Audio Transcript

Sometimes we find it hard to pray because we’re under spiritual attack. And sometimes we find it hard to pray because we lack personal discipline. And in a 1988 sermon, Pastor John explained the physical side of prayerful alertness. That’s one reason for sharing today’s clip.

The other reason is that two weeks ago we were talking about wrestling in prayer in APJ 1795. And at the end of that episode, Pastor John threw in a little definition of prayer as being “a wartime walkie-talkie.” You might remember that from a couple of weeks ago. At the end of that episode, I mentioned that we had never really talked here on the podcast about that phrase, which is one of Pastor John’s favorite metaphors for prayer. Today I want to give you a glimpse into how he uses that metaphor. Prayer is not a domestic intercom to ring the butler; it’s a wartime walkie-talkie to connect with the General. Pastor John explains this well in a sermon clip from 1988. Here he is.

Now, if you’ve been around Bethlehem a little while, you might have picked up that one of my favorite analogies of prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie. I like to contrast the wartime walkie-talkie of prayer with the domestic intercom. What I like to say is that one of the reasons prayer malfunctions is because people take a wartime walkie-talkie and try to turn it into a domestic intercom, in which they ring up the butler to please bring another pillow to the den.

Prayer was designed for the battlefield as a wartime walkie-talkie, not to increase the pad of the saints through a domestic intercom. Now keep that image in your mind as I read these verses again, and then I want to paint a picture for you of the situation it looks to me like Paul is in.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison — that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. (Colossians 4:2–4)

Wartime Walkie-Talkie

Here’s one way to picture what’s going on here. Paul, Epaphras, Luke, Timothy, Aristarchus — that’s the team mentioned in this book in other verses. Storm troopers — you could picture them as on the front lines. They have an assignment to penetrate the enemy line of Satan and to take captive for God souls who are being blinded and held by Satan. They attempt to spearhead a breach through the enemy line, and they hit a massive counterforce.

The result? At least two of them, Aristarchus and Paul, are in a prison camp. It looks as though the enemy has gotten a significant tactical victory. But Paul in the camp manages to scratch a note and smuggle it out of the camp to the soldiers who are not at this point on the front line. They’re called Colossians, back up country in the high ground. The note at this point simply says, “Use the walkie-talkie. Call the commander. Have him fire a missile.” He gives the coordinates. “And tell him to blow the door off of this prison. And open a door for the word of God to go forward behind those lines and to rescue those people that we were after when we got waylaid here in this prison.”

Now, the point so far is this: we’re all soldiers, and we’re all on the battlefield. Some of us are in different places in the battlefield, and some penetrating a front line can get into grave difficulty. The job of the rest of the soldiers is to use the walkie-talkie of prayer to call in air cover and fire power for those storm troopers. We are crucial in evangelism, indirectly, through prayer.

Here is what the text, Colossians 4:2–4, answers for us indirect supporters: it answers how to pray and what to pray. It gives three answers to each of those questions. Let’s look at them briefly. First of all, how to pray.

Pray Persistently

The first way is persistently. Verse 2: “Continue steadfastly in prayer.” Or your version might say, “Devote yourselves to prayer.” Be persistent, continuous, devoted.

Here’s a way to illustrate this: Prayer is not like these new telephones that you can buy that don’t have any cords. Our sons won one of these telephones by selling a lot of magazines. So we now have one of these tweety-bird telephones, and you can just pull the little aerial up, flick it on, and walk around the house talking — go out in the yard.

Now prayer is not like these telephones, because as soon as you take that telephone off the hook and start using it, the power runs out of it. It starts getting weaker and weaker and weaker. And if you keep on using it, it’s useless. You’ve got to stop using it. You’ve got to hang it up in order for it to get power again. Prayer is exactly the opposite. If you hang prayer up on the wall of your bedroom when you leave in the morning, it will be dead when you come home at night, very likely.

But the best way to keep prayer powerful is to hook it, like I’ve got this little doohickey right on me here. See, that’s hooked up to this. You just keep it hooked on your belt and make sure it stays on. I’ve got to flick this thing off between services or I’ve got no juice — the battery runs out. Prayer is just the opposite. You’ve got to keep it on because it gets more and more and more powerful the more you use it. I think that’s what’s meant by “be persistent in prayer.” It doesn’t run out of juice. It’s more and more effective as you devote yourself to it and continue in it.

“Prayer doesn’t run out of juice. It’s more and more effective as you devote yourself to it and continue in it.”

So when you’re done in the morning — suppose you spend five, or ten, or twenty, or thirty minutes in prayer in the morning — don’t hang it up. Hang it on right here, and don’t flick it off. Flick it on so there’s a little red light showing. You can get beeps and little tweety sounds during the day from God, and he can just listen to you anytime you want to pick it up.

Pray Watchfully

The second way to pray, after persistently, is watchfully. You see that in verse 2? “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it.” Now, why do we need to be watchful, and what does that mean? Satan, who is the enemy that we are against and who is holding people in bondage, knows how dangerous this walkie-talkie is to his purposes. And so, he will try to jam the airwaves so you can’t get through. He’ll try to steal the unit so that you can’t use it. And he’ll try to put you to sleep with some drug while you’re talking on it. Now, how does he do those three things?

Jamming the Airwaves

He’s “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). Picture him now, just everywhere, as it were — at least his influence is everywhere. Our airways have got to get to God through this walkie-talkie of prayer, and it’s as though he can jam the airwaves by filling our atmosphere with an incredible number of non-essential things, so that the atmosphere over our brain is so cluttered with insignificant and sometimes very worldly things that our little effort to send our signal up just goes click, and doesn’t even get through. He’s really good at cluttering your brain with non-essential airwaves that jam your desires to get through.

How does he steal the unit? He steals the unit by tricking you into thinking it’s broken so that you lay it down and walk away from it.

Putting Us to Sleep

And the third way — namely, causing us to go to sleep with some drug as we talk — there are a lot of ways he does this. Let me tell you the most common way that he does this: Satan puts you to sleep in prayer, most commonly, by tricking you into staying up too late the night before.

“Satan puts you to sleep in prayer, most commonly, by tricking you into staying up too late the night before.”

Now, I think this is real serious business here, and I’m preaching to myself mainly. God designed you to need a certain amount of sleep. Most people are about the same. You might be a little different. If you don’t get that amount of sleep, you get irritable, and that’s a sin, and therefore not getting enough sleep is giving a foothold to the devil. It leads to depression. It leads to falling asleep during prayer.

So when you start to fall asleep during prayer, and you say, “Oh, I’ve got to fight the fight here,” look, that fight was lost the night before, and the problem is we don’t see the fight the night before. We don’t recognize that when it’s time to go to bed, in order to get God’s prescribed amount of sleep, Satan is the one who’s tricking us to watch another TV program. Satan is the one who’s keeping us reading the book. Satan is the one who keeps us in the newspaper and the magazine. Satan is the one who keeps us out in the yard, poking around or whatever, because Satan knows, “If I can cut it back to six or five or four hours, I’ll wreck their day. I’ll wreck their day and make them useless for God, and I will put them to sleep during prayer.” Vigilance or watchfulness is the only answer that I know of; that is, when the temptation comes, fight back with an awareness of what God has called you to do.

Now, I don’t know the last or final answer as to why God designed human beings to be unconscious one-third of their life. That’s a great puzzle to me, but he did. I think it has to do with wanting to teach us that we are not God. I think sleep is the most humbling experience that anybody ever has.

If there is any point in your life where you are utterly childlike and helpless, it’s when you are unconscious in bed at night. God designed you to go unconscious about a third of your life. Probably more than a third, if you count how much you slept when you were a baby or a child. You’ve just got to own up to that and stop trying to be God — I do anyway.

