Audio Transcript

We have talked about the deadening power of the entertainment age in which we live. Just recently we saw this in APJ 1811. And we have talked a lot on this podcast over the years about the flippancy of the age, and of how humor and glibness sort of works its way into the language of the church if we’re not careful. On this point, I’m reminded of APJs 328 and 905, where we address that directly.

But here’s an interesting question about humor from a listener named Brian. “Hi, Pastor John! A question I have wondered about for a while is these commands to Christians in general, and requirements for elders specifically, that we be sober-minded. I see this in texts like 1 Timothy 3:2, 11; 2 Timothy 4:5; Titus 2:2; 1 Peter 1:13; 4:7; 5:8. I ask because my question is about humor. My default mode is outgoing and humorous. So I’ve wondered if maybe this is something I must repent of. I can understand not wanting to make light of things that are serious or holy. But do these commands to be sober-minded mean we should be serious all the time?”

There are several different Greek words behind the idea of sober or sober-mindedness. The basic idea is either “not drunk” (and all that implies as it applies to our mind) or the more general way we use it — namely, thoughtful, self-controlled, without any reference to drunkenness. In both cases, the import is the same: a mind that is alert and clear, and able to take reality into account for what it really is, and process things wisely, and draw informed and insightful judgments from what we observe and think about.

Three Aspects of Sober-Mindedness

In January of this year, Joe Rigney, the president of Bethlehem College & Seminary, where I serve as chancellor and teach preaching, gave a message in chapel on this very theme of sober-mindedness. And I found it very helpful. I think you can probably go to the BCS website and find it, but it was really illuminating for me. I remember even now, he drew out three implications from biblical texts for what sober-mindedness is, especially for younger Christians like our students:

clarity of mind
stability of soul
readiness for action

And we can see all three of these features of sober-mindedness if we just look at the three uses of the word in 1 Peter, without even going to Paul’s letters or anywhere else. And then when we look at these, I’ll turn around and say something about Brian’s particular question about how humor fits into sober-mindedness.

So first, 1 Peter 1:13: “Preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” So you can hear readiness for action and a clear head that focuses on the hope of Christ rather than being cluttered and confused by worldly distractions.

Second, 1 Peter 4:7: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” And you can hear the need for stability of soul because of how fraught with instability the end times will be. People easily fall prey to hysteria and conspiracy thinking and lose their footing and their stability. So don’t do that; be sober-minded, for the end of all things is at hand.

And third, 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” And you can hear the call for alertness to lion-prowling and a readiness to act in defense of your soul against this lion and the need for stability of soul, because living with a constant awareness that we have a supernatural enemy could easily throw us off balance. And we need very much to think straight and clear and biblically about our adversary and not lose our bearings or our soul’s stability.

President Rigney went on then to make application to the particular challenges of our culture, which are remarkably pressing today. Sober-mindedness turns out to be really in short supply and really needed, he argued, and I think he’s right. And you can check that out for yourself.

Sober-Minded, Not Silly

But Brian’s question is different. He says, “My question is about humor. My default mode is pretty outgoing and humorous. So I have wondered if maybe this is something I must repent of. I can understand not wanting to make light of things that are serious or holy, but does the command to be sober-minded mean we should be serious all the time?” Interesting question.

I need to define some terms here. I wonder if, when Brian uses the word serious, he might mean in his assumptions something like somber or dour or glum or the weighty look of the furrowed brow that you bring into every situation. If he does mean that by serious, then the answer is no, sober-mindedness does not imply that. But the way I use the word serious is this: its opposite is silliness, not joy. Silliness is the opposite of serious. Immaturity, trifling, frivolous, flippant, petty — those are the opposite of serious in my vocabulary. And I think sober-mindedness does prevent that kind of trifling humor.

“Sober-mindedness is the demeanor that corresponds to the weight of the things of life, the great things of life.”

Sober-mindedness is the demeanor that corresponds to the weight of the things of life, the great things of life. It is possible to be sober-minded and have elements of humor in our life. But it’s hard to be sober-minded and at the same time be the kind of person that we’ve all met, who is obsessed with being funny, so obsessed that he’s incapable of serious moments. He is actually allergic to them. I’ve known people like this. They are allergic to serious moments. If a serious moment starts to happen, they’re the first to break the mood with some pun or something. They can’t take it. They have to say something quick to break what they consider a seriousness that they don’t know what to do with. They’re just emotionally incapable of relaxing and enjoying seriousness. And that’s what I would warn Brian against. You don’t want to be that way.

Sober-Minded, Not Somber

On the other hand, unbroken seriousness of a melodramatic or somber kind inevitably communicates a sickness of soul to the great mass of people. And they’re right. This is partly because life as God created it is not like that. There are, for example, little babies in the world who are not the least impressed with our passion or zeal or sober looks. They are cooing and smiling and calling for their daddies to get down on the floor and play with them.

And the daddy who cannot do this because he’s so serious will not understand the true seriousness of sin, because he’s not capable of enjoying what God has preserved from its ravages. He’s really a sick man and unfit to lead others into health. He is, in the end, sober-minded about being sober-minded, not sober-minded about being joyful.

“The real battle in life is to be as happy in God as we can be.”

The real battle in life is to be as happy in God as we can be. And that takes a very special kind of sober-mindedness. It is significant, isn’t it, that the first use of sober-mindedness, in 1 Peter 1:13, puts it in the service of hope: “Being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” What could be happier, right? What could be happier than hope? Put your sober-mindedness to work for making sure that you remain hopeful and joyful as a Christian. That’s the great task of sober-mindedness.

So, Brian, there’s no conflict between sober-mindedness and joy at all. This is real joy, strong joy, stable joy, spiritually alert joy, ready-to-act joy. If your humor serves that, then praise God and go for it.

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?”

I don’t remember the specific time and place I first read these memorable words in A.W. Tozer’s classic The Pursuit of God. But I do know that as a college sophomore and junior I read the whole of chapter 7, “The Gaze of the Soul,” over and over again. My tattered 1990s paperback has plenty of proof. Tozer continues,

[Pianos] are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. (90)

Even when I first read it, the piano-tuning resonated. Now, two decades later, the rough and tumble of adult life in my twenties and thirties has deeply confirmed it. And in the past two-plus years — which some of us consider the most generally divisive we’ve lived through — Tozer’s word about finding “closer fellowship” through a shared Godward gaze (rather than “unity” consciousness or focus) shines with fresh light.

We need not simply take Tozer’s word for it, though. We have biblical granite for this: the “vivid little psalm,” as Derek Kidner calls it, that is Psalm 133. “Behold,” the psalmist begins, “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”

Longing for Lost Unity?

The psalm is one of the fifteen “Songs of Ascents” (Psalms 120–134) that Israelite pilgrims would rehearse as they ascended the landscape to Jerusalem for three annual feasts (Deuteronomy 16:16). Psalm 133 includes no superscript locating it at any specific event in David’s life. Some speculate that its origin was that remarkable (and brief) season of a fully unified nation under the newly established king, with the ark in Jerusalem, from 2 Samuel 6–12. Or perhaps — and this would be more arresting — the occasion was later in David’s life, in days riddled with division, intrigue, and uncertainty, as the aging king longs for the unity he experienced in his youth, and looks back on those earlier days of peace with new, more appreciative eyes.

Whatever the backdrop, David attempts to seize our rapt attention with his first word: “Behold.” Listen up. Don’t miss what I’m about to say.

