundamental, which we dare not miss. The fundamental marks of women like Sarah are holiness and hope. “This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves.” Sarah hoped in God. He was her refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. He upheld and strengthened her in the face of dangers, and this holy hope composed her soul and quieted her heart.

Submission, obedience, and respectful speech adorned this hope. Maintaining this hope was undoubtedly difficult. It’s frightening to follow a fallible man, especially when God calls him to leave country and kindred and journey to a far country. Maintaining such hope requires real mental and emotional effort. But God was gracious, and Sarah hoped in God and did not fear anything that was frightening.

May her daughters today do so as well.

How do you approach the Lord’s Table? What is your attitude when you partake of it?

For many years, I viewed Communion as mainly a time of deep introspection, somberness, heaviness, and self-examination. Somewhere along the way, I picked up that this was the right and proper way to approach. I subtly adopted a number of unwritten rules for receiving the Lord’s Supper:

Bow your head.
Close your eyes (or look at the floor).
Hunch your shoulders so that you feel the heaviness of this time better.
Search your heart for unconfessed sin.
Avoid eye contact with others.
Try not to be distracted by the 6-year-old behind you who wants to know why he can’t have a snack like everyone else (or feel guilty because it’s your 6-year-old doing the distracting).
Check your heart for sin again, just to be sure.
Think deeply about your own wickedness.
Try to think about the cross (but don’t forget your own wickedness).
Seriously, don’t acknowledge, notice, or make eye contact with your neighbor; you don’t want to interrupt what God might be doing next to you.

Now, this somber, grave, introspective attitude had reasons beneath it. Paul says clearly that it’s possible to eat the bread and drink the cup “in an unworthy manner” (1 Corinthians 11:27). To partake in this way is to be guilty of the body and blood of Jesus and to drink judgment on oneself (verse 29). This type of sin is so serious that God brought illness and even death upon some of the Corinthians for their failure to eat and drink in a worthy way (verse 30).

Given these realities, it’s good and right for there to be a kind of gravity and weight to the meal. At the same time, it’s important to recognize just how flagrant the sins of the Corinthians were.

What Was So Unworthy?

The Corinthian church was wracked by factions and divisions. Those divisions clearly manifested themselves when they came to the Lord’s Table. Or more specifically, they forgot whose table it was. Far from being the Lord’s Supper, it became John’s supper and Jane’s supper and Mark’s supper and Carol’s supper. Everyone treated it like it was “his own meal” (1 Corinthians 11:21).

The Johnsons brought a spread that would make Solomon jealous, but they refused to share any with the Smiths, who had nothing. In fact, humiliating the Smiths was the reason they brought so much (verse 22). Some of the deacons were three sheets to the wind in the back of the room. Brother Billy had passed out in the third row (verse 21). The meal was marked by the flaunting of wealth, haughtiness, greed, drunkenness, and overall selfishness.

In a word, the Corinthians were despising the members of the church of God (verse 22). And in despising them, they were despising the Lord who bought them. That was the unworthy manner that brought God’s discipline and judgment down on their heads.

When Gravity Goes Wrong

My unwritten rules distorted the gravity that should mark the meal. I always felt rushed because I was rapidly running through my mind looking for leftover, unconfessed sins.

My goal as the elements were distributed was to make myself feel the weight of my sin and the horror of the cross so that I could receive the elements in a worthy manner (a grave, somber, heavy, introspective one). The result is that the Lord’s Supper became largely about me retreating into my cocoon to “feast” on Jesus with a heavy heart. My whole demeanor communicated this through hunched shoulders and eyes staring at the ground, only looking up to take the plate and pass it on.

What was noticeably lacking from my experience of Communion was a strong sense of awe, wonder, joy, Godwardness, and gratitude. In my zeal for gravity, I had forgotten gladness. What specifically did I miss?

Missing Ingredients

First, I missed that Jesus established the meal with thanksgiving. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it” (1 Corinthians 11:23–24). This is why some Christian traditions refer to the Lord’s Table as the Eucharist (from the Greek word for thanksgiving). The first note struck when the meal was given was gratitude to God.

“The first note struck when the meal was given was gratitude to God.”

Second, I missed that the meal was a meal for sinners. “This is my body, which is for you.” Every “you” in that sentence is a sinner, a broken rebel, a child of wrath saved by sovereign grace. Matthew records that Jesus specifically drew attention to the Supper’s connection to our sin. “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Matthew 26:27–28).