Pray Thankfully

The third way we are to pray, besides persistently and watchfully, is thankfully. “Continue steadfastly in prayer,” it says, “being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Now, the wartime analogy might make you jittery. Suppose this wartime talk that I’m using causes you to think in terms of, “Oh, it just means you’re biting your nails and your heart is thumping and your hands are sweating. This is an awful view of the Christian life.”

Well, that would be an awful view of the Christian life. So this word is added to get rid of that image. If that’s what wartime signifies to you, rather than the thrill of conquest, then thanksgiving is added here to mellow things out a little bit.

As we call in the headquarters to guide us through the minefields of temptation, and to give us the firepower we need, and to blast doors off the hinges in our lives, we ought to mingle with all of our requests sentences like this: “The missile hit right on target, Sir. Thank you.” “The door was blown off its hinges, Sir. Thank you.” “We’re heading out in full force, Sir. Thank you.” “The arm of Aristarchus has been healed, Sir. Thank you.” “We’re coming in, Sir, with twenty captives. Thank you.”

You see, the battle belongs to the Lord. All the crucial engagements with Satan — in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, on the cross, at the empty tomb — every one of them was triumphantly won by Jesus Christ.

We do not fight one single battle with the mindset that we are going to be losers in the end. We fight all of our battles knowing that, in Jesus Christ, we will win, and therefore gratitude ought to ring through this walkie-talkie all the time. If it doesn’t, something will malfunction in the walkie-talkie. It has this little sensor in there that begins to click when there’s not enough gratitude going through. That’s the answer to the question of how we pray as supporters of storm troopers.

The Bible’s most well-known and beloved declaration of God’s faithfulness might be Lamentations 3:22–23:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;     his mercies never come to an end;they are new every morning;     great is your faithfulness.

We hear it echoed in many of our hymns and songs, like the refrain from the much-loved hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”:

“Great is thy faithfulness!” “Great is thy faithfulness!”Morning by morning new mercies I see;All I have needed thy hand hath provided —“Great is thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me.

We love this text, and the songs it inspires, because we find God’s faithfulness to be one of his most comforting attributes. But one fact we might overlook when we quote or sing these verses is that this great declaration of God’s great faithfulness was made in the context of severe affliction.

God-Given Affliction?

The book of Lamentations is one long, tearful lament over profound suffering. At the time, the Jewish people were suffering at the hands of the ferocious Babylonian army. The author of Lamentations recognized that this affliction came directly from the hand of the Lord, who in afflicting his people was being faithful to his word (Lamentations 2:17).

“Can we derive hope from what God will faithfully accomplish for us through our afflictions?”

Now, when we endure suffering, we take comfort in God’s faithfulness to keep his promise to ultimately deliver us from our suffering (2 Corinthians 1:10). And that’s right — we should. So did the author of Lamentations (Lamentations 3:21). But can we derive hope, as the author of Lamentations did, not merely from God’s promise to faithfully deliver us from our afflictions, but from what God will faithfully accomplish for us through our afflictions?

The biblical answer to that question is a resounding yes. And for the sake of our encouragement, let’s examine some of God’s redemptive purposes when, in faithfulness, he afflicts us.

Delivered from Wandering

Psalm 119, that long, beautiful, ancient acrostic poem, is precious to many Christians — and for good reason. Because it is, in part, an extended celebration of and appeal to God’s faithfulness to do just what he promises us.

Like the author of Lamentations, what provokes the psalmist to write is a “severe affliction” (Psalm 119:107), a significant aspect of which is unjust persecution at the hands of ungodly, powerful people (verse 161). Yet, as one who believes in God’s sovereignty over all things (verses 89–90) and in God’s goodness in all things (verse 68), the psalmist recognizes his affliction has also come from the hand of his good God:

I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous,     and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
(Psalm 119:75)

The psalmist isn’t hesitant to express to God his sorrow over this affliction (verse 28) and the toll it is taking on his whole being (verse 83). But he also expresses to God the good he discerns the affliction is working in him:

Before I was afflicted I went astray,     but now I keep your word. (Psalm 119:67)

It is good for me that I was afflicted,     that I might learn your statutes. (Psalm 119:71)

The psalmist is someone who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, the kind of person whose longings, Jesus later said, would be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). And though he may not have expected, at the outset, that one of God’s chosen means to satisfy his longings would be affliction, it is a discovery he makes during his season of anguished wrestling.

As a result, he grows to love God’s word “exceedingly” (Psalm 119:167). It becomes “the sum of [all] truth” to him, “a light to [his] path” (verse 105) and his refuge when he feels threatened (verse 114). So, he meditates on it throughout the day (verse 97) and finds it “sweeter than honey” (verse 103) and more valuable than gold (verse 72).

In his suffering, the psalmist discerns God’s loving correction to his proneness to wander, and therefore he finds comfort in both his affliction and God’s promise to deliver him from it, which enables him to say,

This is my comfort in my affliction,     that your promise gives me life. (Psalm 119:50)

Delivered from Faithless Fear

Genesis 32 contains the strange story of Jacob literally wrestling all night with God. Physically wrestling with the Almighty is strange enough. But even stranger is that when the enigmatic figure “saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint” (Genesis 32:25). Why does God afflict Jacob with a dislocated hip?

We can deduce one reason from the story’s context. At the Lord’s command (Genesis 31:3), Jacob is returning to Canaan after twenty years of working for his uncle Laban. He had originally fled Canaan after learning his twin brother, Esau, planned to kill him for stealing Esau’s rightful paternal blessing. Hoping that Esau’s desire for revenge had cooled with time, Jacob sends a messenger to inform Esau he is coming home. The messenger returns with news that Esau is coming to meet him — with four hundred men (Genesis 32:6). This terrifies Jacob, so he pleads with the Lord:

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, “I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” (Genesis 32:11–12)

In other words, he pleads with the Lord to be faithful to his word. The Lord answers by showing up in bodily form at night and wrestling Jacob. During the struggle, he somehow reveals to Jacob who he is, and at sunrise he injures Jacob’s hip. But Jacob refuses to let God go without a blessing — this time not a stolen blessing, but one bestowed because he is willing to persevere in faith for it.

But why the hip? In part, because God purposes to help Jacob fear his word more than the threats of an angry brother. And so, the night before Jacob’s encounter with Esau, God faithfully afflicts him so he can’t flee again out of fear of man, but instead is forced to trust God’s faithfulness to his promise.

Delivered from Dangerous Pride

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes how the Lord had graciously granted him surpassingly great “visions and revelations” that were so wonderful and rare in human experience that he, through his indwelling sin, was tempted with conceit (2 Corinthians 12:1–7). And so, he explains, the Lord had graciously granted him “a thorn . . . in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass [him], to keep [him] from becoming conceited” (2 Corinthians 12:7).

At first, he pleads with God to deliver him from this demonic affliction. But the Lord replies, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). This is another wonderful revelation for Paul, which moves him to say with gratitude,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

Through this affliction, God was faithfully delivering him from a greater danger than a demonic tormenter: Paul’s own sinful pride.

God of All Comfort

These stories illustrate three ways God mercifully manifested his faithfulness to his beloved children through ordaining their afflictions. He delivered them from a proneness to wander from him, a faithless fear, and the deadly danger of sinful pride.

And these are only three of God’s redemptive purposes in our suffering. Scripture reveals more, if we have ears to hear. But these examples demonstrate God’s counterintuitive ways of being faithful to the “unchangeable character of his [ultimate] purpose” (Hebrews 6:17):

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:40–41)

“When it comes to his children, God’s purposes in our afflictions are always redemptive.”