Brothers Don’t Always Dwell Together

“How good and pleasant it is,” he then sings. Unity is both objectively good and subjectively pleasant — and all the more so after navigating the pains and distresses of disunity and division. Many of us know this far better now and feel it far deeper than we did not long ago.

“When brothers dwell together” echoes the language of Deuteronomy 25:5 (“If brothers dwell together . . .”) and communicates two realities. First is that “brothers” are truly, objectively brothers in some sense that formally binds them together, whether by blood or covenant. But brothers in fact does not presume brothers in function. Sadly, many brothers are estranged. Others are constantly at odds. And sometimes it’s the very bonds of brotherhood that can make it all the more difficult for brothers, of all people, to live in harmony.

The second reality, then, is their dwelling together. These brothers are not only related; they live in proximity. They get along. Psalm 133 celebrates brothers who don’t move away from each other but stay together, draw near, and “dwell in unity.” Such brothers are not only unified in blood or covenant, but in practice. They are not only brothers but neighbors — for their mutual benefit and enjoyment.

In this way, we might call this a city psalm, rather than a country psalm — urban in the best sense. It makes for beautiful words to put on the lips of pilgrims as they come together from north, south, east, and west to dwell and feast together in Jerusalem.

Running Down: Mountain Dew

What about the strange and vivid pictures in the next two verses? Let’s turn first to the stranger image (at least to modern readers), then come back to oil on the head.

Verse 3 claims that such unity, brothers dwelling together, “is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!” Hermon was (and is) the tallest mountain in the region, sitting at the northern border of the united kingdom in David’s day. Hermon is four times the height of Zion (Jerusalem) and had a reputation in that arid region as a mountain of moisture and heavy dew. At its height, it gathers snow, which melts and runs off. Its springs feed the Jordan River, which runs south to the Sea of Galilee, then further south to the Dead Sea. Hermon was proverbial for heavy dew, and was the source of life-sustaining water to those who lived below and beyond.

In an arid land like Israel, where is little to no rainfall during the summer (from May to September), even dew is seen as a blessing (Isaiah 18:4), falling from above (Proverbs 3:20; Haggai 1:10; Zechariah 8:12), indeed from God himself (Micah 5:7). The “dew of heaven” drops as life-giving, life-sustaining mercy (Isaiah 26:19) — or is withheld in divine severity. Dew, then, serves a sign of God’s blessing (Deuteronomy 33:28; 2 Samuel 1:21).

Yet, dew comes at night and goes away quickly (Hosea 6:4; 13:3). Unlike a thunderstorm, dew comes quietly, appearing, as it were, out of thin air, almost magically. The day ends dry, no thunder sounds, no rain showers fall overnight, yet morning dawns and the dew of life has formed — as a gift from heaven.

But what does dew have to do with unity? The key is in this falling (or “running down”) from above, which ties it to the other picture in the psalm.

Running Down: Beard Oil

Twice verse 2 accents the “running down” of anointing oil. Brothers dwelling in unity, David says, “is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!” Pair those with the running down of the Hermon’s heavy dew falling on arid Jerusalem and we have an important threefold emphasis: the blessing of unity comes from above, and often unexpectedly. In other words, God is the giver of true unity.

“Unity is a gift to be received, not achieved.”

Try as we may to be unity conscious and focused, and work as we might with human effort and strategy to establish unity, it will be thin and short-lived if it is not from God. As Kidner comments, “True unity, like all good gifts, is from above; bestowed rather than contrived, a blessing far more than an achievement” (134).

The psalm’s last line, at the end of verse 3, confirms this: “For there [Zion] the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.” Unity is a gift to be received, not achieved — and God has commanded his blessing to fall on his terms, in his timing, and in a particular place. Under the terms of the old covenant, that place was Zion.

But how, then, would the psalm guide us today? Where do we look for unity in this age, if we do not turn to unity itself?

Brothers in the Elder Brother

As the pilgrims singing Psalm 133 journeyed to Jerusalem, they looked up to Zion and, in doing so, found camaraderie with others looking up and striving toward the same hill. When they finally arrived in Jerusalem, they found themselves with brothers, having ascended the mount from all directions, dwelling together for the feast.

“True unity, deep and enduring, is the divine effect and gift of the Godward gaze.”

So too today, God would have our pilgrim gaze be upwards first. Our God, and his truth, is not the servant of human endeavors at unity. Rather true unity, deep and enduring, is the divine effect and gift of the Godward gaze. To find true unity, we look elsewhere first: up to God, through his word. And as we do, and receive God’s gift of himself, we discover others in the same pursuit. Looking deeply into the Scriptures, we find comrades also living in glad submission to God’s word and in the pursuit of his truth. In this way, unity falls on us, often surprisingly, as a blessing from heaven.

And in Christ — who is our head (Ephesians 1:22; 4:15; 5:23) and whose very title means Anointed — we now experience what those ancient pilgrims longed for, and hoped for, and could not yet fully enjoy, or even fathom. What they sought in Zion and the first covenant, we now have in Jesus, as the precious oil of divine favor runs down from his beard to us, his body. We are brothers and sisters who gather not to a single appointed temple but rally to a single anointed person, dwelling together with each other as we draw closer to him.

Pastors have no shortage of issues that they are called up to address in their ministries. The pressure to be an expert on every new issue can be daunting when thinking about everything else on the pastor’s plate. Most pastors need fewer burdens, not more. But when issues of what it means to be human surface — and this is at the center of the debate over transgenderism — it’s important that pastors seek to bring the full counsel of God’s word to bear on the issue at hand.

Having written a book on transgenderism, my purpose here is to simplify for pastors what I think are the absolute essentials for them to consider when addressing their congregations and counselees on the challenge of transgenderism.

Necessity of Nature

What is a man? What is a woman? Until just a few years ago, these questions would have hardly been controversial. But now one cannot answer them without fear of offending someone who identifies as transgender. But this is where ground zero of the debate really is: whether the category of maleness and femaleness means anything concrete at all. In theological terms, we call this ontology, which is the study of being.

When a male claims to be a female, that is not only a psychological claim, but also a philosophical and biological claim about one’s being. From Genesis 1 onward, Scripture teaches that males and females are biological and embodied beings with immutable natures. We cannot change who we are. To speak of nature is to say that there exists an ideal form and function of what something ought to be. The nature of a family, for example, is to care for and raise offspring. To say that something has a nature is to insist upon the existence of concrete purposes to that thing’s being, which supplies our understanding of what the thing in question truly is.

This is where the true debate resides. Christianity views reality through the lens of Scripture, which speaks of male and female as beings defined by their anatomical and reproductive organization (Genesis 1:26–28). Hormones or surgery cannot override the underlying realities of our genetic structure. If culture tries to define male and female apart from anatomy and reproductive organization, male and female become fluid, absurd categories. Hence where we are as a culture.

The transgender worldview is an active thwarting of one’s nature. It is akin to defying limits or swimming upstream against a current: you might try, but eventually limitations and the strength of the current are going to sweep you up against your will.

“Scripture does not allow for a dualism between the body and the ‘self.’”

This reality of nature leads to one of the most important truths: actual transgenderism does not exist. Sure, there are people who may have genuine confusion over their “gender identity” (a concept itself riddled with problems), but the idea that there are persons truly “trapped” in the wrong body is false. Scripture does not allow for such a dualism between the body and the “self.”