In the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. And the Lord’s death is explicitly a death for sinners. “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Therefore, sinners belong at the Table. In ourselves, we may be unworthy, but we have been made worthy by the blood of Jesus. We can approach the Table boldly because the patriarch at the head of the table sits on a throne of grace, making it a table of grace.

Meal Preparation

How then should we come to the Table? What should our demeanor and attitude be? Picture the prodigal son after he’s returned home. When the father killed the fattened calf for the celebration of the prodigal’s homecoming, he would not have been pleased or honored if his lost son had sulked in the corner all night, muttering about his unworthiness and trying hard to remember what it was like in the pigsty. Such an attitude in itself would not honor the graciousness of the father.

What would honor the father is if that sense of unworthiness that he felt on the way home from his sinful exploits gave way to a profound sense of amazement that he was actually sitting at his father’s table, fully restored to communion with him. What would honor the father is if, when the music started, the prodigal danced like he never danced before. That is a real gold ring on his finger. Those are shoes on his feet. That is the robe of inheritance on his back. And he can still feel his dad’s kiss on his cheek.

Amazement rises and converges with gratitude and joy and gladness, the kind that makes you want to pinch yourself to make sure that you’re not dreaming. What if we approached the Lord’s Table in that way?

“Self-examination has its place, but it is best done before we get to the Table.”

Of course, like the prodigal, this does assume that we’ve recognized our sin and turned from it. Self-examination has its place, but it is best done before we get to the Table. This is why, at my church, we set aside a time early in every service for the confession of sins and the assurance of pardon. By the time we get to the Table, we want our people ready to gladly eat in the comfort of God’s grace. (If your church’s liturgy doesn’t include a time of confession, you can still take a moment before the service, or during one of the early songs, and confess your sins in preparation for Communion.)

Full Cups and Full Hearts

Finally, as we come to the Lord’s Table, we remember that we are coming to eat together. This is a family meal. As Paul says, we all eat of one bread; therefore, we who are many are one body (1 Corinthians 10:17). This is not about Joe and Jesus in their special clubhouse with crackers and juice. It is not accidental that we eat this meal when the church is assembled. This is a meal of koinonia — of communion and fellowship.

When we are born again, we are born again into a family, the family of God. Baptism pictures this, as Adam’s children are buried and then emerge as sons of God through Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn among many brethren. Baptism depicts entrance; this meal is the regular family dinner. We partake of the one loaf together. We partake of the cup of blessing together. We feast on Christ together.

Practically speaking, this means that it is good and right that we notice and acknowledge each other during the meal. There are other prodigals at this table, each with a story of sovereign grace. Killing one fattened calf for one wayward son is one thing, but slaughtering the herd because a thousand prodigals came out of the pigsty is mind-boggling.

Therefore, it is good and right to look around and notice them, even smile at them. You don’t have to speak; let your eyes tell the story. “Can you believe that we’re here? That he actually invited us?” Take a moment, look around at all the people — young and old, rich and poor, male and female, from many tribes and nations — and say to yourself, “These are my people. This is my family.”

Next time you come to the Lord’s Table, come with gravity and gladness. Marvel that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have enfolded you into the triune life. Rejoice that God has made you worthy to enter his presence. Thank your heavenly Father for his kind provision of daily bread and living bread. Strike up one of the ancient songs and sing and smile and weep and laugh together.

Feast together, in a worthy manner, with a full heart, for the glory of God.

Do you ever feel that you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? That the responsibilities, duties, and burdens of life press upon you with their almost intolerable reality?

“The weight of the world” might refer to your vocation, to the calling that you have in life. The pressure of a calling can feel crushing. There aren’t enough hours in the day. There aren’t enough resources available. The possibility of failure is real; it looms on the horizon. You feel pulled in too many directions, and at some point you’re going to break.

“The weight of the world” might refer to the burdens in your family. Parents feel the enormous gravity of raising children, of having the responsibility to shape and mold the souls of our kids. We want so much good for them. We long to give them everything they need. And again, we feel our limits. We can’t change hearts. We can’t protect them from everything. We are neither omniscient nor infallible.