Can we derive hope, not merely from God’s promise to faithfully deliver us from our afflictions, but from what God will faithfully accomplish for us through our afflictions? The biblical answer is a resounding yes. Because when it comes to his children, God’s purposes in our afflictions are always redemptive, since “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

The more we see God’s faithfulness in our afflictions, the more meaningful we will find Paul’s exclamation, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). And the more meaningful we will find the passage that inspired the great hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” because we will realize that included in the “all” of “the God of all comfort” is the comfort that God, in his steadfast love, has in faithfulness afflicted us.

A pyrophobic firefighter. A book-averse librarian. A doctor who is grossed out by germs. We shake our heads at the thought of these living, breathing oxymorons. If such workers exist (and they just well might), we would think them comical at best and hypocritical at worst.

Conceited mothers are no different.

By its very nature, motherhood is humbling work. From the moment of her child’s conception, a woman willingly opens her womb for the ministry of hospitality. She welcomes new life by giving her body as a sacrifice, laying down her comfort and pre-baby body on the maternal altar of love.

After intense pains bring forth her child, a mother’s labor has only just begun. Moment by moment, day by day, over many years, she assumes the role of a servant leader, laying herself down for the good of her kids.

Yes, motherhood is humbling work. And that makes conceited motherhood a sad contradiction.

War Against Conceit

We moms know this, and yet we still wage war against selfishness. Most mornings, I have to verbally remind myself before my two little kids come downstairs, “They are not here to help you. You are here to help them.” For those of us who love Christ and long to be more like him, our struggle with sin remains — but thank God there is a struggle! Our fight against it offers good evidence that we are truly alive in Christ. He has changed our hearts and given us the desire to be humble as he is humble:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:3–8)

“To be a humble mom is to look increasingly like Jesus as we look increasingly to Jesus.”

Jesus Christ is the most humble human who has ever lived. So, to be a humble mom — a mom who fights against “selfish ambition or conceit,” and therefore a mom in the truest, God-given sense of the word — is to look increasingly like Jesus as we look increasingly to Jesus. Only as we realize that he lives to serve his people (us!) will we fight the temptation toward selfishness and long for a heart that looks like his.

Because knowing and loving him is more satisfying than anything we could gain by sin.

Three Temptations We Face

Let’s identify now three ways that selfish ambition and conceit tempt mothers like you and me, following Paul’s flow of thought in the passage above. Then we will counter each of these temptations with a lingering look at Jesus, the holy and humble Son of God, who alone can deliver us from self and clothe us in his humility.

Temptation 1: Count Yourself More Significant Than Your Kids

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

You know the thought: This work — whether diaper changing, mess cleaning, snack making, or repeating myself a hundred times — is below me. I am too good for this. We may not say these words, but many of us think or feel them. Motherhood involves repetitive, simple, lowly work toward little ones, and so it’s easy to think we are too important for it.

Eve’s original temptation from the garden is ours: we want to be like God. And yet, in our pride, we don’t realize how low our God has stooped to serve sinners like us.

We may think we have good reasons for struggling to serve, but if anyone actually does, it would be the Son of God. And yet, nothing kept him from stooping to help us:

Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6–7)

This is astounding. The Son of God left his high position in heaven and made his home in the dust of earth. He left his unseen form as God of the universe and confined himself to a human body and soul. He left the glory he had known for all eternity to walk among sinful and murderous people.

“In our motherly pride, we may want to be like God — but the truth is, our God has become like us.”

In our motherly pride, we may want to be like God — but the truth is, our God has become like us. He wrapped himself in human flesh to deliver us from our sinful flesh, from the selfishness and conceit that would keep us from being faithful mothers who willingly lower ourselves to serve our kids, counting it our joy and privilege to do so. Only as we gaze upon the incarnate humility of Jesus will our definition of significance be altered, for his stooping posture of service is the perfect picture of greatness (Matthew 23:11). With all our hearts, we confess our pride and ask him to empty us of our former selves, filling us instead with Spirit-given joy in taking the posture of a servant (John 13:14).

Temptation 2: Look Only to Your Own Interests

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4)

Every mom knows how often plans change. And this is humbling. As we realize that we are not God, that our future is not in our control, and that only he knows what’s next, we are confronted with how tightly we hold to our own interests. We’re made aware of our vice grip on our circumstances. We think, This wasn’t my plan. We need to spend precious naptime minutes disciplining our child instead of resting; we must cancel our long-awaited vacation because everyone has the flu; our dream of motherhood is thwarted by a life-altering diagnosis in one of our children.

The question for us is, How will we respond to God when plans change? In pride, or in humility?

During his earthly ministry, Jesus’s posture was to joyfully humble himself to the will of his Father. Even as he sought rest, solitude, and prayer after a busy season of ministering, he found himself confronted by needy crowds (sound familiar?). And what was his response? He was not annoyed or angry, but “he had compassion on them,” for he knew that these people were sent to him straight from his Father (Matthew 14:13–21).

He looked not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others, and ultimately to the interests of his Father.

The ultimate display of his obedience to the Father was the cross: “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). The sinless one took on our sin, bearing the full weight of God’s wrath in our place. What matchless obedience! And this, so we also would joyfully humble ourselves before God and obey his will, looking to his interests and the interests of others above our own.

This is freedom, momma. To be released from the tyranny and fallenness of self into the perfect ways and infinitely wise agenda of God as we serve our kids — this is the truest life, and true, humble motherhood.

Temptation 3: Forget Who You Are in Christ

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)

What mind does Paul call us to have? A humble one. A Christlike one. But lest we get discouraged by our remaining selfishness, by how far we still feel from Jesus’s humility, Paul reminds us of a vital reality: our union with Christ. “Which is yours in Christ Jesus.”

Mom, you no longer belong to yourself. If you have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, then you have been united to him in saving faith. This means that you have an unshakable security in Christ that no bad day of motherhood can undo. It means you are not left to your own resources as you fight selfishness, but have his Spirit of humility dwelling within you. It means that sin is no longer your master; Jesus is.

So when you are tempted to forget who you are in Christ — when the pull toward lofty pride or your own interests feels too strong; when you would rather scoff at your kid’s mess than clean it up (again); when you “just want to be done,” but the needs keep rolling in — remember that the living Savior lives in you. The exalted one, seated at the Father’s right hand, has made his home within you by his Spirit. You are Christ’s, he is yours, and he joyfully gives himself, without restraint, to you.

You are united to the God of all creation, who emptied himself to serve you to the point of death, and all the way through it to resurrection life. And if this perfectly humble God is on your side, momma, what conceit or selfishness can stand against you?

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15397780/are-silvanus-and-timothy-apostles

Audio Transcript

Serious Bible students ask sober questions about hard texts. That’s what I love about this podcast and our listeners. Sober questions about hard texts get asked and answered here. That will be especially true for the next two weeks as we narrow our attention to three hard Bible questions from you related to eschatology, questions on the first two chapters of 2 Thessalonians. We have three of them.

Namely, is God present or is he absent in his eternal judgment? Second Thessalonians 1:9 seems to say he’s absent. That’s today. Then many of you have asked about the man of lawlessness in chapter 2. Who is it? That’s on Friday in APJ 1803. And then a question about God sending strong delusions into the world. Does he do that today? How so? That’s a question on 2 Thessalonians 2:11. And that will be on the table two Fridays from now in APJ 1806.

So today, we have sober questions on the nature of God’s judgment. A listener named David writes us, “Pastor John, thank you for taking my question. It’s a serious one. Namely, is the presence of God in hell? Second Thessalonians 1:9 seems to say no. Is that right?” And Josiah writes us this: “Pastor John, hello. I read that hell includes the presence of God, per Revelation 14:10. Or is it away from the presence of God, per 2 Thessalonians 1:9? Can you help me understand which is right?”