Reality of Flourishing

Flowing downstream from the reality of our nature as male and female is the idea that males and females should flourish in accordance with their being. Flourish is a term that describes the fullness of a thing’s being. A flourishing family is a family with no disruptions or privations undermining its operations. A thing experiences its fullness of being or excellence when it lives according to what it is and what it is designed to do.

The issue of flourishing connects to transgenderism because, from a scriptural worldview, we understand that a person can never thrive or flourish apart from living in harmony with God’s design in creation. A person might claim to flourish according to how he or she defines flourishing, but flourishing is not a term left to the eye of the beholder.

Drug addicts might see their intoxication as a form of flourishing, but this we understand as a cheapened form of flourishing that will, over time, result not in the fullness of their being but, rather, in their undoing. Defined biblically, flourishing understands and welcomes the idea of limitations and boundaries (Psalm 119:45). We are not purely autonomous beings who can create and re-create our nature and our paradigms for flourishing. Flourishing is a pathway we are called to live in line with, not against.

“True flourishing cannot come at the expense of rejecting our nature and our embodiment.”

To love our transgender-identifying neighbors is to seek their good. We cannot teach or imply that any form of transition will actually achieve what they desire: the joy of flourishing. When one reads in-depth about the scourge of depression, anxiety, and suicidality even among persons who have undergone some degree of transition, we realize something essential to this discussion: true flourishing cannot come at the expense of rejecting our nature and our embodiment. It simply cannot happen.

As time goes on, I expect to see an explosion in the number of people who experimented with transgender identities, or who even transitioned to some degree, who are living testaments to the falseness of transgender ideology. Indeed, we see these testimonies online already. Called “de-transitioners” and silenced by mainstream sources, a growing chorus of voices is warning others of the contagion-like consequences of embracing a transgender worldview.

Central to our ethics as Christians is the command to love our neighbor. This means seeking their flourishing (Matthew 7:12). Undoubtedly, activists will disagree with our motives of love. In fact, they will see our definition of love as opposite their own. To that, we must simply accept the cost of biblical conviction and do whatever we can to convey that we’re not interested in anything less than their relationship with God and their flourishing as human beings.

On one final note, I want to caution readers from thinking that every transgender-identifying person is an angry activist. That is not the case. There are activists whose identities are wrapped up in ideological warring, but there are also many people, I’m convinced, who are vulnerable and volatile persons, with deeply unresolved personal and psychological issues, who need counseling and love, not scorn or mockery.

Call for Courage

To be a Christian in our day requires courage. Whether in the form of licensure denial, a lost job, suppressed speech, or the threat of coercion, Christians are going to find themselves on the wrong side of elite culture. But take heart. Jesus has overcome the world, and to be persecuted for his sake is to be blessed (Matthew 5:10–12; John 16:33).

As of this writing, however, there are glimmers of optimism that the secular foundation upon which the transgender worldview is built is beginning to crack. There are a growing number of people, some of them quite prominent, who are not Christians, who are raising concerns about the unsustainability of the transgender worldview. From privacy issues, safety issues, and equality and fairness issues, the world may be slowly coming to grips with the truth that its commitment to transgender ideology has outpaced its commitment to reality, sound thinking, and true human flourishing.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15449790/how-the-word-of-man-becomes-the-word-of-god

Jesus said, “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14). In the twenty-first century, does his statement seem true to you? Have you found an easier way?

Abraham may have wandered in tents, Paul may have been hunted like a deer, the disciples may have met brutal ends to their earthly careers, and many in the early church may have been slandered, reviled, plundered, fed to lions, burned to light the streets of Rome — “killed all the day long . . . regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36) — but that was then. We have smartphones now. Modernity seems to have done wonders to smooth the way. The narrow path lying between the City of Destruction and the Celestial City seems paved.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) made a similar observation in his day. Though no friend of the Puritans, his short story “The Celestial Railroad” imitates and engages with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In it, he critiques the pillow-soft spirituality of his day (including Unitarianism and Transcendentalism), firing a critique that could have been written yesterday to describe the rampant easy-believism of today.

Celestial Railroad

Wandering through the gate of dreams, Mr. Hawthorne arrives at the famous City of Destruction. Having read Mr. Bunyan on the place, he is rather taken aback, and pleasantly surprised, to find that hostilities between this city and the Celestial City have all but vanished. Former foes shake hands. A pact built on “mutual compromise” has made allies from enemies. Enmity between the two lands is water under the bridge — or rather, a shining railroad over it.

The Wicket Gate, that narrow and impossibly awkward entryway, as Bunyan’s readers will recall, has been replaced by the railroad station itself. Mr. Smooth-it-away — a distinguished gentleman in the enterprise who guides Mr. Hawthorne on his journey — ensures us all that this large building is much better suited to include the broadminded travelers of modernity. And the effect cannot be overstated, as Mr. Hawthorne relays:

It would have done Bunyan’s heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man, with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot, while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood, setting forth towards the Celestial City, as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely a summer tour. (199)

The Celestial Railroad now transports would-be travelers — comfortably and safely — to the renowned City of Light. Individuals from Christian’s birthplace saw to it that no good-hearted pilgrim would ever again leave the city in derision or vulnerable to unsavory conditions and smiling foes. Nor would any carry that dreadful burden upon his back for miles on end — no, as Hawthorne gladly reports,

One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage, I must not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our shoulders, as had been the custom of old, were all snugly deposited in the baggage-car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered to their respective owners at the journey’s end. (200)

The travelers are sent off with their backpacks snugly tucked away, “to be delivered to their respective owners at the journey’s end.” Genius. But this, dear reader, is but the start to the innovations of the Celestial Railroad. Let me relay but a few more to you.

Old Sites, New Conveniences

Lengthy scrolls and books are not needed as tiresome maps along this journey; only a ticket is required. Such is very reasonable and expedient.

To begin the journey, the dreadful Slough of Despond — that bog full of past sins and lusts and fears and temptations and doubts, in which Christian sank and at which Pliable flustered, only to return home — has a new sparkling bridge erected overhead. While wholesome teaching could not fill Bunyan’s slough, Hawthorne tells us, books of morality, German rationalism, modern sermons, and extracts of Plato, combined with a few innovative commentaries on Scripture, sufficed to lay the sturdy foundations to erect the bridge upon (198).

Traveling farther, one discovers that the Interpreter’s House, while still receiving the occasional pilgrim of the old method, was no stop of the Celestial Railroad. Regretfully, Mr. Smooth-it-away remarks, that grand Interpreter grew rather sour, prudish, and prejudiced in his old age (a similar theme for the likes of Evangelist and Great-heart, the latter even “perpetually at blows” with his new collaborators). He could not keep with the times and got left behind.

Hurried Cross

Yes, dear reader, I can hear your question: What has become of the cross where the burden fell from Christian’s back? Let me cite the firsthand account:

We were rushing by the place where Christian’s burden fell from his shoulders, [the] sight of the Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. Live-for-the-world, Mr. Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and a knot of gentlemen from the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. (203)

“Crosses must be carried in every age, and the costs must be considered.”

Rushing past the cross, the passengers revel in their good fortune at finding a way to travel to the Celestial City without leaving behind their precious habits and secret delights. It would be a shame, after all, to lose such desirable pastimes if they could help it.

