In 1959, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981) preached a series of messages on the topic of revival, including one called “Revival Sermon: Dead Orthodoxy.” In the sermon, Lloyd-Jones argues that “dead orthodoxy” is the greatest threat to revival, to the church at large, and to all individual Christians.

Such an observation merits careful inquiry. What is dead orthodoxy — and how might we discern its presence in our own souls and churches?

Dead Orthodoxy

To help us get at the substance of dead orthodoxy, consider some questions:

What happens when we love the creeds and confessions of the church, but they have failed to make us more like Jesus?
What happens when right doctrine makes us haughty, gruff, impatient, and hard?
What happens when we are experts in theology but perpetual delinquents when it comes to the prayer closet?
What happens when we love doctrines more than the God whom the doctrines are about?

The answer is dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a form of godliness, but without the attending power (2 Timothy 3:5). It is a case not of zeal without knowledge, but of knowledge without proper zeal (Romans 10:2). Paul tells Timothy to “avoid such people” (2 Timothy 3:5) — that is how serious dead orthodoxy is.

In one sense, of course, the word orthodoxy presupposes right belief, and right belief assumes warmth and vitality, producing a genuine growth in Christlikeness and love for God and man. As God’s truth works in us, a transformation takes place. This leads to more and more life, not deadness.

And yet, the phrase dead orthodoxy recognizes that it is entirely possible to have correct doctrine without a regenerate heart or a saving trust in the person of Christ. Think of the demons in the Bible. They knew the truth about Jesus and assented to Jesus’s gospel being true. But they refused to trust him. They didn’t love him. The devils believe God is one (James 2:19) — and so do many hypocrites.

Additionally, it is entirely possible to be a genuine Christian but have an inconsistent outworking of that faith in one’s life. This inconsistency can be seen in all of us to a degree. Isn’t all sin inconsistent with faith and the love of God? But sometimes a Christian’s inconsistency becomes so deep and habitual that his faith, though orthodox, looks more dead than alive. He desperately needs reviving.

Four Signs of Dead Orthodoxy

The following four signs of dead orthodoxy are not meant to help us point fingers at others’ deadness in contrast to our own liveliness. To do so would be to fall into the error that some of these signs address.

“What can you do in the boneyard of dead orthodoxy? Call upon God to revive you, to bring you back to life.”

We must first point the finger at ourselves. Where have we exhibited tendencies to deadness — to coldness, to hardness, to formalism, to theological tribalism or elitism? In what areas do we need to seek Christ’s face afresh? Dead orthodoxy certainly describes some churches, denominations, and people, but the seeds of it undoubtedly find a home in our own heart as well. In the words of Nathan the prophet, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Let repentance from dead orthodoxy work tenderness and warmth in our own souls first.

1. Smug Contentment

I believe the truth, I know I believe the truth, and few are as smart as I am about the truth. This smug contentment leads to an attitude that is excessively polemical, where much of my time is spent criticizing theological opponents, especially on minutia and tertiary issues. I begin to nitpick anything or anyone not in line with my views. This smugness also produces tribalism, since only my camp is right, and so I refuse to work or fellowship with other Christians — or if I do, I look down upon them.

2. Dislike of Enthusiasm

This sign appears when the cold, proper, and intellectual is preferred to the fervent, excited, and exuberant. Dry academic lectures become preferable to preaching that is searching, close, or (as the Puritans described it) “painful.” Lloyd-Jones goes so far as to say that “dislike of enthusiasm is to quench the Spirit,” and that “this charge of enthusiasm is the one that has always been brought against people who have been most active in a period of revival” (Revival, 72–73).

Along with this dislike comes an inordinate fear of disorder. Those with this dislike can easily become rigid and inflexible, even in matters not limited by the Scriptures. Because of wild revivalists of the past, too much talk of revival or Spirit-led spontaneity is frowned upon as sheer emotionalism, animal excitement, or mass hysteria. Lloyd-Jones comments, “There are churches that are orthodox, but absolutely dead, because they are so afraid of false excitement, and the excesses of certain spiritual movements, that they quench and hinder the Spirit and deny the true” (78).

3. Pining for Social Acceptance

Someone overly concerned with social acceptance cannot stand to be considered a radical, an enthusiast, a fanatic, or a fundamentalist, and so he becomes overly proper. This concern often focuses on moralism and not rocking the social boat. It is dignified and prim, but it knows little about the cross as “folly to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Such moved J.C. Ryle to comment,

There is a generation that loathes everything like zeal in religion. There are never wanting men of a cautious, cold-blooded, Erasmus-like temper, who pass through the world doing no good, because they are so dreadfully afraid of doing harm. I do not expect such men to admire Whitefield, or allow he did any good. I fear, if they had lived eighteen hundred years ago, they would have had no sympathy with St. Paul. (A Sketch of the Life and Labors of George Whitefield, 34)

This attitude may even treat evangelism as distasteful because it offends people and causes trouble. Shouldn’t we mind our own business? Shouldn’t we stay quiet about the gospel since it stirs up anger and hostility?