Whenever I am asked a question about hell, I always feel the need to take a deep breath, so to speak, and step back and make sure that we are not handling this reality in a breezy, easy, superficial, cavalier way. So, let me say a few things by way of preface so that we can feel the appropriate weight of the question.

Thinking About Hell Too Little

It’s possible, I think, to think about hell too little and too much. To think about hell too little would mean that it rarely comes into your mind and therefore has little effect upon your life. But the Bible’s teaching on hell is not just for the sake of random, occasional curiosity. It’s for the sake of sober-mindedness, to keep us from thinking that distrusting God and disobeying God are matters of little consequence.

“The biblical teaching on hell is a reflection of the infinite worth of God and the outrage of scorning it.”

The knowledge of hell is intended to help us feel the moral outrage of preferring God’s creation over God, which is, I think, the essence of sin. The biblical teaching on hell is a reflection of the infinite worth of God and the outrage of scorning it.

The reason hell is eternal is not because the sin that sends us there was eternal, but because the offense against an infinitely worthy God is an infinite offense. So when we think of hell too little, we probably don’t tremble at the majesty and justice of God the way we should. Hell has a way of making life more serious, and thinking of hell too little will probably result in a moral and emotional life that is not in sync with the greatness, and the beauty, and the worth, and the justice, and the wisdom, and the grace of God.

Thinking About Hell Too Much

But it is also possible to think of hell, I think, too much. Hell really is a horrible reality. Consider the descriptions of it in the mouth of Jesus: “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43), a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51), a place “where their worm does not die” (Mark 9:48), a place of “outer darkness” (Matthew 25:30), a place of “anguish” (Luke 16:24), a place of “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46).

Or as Paul calls it in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, a place of “eternal destruction,” with “wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8). Or as John describes it in Revelation 14:11, “The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.”

These descriptions are terrible beyond words. But some people try to soften the horror by saying, “Well, words like fire and darkness are symbols.” And I want to say that the problem with that is, if they are symbols, they’re symbols of something, and it’s not less. I mean, symbols are an effort to put into words the unspeakable. That’s what symbols are for. To call something a symbol of fire means it’s worse, not better. Realities correspond to symbols.

It is possible, however, to think about this reality too much. I don’t think the human mind and heart are equipped in this fallen world to think for long periods of time on the reality of hell. God has a mind and a heart that can keep this reality in focus and in proportion to other realities so that it has no ill effect on him. I don’t think our minds and our hearts, in this age, can properly ponder such horrors for very long. We need glimpses — yes, we do. We need reminders, yes, but we don’t need continual consciousness of sufferings too great to endure.

Is God Present or Absent?

Now, David and Josiah in their questions both asked, more or less, about the presence of God in hell. And they point to two very relevant texts. Revelation 14:10, which gives the impression that the Lamb of God may be present in hell, says that those who worship the beast “will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” And the other text is 2 Thessalonians 1:9: “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

So, first, a word about Revelation 14:10. When it refers to the torments of hell in the presence of the Lamb, the term “in the presence of” means “in the sight of,” not “in the same space as.” The Greek word used literally is “before the Lamb”; they will be tormented “before the Lamb.” The same word is used in Revelation 3:2 like this: “I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.” That’s the same exact construction: “in the sight of my God,” “in the presence of my God.” He can see. It’s before him in that sense.

So when we say that something happens “in the sight of God” or “in the sight of the Lamb,” we don’t necessarily mean that God or the Lamb is in the same space of what they are seeing. So, I think Revelation 14:10 does not say that God or Jesus or the Lamb has some kind of ongoing residence in hell. But they can and do see hell.

Now, when 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that the punishments of hell will be “away from the presence of the Lord,” the word for presence there is face, “away from the face of the Lord.” In other words, hell is a fulfillment of the threat in Ezekiel 7:22, for example, where God says, “I will turn my face from them.” It’s the exact opposite of the blessing in Numbers 6:24–26:

The Lord bless you and keep you;the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you;the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

“There is in hell an everlasting frown of disapproving justice.”

That’s the exact opposite of what happens in hell. That does not happen in hell. The gracious countenance of God does not shine upon them. And there is in hell an everlasting frown of disapproving justice.

Righteous Judgment Forever

So what shall we say, then, about the question whether God’s presence is in hell? I suppose you could say there are two senses in which God is “present.” First, he upholds everything by the word of his power through Jesus (Hebrews 1:3). So, hell would have no existence if God were not keeping it in existence. And second, hell is described as punishment and judgment — as not just consequence, but punishment. And so there will be an awareness of those in hell of God’s righteous disapproval present. His disapproval, his judgment, his punishment — that will be present to their minds forever.

But neither of those two ways of thinking about God’s presence suggests his personal presence. So, we can say that God is not present in this sense: His beauty will not be seen or known. His fellowship will not be enjoyed. His relief and his mercy will not be experienced. If there’s any sense in which God’s presence is felt as an upholding force, it will be the presence of his righteous judgment and wrath.

Hell is a reality to be avoided at all costs. And Jesus Christ, God’s Son, himself bore the greatest cost by becoming a curse for us on the cross (Galatians 3:13) — for everyone who would believe (John 3:16). Jesus became our deserved hell, and I urge everyone in the sound of my voice to fly to Jesus as your only hope of escaping these torments.

If there was a wedding, it had to be one of the most awkward ones in history.

Plenty of marriages begin blissfully and then crash into misery years in (maybe even months), but this was different. This marriage wasn’t destined for disaster; it was a tragedy before the dress touched the aisle. The whole town knew what kind of girl she was. Many of the men knew firsthand. As the groom said his vows, “I take you for better or worse . . .” the idea of worse, even at the altar, seemed like some dreadful understatement. And the idea of better, like some naive fantasy.

As he stood there, he knew exactly what he was getting into. He knew tears were waiting to be shed. He knew how many long nights he might sleep alone, wondering where she could be, whether she was safe, what man might be holding her in his arms. He knew the excruciating conversations he might have to have with their children. He knew — and yet he married her anyway. He took her to be his. Why?

The Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. (Hosea 1:2–3)

Bitter Paradox

We don’t know whether Hosea and Gomer had a typical Hebrew ceremony, but their marriage would have received lots of attention. It was meant to. As the two became one, God was seizing the wandering eyes of his unfaithful people.

When God told Hosea to take this loose woman as his lawfully wedded wife, he was making a statement — a loud and offensive statement. “Why her, Lord?” Hosea might have rightly asked. “Because the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” Their love toward me has grown cold and complacent, they take my grain and wine and protection for granted, and they’ve crawled into bed, again and again, with the gods of this world. Not just whoredom, but great whoredom. They worship passionately at the altars of carnal pleasure, of plenty, of comfort, of pride, and then dare to come home and offer me whatever little they have left.

And God had warned them. But they would not listen, so he painted them a picture instead — a dark, shameful, and painful picture. He planned a wedding no one would want to attend. He held up a mirror and made them want to look away. He sent Hosea to love and cherish Gomer, “a wife of whoredom.” A bride who could not be trusted. A bitter paradox.

The Kind of Whore He Loved

What made Gomer such a whore? We’re not told much, but we meet her through the adultery of God’s people.

Wayward Israel shows us that Gomer was the kind of woman who says, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink” (Hosea 2:5). In other words, I’m not getting what I want at home, so I’ll look for a man who will give me what I want. She was the kind of woman who took what her husband provided and used it to attract and please other men (Hosea 2:8; see James 4:3). She was the kind of woman who gave other men credit for all her husband had done for her (Hosea 2:12). She was the kind of woman unworthy of a good man.