Yet there are still more improvements upon the old way to display. A tunnel now conveniently travels through Hill Difficult — the excavated ground then used to fill in the Valley of Humiliation. That dreary and gloomy Valley of the Shadow of Death now glows with gas lamps. And should you, with Mr. Hawthorne, regret missing the chance to visit Palace Beautiful — where live the young and fair Piety, Prudence, and Charity — ease your disappointed mind by overhearing,

“Young ladies!” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for laughing. “And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old maids, every soul of them — prim, starched, dry, and angular — and not one of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown, since the days of Christian’s pilgrimage.” (203–204)

These fair maidens of yesterday, again, resisted the hard-won improvements, cherishing ancient, rough, and inefficient paths.

Vanity Fair

What can be said of Vanity Fair? Hear it from Mr. Hawthorne: this wonder of a place has the power to make anyone feel at home.

The “great capital of human business and pleasure” stands as the epitome of everything “fascinating beneath the sun.” The people, Hawthorne finds, are most interesting and agreeable. Concerning the hostility that once led to the unfortunate execution of Faithful, Christian’s beloved companion, they’ve come to see the misstep. These noble and charming and wise people now enter into great camaraderie and trade with the passengers of the Celestial Railroad; indeed, many of them have taken to the railway themselves.

But of all the wonders of the metropolis, Hawthorne relates one that might outshine them all:

The Christian reader, if he had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan’s time, will be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. (209)

Indeed, few places could boast so much religiosity. Hawthorne continues,

In justification of this high praise, I need only mention the names of the Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep; the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-Truth; that fine old clerical character, the Rev. Mr. This-to-day, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-to-morrow; together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment; the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit; and, last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. (209)

Filled with fine-dressing, stimulating people, and endless pleasures to buy, sell, and enjoy — mind you, in such a fine Christian place — the only curiosity was that people would just disappear. So common was the occurrence, Hawthorne relates, that the citizens learned to continue on as if nothing had happened.

Today’s Celestial Railroad

Now, Nathaniel Hawthorne was no Christian, and he wrote antagonistically about the Puritans in other stories (in part due to an infamous family history). But here, he casts stones — almost in sympathy with Bunyan — against the modern religiosity he viewed as shallow, smooth, and deceptive.

Any reader of the story sees parallels today. They had Mr. Smooth-it-away; so have we. They had trains leaving every day to what is thought the Celestial City; so have we. They had people tucking their sins under the caboose, deploring the hard way, wanting merely a ticket to heaven; so have we.

They hurried past the cross of Christ; so do many who claim to be his followers today. How many sermons, small groups, Christian ministries escape this description?

There was much pleasant conversation about the news of the day, topics of business, politics, or the lighter matters of amusement while religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the background. Even an infidel would have heard little or nothing to shock his sensibility. (200)

“False paths, sliding downward, are smoothest.”

Teachers and preachers, once found in the Interpreter’s house, wooing pilgrims with golden crowns and warning them against smooth paths, now create them. Done with the cautions and commands, they converse among friends. His name is not Pastor; it is Jake — just Jake. He does not tell you what God has said; he is there to listen, just another broken sheep like everyone else. He gives comforting homilies and entertaining stories, but the utterance “Thus says the Lord” is far from his lips.

And I fear that, just as in the end of Hawthorne’s dream before he awakes, so in our world, Mr. Smooth-it-away leaves many on steam ferryboats traveling to Tophet (hell). False paths, sliding downward, are smoothest. The true path is not easy or broad — even for societies without much physical intimidation. Our Christ, who carried his own cross, leaves his church crosses to be carried in every age, and costs to be considered. This earth will pass away, but Jesus’s word shall not: “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14).

Audio Transcript

Are my eternal rewards and my eternal inheritance the same thing? One seems to imply that we can get more (our rewards). The other seems more static and more out of our hands (our inheritance). So, are these rewards and our inheritance different things, or are they the same thing? This is a perceptive question from our APJ listeners, and particularly from a listener named Nathan who lives in Schenectady, New York. “Pastor John, I have read and really enjoyed your book Reading the Bible Supernaturally. I believe my question is the beginning fruit of a deeper grace to look long and linger over passages of Scripture. My question is on 1 Peter 1:4, where the apostle refers to an ‘inheritance’ which is ‘reserved’ for us in heaven. This got me thinking about Matthew 6:20, where Jesus commands us to ‘lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.’ My question is about the relationship between the inheritance Peter refers to as being reserved for us right now and the treasure Jesus tells us to lay up for ourselves over time. One seems static, the other dynamic. Are they the same? Are they different? If they are different, how do they relate?”

This is a great question. I love this kind of question because it makes me try to relate different parts of Scripture to each other to see how they might illuminate one another. And I’ve never in my life — that I can remember — tried to connect these two verses. And so, it was a very, very challenging and encouraging question for me.

Two Angles on Eternity

So, Nathan is asking about the possible relationship between 1 Peter 1:3–4, which says, “[God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance [that’s the key phrase] that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” And then Matthew 6:19–20 says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

Fixed Inheritance

The difference between these two texts that stands out is that the inheritance in 1 Peter seems to be fixed, settled, glorious, firm, already in existence without any laying up on our part. It says, “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” Now that’s a settled, glorious reality.

Peter says that the way we come into that inheritance is that God causes us to be born again for it, born again to it, born again into it. “[God] has caused us to be born again . . . to an inheritance [for an inheritance] . . . kept in heaven.” So, there’s no emphasis in this text at all on something we do in order to bring about the inheritance. The idea of living so as to lay it up is not in this text in 1 Peter. We are born again by virtue of the new birth; we believe on Christ; believing on Christ, we are united to the Son of God. We are sons of the living God. We are heirs of God because he’s our Father. That’s a closed, done, complete, glorious thing.

Increasing Reward

Now, on the other hand, the words of Jesus in Matthew 6 tell us to be about the business of doing the things that lay up treasures in heaven for us. In other words, there’s a correspondence between what we do here in this life and the treasures that we will enjoy in heaven. So, what sorts of things does Jesus have in mind when he says that we should be doing things that bring about treasures in heaven?

“There’s a correspondence between what we do here in this life and the treasures that we will enjoy in heaven.”

And one answer comes from Matthew 19:21, where Jesus says to the rich young ruler, who’s very reluctant to give up his riches, “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” In other words, “Open the hand that is clasping your wealth so tightly — open your hand — and let your wealth drop on the poor, and take my treasure. Take me. Take me as your treasure. You can’t serve two masters. I’m here — the greatest treasure in the world. Let go and take me.” That’s what they have to do, and the poor are served in the process.

And then Luke 12:33 makes the same point that selling your possessions and giving to the needy is the way you provide treasures in heaven. It says, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.”

The Tension

So, if we just compare 1 Peter 1:4 to Matthew 6:20, we see that in one of them our future as Christians is a fixed, settled treasure — an inheritance that exists in heaven for us simply by virtue of our being born again into God’s family. We are children of God by new birth, and therefore, we’re heirs of God. And that doesn’t come into being because we are generous. In fact, it works just the other way around: we are able to be radically generous and risk-taking because we have such a treasure in heaven by faith. And we can see that, for example, in Hebrews 10:34: “You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, [because] you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”

But Matthew 6:20 and 19:21 and Luke 12:32–33 teach that the generosity we show does in fact lay up treasures in heaven.

Three Resolutions

Now, at first, these two emphases — the one in Peter and the one in Jesus’s teachings — seem to be at odds, and I can think of three possible ways to resolve this apparent tension. The first one is to say that the treasures of Matthew 6 and the inheritance of 1 Peter are totally different things. So, the inheritance is not conditional upon any particular generous way of life, but the treasures are conditional upon a generous way of life. There is no conflict because they’re totally different realities.