4. Denial of the Miraculous

Some may think, God can still work in history, but let’s not expect anything too extreme. God stopped doing that a long time ago. This attitude is symptomatic of our secular age and society. Christians in the West are in regular danger of acting like deists or mere rationalists. We don’t typically deal with problems of animism and voodoo — we deal with atheism, scientism, Darwinian evolution, and secular humanism. We deal with materialism and the ramifications of Enlightenment thought.

Such views so dominate our society that their influence can find a home in our hearts and in our churches. Syncretism is not just a blending of animistic and pagan religions with Christianity. Syncretism can also blend the Western religions of evolution, humanism, and scientism with the Christian faith. This blending leads to a distrust of the supernatural.

Cure for Dead Orthodoxy

If you see any of these tendencies in yourself, how should you respond? Ultimately, hope is only found outside of ourselves. Only Jesus can rescue us from such peril. We must keep turning back to him, who is the perfect example of right affection, right practice, and right belief fused together.

Perhaps your deadness is so deep that you fear you are not yet alive in Christ. Seek the Lord while he may be found. He can take out your stony heart and give you a heart of flesh, one alive and sensitive to the things of God. He gives sight to the blind. He is the friend of sinners. He came to seek and to save the lost.

Or maybe you have had seasons of sweet communion in the past, but now you feel dry and busy. Your faith has become nominal. Like the church in Sardis, you may have had a reputation of being alive, but now you find yourself dead (Revelation 3:1). Jesus tells this church to “wake up!” (Revelation 3:2). What can you do in the boneyard of dead orthodoxy? Call upon God to revive you, to bring you back to life.

Wherever you are, go to him today. Call on him now, without waiting. Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13).

The subordinate goal of this message is to explain and defend the claim that truth triumphs through pleasure. The ultimate goal of this message is that you, and your people through your ministry, would feel — and forever feel — the greatest pleasure in God through Jesus Christ.

To say that the ultimate goal of this message is a heart-experience — an enjoyment, a spiritual emotion — in you and your people is not a contradiction of the universal biblical teaching that the ultimate goal of all things (including this message!) is the fullest exhibition of the glory of God, filling the new creation without rival. And the reason it’s not a contradiction is because God’s ultimate goal for all things will not be reached until the bride of Christ experiences her fullest possible pleasure in her beloved Jesus Christ, who is God, blessed forever. Amen (Romans 9:5).

I’m an Edwardsean lover of the glory of God down to my toes. When Edwards speaks of
God’s glory as the goal of all things, my heart soars:

It appears that all that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works is included in that one phrase, “the glory of God”; . . . In the creature’s knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged; his fullness is received and returned. Here is both emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair. (The End for Which God Created the World, 526, 531)

Amen. Could anything be more God-centered, God-exalting, God-entranced! And yet tucked away in that God-besotted paragraph is an explosive statement worth giving your life to: “In the creature’s . . . rejoicing in . . . God, the glory of God is exhibited.” That is, “In the creature’s pleasure in God, the glory of God is exhibited.” If that is true, then truth triumphs through pleasure. And for you and your people to attain that pleasure is to share in the triumph.

So, to explain and defend this claim from Scripture, I will try to clarify four connections.

The connection between truth and ultimate reality
The connection between ultimate reality and God
The connection between God and preciousness
The connection between preciousness and pleasure

1. The Connection Between Truth and Ultimate Reality

The biblical words for “truth” (emet and amunah in Hebrew and alētheia in Greek) are used with many different connotations and nuances. When you preach, you don’t take a definition from Piper or MacArthur at a conference and lay it on that text. You pay close attention to the peculiar usage of the word true or truth in that text to see that it carries its own weight.

What I’m going to do here is take hold of two of those many connotations in order to draw out the point that’s relevant for this message, especially the connection between truth and ultimate reality.

First, then, most commonly we speak, and the Bible often speaks, of “truth” as a characteristic of things we say, a characteristic of assertions or statements or propositions. For example, Proverbs 12:17: “Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.” When we think of truth in this way, it means that our statements correspond to reality. If I say, “My wife is 5 feet, 7 inches tall,” that would be true. But if the reality is that she is 6 feet tall, that statement would not be true. It would not correspond to the reality.