And yet he loved her. Hosea chose her, sought her, bought her, and loved her. “So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, ‘You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you’” (Hosea 3:2–3). Can you hear the sermon God had prepared? Israel, let me show you who you really are — and let me show you who I really am. If it were not for the devotion of Hosea, their marriage, like so many marriages, would have only preached worldliness, selfishness, and alienation. It may have painted sinful Israel well, but it would have been graffiti across the love of God.

The relentless love of a faithful husband, though, made the whore into an emblem of mercy, and their marriage into a miracle of grace.

Heaven’s Wedding Homily

Their wedding would have been jarring not mainly because of Gomer’s bruised and tattered history, but because of the strange and unexpected brightness in his eyes, eyes that were shadows of the loving eyes of heaven. Feel the sudden contrast halfway through these verses:

I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals     when she burned offerings to themand adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,     and went after her lovers     and forgot me, declares the Lord.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,     and bring her into the wilderness,     and speak tenderly to her. (Hosea 2:13–14)

She dressed up for another man. She slid off the ring I bought for her. When she left, she walked right past our kids. And even when the other man would not have her, she chased him. She spent it all to have him. And she forgot me. Therefore . . . what? How would you finish that sentence in the wake of such betrayal?

“God wants the wife no man would want. He woos the woman most men would have deserted.”

Therefore, I will allure her. That’s the climax of this sermon called marriage: God wants the wife no man would want. After all she’s done to make him leave, his love burns warm. He woos the woman most men would have deserted. And he will have her, even though it will cost him in the worst way possible. One day soon, his Son would come and bear the name No Mercy (Hosea 1:6), so that we, the wife of whoredom, might be called beloved.

Scandal of Betrothal

As God watches the bride he saved out of slavery plunge herself into adultery, he knows full well he will one day bring her home. He promises to find her, rescue her, and woo her.

I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. (Hosea 2:19–20)

He repeats himself three times because he knows how inconceivable, even scandalous this love would be: “I will betroth you. . . . I will betroth you. . . . I will betroth you. . . .” The repetition drives a stake of hope into all our fears that God might not forgive us. “I can forgive. . . . I will forgive. . . . I will love you as if you had never left.”

Notice he says, “I will betroth you,” not just, “I will take you back.” Ray Ortlund presses on the wonder of this love:

The mystery of grace revealed here is a promise of covenant renewal — although even the word renewal is weak, for this oracle promises not merely the reinvigoration of the old marriage but the creation of a new one. . . . The ugly past will be forgotten and they will start over again, as if nothing had ever gone wrong. (God’s Unfaithful Wife, 70)

The wife of whoredom was received like the epitome of purity — like the most desirable bride. The night of forgiveness and reconciliation was as a wedding night. No matter what she saw in the mirror, his eyes now told her she was new and irresistible, his “lily among brambles” (Song of Solomon 2:2). When Hosea went to the altar and resolved to delight in his adulterous wife, he preached a text that had not yet been written:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

Premarital Counseling of a Prophet

What might Hosea’s love for Gomer mean for marriages today? While we are not prophets commissioned to marry prostitutes, our marriages are prophetic in their own way.

Like Hosea’s countercultural love, every faithful Christian marriage resists and confronts a world in love with sin. Every loyal spouse is a foil for the ugliness and destructiveness of our mutiny against God — and a lighthouse alluring more sinners into his mercy. Every vow that holds, despite all the reasons to leave, tells someone that real Love exists, that forgiveness is possible, that there’s more to life than Satan can offer.

“Who might see your marriage and be shaken free from worldly and empty ways of living?”

We don’t know how many in Israel saw Hosea, realized the pitiful thinness of their earthly lives, and went deep with God again. Who might see your marriage and be shaken free from worldly and empty ways of living? Who might finally meet God because you stayed, loved, forgave, and pursued your spouse?

If Hosea and Gomer teach us anything about marriage, though, it’s that the love of God shines brightest through us when marriage is hardest. Can you bear to believe that? Happy, flourishing marriages may sing the gospel in big, bright major chords, but the minor chords of difficult and devoted marriages are often all the more arresting. Their beauty is haunting for being so much harder to explain.

The uniquely challenging aspects of our marriages really can become the greatest stages for true love — for displaying what it means to be chosen, forgiven, and treasured by God through Christ. This is the glory of the marriage covenant, and its beams are strongest when they shine through our marital weaknesses and struggles.

I almost missed Harry Potter.

When the first book released on June 26, 1997 — now a quarter century ago — I was sixteen years old and consumed with American Legion baseball. That summer revolved around nine-inning games, at least three times each week, in full catcher’s gear, in the South Carolina heat and humidity. At the time, I had very little interest in reading anything, much less made-up stories about wizards and magic. Besides, I was about to be a junior in high school, and I fancied myself far too old for a book about 11-year-olds.

In the coming years, as enthusiasm for the series spread like wildfire around me, I observed with reluctance the increasing length of each volume. I’m a slow reader. Perhaps I could make time for the first book, but not thousands of pages after that. Honestly, my growing aversion to the series wasn’t the well-meaning Christian cautions about magic and wizards — but it was easy to join that chorus.

The final book appeared in 2007, at almost 800 pages. It took me fifteen years to finally take up and read the whole (1-million-word) series, which I did, aloud, to my twin boys during lockdowns and quarantines. I’m glad I did. And especially the final book.

Spiritually-Aware Stories

Something else happened along the way, after 1997, to open my mind beyond the simplistic criticism (and convenient excuse) of magical fiction: I read The Lord of the Rings. In Middle-earth, I discovered how an intentional, spiritually-aware visit to a fantasy world can have real-world value. Too many trusted and deeply Christian friends who shared my love for Gandalf and Frodo also appreciated Dumbledore and Harry. Eventually I wanted to see Hogwarts for myself, and with my sons inching closer to age appropriateness, I thought it might be a good journey to take together.

Elsewhere I’ve mentioned the roughly 100 hours it took to read the whole series aloud. I have grown to love reading aloud to our kids, and think it’s an especially good investment for dads to make in fostering life and growth apart from screens. But here, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first book, I’d like to share some of what I saw in Harry Potter, with Christian eyes, as a father, that made the long trek worthwhile.

I could recount many simple (and useful) moral takeaways — lessons, for instance, about humility, self-control, and childlikeness (not childishness) which I often paused over to drive home with my boys. But here I’ll mention just three related expressions of one great, deeper, and markedly Christian theme. (Surely, these few simple lessons will not be enough for some readers. For those who want more, I’d recommend Alan Jacob’s 2007 review of the final book, as well as Kyle Strobel’s 50-minute lecture from 2017.)

As for Christian voices still disapproving of Harry Potter on the basis of it advocating witchcraft, I’ll say this: that criticism seemed to fade after the final volume appeared in 2007. In hindsight, the lesson we might learn is that wisdom often holds judgment till the end. Be careful judging a book without its conclusion. Alan Jacobs has observed that once the series finished, the (premature) Christian concerns about magic were soon eclipsed by “another and different set of critics . . . for whom the evident traditionalism of the books is their greatest flaw” — that is, the progressives that found the conclusion “defaced by ‘heteronormativity.’”

In contrast to the final movie, the final volume contains deeply Christian themes (along with two references to Scripture) that, for many of us, demonstrates the value of the whole series.

Weakness That Shames the Powerful

However deliberate J.K. Rowling was in simply writing a great story versus a Christian one (it is often hard to separate the two), we Christians might see a fresh expression of an ancient truth, ever in need of reminders: that Jesus’s counterintuitive way triumphs over the way of the world.

“Harry comes to see the power of self-sacrificial love over the love of power.”

In other words, the key themes of the final book in particular draw together threads of the whole series, to echo how the divine ways of God are so often unexpected in the present age. The world around us, our society, has its standards and expectations for wisdom, strength, and nobility — on natural terms. But Harry, with Dumbledore’s guidance and well-timed help from his friends, comes to see the power of self-sacrificial love over the love of power.