Sometimes “the weight of the world” is simply the sheer gravity of existence, of reality. We are mortal. We live in a world where death is certain until Jesus returns. More than that, we live in a world where eternity hangs in the balance. Heaven and hell are real, and everyone we know is journeying toward one or the other, toward eternal joy or eternal misery. In his inimitable way, C.S. Lewis expressed this kind of existential burden in his sermon “The Weight of Glory”:

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. (45)

A load so heavy that only humility can carry it — what does this mean? And how can we grow in the humility necessary to carry the vocational, familial, and existential burdens that we face?

Heavy and Growing Burden

In my own life, especially in those moments where the burden feels greatest, I find myself returning to a few sentences in Lewis’s novel Perelandra. It may be odd to find solace in a science-fiction novel, but Lewis is a master of embedding truth and comfort in stories.

The novel is the second in Lewis’s Ransom trilogy, in which the hero, Elwin Ransom, journeys to the planet Perelandra in order to stave off disaster. The novel is Lewis’s variation on the temptation narrative of Genesis 3. The Queen of Perelandra is tempted by the Unman, a human from earth who has been possessed by a demonic power. The Unman attempts to draw the Queen into disobedience to Christ (called Maleldil in the novels), appealing to her imagination to elicit a tragic act of rebellion to Maleldil’s law.

The variation on the temptation narrative is the presence of Ransom. He is on Perelandra not merely as a witness, but as a participant. He is an intrusive third party, and he feels the burden of preserving the innocence and righteousness of the Queen in the face of the Unman’s lies and deception. For days he attempts to argue with the Unman, countering his lies with truth, only to see the truth twisted to serve the Lie again. His burden grows as he sees the Queen’s imagination clouded by the lies and her resolve weakening.

Then, one night, Ransom encounters Maleldil himself and comes to realize that he is not there to argue the Unman into submission, but to engage him in physical combat — to fight him and kill the body that the devil has possessed and is his only anchor to Perelandra.

‘Be Comforted, Small One’

With the burden of Perelandra’s future resting on his middle-aged shoulders, Ransom submits. He attacks the Unman, wounding him, and then pursuing him across the oceans, until the two are pulled beneath the waves and cast ashore in a cavern beneath a mountain. In the end, Ransom kills the Unman, but only after enduring a tremendous crucible — the combat itself (in which his heel is wounded), the descent beneath the mountain, and then the long, arduous ascent out into the light.

After his journey, Ransom finds himself in a great mountain hall, speaking with two eldila, angelic powers who serve Maleldil. In the course of their conversation, Malacandra, the eldil who rules Mars, informs Ransom that “the world is born to-day.” The Queen has passed the test, and the King of Perelandra has passed his own as well. As a result, “To-day for the first time two creatures of the low worlds, two images of Maleldil that breathe and breed like the beasts, step up that step at which your parents fell, and sit in the throne of what they were meant to be” (169).

Hearing this, Ransom falls to the ground. The weight that he has borne is too much, and he is overwhelmed by the burden. And the burden not just of the responsibility but, apparently, of his own success. It is at this point that the angelic power speaks the words that have been such an encouragement to me when I feel the weight of the world.

“Be comforted,” said Malacandra. “It is no doing of yours. You are not great, though you could have prevented a thing so great that Deep Heaven sees it with amazement. Be comforted, small one, in your smallness. He lays no merit on you. Receive and be glad. Have no fear, lest your shoulders be bearing this world. Look! It is beneath your head and carries you.” (169)

Great Comfort of Smallness

Here is the paradox of comfort that Lewis offers. On the one hand, Ransom really did have a responsibility. The burden of fighting the Unman rested squarely upon him. It lay within his power to embrace his calling, or to shrink back. And yet, after completing his task, at the moment of triumph, the words are clear: “It is no doing of yours. . . . He lays no merit on you.”

“Resting in our smallness, we are delivered from fear, lest our shoulders should bear the weight of the world.”

The comfort offered here is the comfort of smallness. And Lewis offers it not only to Ransom, but to the reader. Ransom is not great. Neither are we. Everything we have is gift, and therefore we ought to receive and be glad. Resting in our smallness, we are delivered from fear, lest our shoulders should bear the weight of the world. This is the humility that keeps our backs from being broken by the weight of glory.

Bear Your Load with Hope

Lewis is not the only one to comfort us in our smallness. King David too offers this comfort in Psalm 131. David’s heart is not lifted up, he says; his eyes are not raised too high. His mind is not occupied by realities above his station (Psalm 131:1). In humility, David refuses to carry the weight of the world. Instead, he comforts himself in his smallness.