But, second, what is not as common in our speech, but is also a view of “truth” in the Bible, is that the reality to which true statements correspond is called “truth.” For example, when Peter was being delivered by the angel from prison in Acts 12, Luke writes, “[Peter] went out and followed [the angel]. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real [or true], but thought he was seeing a vision” (Acts 12:9). Or Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:8, “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true.” Meaning: We are not fake apostles. We are real.

This is the meaning of truth that I want to take hold of and press into. Truth not only states reality; it is reality. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). “I am . . . the truth.” And Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” — the real God, the God who is reality. And Jesus Christ is the truth not only because he speaks the truth, but because the ultimate reality about which he speaks is himself.

So, two things have become clear. One is that the Bible uses the word truth or true to refer to what is real, not just statements about what is real. What is real? Truth refers to reality. Truth is not just the opposite of a lie; it is the opposite of an illusion, the opposite of the unreal.

And the second thing that has become clear is that we are confronted with the question of ultimate reality, that is, ultimate truth. When Jesus said, “I am . . . the truth,” and Paul said you serve “the . . . true God,” both are pointing us to the fact that there is such a thing as ultimate reality.

So, we turn to our second point.

2. The Connection Between Ultimate Reality and God

This is the most obvious. But we need to see it and say it to get us where we are going — to preciousness and pleasure. What is ultimate reality? Which we have seen is the same as asking, What is ultimate truth? I think the most fundamental response that God ever gave to that question is found in Exodus 3:13–14.

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

The very least God intends to communicate when he says, “I am,” is “I! A personal being! I am talking to you. I am a person. This is not wind. Or thunder. Or an earthquake. Or a waterfall. I am talking to you. And I am about to electrify you with this truth, this reality: ‘I am who I am.’”

And the next most obvious thing he means is, “I exist. I am real. I am not a myth. I am not imagined. I am not an opiate for the masses. I am not a Freudian projection of wish-fulfillment. I am real. I am more real than the ground you stand on, more real than the sun in your solar system, the skin on your bones, the galaxies at the end of the universe. And the reason I am more real than they are is because their reality is dependent on my reality. Their being depends on my being. Only I can say, ‘I am who I am.’ Everything else must say, ‘I am because he is.’”

This is the way ultimate truth talks: “I am who I am.” Ultimate truth says,

Nobody made me this way. I simply am. I never had a beginning. I never became. I simply was, from all eternity. Nor will I ever end. I depend on nothing to be what I am — no cause, no support, no counsel. Instead, everything depends absolutely on me. Everything is secondary to me. The universe is infinitesimal to me. I carry it in my pocket like a peanut. I never develop, and I cannot be improved. I am absolute fullness, perfection. I conform to nothing outside myself, and therefore I am the standard and measure of all truth and goodness and beauty. There are no constraints from outside me to prevent me from doing what I please. My actions are always free, never dictated from outside. The good pleasure of my will always holds sway. I always act in perfect conformity to the infinite value of my inexhaustible fullness. I am who I am.

For many years I have circled back to this text like a lightning bug staring at the sun and have found it to be electrifying — that God simply is. Explosive. Wild. Untamable. A brightness that changes absolutely everything. God is ultimate reality. That is, ultimate Truth.

Which brings me now to the third point.

3. The Connection Between God and Preciousness

So, step one was that one biblical facet of truth is that it refers to reality, and we are led to see that there is an ultimate reality. And the second step was that this ultimate reality is God, absolute reality, “I am who I am.” And now step three: the connection between God (reality, truth!) and preciousness.

Is ultimate reality ultimately valuable? Is ultimate reality of infinite worth? Is ultimate reality ultimately precious? Let me ask the questions in another way (and then tell you why I’m doing it): Is ultimate reality ultimate value? Is ultimate reality infinite worth? Is ultimate reality ultimate preciousness? Perhaps you see what I’ve done. I’m going beyond saying God has value, has worth, has preciousness, and I’m pushing it further to say that God is value, and God is worth, and God is preciousness. Worth and value and preciousness are intrinsic to God. They are aspects of who he is.

Here’s why I go there. The vast majority of human beings are not born again. Our calling is to do what we can to win them. They are perishing. And we do not want them to perish. “Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. . . . I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19, 22).

But if we ask any of those people, before they are born again, whether ultimate reality (God) is valuable, the only categories they have in their minds (the mind of the flesh) for assessing value are the categories that make themselves the measure of God’s value. So, they might say, “Well, if there is ultimate reality, I would hope that he or she or it would help me with my marriage, or my job, or my health, or my children, or my finances. That would be valuable.” In other words, the measure of God’s value would be the measure of his usefulness in helping them attain the pleasures that this world provides.