So too is the counterintuitive way of Christ, as captured in 1 Corinthians 1:27–28:

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

In Christ, we have come to know what it means to glory in what the world sees as folly, weakness, and shame.

“Hogwarts at its best resembles how Christ builds his church, not with the world’s best and brightest.”

A first expression of this is Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s leadership. Rather than a club for the wise, strong, and pure-blooded (as some would have it), it is a refuge for all kinds, and particularly for misfits who are not welcomed and appreciated elsewhere. Outcasts like Hagrid are received, and even contribute, at Hogwarts. Jake Meador has pointed out how in this respect Hogwarts at its best resembles how Christ builds his church, not with the world’s best and brightest — the wise, strong, and noble. Outcasts and untouchables find welcome at Hogwarts, and usefulness, that they find nowhere else.

Last Enemy to Be Destroyed

A second expression comes in the theme of death, one of the series’s main emphases. In the contrast between Voldemort and Harry, we’re confronted with the question, Will you dedicate your life to avoiding death at all costs, or look to life beyond it and embrace it when your time comes?

When the time came, Christ did not avoid death, but embraced it, and conquered it on the other side. He went through death, not around it — and until his return, so do we (Hebrews 2:14–15). Remarkably, Rowling quotes 1 Corinthians 15:26, etched into the gravestone of Harry’s parents: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” At first, this confuses Harry. Noting death as the last enemy to be destroyed sounded like the dark lord and his minions. Or perhaps there’s another meaning. For us, we know Christ as risen, but death still lingers in this age. Death will be the last enemy to fall, but it will fall. Death is not only an enemy, but one that will be destroyed.

Dumbledore comments as early as the first book, “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” There is a profoundly Christian way to read in that statement what Jacobs calls “Dumbledore’s governing principle,” which is “repeatedly opposed to Voldemort’s belief that death is the worst thing imaginable and that it must therefore be mastered, ‘eaten.’”

Christ’s Way Proves Greater

Finally is the theme of power, which resonates deeply with the way the Christian gospel turns our wielding of power upside down.

First come the warnings against worldly power — from Harry’s Godfather, Sirius (“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals,” Book 4, Chapter 27), to Dumbledore’s unmasking of the insecurity of tyrants (“Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!” Book 6, Chapter 23).

In the end, it is not the natural perspective and use of power (the way of the world) that wins the war. It is the unexpected, subversive power of humility and self-sacrificial love. Of all people, are not Christians the least caught off guard by this? Our Lord “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He is the one, then, that God highly exalted and gave all authority in heaven and on earth (Philippians 2:9; Matthew 28:18). And while we may not be surprised to find this theme, it is still glorious to see it afresh in a new portrayal, and love what we have in Christ. Oh, how important to remember the surprising glory of the gospel of the God whose ways and thoughts are not ours, but his, and far superior.

I don’t have any regrets waiting 25 years to get these reminders — and just enjoy a fantastic story besides. I’m sure I was able to see (and apply) more at age 40 than I would have in my teens, or twenties. I also think I saw and enjoyed more seeing it through my boys’ 11-year-old eyes. Maybe this is the best way to navigate the darkness and light of the Potter series, with young and old journeying together.

Before I try to define what I mean by “the uncommon virtue of humility,” let me give three clarifications that limit and direct my effort.

Clarification 1: Only uncommon humility is virtuous.

First, I want to get in step with the direction that President Rigney set for us on January 19 when he began this series of messages. During his talk, he explained to us what he meant by “the uncommon virtues.”

First he defined virtue as the habitual exercises and inclinations of the heart for good things. He said that virtue consists in the beauty of those heart-exercises and of the actions that flow from them. Then he described what he meant by uncommon virtues. First, and least importantly, he said that these virtues are uncommon because they are in short supply both in our culture and in the church. But mainly, and most importantly, what he meant is that uncommon virtues are those habitual exercises of the heart rooted in what makes us Christian. In other words, the uncommon virtues flow from our union with Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, by definition, no unbeliever exercises any uncommon virtue. They exercise common virtues, which have external similarities to the uncommon virtues, but they are radically different because they have no roots in a person’s relation to Christ. They are like a shell of the virtue, with the virtue’s soul removed.

Common Virtue

Most of us have learned to distinguish God’s “common” grace from his “special” or “saving” grace. God’s common grace enables unbelieving people to perform common virtues. At times the New Testament calls these common virtues “good” — that is, good with respect to the temporal, horizontal benefits that they are intended to achieve.

For example, in 1 Peter 2:14 it says that the emperor has sent governors “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” Well, “good” in the mind of the pagan emperor is not what we mean by uncommon virtues, which are truly good, in every sense. The Bible is very radical in saying, for example, that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).

In other words, even though from a human standpoint there are common virtues, from the ultimate standpoint of what is truly virtuous in the eyes of God, all common virtues are sin. They do not flow from union with Christ by faith through the Holy Spirit. They are not done in reliance on Christ. Christ’s word is not their guide. And they are not done for his glory. They are sin.

‘Good Sin’

Therefore, in all our ethical thinking about and all our moral assessments of culture and daily life in this world, we must have a category for “good sin,” or “sinful good.”

If you think carefully and biblically, that’s not double talk. It is a “good” thing that my Muslim neighbor does not burn my house down. I am thankful for that “good.” But a Muslim does nothing out of reliance upon Jesus Christ and his work, nor is a Muslim guided by his word, acting for his glory. And so Paul says it is sin. It brings about a temporal good, but it dishonors the most glorious Person in existence — Jesus Christ.

So, in accord with President Rigney’s direction, I am riveting my focus on the uncommon virtue of humility, not the common virtue of humility. I am seeking to define humility in a distinctly Christian way — namely, in relation to Jesus. That’s my first clarification.

Clarification 2: Humility flourishes when we do not fixate on it.

Here’s my second clarification. In an article for Christianity Today in 2008, Tim Keller said, “Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves.” If you took that literally, it would mean it is impossible to talk humbly about humility. I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t think Tim Keller thinks that’s true. Jesus and Paul and Peter and James — indeed, virtually every biblical writer — talks about humility in one way or another, and we would not want to impute to them arrogance in their effort to say true things to us about humility.

“Christian humility flourishes in the human soul when we stand before the Himalayas of Christ’s grandeur.”

What I think Tim Keller is trying to communicate instead is this: Christian humility flourishes in the human soul when we are standing in front of a window that looks onto the Himalayas of Christ’s grandeur. And Christian humility vanishes when we close the window and stand in front of a mirror, trying to see the authenticity of our humility. It flourishes when we are looking away from it, to Christ, and it hides when we are looking directly at it.

So my goal is not primarily to focus your attention, in a mirror-like way, on your humility, but to provide you with an understanding of humility that will drive you to the windows of God’s word, which reveal the greatness of Christ. That’s my second clarification.

Clarification 3: Context determines meaning.

Here’s my third clarification. Words are dumb things. They communicate nothing clear or distinct until they are used in a context. When I say, “. . . until they are used,” I am implying a user. Therefore, when I prepare to talk about humility, I have to ask first: “Who’s the user of the words about humility, and what is the context?” Because there is no clear, distinct meaning of the word humility — or in any words about humility — apart from the user and the context.

For example, the false teachers at Colossae use the typical Greek word for humility in the New Testament, tapeinophrosunē, to promote asceticism and harshness to the body. So Paul says in Colossians 2:18, “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism [tapeinophrosunē] and worship of angels.” In other words, Paul is saying, “Don’t be tapenophrosunē — don’t be humble — according to that use of the word!”