I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:2)

“Bear the load that is yours with humility, like a weaned child, as one who hopes in the Lord forevermore.”

A weaned child does not attempt to bear the weight of the world. A weaned child is content in the arms of his mother. He seeks no merit; he labors under no delusions of grandeur. He simply embraces his smallness with gladness.

And so, when I feel the weight of leadership, or teaching, or pastoring, or parenting, or the sheer weight of existence pressing upon me, like David, I seek to calm and quiet my soul. In the face of lofty thoughts that are too high for me, in the teeth of turbulent passions and emotions, under the weight of reality, I say to myself,

Be comforted, small one, in your smallness. He lays no merit upon you. The weight of the world is not yours. It was borne by another, by one whose bloody shoulders were able to bear it — up to Golgotha, into the tomb, down to Sheol, and then out, out again into the light of resurrection. Have no fear, small one. Bear the load that is yours with humility, like a weaned child, as one who hopes in the Lord forevermore.

Does theology serve doxology? It ought to. God means to be worshiped, but not in ignorance. He wants to be known and enjoyed and praised for who he is. Which is why he doesn’t just demand the worship of his creatures, but first reveals himself to us so that we might know him, and therefore delight in him. Theology, our study of God, serves doxology, our worship of God.

Jonathan Edwards, known for both his Reformed orthodoxy and his creative expression of it, helps us with a fresh way to approach God’s attributes, in service of our worship. From a few basic truths — God is simple, God is incomprehensible, God is happy, and God creates — we see more of what God is and, by his grace, are freed to marvel at him even more.

God Is Simple

Begin with the statement, “God is simple.” Understanding divine simplicity is not simple; it’s complicated. Think of it this way: created things are made up of parts; we can break them down into things more fundamental than they are. A person is composed of body and soul. We can distinguish what you are (your essence) from the fact that you are (your existence). We can distinguish things that are essential to what you are (like being a rational creature) from things that are non-essential or accidental (like having red hair). We can do the same sort of composition with all sorts of attributes and qualities.

Divine simplicity essentially says, “God is not like that.” That is, he is not composed of parts. You can’t break him down into things that are more fundamental than he is. There is nothing behind God that makes God what God is. He simply and absolutely is. Even his old-covenant name, revealed to Moses at the burning bush, testifies to this: “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14).

A popular theological way to express divine simplicity, both in Edwards’s day and our own, is “everything that is in God is God.” In other words, God doesn’t have attributes in the way that you and I have attributes. He’s not composed of attributes or qualities or excellencies or perfections. Whatever God has, God is.

God Is Incomprehensible

Now, this is difficult for us to comprehend. That’s why theologians also say that God is incomprehensible. Simplicity and incomprehensibility go hand in hand. Because God is simple (and we are not), we can’t comprehend him. That is, we can’t wrap our minds around him. Our knowledge of him is always creaturely — finite, limited, and partial.

“We can know God truly, though not fully.”

Of course, we can know him, because he reveals himself to us. And he reveals himself to us in ways appropriate to our creaturely limitations. To put it simply, God speaks human to humans, and humans always speak about God according to our way of conceiving. We can know God truly, though not fully.

God Is Happy

Not only is God simple and incomprehensible; God is also happy. In fact, he is infinitely, eternally, unchangeably, and independently glorious and happy. He is free from all need, want, and lack.

This happiness is an infinite happiness in himself. From all eternity, God has perfectly beheld and infinitely rejoiced in his own essence and perfections. He has known himself with perfect clarity and loved himself with perfect delight.

“From all eternity, God has known himself with perfect clarity and loved himself with perfect delight.”

Thus, God has always beheld a perfect, full image of his perfections. This image is so perfect and full that a second person stands forth in the Godhead. In other words, God’s knowledge of himself is so rich that by eternally thinking of himself, a second person is eternally begotten. This is the Son of God, the image of the invisible God and exact imprint of his nature (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3), the eternal Word who is with God and is God (John 1:1), the eternal Son who is always at the Father’s side (John 1:18).

More than this, the eternal and mutual love between Father and Son is so rich and full that this love stands forth as a third person in the Godhead. In other words, God’s love for himself is so rich that by loving and delighting in himself, a third person eternally flows forth from the Father and the Son. This is the Holy Spirit, the breath of the living God (Psalm 33:6), the supreme joy and delight of God in God (Luke 10:21), the infinite river of his eternal delights (Psalm 36:8).