“If the kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure, it’s because the King is a treasure.”

Some of those people come to your church. And many of your people are talking to them every week. I’m suggesting that this new set of questions might jar them loose from the limits of their categories. (It might jar you loose!) Is God ultimate value? Is God infinite worth? Is God ultimate preciousness? Not just, Does God become useful to me? but, Is God in himself infinite worth and value and preciousness?

I think if we don’t answer that question with a resounding yes, either explicitly or implicitly, our theology, our worship, and our obedience tend to go off the rails. Profound things are at stake here in the way we live, in the way we do ministry.

So, let’s look at some Scriptures to see whether or not we have biblical warrant for giving that resounding yes.

Matthew 13:44

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

If the kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure, it’s because the King is a treasure. Heaven will be heaven because God is there. That is the ultimate promise: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). That’s the consummation of the kingdom, and that is ultimately why the kingdom is a treasure. God is a treasure. God is infinite preciousness.

2 Corinthians 4:6–7

God . . . has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

The glory of God in the face of Christ is treasure in the jar of clay. The presence of God is the presence of infinite preciousness.

2 Peter 1:3–4

[By God’s] glory and excellence . . . [God] has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

The promises of God are precious, because they ultimately hold out to us the presence of God, the presence of Christ. Here’s what I lay myself down to sleep with each night: “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10). The end and goal of all the promises is “live with him.” We know that “in [his] presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

1 Peter 1:18–19

You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

The blood of Jesus is not precious because it saved us. It saved us because it’s precious. And it’s precious because he’s precious.

1 Peter 2:4–6

You come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious. . . . It stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,     a cornerstone chosen and precious.”

This is God’s evaluation, not man’s: in God’s sight God the Son is precious.

Revelation 21:10–11

He . . . showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare [precious] jewel.

The glory of God filling the city is the city’s preciousness.

Revelation 5:12

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,to receive power and wealth and wisdom and mightand honor and glory and blessing!

To be sure, the creative power of the Lord and the saving deeds of the Lord are sometimes given as reasons for why we praise him as worthy. But oh, how artificial it would be, especially in view of this text, to abstract the deeds from the Person, and to say that his actions create his worthiness, rather than that his worthiness is being shown through his actions. No. No. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” means worthy is the Lamb, and therefore he was slain, and accomplished everything, because he is infinitely precious.

“The promises of God are precious because they ultimately hold out to us the presence of God.”

From these texts and many others, I can conclude infinite worth, and infinite value, and infinite preciousness are in God. God the Father enjoys God the Son as infinitely precious (1 Peter 2:4–6). Preciousness is in the Trinity. Preciousness is from eternity. It belongs to the nature of God.

Which brings us now to our fourth and final connection.

4. The Connection Between Preciousness and Pleasure

So, the first point was that one biblical facet of truth is that it refers to reality (not just statements about reality), and we are led by Scripture to see that there is an ultimate reality, ultimate Truth. Second, this ultimate reality is God. Absolute personal reality. “I am who I am.” Third, this God is infinite worth. He is in his very nature infinite preciousness.

Now, how does pleasure connect to this preciousness and bring about the triumph of truth? We see the answer when we ask the Bible, “What is the fitting response of a human soul to infinite preciousness?”
You decide what the answer is from four clusters of biblical texts.

Matthew and Hebrews

First, we go back to Matthew 13:44.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field [a very precious discovery], which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

The human response that correlates with treasure is joy. A joy that is so deep and comprehensive that it prompts one to happily lose everything to get the treasure — to get the preciousness.

Then we see this lived out in Hebrews 10:34 with a beautiful sacrifice of love:

You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one [more precious, more lasting].

And the human response that correlates with that more precious, more lasting possession was joy: “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.”

Philippians and Habakkuk

The second cluster of texts is from Philippians and Habakkuk. Twice in Philippians Paul says to rejoice: “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 3:1), and then doubly, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Why is that so fitting? Why joy?

He answers in Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Joy in the Lord is fitting because the Lord has surpassing worth. He is infinitely precious.

He is more precious than food, and life itself, as Psalm 63:3 says, “Your steadfast love is better than life.” But this is most graphic in Habakkuk 3:17–18:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,     nor fruit be on the vines,the produce of the olive fail     and the fields yield no food,the flock be cut off from the fold     and there be no herd in the stalls,yet I will rejoice in the Lord;     I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

In other words, God himself is so precious in himself that when life has become impossible, and starvation is imminent, this man of God will rejoice. Because the proper and fitting response of the human soul to infinite preciousness is joy.