Then in Colossians 3:12, Paul says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, tapeinophrosunē [humility].” Now Paul is saying, “Do be humble according to this use of the word — according to my use of the word, in my defining context.” So before I can give a talk on the uncommon virtue of humility, I have to ask: “According to who’s usage?”

Also, as an important aside, here’s another clarification about words. When I am trying to understand someone’s use of a word in a context — and I will talk about context in just a moment — I don’t care ultimately about the word. I care ultimately about the reality that the user of the word is trying to communicate by the way he uses his words. Not only are words dumb things, but they are penultimate things, not ultimate things. They are signs. They point away from themselves to realities.

What we want to know when trying to understand words is the realities they are pointing to. My wife is named with a word, Noël. I care very little about the word Noël. I care ultimately about the reality, the person, that the word is pointing to — my wife. I care very little about the word love, but I care ultimately about the reality.

Now the last thing I have to ask is, “In what context?” My aim in this talk is to communicate to you my understanding of the reality of the uncommon virtue of humility as communicated by God, through inspired writers, by the way they use words, in several biblical contexts. So I’m going to commend to you a composite definition or description of the uncommon virtue of humility. I believe it is a faithful portrayal of the reality of humility according to the inspired usage of words in several contexts.

This is risky, because I’m drawing on dozens of passages of Scripture for this composite definition, and I can only take you to a couple of these passages. So I invite you to test this definition whenever you read all the other texts relating to humility. As you read, ask: “Is this definition the essence of humility, and what makes it distinctively Christian? What makes it uncommon?”

Defining ‘Humility’

Let me give you my definition or description of this reality, and then I will take you to some biblical texts. The uncommon virtue of humility is the disposition of the heart to be pleased with the infinite superiority of Christ over ourselves in every way. And because we still have a fallen sin-nature in this world, that humility also includes the reflex of displeasure toward all the remnants of our old preference for self-exaltation, with all its insidious manifestations.

Notice carefully, I am not defining humility primarily in terms of our response to our self-exalting, sinful nature. I am defining humility primarily in terms of our response to the superiority of Christ over us in every way. The way we respond to our sinful love of self-exaltation is a reflex of our awakening to the beautiful superiority of Christ — or it’s not Christian. The greater our pleasure in the superiority of Christ over us, the more sorrowful our awareness that there remains in us the ugly craving for self-exaltation.

And the reason this is important to stress is that someday we will be completely delivered from every remnant of the love of self-exaltation. We will be finally purified to sin no more! And in that day, when there is no sin whatsoever to regret — to humble us — we will still be humble.

“Pleasure in Christ’s superiority will last forever.”

For our humility consists not essentially in brokenheartedness over preferring self-exaltation, but rather in being pleased that Christ is infinitely superior to us in every way. And that pleasure in his superiority will last forever.

Roots and Fruits

Notice also that I’m not locating the uncommon virtue of humility in the roots or in the fruits of humility. The roots of humility are (1) the infinite superiority of Christ and (2) the spiritual perception of that superiority by the eyes of the heart.

And the fruits of humility are the endless overflow of attitudes and words and actions that come from being glad that Christ is superior to us in every way. For example, Paul says in Philippians 2:3, “But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.” He does not equate humility with its fruit. The fruit is counting others worthy of your lowly, sacrificial, self-denying service.

So between the roots and fruits of humility, I’m saying that the uncommon virtue of humility is the disposition of the heart to be pleased with the infinite superiority of Christ over ourselves in every way. It’s the heart’s gladness that Jesus is infinitely greater than we are in every way, mingled in this life with the groaning that self-exaltation still competes for our affections. For now in this life, the uncommon virtue of humility will always be a groaning gladness and a glad groaning.

Humility in Scripture

Now let’s turn to some passages of scripture to see if this description of humility represents the mind of God in those passages.

Isaiah 2: Gladness in God’s Exaltation

We will start with the prophet Isaiah, in the second chapter. I know this passage is not directly about Jesus Christ. But I’m going to argue that what the prophet says here about God and pride and humility are intentionally transferred over to the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament. Let’s begin in Isaiah 2:8, with the indictment of Judah.

Their land is filled with idols;     they bow down to the work of their hands,     to what their own fingers have made.So man is humbled,     and each one is brought low —     do not forgive them!Enter into the rock     and hide in the dustfrom before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty.The haughty looks of man shall be brought low,     and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

For the Lord of hosts has a day     against all that is proud and lofty,     against all that is lifted up — and it shall be brought low;against all the cedars of Lebanon,     lofty and lifted up;     and against all the oaks of Bashan;against al the lofty mountains,     and against all the uplifted hills;against every high tower,     and against every fortified wall;against all the ships of Tarshish,     and against all the beautiful craft.And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,     and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,     and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.And the idols shall utterly pass away.And people shall enter the caves of the rocks     and the holes of the ground,from before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty,     when he rises to terrify the earth.

In that day mankind will cast away     their idols of silver and their idols of gold,which they made for themselves to worship,     to the moles and to the bats,to enter the caverns of the rocks     and the clefts of the cliffs,from before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty.     when he rises to terrify the earth.Stop regarding man     in whose nostrils is breath,     for of what account is he? (Isaiah 2:8–22)

I draw out two inferences from these words. First, God’s purpose in the world is that his splendor and majesty be exalted as superior over all human power and beauty and manufacture and craft, and over everything that man has made as a means of his own self-exaltation. Three times Isaiah refers to God’s thrusting forward “the splendor of his majesty” (Isaiah 2:10, 19, 21). Twice he says, “The Lord alone will be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2:11, 18). This is the purpose of God in creation and history: to see that the splendor of his majesty is exalted above everyone and everything.

The second inference is the effect of that purpose, namely, as Isaiah says twice, “The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled” (Isaiah 2:11, 17). And we can hear in Isaiah 2:22 the cry for this not to be the end of the story. The ultimate goal is not the punishment of pride, but a return to humility: “Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?” In other words, “Stop the insanity of being so pleased with what your fingers can make, and be pleased with the splendor and majesty of your God. The Lord alone is going to be exalted. Everything else is coming down.”

So when Isaiah writes, “The haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low” (Isaiah 2:11, 17), essentially he is saying, “Repent. Turn from your love affair with the work of your hands. Bemoan your arrogant idolatry. The Lord alone will be exalted. Be pleased with his exaltation! Be pleased with his infinite superiority! Let his exaltation be your gladness, your boast. ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’ (2 Corinthians 10:17).”

Philippians 2: Joy in Jesus’s Superiority

Now let’s go to Philippians 2:9–11, where this divine purpose to be exalted over all reality is transferred to Jesus for the glory of God the Father, with the aim that every knee will bow — in other words, with the aim of Christ-exalting humility.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9–11)

God exalted Christ “above every name.” That is shorthand for Isaiah 2:11: “The Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” That is, Christ alone — now God incarnate — will be exalted in that day. And the implications for man? “Every knee will bow.” Everybody is going down. Everybody humbled. But not everybody saved.

So who then will be saved? Which of the knee-benders will be saved? Answer: Those who go down gladly. Those who are pleased with the superiority of Christ — pleased with the universal Lordship of Jesus. Those who say with Paul in the next chapter: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” — of knowing Christ Jesus my infinite superior (Philippians 3:8). Paul’s treasure was to know Christ as superior to him in every way, his infinite superior.

You can begin to sense the practical implications of this if you simply name some of those superiorities that we love, that we are glad about: Infinitely superior in grace and mercy and love. Infinitely superior in knowledge and wisdom. Infinitely superior in power and governance. Infinitely superior in goodness and righteousness and holiness. Infinitely superior in authority and freedom. And penetrating through all of these is his infinitely superior greatness and beauty and worth. He is infinitely superior in glory.