Another possible resolution would be to say that the treasures laid up in heaven and the inheritance kept in heaven are the same reality. Both are conditional, and that does not hinder the fact that the inheritance is settled and firm and sure, because God will see to it that all his children do in fact live generous lives because they are born again. So, the treasures and the inheritance are conditional, but they are not uncertain because of that. That’s the second possible way to resolve them.

“There will be a variation in the way different Christians experience the fullness of their inheritance.”

The third would be to say that the treasures laid up in heaven and the inheritance refer to the same reality, but that Jesus is calling attention to the fact that there will be a variation in the way different Christians experience the fullness of their inheritance. In other words, every Christian will receive the inheritance of eternal life, but there will be different rewards within that inheritance for the way we have lived our lives.

Safe and Striving

Now I think if we take all of Scripture into account, both the second and the third of these solutions — these resolutions of the tension — are true. Both of them are true and biblical. We don’t have to choose between them. Indeed, I don’t think we should. We’ve talked in this podcast at least four times in the past (APJ 417, 549, 996, 1188) about how there will be different rewards in heaven among God’s children — different capacities to enjoy our eternal inheritance. The parable where one gets to rule ten cities and one gets to rule five cities (Luke 19:16–20), and different teachings like that, point to varieties of rewards.

So, what I would say here is this: let us seek to multiply those rewards as much as possible with lives of love and generosity, and let that very lifestyle confirm that we are truly born again with God’s very generous nature within us. And above all, let us make the certainty of our inheritance as God’s children through faith the foundation of both of those pursuits — the multiplying of rewards and the confirming of our new birth. Both of those pursuits are built on the by-faith-alone confidence that we are the children of God with an eternal inheritance from our Father.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15446309/tradition-is-not-a-dirty-word

A man is trapped in a car, rushing down a hill toward a cliff. The doors are locked. The brakes are out. The steering barely works. Far ahead, he can see other cars hurtling into the abyss. How far they fall, he does not know. What they find at the bottom, he cannot imagine.

But he does not seek to know; he does not try to imagine. Instead, he paints the windshield, climbs into the back seat, and puts in his headphones.

This image, adapted from Peter Kreeft, captures my life in January 2008, as I walked down a college sidewalk in Colorado. The car was my body; the hill, time; the cliff, death. I was, as we all are, rushing toward the moment when my pulse would stop. And though unsure of what would come afterward, I found a thousand ways to look away.

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God” (Psalm 14:2). Like so many other children of men, I neither understood nor sought, I neither asked nor knocked, but let myself tumble through time without a thought of eternity. I was a “fool,” to put it bluntly (Psalm 14:1). And I desperately needed another kind of fool to wake me up.

Puncturing the Daydream

Few people, perhaps, would look at a normal Western life like mine — busy, successful, spiritually indifferent — and say, “folly.” But could it be because the folly is socially acceptable? Might we modern Western men and women have made a silent pact to ignore eternity?

“Might we modern Western men and women have made a silent pact to ignore eternity?”

Blaise Pascal, seventeenth-century Christian polymath, thought so. When Pascal looked round at his modern country, neighbors, and self, he saw a collective pathology, a shared insanity: “Man’s sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange disorder,” he said (Christianity for Modern Pagans, 203).

We cultivate hobbies, and follow celebrities, and read the news without knowing why we exist. We stumble through an unthinkably vast cosmos, circled round by unthinkably intricate wonders, too distracted to ask, “Who made this?” We develop firm opinions about politics, and care not whether souls live forever, and where. We look often into our mirrors and seldom into our deep and fallen hearts. A strange disorder indeed.

And so, Pascal walked around with needles in hand, seeking to puncture the daydream of secular or religiously nominal apathy to eternity. His unfinished book Pensées (abridged and explained in Kreeft’s masterful Christianity for Modern Pagans) may have been his sharpest needle.

What Is a Life ‘Well-Lived’?

Our lives here are hemmed in by mystery and uncertainty. We live on a small rock in an immense universe. We know little about where we came from or where we’re going. We struggle even to understand ourselves. But a few matters remain clear and unmistakable, including the great fact that, one day, we will die. Our car hurtles down the hill, lower today than yesterday. The abyss awaits.

And what then? For secular or nominally religious countrymen like Pascal’s, and ours, the options are two: “the inescapable and appalling alternative of being annihilated or wretched throughout eternity” (191). Either Christianity is false, and our flickering candle goes out forever — or Christianity is true, and, awakening to life’s meaning too late, we fall “into the hands of a wrathful God” (193).

A society like ours would lead us to believe that eighty years “well lived” (whatever that means) filled with “personal meaning” (whatever that means) makes for a good life; we need seek no more. To Pascal, those were the words of one who had painted the windshield black. Death, rightly reckoned with, functions like the final scene of a tragic play: it reaches its fingers back into all of life, disfiguring every moment, darkly witnessing that all is not well.

“The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play,” Pascal writes. “They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever” (144). Stand above the hole in the ground, the dust from which we came and to which we’ll return (Genesis 3:19), and consider: “That is the end of the world’s most illustrious life” (191).

“We ourselves are an enigma, wrapped in a world of mystery, headed inevitably for the grave.”

We ourselves are an enigma, wrapped in a world of mystery, headed inevitably for the grave. Such a dire plight might send us searching for wisdom, if it weren’t for our insane “solution.”

Insanity of Our ‘Solutions’

How do we — mortal men and women, nearing the cliff’s edge — typically respond to our plight? “We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it” (145). We deny. We divert. We distract. Until one day we die.

Of course, no one ever says, “I will distract myself because I don’t want to consider my death and what may come afterward.” We suppress the truth more subconsciously than that (Romans 1:18). Instinctively, we avoid the “house of mourning,” or else dress it with euphemisms, for fear of facing, terribly and unmistakably, that “this is the end of all mankind” — that this is our end (Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Summarizing Pascal, Kreeft writes,

If you are typically modern, your life is like a rich mansion with a terrifying hole right in the middle of the living-room floor. So you paper over the hole with a very busy wallpaper pattern to distract yourself. You find a rhinoceros in the middle of your house. The rhinoceros is wretchedness and death. How in the world can you hide a rhinoceros? Easy: cover it with a million mice. Multiply diversions. (169)

Eighty years may seem like a long time to distract yourself from the most fundamental questions of life and death. But with hearts like ours, in a world like ours, it is not too long. Make a career. Raise a family. Build wealth. Plan vacations. Get promoted. Watch movies. Collect sports cards. Read the news. Play golf. Resist uncomfortable questions.

We hang a curtain over the cliff’s edge that keeps us from seeing the abyss. But not from rushing into it.

Sanest People in the World

Our chosen “solution,” then, only aggravates our dire plight. Our distractions sedate us on the way to death rather than sending us searching for some escape. Which means the world has a desperate need for people like Pascal, men and women whom we might call (to use a phrase from church history) holy fools.

The term holy fools drips with the same irony Paul used when he spoke of “the foolishness of God” (1 Corinthians 1:25) and said, “We are fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10). In truth, holy fools are the world’s sanest people. They have felt the sting of sin and death. They have found deliverance in Jesus Christ. And now they are trying to tell the world.