Hebrews and Psalms

The third cluster of texts is from Hebrews and Psalms. When Moses faced the choice of whether to remain in the riches and comforts and securities and pleasures of Pharaoh’s house, or lead God’s people through the wilderness at great cost to himself, here’s what happened in his soul according to Hebrews 11:25–26.

[Moses chose] rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

On the one hand I have pleasures, so goes Moses’s logic, in the land of Egypt that are fleeting. And on the other hand, I have greater wealth, greater preciousness, than all the treasures of Egypt, in the reward that is coming to me in the presence of God. The pleasures with God are greater and longer than the pleasures of Egypt, because God is a greater reward, a greater preciousness.

And David in Psalm 16 has no hesitancy to call our experiences in God’s presence pleasures.

My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. . . .

You make known to me the path of life;     in your presence there is fullness of joy;     at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (verses 9, 11)

The gladness of the heart now is a foretaste of those pleasures, as we taste and see even now the preciousness of the Lord.

Matthew and 2 Thessalonians

The final cluster of texts to show us which human response is fitting to God’s preciousness are texts that call this response love, and bring us finally to the triumph of truth.

Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 10:37,

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

What makes this text so relevant and so radical is that the kind of love he’s talking about is not the kind of love we have for our enemies. This is not blessing those who curse us or doing good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27–28). This is the love we have for our children and our parents. It is the kind of love we have for those who are especially precious to us. To paraphrase: “Whoever loves their most precious human relationship more than Jesus is not worthy of him — won’t have him.”

We are not talking about peripheral or secondary or optional affections here. This is life and death. And the response that corresponds to the superior preciousness of God in Christ over our most precious human possessions and relations is love — the kind of love that finds greatest pleasure in the Beloved. The kind of love that says,

I love your commandments     above gold, above fine gold. (Psalm 119:127)

More to be desired are they than gold,     even much fine gold;sweeter also than honey     and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:10)

This is delight, enjoyment, pleasure. It is the fitting human counterpart to infinite preciousness.

Which brings us finally to a text that connects this pleasure with the triumph of truth.

Beloved Truth Is Triumphant Truth

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9–12 Paul is describing the final appearance of the lawless one whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth.

The coming of the lawless one is . . . with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth [the same kind of love we were just talking about] and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

They did not love the truth. They didn’t treasure the truth. They didn’t find pleasure in the truth as precious. And so, they did not believe the truth, but instead had pleasure in unrighteousness. “The truth” — here it is the word of truth, the gospel of the glory of Christ. This truth is to be loved supremely. We are to find supreme pleasure in the truth because it is the revelation of supreme preciousness.

When, in the final glorification of the saints, the bride of Christ experiences her supreme pleasure in the infinite preciousness that God is in Christ, then the supreme worth, the ultimate value, the infinite preciousness that God is will be fully exhibited in the new creation, and truth — ultimate reality, God himself, infinite preciousness — will be vindicated. Truth will triumph through the pleasure of God’s people in God. Not without it.

We encounter one of the more difficult sayings of Jesus in Matthew 5:48: “You . . . must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And he issues this difficult command immediately after commanding us to “love [our] enemies” (Matthew 5:43). If we think of holiness like a high jump, it’s like Jesus sets the bar at twenty feet — more than twice the height that any human has yet cleared — and then raises it sky high.

Having been a Christian for a half-century, I must honestly admit I’m not perfect. In fact, the older I’ve become, the more aware I’ve become of just how much I am “beset with weakness” (Hebrews 5:2), which also seems to be the self-evaluation of the most mature Christians I’ve known. I have never met a perfect Christian. And neither have you.

So, given the seemingly impossible bar that Jesus sets for us, and the fact that no fallible saint in or outside of Scripture has cleared it, how are we to think of his command that we must “be perfect”? What does he expect from us?

Sinless Perfection Not Expected

We catch an important glimpse of Jesus’s expectation of us in the prayer he taught us to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). We know what kind of “debts” Jesus has in mind because Luke’s version of the prayer says, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4). Jesus clearly doesn’t expect his followers to be sinlessly perfect if he instructs us to regularly confess our sins.

We also see throughout the Epistles how the apostles, some of the greatest holiness high-jumpers in history, understood Jesus’s expectations. James tells us that “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). John says that “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:7–8). When speaking of the perfection we will experience in the resurrection, Paul says of himself, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12).