2 Corinthians 4: Treasure in Jars of Clay

To have the uncommon virtue of humility is to see Christ’s glory and to be pleased that it is infinitely superior to our own. According to 2 Corinthians 4:4–6, this is how it happens: Our blindness is taken away, and we see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” We see the infinite superiority of Christ in greatness and beauty and worth.

“If you long for humility, beware of standing in front of the mirror to test your authenticity.”

And then in 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul calls Christ’s glory our treasure. The glory of Christ is what we cherish. It is what pleases us. “We have this treasure [this glad sight of the glory of Christ] in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God.”

So I am commending to you a definition of the uncommon virtue of humility for you to test. Take it to every text on humility and see if this is not the essence of what is being said and of what makes humility distinctively Christian, uncommon:

The uncommon virtue of humility is the disposition of the heart to be pleased with the infinite superiority of Christ over ourselves in every way. It’s the heart’s gladness that Jesus is infinitely greater than we are, mingled in this life with the groaning that self-exaltation still competes for our affections.

If you long for this uncommon virtue, beware of standing in front of the mirror to test your authenticity. Go to the windows of God’s word, fling them open with everything you are learning in this school, and gaze on the all-satisfying superiorities of Christ.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15392979/a-christ-exalting-renunciation-of-power

In an age when so many pastoral failures, missteps, and sins are posted for public exhibition, it’s easy to allow our warmth toward the church to grow cold. Through a scrutinizing lens, many scowl at the church with suspicion and sheer amazement that anyone would want to be part of such a seemingly dysfunctional family. Sometimes, the church can seem to be anything but beautiful.

Does Jesus look at the church with the same scowl?

‘You Are Beautiful’

John Gill, an eighteenth-century English Baptist pastor, helps us answer this question by drawing our attention away from our introspection to the words of the bridegroom in Song of Solomon 1:15: “You are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful.” Interpreting Song of Solomon as an allegorical portrayal of an exchange between Christ and his bride, the church, Gill writes, “These are the words of Christ, commending the beauty of the church, expressing his great affection for her; of her fairness and beauty” (An Exposition of the Book of Solomon’s Song, 57). Jesus sees his bride through a lens of love, not disdain; beauty, not disgust.

“Jesus sees his bride through a lens of love, not disdain; beauty, not disgust.”

How can beautiful be the adjective Jesus uses to describe the church? After all, she’s composed of sinners — forgiven sinners, yet still sinners. She’s plagued by division, is besieged with scandal, and sometimes appears to have lost her first love. Even the apostle Paul reminds us that only at the end of the age will she be found “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27). What does Jesus see in his bride that would cause him to exclaim, “You are beautiful, my love”?

1. The Beauty of His Father

God’s beauty is most radiantly displayed through the biblical concept of glory. Moses experienced this glory when God passed by him, revealing only the afterglow of his splendor (Exodus 33:12–23). When God’s glory engulfed the temple, the priests were unable to perform their service of worship (2 Chronicles 5:14). The prophet Isaiah was prostrate in the dirt when he witnessed God’s glory radiating from his eternal throne (Isaiah 6:1–5). Jonathan Edwards, eighteenth-century pastor-theologian, identified God’s beauty as the differentiating feature of God himself: “God is God, and is distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2:298). God’s beauty isn’t derived from external sources but emanates directly from the perfection and holiness of his being.

The supreme expression of God’s beauty is his Son, Jesus Christ, who himself is the image and radiance of his Father (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). The incarnate Christ is how God most vividly expresses his beautiful love to sinful creatures. The culmination of that love is selecting a bride for Christ that she too might reflect the same beauty. Edwards believed that this bride, the church,

is the great end of all the great things that have been done from the beginning of the world; it was that the Son of God might obtain his chosen spouse that the world was created . . . and that he came into the world . . . and when this end shall be fully obtained, the world will come to an end. (Unpublished sermon on Revelation 22:16–17)

The church is a gift from God to his Son as a beautiful expression of divine love “so that the mutual joys between this bride and bridegroom are the end of creation” (Works, 13:374). Therefore, as the Son reflects his Father, the church, as his eternal bride, reflects the Son.

When Christ regards his bride and exclaims that she is beautiful, he beholds the reflection of his Father’s everlasting beauty and infinite love, who chose and saves this bride and gives her as a gift to his Son. Since Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God, there is now no more brilliant exemplification of God’s perfect beauty in the world than his church.

2. The Sufficiency of His Cross

Jesus doesn’t see any intrinsic beauty emitted by the church, for she has no beauty apart from him. He looks at the church through blood, his blood. As if looking through the varied luminous colors of a stained-glass window, Jesus beholds the church through the multifaceted wonder of redemption — blood, election, righteousness, forgiveness, regeneration, justification, union, and grace. Only in union with his perfect substitutionary sacrifice on the cross and glorious triumphant resurrection are filthy sinners washed white as snow (Psalm 51:7). Because of our sin, what God requires of us is paid in full by our bridegroom on the cross.

“Because of our union with Christ, God’s love of his Son now includes love of his Son’s bride.”

With all of its flowing blood, lacerated flesh, and stench of death, the cross becomes the epicenter of cleansing for sinners, where Christ looks lovingly upon his darling bride and declares, “My love, you are beautiful.” Reflecting on the sufficiency of the cross, Edwards writes, “Christ loves the elect with so great and strong a love, they are so near to him, that God looks upon them as it were as parts of him” (Works, 14:403). Because of our union with Christ, God’s love of his Son now includes love of his Son’s bride. When Christ exclaims that his bride is beautiful, he does so through the lens of the sufficiency of his cross and makes the church the sole recipient of the love that ceaselessly flows between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

3. The Fulfillment of His Mission

The New Testament is unmistakably clear that God has commissioned his church as the principal agency for heralding the gospel of Christ. This commission in Matthew 28:18–20 stands as the summit of the church’s mission for all subsequent generations. Beginning in Jerusalem, the disciples understood this assignment with vital urgency and launched the beautiful good news of Christ into all the earth (Acts 1:8). No church has the freedom to tamper with, tweak, add to, or subtract from the good news of Jesus Christ — we are called to herald it to the nations, for there is nothing more beautiful and lovely in the sight of Christ than the Holy Spirit regenerating, calling, and transferring sinners from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

All evangelistic and missionary endeavors are fueled by the assurance that Christ is enthroned as the head of his church and has promised to ransom men and women from “every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:8–9).

This assurance fueled the Genevan Reformer John Calvin to write to the king when evangelistic efforts were harshly suppressed in his homeland of France:

Our doctrine must tower unvanquished above all the glory and above all the might of the world, for it is not of us, but of the living God and his Christ whom the Father has appointed to “rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth (Psalm 72:8).” (Prefatory address to Institutes of the Christian Religion)

Calvin reminds the church that the gospel “is not of us,” but originates from God. Entrusting his church with the task of heralding the gospel, God has chosen her to be an honored vessel to house and disseminate his glorious treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7). When Christ beholds the church, he sees the voice, hands, feet, and heart of the gospel message in rescuing sinners.

The Bride Is Welcome

Jesus doesn’t lament the church he has rescued or look for another to capture his attention. Christ welcomes the church as his beautiful treasure and joy. The church isn’t just about organization, leadership, function, and vision. Jesus sees more. His gaze reveals the beauty of our Father, the sufficiency of his cross, and the fulfillment of his mission in the world. He sees sinners being rescued, redeemed, and renewed.

The bride is now waiting and watching for our bridegroom’s appearance, when he will bid us “Welcome” for all eternity to bask in the glory of his eternal presence (2 Timothy 4:8). Until then, Jesus bids us to join him in gazing upon his bride and exclaiming of her, “Behold, you are beautiful!” (Song of Solomon 1:15).