With Pascal, they see that “there are only two classes of people who can be called reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him” (195). And so, holy fools call people into the “folly” that is our only sanity.

They come to those caught in distraction, lost in diversion, and they serve, love, persuade, and prod. They risk reputation and comfort, willing to look foolish in the eyes of a wayward world. They bring eternity into everyday conversations with cashiers, neighbors, and other parents at the park. Boldly and patiently, courageously and graciously, they say, “See your death. See your sin. And seek him with all your heart.”

To those bent on diversion, holy fools may seem imbalanced, extreme, awkward, pushy. But not to everyone. Some, as they hear of the Christ these fools preach, will catch a glimmer of “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). And they will become another fool for him.

Give Us More Fools for Christ

Pascal (and the apostle Paul) make me feel that I am not yet the fool I ought to be. Too often, I prefer social decorum to holy discomfort, this-worldly niceness to next-worldly boldness. But they also make me feel a keen gratitude for the holy fools among us, and a longing to be more like them. For I owe my life to one.

In January 2008, as my little car rushed down the hill, and as I did what I could to cover my eyes, someone stopped me on the sidewalk. I would later learn that he belonged to a campus ministry widely known for sharing Jesus with students — widely known, but not widely loved. Their message was, to most, foolishness — and their way of stopping others on the sidewalk, a stumbling block. But to me that day, by grace, it looked like the wisdom of God.

In time, I would realize that my various diversions could not deliver me from death. Nor could a life “well lived” forgive my sins or undig my grave. Only Jesus could. It took a holy fool to make me sane, and oh how the world needs more.

ABSTRACT: Reason and imagination are partners in the task of theology. If reason helps us speak precisely, distinguish carefully, and penetrate reality down to its principles, imagination embodies reason’s abstract formulations in order to press reality into our bones. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion is one such story that images theological concepts in stunningly fresh modes. As readers escape to Middle-earth, they encounter the distinction between God and creatures, the nature of evil, and the glory of God’s providence and grace in ways that complement the exactness of theological prose and make familiar truths feel new again.

For our ongoing series of feature articles by scholars for pastors, leaders, and teachers, we asked Matt Crutchmer, assistant professor of theology at Bethlehem College & Seminary, to explain what J.R.R. Tolkien can teach students about theology.

Teaching undergraduates Christian doctrine is a joy. It is a joy because I get to spend time, year after year, thinking on and discussing our God, his gospel, and his world with his children — my brothers and sisters. It is also a joy because I get to be a witness to their fresh discovery of the truth, goodness, and beauty of this or that doctrine. This discovery is often rediscovery, or seeing the familiar anew. Many of my students were raised in Christian families and likely could pass an exam covering the basics of Christian theology. But knowing an answer to a test question is one thing; knowing reality down in one’s bones — joyfully resting in it — is quite another. For students to come to that sort of fresh knowledge, they often need to see familiar reality from a different angle. As C.S. Lewis knew so well, deep joy shows up by surprise, and I’ve learned that joy and its attendant surprise and delight aid one in learning Christian doctrine in this latter, deeper way.1

“Knowing an answer to a test question is one thing; knowing reality down in one’s bones is quite another.”

Those moments of real discovery, even if infrequent, occur by God’s grace as he instructs his people. One of the means God has often used in our courses to do that teaching has been reading outside the genre of theological prose. Specifically, I have for years assigned first semester students a section of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion in the course of our study of the doctrines of God and creation.

What’s my rationale here? My overall answer is that it is my job to teach students how to read. Primarily, this means teaching how to read well the Bible, specifically with an eye toward its theological logic, concepts, and coherence. It also means teaching how to read well a human life in light of what God says in Scripture. Accomplishing this requires, I have found, a combination of delight and embodiment.

Delight

First, I attempt this mode of teaching theology because it pleases me. Of course, this is simply another instance of the truth that unless the teacher enjoys what he teaches, his students will not enjoy it either. The world of Middle-earth feels like another home to me (I know its maps and geography almost as well as my native Oklahoma). Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn, and Eowyn are my friends and counselors and heroes with whom I wish I could sit at table. The longings and failures of the elves, dwarves, and men across the ages of Arda are ones I have felt keenly here. When the Ring is destroyed in Mount Doom, when Samwise hears the minstrels begin telling his own tale, when Aragorn is crowned king and Frodo sails away into the Undying Lands, I experience in my mind and heart the delight of that “sudden, joyous turn” that Tolkien labeled eucatastrophe.2 Reading Tolkien is reading the best of humanity’s fairy-stories, a genre Tolkien described like this:

It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium [“gospel”], giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.3

In a story such as The Lord of the Rings, I receive this sort of joy because in it I experience a story so much like the Christian gospel, the “true Myth.”4 Tolkien’s stories are often said to be tales readers wish were really true. For Tolkien, that simply echoes our longing — our hope — that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true as well: “There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true” than that of Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son.5 So by reading Tolkien as a class, I and my students are delighted, and then by investigation come to see that our delight in it is actually delight for the True Myth that it reflects so imaginatively.

Embodiment

Second, I attempt this mode of theological instruction because our theology is by necessity, to use an unexpected term, embodied. This is the more important of the two rationales.

“Stories can concretely embody or enact the realities of God and his rule in ways theological prose often cannot.”

We read works of fiction in these doctrine courses not because they aim to teach us theology just as a book of dogmatics does. We do so because certain stories can concretely embody or enact the realities of God and his rule in ways theological prose often cannot. Note carefully the verbs embody and enact; I did not say explain. Since systematic theology has earned a bad reputation with some for its use of concepts — some of which are very abstract and seem quite different from or even contrary to the way the Bible speaks about God’s actions for us in time — it serves us when literature can make some of those concepts concrete and particular.

One of reason’s capacities is to penetrate the surface of things in the world and discover their natures and thus their causes (or “principles”).6 For example, when we read the story of the life of Jesus, doing so with good reading skills within the canon of Scripture, we come to understand that he is not simply human but is simultaneously, somehow, God the uncreated and infinite. We then find ways of describing this. We borrow the term “nature,” which has been used to describe the metaphysical reality of what makes a particular thing that kind of thing, and we say that in Jesus there are “two natures.” A nature or essence is an abstract concept, a bit removed from the seeable, hearable, touchable, smellable world in which Jesus lived and walked. We theologians then say that in the singular “person” of Jesus these two natures — the divine nature and our human nature — are “hypostatically united.”7 We claim that the principle of this Word becoming flesh is in God alone; we call it a “divine mission.” We then give this whole complex of claims a new Latinate name and say it is the “incarnation.” Every step toward precision seems to take another step away from the real world, from the concrete lives that we and our Lord Jesus have led.

Good theologians know that this “reduction to” or “analysis by” principles is not the goal. To summarize a claim from Oliver O’Donovan, reduction is meant to give us knowledge of natures and principles, but then we are to return to the concrete world with this knowledge and know the thing afresh.8 Theology’s concepts are there so that we can return to the world of things and know them better. In literature, Reason’s partner Imagination can then “body forth” in vivid characters, plot, settings, and narration those things that we strive to describe with our theological concepts and doctrinal statements.