And each of these persons is truly and fully God. The whole divine essence truly and distinctly subsists in each, and yet there is only a single, simple divine essence. This too is incomprehensible: one glorious and happy God eternally subsisting in three distinct persons.

God Creates

Thus far, we have spoken of the simple, incomprehensible, and triune God as he is in himself. The triune God lives in himself, knows himself, and loves himself, and thus possesses unchangeable happiness in himself. But the living and triune God did not remain by himself. In his perfect freedom, he chose to communicate himself outside of himself by creating the world from nothing.

With creation in view, we can now speak of God in himself and his triune being (as we’ve done above), as well as God in relation to his creatures. This relation to his creatures generates a myriad of attributes, perfections, and excellencies, according to our human way of conceiving. Thus, God’s “absolute (or real) attributes,” as Edwards calls them, flower into God’s “relative attributes.”

In this way, we may now speak of God’s power, which is simply the fullness of divine being in relation to the things God does and can do. God’s wisdom is simply God’s own knowledge directed to finding appropriate means to accomplish God’s purposes. God’s love for his creatures is simply God’s love for himself as it is brought in relation to the creatures who reflect and image him.

Flowering of Divine Excellencies

This flowering of relative excellencies continues as God creates, sustains, and governs the world. God’s faithfulness is his love as it bears upon the promises that he makes. God’s righteousness is his knowledge and love as they rightly order and structure reality in fitting proportion, according to the proper value of every created thing. God’s mercy is his supreme love for himself as it encounters weak, pitiable, and broken sinners. God’s wrath is this same supreme and holy love as it collides with stubborn, stiff-necked, and idolatrous rebels.

Again and again, God’s absolute excellencies — his being, his knowledge, and his love — are brought into relation to all aspects of the world, its creatures, and its history, and thereby generate God’s relative excellencies, according to our way of conceiving.

Many of these relative excellencies identify the perfection of qualities that we know in and from creation. Thus, as creatures, we come to know goodness in the world and then follow this created goodness back to the God who is the Supreme Good. So with wisdom, majesty, mercy, grace, faithfulness, justice, power, and other positive relative excellencies. We see the creaturely echoes of these divine properties all around us, and we follow them back to their ultimate source, where they dwell in their fullness and eminence.

Negative Attributes

On the other hand, some of God’s relative excellencies are “negative attributes.” If “positive attributes” take creaturely goods and trace them back to their infinite divine origin, negative attributes take creaturely limitations and deny that God is limited in this way. Consider the negative terms that we ascribe to God: infinite, immutable, eternal, and the like.

Each of these speaks of God by denying to him some creaturely property. Divine infinity denies that God is limited and finite as creation is. Divine immutability denies that God changes the way that creation does. Divine eternality denies that God is bound by time. Divine ubiquity (or omnipresence) denies that God is limited by space. Even the two attributes that began this essay — simplicity and incomprehensibility — are negative attributes, the first denying that God is composed of parts, and the second denying that the infinite God can be contained by the finite mind of man.

God and No Other

God’s attributes aren’t merely qualities that he happens to have. They are essential to him. They are our descriptions of his being, his essence, his very nature, his God-ness. Because he simply is who he is. Everything in God is God.

God is light — pure, simple, white light. God is. God knows. God loves. More specifically, God is himself, God knows himself, and God loves himself. He is the triune God, absolutely full and happy in himself.

Then, this God, the living God, freely creates the world. And when he does, the pure, simple, white light of his being, knowledge, and love shines through the prism of his creation. The white light is refracted into all the colors of the rainbow, as God himself is brought into relation to every aspect of the world he has made. This refracting is what enables us to know him. The flowering of God’s relative excellencies in creation is so that clay pots can have some idea of what the Potter is like. Like Moses, we see the glory of God “from the back.” We grope and we strain and we labor to find words to describe our Lord, who is God and there is no other.

Infinity Clothed in Flesh

And then, wonder of wonders, this God — infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; simple, incomprehensible, and happy — does the unimaginable. The God who lacks every creaturely limitation freely chooses to clothe himself with such limitations, uniting his infinite and eternal being to finite and temporal human nature.

If the excellencies of the simple, incomprehensible, and happy God blow our minds, how much more when this God takes on flesh and dwells among us? And not only dwells among us, but loves among us, suffers among us, dies among us?