The New Testament neither teaches nor provides models of sinless perfection in redeemed saints. For people like me, that’s good news, because I know that I have no hope of clearing Jesus’s high bar of holiness. But if we stop here, we still haven’t answered the question regarding Jesus’s command that we “be perfect.” Does God let us off the hook because we can’t clear that bar? Not by any means. And here’s where it gets really good.

Sinless Perfection Required

While it’s true that the New Testament doesn’t teach that Christians will achieve sinless perfection in this age, it does teach that God requires perfection of us — that we “be perfect, as [our] heavenly Father is perfect.” So, we have a problem: God requires a moral perfection impossible for us to achieve. That’s a big problem. And solving that problem is at the core of the Bible’s message.

Scripture often refers to God’s moral perfection as his righteousness. And the central question it addresses is how God, in his perfect righteousness (sinless perfection), can be reconciled to unrighteous (sinful) humans without becoming unrighteous himself. The Bible reveals that God’s solution to this problem is what Jesus and all his faithful followers after him have called the “good news,” summarized here in Paul’s famous words:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:23–26)

In Christ’s substitutionary atoning death, God himself cleared the holiness high bar for us by satisfying the justice he demanded for sin — “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). And in Christ’s triumphant resurrection, God can justly grant to those who have faith in Jesus the reward of the righteous — “the free gift of . . . eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Paul elsewhere captures in one sentence how God is able to justify unrighteous sinners like us and maintain his perfect righteous justice:

For our sake [the Father] made [the Son] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

‘Excel Still More’

That is very, very good news for sinners. It is the greatest story ever told in the history of the world. Yet the implications for us as Christians can still be misunderstood. Because it sounds like, when it comes to pursuing perfection, we’re off the hook. Jesus paid it all; Jesus achieved it all; we’re no longer required to try. We have Christ’s righteousness; what could we hope to add to that? In fact, all our sin magnifies how amazingly great God’s grace is! Aren’t all our efforts to kill sin and strive for holiness just works-righteousness — trying to atone for our sin by our acts of obedience? Paul’s answer to this is “by no means!” (Romans 6:15). Rather,

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12–14)

It’s wonderfully true that God doesn’t require us to achieve sinless perfection in order to be saved from his judgment against sin. But he does require of us “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5), which Paul describes above. The obedience of faith is not works-righteousness. Obedience is what genuine faith looks like as we live it out in real life. It’s why James says, “Faith apart from [obedient] works is dead” (James 2:26). And why Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

“God himself cleared the holiness high bar for us by satisfying the justice he demanded for sin.”

Since the Son of God “loved righteousness and hated wickedness” (Hebrews 1:9), those who truly put their faith in him will increasingly pursue living in accord with what Jesus loves and hates, knowing that they’ll never achieve — or be required to achieve — perfect righteousness in this age. It’s part of what being “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son” means (Romans 8:29). And it’s why there are so many different ways the New Testament exhorts Christians to “excel still more” in pursuing Christlikeness (1 Thessalonians 4:1 NASB).

‘Easy to Please, Hard to Satisfy’

So, because of Jesus, God frees us from having to clear his high bar of holiness. But since he still requires us to “excel still more” in living out the obedience of faith, how do we Christians, beset with weakness and stumbling in many ways, know whether or not God is pleased with our present level of obedience?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Learning to discern what the Spirit is saying to us is particular to each one of us. But something I read years ago by C.S. Lewis has helped me remember God’s general disposition toward his children:

[God] who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty. As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out, every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son. In the same way, he said, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” (Mere Christianity, 202–3)

When it comes to the obedience of faith, God is concerned more with how our faith in him is growing than with how outwardly impressive and scrupulously observed our acts of obedience appear. As he was with the widow and her two copper coins (Luke 21:1–4), God may, for a host of reasons, be very pleased with one person’s apparently minor act of faithful obedience and less impressed by another’s apparently more significant act of faithful obedience.

But if we see God as a gracious Father who loves us so much that he did everything necessary for us to become his children, a Father who has promised to share with us his kingdom (Luke 12:32), we will receive his exhortations to “excel still more” as invitations to experience fuller joys and greater pleasures (Psalm 16:11) as we grow in Christlike maturity. Because the truth is, God’s being easy to please and hard to satisfy are two sides of the same priceless coin of his fatherly delight in doing us good.