The above explanation is part of a growing conviction I have about the practice of theology. I have a strong hunch that one generally cannot be intellectually affected — that is, grow in mind and heart — by a descriptive theological statement until one imagines a human person being concretely implicated in its truth. In other words, the movement from exegesis of Scripture can indeed yield true theological claims — a conceptual description of the resurrection at Christ’s second coming, say. Yet I believe that Christians who read that abstract, conceptual theological description will be moved to faith and worship by it only if they can picture themselves, their mothers, their children, their friends having a share in that bodily resurrection. Likewise for the precious, true, revealed abstract concepts like justification and sanctification. The abstractions and the living things are not in competition: they are complementary for us who are living things with complementary human capacities, reason and imagination.

Literature, whether Jesus’s parables, Nathan the prophet’s tale, or a modern fantasy novel like Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, presents us with an occasion for this sort of discovery of truth and meaning. Our efforts at reading (not reading into) the “theology” embedded in the author’s fictional world demand that we interpret a life lived, asking, for example, “What is the case in Frodo Baggins’s or Hannah Coulter’s or Ivan Ilych’s life? What is good there? How do we see God’s hand in how they make their ways through the days they are given?” This exercise then gives us as readers more skills in asking the same questions of our own lives: we learn to see how God is actually working in our lives, what are the real goods he has placed around us, what is really the case about our world — all tasks that good theology aids. Our personal lives do not have a prose explanation given with them, there legible on the surface of our daily events. Maturity and wisdom include growing in one’s ability to interpret life well, and the reading of literature can develop that maturity.

Theology in Middle-earth

I offer the following examples from Middle-earth with this qualification or caution: in reading Tolkien’s works this way, we must respect his own basic convictions about them. These were not allegorical or didactic stories, written expressly to “teach a lesson” or direct one’s attention to the primary thing that is outside the story itself.9 These works are “fairy-stories” in Tolkien’s robust sense of the term, and so meant not to teach a heavy-handed moral lesson, but to delight, draw in, and offer a way of “escape.”10

“Tolkien’s stories have a sympathetic resonance with, or have a family resemblance to, the gospel story.”

Nevertheless, they do indeed teach; they are indeed “about something” that good readers can come to see.11 Tolkien’s tales are the best of what he called “sub-creation,” a work of human hands that imitates our Lord as best as one can, imaging God in the delightful creation of a coherent, persuasive, compelling “other” world. In multiple letters, Tolkien makes clear that The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are religious works despite religion’s near-total exclusion from them.12 He knew that we are to see the world in which we live through the lens of the grace of God in Christ, learning about God its Maker and Redeemer through it. His stories have a sympathetic resonance with, or have a family resemblance to, the gospel story. When we read them, our imagination works to connect the two worlds, but this is exactly the activity by which we come to find meaning in things (more generally?). That sort of discovery, with that work entailed, is sweeter and deeper than many other types of learning. By reading his stories in a theology course, we aim to experience just this.

God & Creatures

In The Silmarillion’s first two chapters, we are presented with a story about the creation of Middle-earth. While our minds are usually drawn first to the “music of the Ainur,” it is important to attend to their Maker. Here, we see that the Ainur — angelic beings — “were the offspring of his thought” and are “kindled . . . with the flame Imperishable.”13 These beings come to realize that they are singing a world into form. Though they do this, they themselves have their being from the thought of “Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar.”14 Following some of the most exquisite and even moving writing from the twentieth century, in which the Ainur’s song is lovingly described — a music in which they begin actually to see a vision of a world and its history — Ilúvatar fulfills the Ainur’s desires and speaks the cosmos into existence: “Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be!”15 Eä is the Quenya word (one of the languages of the Elves in Tolkien’s mythology) for both “the entire universe that is” and the verb “to be.” With this word, the world comes to exist.

The beauty of this brief narrative arrests the reader, drawing one’s attention to this New World as if it’s the most intricate miniature one could hope to find. Notice what has been built into this world, though: there is a Cause and Source for everything that is, except for one. Eru/Ilúvatar is simply there, without beginning or cause; everything else that exists (the powerful Ainu Melkor included) has been made, and made by him. They are creatures. His making of things — the Ainur or the world — seems effortless and immediate, having no raw material at hand for things to be. This is akin to what Christian theology has long confessed about God: that he is simple, eternal, causeless, whose life is well described as a se, meaning that it is “of or from himself.” Christian theology has also confessed that God would be himself even if he had not made the creation. Similarly, these characteristics, when set beside those of created beings, show us that one of the most fundamental realities of our existence is the Creator-creature distinction: God is qualitatively different from everything else.16 These unique characteristics of divinity play a role in much of the rest of this first part of The Silmarillion.

Nature of Evil

Immediately, Tolkien’s myth of creation turns to the rebellion of some of the creatures, portrayed luminously as one particular angelic being sings his own melody that breaks the harmony of the whole music of creation:

But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. . . . Some of these [selfish] thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent.17

Tolkien’s language soars here, giving us readers a vivid picture of a crashing storm of sound, a braying cacophony that tries “in an endless wrath”18 to overpower the most beautiful polyphonic motet one could imagine. In about three pages, Tolkien portrays the nature of evil with more subtlety and insight than many theological writers have in hundreds.

What is evil? Evil is a departure from or perversion of the good of being as God has created it to be, in all its ordered justice. It is here not the freedom of agency and creativity per se that is evil, but using that capacity to act in a way that is “not in accord with the theme.”19 One expansive definition of sin as seen in Scripture is that of “lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).20 Melkor’s music is evil because it is contrary to or a perversion of the “law” of the music of the creation from Ilúvatar. It misses the mark of what the music is supposed to be.

Further, evil can include isolation, impatience, and sloth:

Melkor had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Being alone, he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.21

Notice two parts to Melkor’s evil: he isolated himself and he was impatient. He did not think the other creatures were essential to his life, nor that he had to trust the wise timing of God. Evil always isolates: Gollum lives alone for five hundred years; Sauron brooks no rivals; Frodo is tempted toward leaving Sam behind. The converse is important: for a creature to act in harmony with the world God has created, the creature must be and act in relation to other creatures as well. The Ten Commandments contain two tables: the vertical by which we are to obey the law related to God; the horizontal by which we are to obey the law related to others. Such is the biblical nature of justice.

Further, Melkor wanted no span of time and output of effort to exist between his thoughts and their accomplishment: he wanted instantaneous and effortless results. The One Ring of the later tales is one more instance of this creaturely lust to have no gap, no loss, between a thought and its perfect effect in the real world. But such power is only God’s; only God is thus sovereign, because only God is thus perfect, simple Being. For Tolkien, magic and modern machinery are man’s attempt to wield this sort of power in an un-creaturely way in order to satisfy man’s sinful hastiness. By portraying a wicked power casting about for God’s own secret power, or the forging of a Ring that seeks to give Godlike power (invisibility, domination of the wills of others by one’s mere thoughts), these vivid tales help our imaginations to see not only biblical truth embodied in stunningly fresh modes, but also the meaning of our own desires, actions, and techniques.

Providence & Grace

Finally, this story teaches us about God’s providence and eternal plan for salvation. See how Ilúvatar responds to this cacophonous discord:

Ilúvatar arose, . . . and a third theme grew amid the confusion and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched and it took to itself power and profundity. . . . [It was) deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. . . . Melkor’s music tried to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken in by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.22

The history of the world that God sovereignly ordained “takes in” the imaginations of evil and weaves them into its own music. The plan for history is not defeated by evil’s attempts to thwart it, but evil actually defeats itself. Note how Ilúvatar’s response at this point is a music that is as delicate as the skin of a newborn child, but one that grows and wins the victory not by sheer strength but through “immeasurable sorrow.” Few descriptions of the eternal plan for the gospel of Jesus Christ do more to move our hearts.