The heights of God’s absolute and relative attributes, and his positive and negative attributes, lead us to the depths of his love as the Son comes down from heaven for us and for our salvation. The glorious excellencies of his deity are united to the diverse excellencies of his humanity so that, in Christ, the full range of perfections, both human and divine, are united in one person, Jesus of Nazareth, who is worthy of all worship.

And so, our theology — careful, rigorous, and detailed — leads to doxology — full, overflowing, and abounding with joy.

I’m a baptist — a very happy baptist — but you don’t need to capitalize the b for me. First and foremost, I’m a Christian, identifying primarily with Christ, and only secondarily with my dear baptist brothers and sisters.

We baptists sometimes encounter a tension created by our baptistic convictions: How do we, as baptists, orient to those whose baptismal belief and practice differ from ours? In particular, how do we relate to paedobaptist individuals and churches?

Paedobaptism (from the Greek root paedo for “child”) is the practice of baptizing the children of believers in infancy, in anticipation of their profession of faith in Christ. Rather than baptizing after someone professes faith, as credobaptists do (credo for “faith”), paedobaptists regard baptism as the New Testament counterpart to Old Testament circumcision. Therefore, they administer the visible, public sign of the covenant to children of Christians.

Now, we baptists believe that paedobaptists err in their baptismal theology and practice. We think they’ve got it wrong. At the same time, we don’t believe that rightly understanding and applying baptism is essential for someone to be a true Christian. We regard sincere, Christ-loving paedobaptists as our brothers and sisters, and we want to celebrate our common confession of faith in the triune God and our salvation in Jesus Christ.

Two Impulses

This creates a tension between two impulses. First, there’s the baptist impulse — we want to teach and practice according to our credobaptistic convictions. We believe that baptism is a visible sign of invisible realities. Baptism is public and objective, like a wedding ceremony. And like a wedding ceremony, in baptism God makes promises to us, we receive those promises by faith, and we also make promises to him. God promises to forgive our sins and transform our lives, and we promise to trust Jesus and follow him as Lord, Savior, and Treasure. In baptism, we publicly identify with Christ, and he publicly identifies with us. We say, “You are our God,” and God says, “You are my people.” And as credobaptists, we believe that only those who have made a credible profession of faith should be baptized.

“Christians ought to have a holy instinct to recognize and welcome all genuine Christians as visible saints in the Lord.”

On the other hand, there’s what we might call the catholicity impulse. The word catholic here doesn’t refer to the Roman Catholic Church, but instead means universal. This is the recognition that the people of God, Christ’s church, is bigger than our local church, bigger than our denomination, bigger than our theological tribe. As the Apostles’ Creed says, “We believe in the communion of saints.” As professing saints, we seek to maintain holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God with other Christians. Such communion ought to be extended to all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Thus, Christians ought to have a holy instinct to recognize and welcome all genuine Christians as visible saints in the Lord, despite the various disagreements we may have with them on matters of secondary or tertiary importance.

These two impulses create a tension in how we regard the baptisms of paedobaptistic traditions. Are such paedobaptisms valid baptisms? Or are they not baptisms at all? Can we welcome those baptized as infants into church membership? Can we welcome them to the Lord’s Table?

Different Aspects of the Church

Let’s begin with the church and its government. Theologians often consider the church under different aspects.

The church as universal and invisible is composed of all those, in every time and place, who are chosen in Christ and united to him through faith by the Spirit in one body. The church as universal and visible is composed of all those who are baptized in the triune name and do not undermine that profession by foundational errors or unholy living. The church as visible and local is composed of all those in a given area who agree to gather together to hear the word of God proclaimed, engage in corporate worship, practice the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, build each other’s faith through the manifold ministries of love, hold each other accountable in the obedience of faith through biblical discipline, and engage in local and world evangelization.

Many aspects of local-church government are matters of biblically informed prudence. Such matters are to be ordered by the light of nature as informed by the general principles of God’s word. Prudence enables us to take these general principles, derived from general and special revelation, and wisely apply them in concrete settings.

Two areas of church government that are to be ordered by biblically informed prudence are, first, the requirements and expectations for membership in the local church, and second, the requirements and expectation for leadership in the local church. Membership in the local church is an inference from biblical passages that assume an identifiable body of believers (such that individuals may exercise and be subject to church discipline) as well as the pastor-elders’ responsibility to oversee a particular people.