Audio Transcript

From dating (last time) to marriage (today). Marriage is a beautiful institution, designed by God to point the world to Christ and to his bride. One wedding at a time, marriage exists for us because God decreed that Christ would purchase his bride, the church. And because of sin, that church, that fallen bride, must be redeemed from her ugly sin and be made beautiful in holiness. It’s an amazing drama played out in history, and in our lives, and it’s a drama played out in harmonious marriages and one played out even in hard marriages too. Painful marriages are no less reflective of God’s plan. And so, we have several episodes now on marriage challenges, which you can see. I gathered up all those APJ episodes and summarized them into one digest in the APJ book, one whole section just on this topic of hard marriages on pages 197–221.

And today, Pastor John joins us over the phone for a question from a perplexed father who wrote us anonymously. “Pastor John, hello. I write to you because my adult son wants to get a divorce from his wife. They have been married for two years and have a one-year-old son and a newborn baby girl of only ten days old. I’m totally perplexed by the timing. I don’t understand why he feels unhappy, but he claims he is ‘no longer in love’ with his wife anymore. What would you say to someone who has ‘fallen out of love’ with their spouse, and why that’s no grounds for divorce?”

Well, what I would say to them face to face would depend partly on their demeanor. But I don’t have him face to face, and so I’m just going to say what I think he probably needs to hear. Whether I would say it exactly like this, I don’t know. But here we go.

Embracing Realism

We would be naive, I think, to suppose that people — young or old, our own children or those of others — will act on the basis of reason and biblical truth when it comes to justifying divorce. I would guess that in 95 cases out of 100 people do what they want to do and then find reasons to do it. Especially those who claim to believe the Bible will find biblical reasons to do it. They just know what they’re going to do. They want to do it. They do it. So, we should be realistic as we talk to people, and we should pray. I think that’s the greatest realism — pray and fast that God would do what our biblical arguments and reasonings by themselves could never do.

But having said that, I totally believe in speaking the truth in love because it’s God’s way, it’s God’s design, that people should know the truth and the truth would set them free (John 8:32). (And that context is free from sin, like leaving your wife.) So, I would hang my thoughts on three words: joy, significance, and ownership. I would try to make those three words as compelling and winsome as I can, but also as forceful as Jesus and the apostles did, for the sake of staying married. So, let me say a word about what I mean by joy, significance, and ownership.

Joy

Joy. I would say to this young man who wants a divorce because he’s not in love, “Oh, what joy lies ahead for those who do not break their covenant even when their hearts are broken.” And here’s what I mean. I believe that most couples who stay married for fifty or sixty years fall in and out of love numerous times. And I say that with not the slightest hint of trying to be funny. It is, in my judgment, almost ludicrous to think that we experience “being in love” for the entire sixty years what we felt at the beginning of that relationship. That’s just utterly crazy. It is naive and immature to think that staying married is mainly about staying in love.

“You are free to break your marriage covenant when Christ breaks his covenant with his bride.”

In a relationship between two sinners, forced to live as close as married couples live, it is naive to think that every season will be one of warmth and sweetness and sexual romance. That’s just contrary to almost the entire history of the world and contrary to every makeup of fallen human nature. Staying married is not first about staying in love; it’s about covenant-keeping, promise-keeping, being a man and woman of your word, a man and woman who keep the vows to be committed for better or for worse, a man and a woman of character. That’s what it’s about.

This covenant-keeping relates to being in love the way gardening in the fall relates to roses in the spring. This is why I said a minute ago, “Oh, what joy lies ahead for those who do not break their covenant even when their hearts are broken.” The modern world of self-centeredness and self-exaltation and self-expression has taken the normal fifty-year process of falling in and out of love and turned it into a fifty-year process of multiple divorces and remarriages. That pattern has not and will not bear the fruit of joy. It leaves a trail of misery in the soul and misery among the generations.

Marriage is the hardest relationship to stay in and the one that promises glorious, unique, durable joys for those who have the character to keep their covenant. So, that’s what I mean by joy.

Significance

Now, here’s what I mean by significance. God offers to husbands and wives the highest possible significance for their marriage relationship by showing them what its greatest and most glorious meaning is — namely, the replication in the world of the covenant relationship between Christ and his bride, the church. That’s what the highest meaning of marriage is. There is no higher, more glorious, more significant conception of marriage than the one that Paul portrays in Ephesians 5, a parable of the greatest, strongest, deepest, sweetest, richest relationship in the universe — the blood-bought union between Christ, the Son of God, and his bride, the church. That’s the meaning; that’s the significance of marriage.

And I would just say to this young man that you are acting, or about to act, on one of the lowest views of marriage — not one of the highest, but one of the lowest, views of marriage. If you divorce because you don’t feel love anymore, there is nothing noble, nothing great, nothing beautiful, nothing high, nothing truly significant about such a motive. What does it say about Christ, the model of a man’s commitment in marriage? What does it say if he forsakes his wife because he doesn’t feel like staying anymore? What does it say about Christ? That’s the issue.