Finally, Ilúvatar explains the interplay like this:

Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined. . . . And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.23

What an insightful and powerful description of divine providence. Surely, the devil fooled himself into thinking that he could cause things that God does not foresee and intend, as if he were omniscient. Tolkien here masterfully contrasts the infinite wisdom, goodness, and power of God with the quite limited knowledge, desires, and power of even the mightiest of creatures.

Making sense of this scene in Tolkien’s masterpiece demands that readers think theologically, of course. But having briefly visited the beginnings of Arda or the road from Hobbiton to Mount Doom, the big payoff is in students’ ability to imagine God’s sovereignty, omniscience, providence, or even the nature of evil, however variably they might be manifested, in their own world. For this world itself was indeed spoken into existence to the delight of its Maker, and itself is the place where that Maker trod in human feet.

Audio Transcript

Last time, we looked at how non-Christians fight for faith. We Christians also fight for faith. We fight for faith because the world and the flesh and the devil conspire to spiritually deaden us. They come at us with sleeping pills, with tranquilizers of relaxation, with the offer of a life filled by the hypnotic trance of digital amusements. And what Jesus wants us to see is that “faith and hope and love are the antidotes to the soporific effects of the world always trying to get you to go to sleep.” So how do we stay awake? And how do we fight to stay awake in the entertainment age? Here’s Pastor John, preaching in 2005 at an outdoor venue — a conference maybe. I’m not sure about the context, but you’ll hear the wind at times. Here is John Piper.

“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11). Today is the 80th birthday of Dan Fuller, which doesn’t mean anything to most of you, but means a great deal to me because Dan Fuller was for me in 1968, ’69, ’70 and ’71 God’s instrument for turning my world upside down and opening my eyes to the Scriptures and the glory of God. So, I got on email yesterday, and I wrote him a long letter of appreciation and gratitude. And among the other things that I said, I said, “Dan, salvation is closer to you now than it was the day you believed, and every groan of your 80-year-old body is groaning closer to Jesus. Every heartbeat in your fragile old body is a heartbeat closer to the glory of Jesus Christ.”

I hope he takes heart in his 80-year-old frame. And I hope you take heart from knowing your salvation — which is the completion of your redemption, with a new body and the end of battling with sin — is closer today than it was yesterday. And every groaning of your aching body means, “I’m one groan closer to the glory that is arriving.”

Sleepwalking and Skydiving

Then the third thing he says in verse 11, in the first half of the verse, is this: “The hour has come for you to wake from sleep” (Romans 13:11). And you remember what we said about that? Most of the world that is not treasuring Jesus Christ as its supreme treasure is sleepwalking. Even though their life is very glitzy, it’s just bombarded every day with advertisements to say, “Do this, and you will live,” when in fact, it’s the devil wringing his hand, saying, “Do this, and you will go sound asleep” — sound asleep to what that sun is really saying today.

How many people in Mounds View do not hear the glory of God being declared from the heavens? Why? Because they spent all night watching television. They’ve saturated their lives with an entertainment mentality, and their spiritual eyes have gotten smaller and smaller and smaller until most people without Christ can’t see anything glorious in spiritual reality. And Paul says, “The day has come. This is not a time for sleeping. This is not a time for sleepwalking.”

It’s not a time for being like skydivers — this is like a parable of the world without Christ. The skydivers are leaping out their planes, and they are watching the air go at 120 miles an hour through their fingers, and feeling this is the apex of the thrill of life. But there’s just one problem: they have no parachutes. And the gravity that is pulling them inexorably toward what will happen in about a minute or two is called the wrath of God. Because Jesus said in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” And they think they’re so alive.

One of our great tasks is to so let the light of the gospel shine that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, eyes will wake up to the fact that day has come. Christ has come. The sun of righteousness has risen over Mounds View and over the Twin Cities. Wake up to the glory of your Savior, and believe him and enjoy him. Don’t be a sleepwalker. Don’t be a sleep-skydiver. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to get dressed. That’s what this text is about today. Get dressed. Take off your pajamas. Stop going to work in your pajamas.

Entering the War

So, we start now at verse 12. And what we’re finding here is that we’re being told what to wear as the light has come and what to do in this clothing. Romans 13:12: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then cast off the works of darkness.” You see the logic? “Because it is day, so then . . .” These are pajamas. Cast off the works of pajamas. One way to define sin is pajamas. You should be embarrassed to go around sinning. I mean, who would go to work in his pajamas? But people go to work in the works of darkness every day when it’s day. Wake up! It’s day. The King of kings has come.

So, “cast off [take off] the works of darkness and put on” — and then he chooses a word that is surprising. I didn’t expect him to choose this word. It’s a word that signals that the Christian life is not just wakeful; it’s war. You see that word? The day is at hand; so then, take off your pajamas — that is, the works of darkness — “and put on the armor of light.” I mean, I would expect it to say, “Put on a shirt or a cloak” or “Dress well for work” or something. And he says, “Put on the armor of light.”

“The Christian life is not just wakeful; it’s war.”

So, out of the blue comes — I mean, we don’t just go from pajamas to clothes to armor; we go straight from pajamas to armor. What does that say about life? It says life is war. The Christian life is a battle — though God has been so merciful to give us a foretaste of heaven today, and we may wonder, how can we even think in terms of life as being war and a battle and darkness to be overcome?

Armor of Light

So, put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Now, here’s my question: What is the armor of light, and what does putting it on mean? But let’s make the question a little broader. Verse 12 and verse 14 both used the words “put on.” Notice verse 14: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” So, now you’ve got two “put-ons”: put on the armor of light when you take off your pajamas of sin, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. So, my question really is, What’s the relationship between putting on the armor of light and putting on the Lord Jesus Christ? What do those two things mean? And I think the answer is given in 1 Thessalonians 5:7–8.

So, if you want to go there with me, you can, or you can just listen. I read this two weeks ago because 1 Thessalonians 5:7–8 is the closest comparison in all of Paul’s writings to what we have here in Romans 13:12–14. When I read it, you’ll hear the relationship. So listen carefully to 1 Thessalonians 5:7–8:

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on [now there it is: we have armor, so we know we’re in the same sphere of thought] the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

So, Paul mentions two pieces of armor: breastplate and helmet. We know there are more from Ephesians 6, but that’s all he’s dealing with here. We’ve got a breastplate to cover your heart and your will, and we’ve got a helmet to cover your brain, because those are the only three things the devil’s interested in. He wants your heart; he wants your will; he wants your brain — so get yourself covered good here and here. And he says there are three things that this armor stands for: faith, love, hope. Sound familiar? These three are the great ones — faith, hope, and love.

Staying Awake in a Sleepy World

So, now I come back to Romans 13:12, and see if this will help us. “So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” That is, let us put on faith, and let us put on hope, and let us put on love.

“Faith and hope and love are the antidotes to the soporific effects of the world.”

In this world of sleepwalking, the message is coming at you all day long — every day from television and from advertising and from all other kinds of things — to say, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep with regard to God, with regard to Christ, with regard to the Bible.” And the less you want the Bible, the less you want Jesus, the less you want God, the more effective you know the sleeping pills of the world have been in your life. And what he’s saying here now is that faith and hope and love are the antidotes to the soporific effects of the world always trying to get you to go to sleep. So, combat that sleep-producing effect of the world by putting on faith and putting on hope and putting on love.