The Scriptures teach, both by precept and example, that the requirements for leadership in the church are higher than the requirements for membership in the church. In keeping with that expectation, it is prudent to expect a greater degree of theological knowledge and clarity from leaders than members.

Thus, it seems prudent for membership in the local church to be extended to all those who profess faith in Christ and apprehend the foundational truths of the gospel. Likewise, it seems prudent for leadership in the local church to be restricted to those who are able to teach the whole counsel of God. For example, in my own church, while members are not required to be Reformed in their soteriology or complementarian in their anthropology in order to join, leaders are required to hold these convictions in order to teach and govern.

Baptism and Church Membership

How then does baptism factor in? As the Desiring God Affirmation of Faith puts it,

Baptism is an ordinance of the Lord by which those who have repented and come to faith (Acts 2:38; Colossians 2:12) express their union with Christ (1 Corinthians 12:3) in his death and resurrection (Romans 6:3–4), by being immersed (Acts 8:36–39; Romans 6:4) in water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). It is a sign of belonging to the new people of God (Mark 1:4–5; Romans 2:28–29; Galatians 3:7), the true Israel, and an emblem of burial and cleansing (Hebrews 10:22), signifying death to the old life of unbelief, and purification from the pollution of sin. (12.3)

Baptism marks entrance into the universal and visible church and is a prerequisite for membership in the visible, local church. Expressing it this way accounts for the fact that Christians are not re-baptized every time they join a new local congregation. Instead, like a passport, their one baptism is recognized by all subsequent congregations as meeting this requirement for membership.

This definition of baptism includes four elements:

water
in the triune name
by immersion
after repentance and faith in Christ

Essentially all Christians regard the first two elements as essential for a baptism to be valid. Many baptists regard the third element as important, but not essential. In other words, many baptist churches accept sprinkling and pouring baptisms of professing believers as “valid but improper” or “true but irregular” baptisms. The question concerns the fourth element. Is the administration of baptism after repentance and faith an essential element of a baptism?

Some baptists say yes. These baptists (so far as I’m aware, the majority of current baptists in America) deny that paedobaptisms are baptisms at all. Because they believe that baptism should be applied only to professing believers, those who have had water sprinkled on them as infants have not been baptized. At the same time, nearly all of them also believe that there are genuine Christians who have wrong baptismal theology and wrong practice.

However, this position creates a number of confusions and inconsistencies. For example, this position sends conflicting messages to non-baptists. It says, “We regard you as a believer, but we cannot receive you into membership in our church, nor welcome you to the Lord’s Table without your being (re)baptized as a believer. Your baptismal error is so significant that it bars you from membership, even though it doesn’t prevent us from being ‘together for the gospel.’”

Moreover, since a right administration of the ordinances is a necessary mark of a true church, such a position seems to deny that paedobaptist churches are churches at all, since they fail to baptize their members. And because they fail to baptize their members, it would seem that they are likewise unable to eat the Lord’s Supper, since the family meal requires the presence of a proper family.

In contrast, I would argue that while water and the triune name are essential to baptism, the other two elements are important for the proper administration of baptism, but not essential for the validity of baptism. In other words, the proper mode of baptism is immersion, and the proper timing of baptism is after one has believed. Nevertheless, one can err on these elements and still administer and receive a valid baptism.

Valid but Improper

Paedobaptisms, then, may be regarded as valid but improper baptisms. The use of water in the triune name (or the name of Jesus, Acts 2:38; 10:48; 19:5) to mark entrance into the visible church establishes the baptism as valid. Sprinkling or pouring the water (rather than immersion), as well as the application of water to infants, renders the baptisms as improper.

“Paedobaptisms may be regarded as valid but improper baptisms.”

The result is that we are able to duly honor both the baptist impulse and the catholicity impulse. As baptists, the leaders of the church teach the biblical meaning of baptism and practice the proper administration of baptism. At the same time, we are able to regard paedobaptist churches that embrace the foundational truths of the gospel as genuine churches, despite their error on baptism. Indeed, recognizing their baptisms as valid is one of the fundamental ways we acknowledge them as true churches.

Guided by biblically informed prudence, then, we might regard all valid baptisms — including those that are improper with respect to mode and timing — as sufficient prerequisites for church membership, provided there is a credible profession of faith. What’s more, we might consider such valid baptisms sufficient as prerequisites for participation in the Lord’s Supper, provided the Table is guarded as being only for those who trust in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of sins.