Marriage is an act of worship. It’s a display of the price and the preciousness of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Covenant-keeping in marriage glorifies Christ and the blood he shed to possess a bride forever. We cannot even conceive of a greater significance of marriage than the one God has given.

Ownership

And lastly, the word ownership. What do I mean by ownership? What I mean by ownership is that the union between a man and a woman isn’t theirs to break. They didn’t create it; they can’t break it. It’s not theirs. Jesus said, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6).

It’s another sign of the man-centeredness and contemporary self-centeredness of Christianity that a young couple would have the mindset that they created the union called marriage, and therefore they can break it. They didn’t create it; they can’t break it. God made it; God breaks it with death. Or as I think Paul would say, “You are free to break your marriage covenant when Christ breaks his covenant with his bride.”

So, for the sake of maximum long-term joy, and for the sake of the deepest and highest significance, and for the sake of the Maker and Owner of your union, keep your covenant. Oh, what joy lies ahead, beyond anything you can presently imagine, for those who keep their covenant even when their hearts are broken.

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. There, at the entrance to the Imperial Palace, home of the emperors of China since the 1300s, Chairman Mao declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “The Chinese people have stood up,” he proclaimed, signaling to the thousands gathered that China’s century of humiliation at the hands of foreign imperial powers was over. The Communist Party would restore Chinese sovereignty to the Chinese nation.

At that time, it is estimated that there were some seven hundred thousand Protestant believers in China. Sensing what was to come for religious believers under Communist rule, many departing missionaries feared for the survival of the nascent church.

No one expected what happened next.

Far Beyond Survival

During the 1950s, as the CCP established control over every corner of society, it sought to rein in religious life. Churches were consolidated and denominations eliminated. Churches could remain open if they registered with the approved state-sponsored organizations. The house-church movement began at this time, as many believers either could not travel to the newly consolidated churches or refused to do so for doctrinal or political reasons. Divergent views of how the church should relate to the new Party state also emerged. The church went into survival mode.

In the 1960s, the CCP shifted its stance toward religion from consolidation and control to eradication. Persecution intensified. All religious venues — temples, mosques, and churches — were closed. Religious leaders were jailed or killed as the Cult of Mao took hold during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Churches went underground, often at great risk.

Yet it was during this period that the Chinese church experienced explosive growth. When Chairman Mao died in 1979, information began trickling out of China that indicated the number of Christians had grown to around ten million. In other words, during three decades of persecution, and with no foreign missionary presence, the number of believers grew over 1,300 percent! The CCP’s efforts had been for naught.

Out of the Shadows

The next three decades saw the gradual expansion of space for religion in China. No longer driven by a desire to eradicate religion, the state adopted a posture of “reluctant tolerance.” The church, invisible for so long, stepped out of the shadows. Registered churches began to grow and flourish. The house-church movement expanded and moved into the cities as migrant workers from rural areas sought work.

Many Chinese students who studied abroad found Christ and returned to lead the vanguard of a new urban house-church movement made up not of rural peasants but of educated elites. These churches were more willing to push the invisible boundaries of their newfound space to test what was permissible. They engaged in civic activities such as orphan care and AIDS relief, and they participated in disaster relief following the earthquake in 2008. Christian publishing companies also sprang up, publishing translations of the works of popular authors such as Philip Yancey, Henry Blackaby, and John Piper.

Foreign Christians also found opportunities to work in China, not as religious workers per se, but as committed Christians working in legitimate jobs. They taught English, enrolled in Chinese universities, started businesses, and ran social enterprises to help local officials meet some of China’s most pressing social needs. In their home countries, they engaged in ministries with Chinese students on local university campuses. Evangelism was primarily done in the context of relationships, living out Paul’s admonition in Colossians: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:5–6).

Shifting Winds, Sending Church

By 2010, when the political winds began to shift again (away from tolerance), an estimated number of Christians was seventy million. (I say “an estimated number” because there are, in fact, no reliable statistics for the number of Christians in China. The official government number is 36 million, but that only includes those who attend the registered churches that are affiliated with the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council. It does not include those who worship in unregistered churches — that is, house churches — which may be equal to or double that number, depending on whom one asks.)

The past decade has seen a gradual contraction of space for religious life as the CCP under Chairman Xi has waged a campaign to bring all spheres of Chinese society back under its direct control. Activities that were tolerated in the previous era are no longer permitted. These include large unregistered gatherings, Christian publishing, and online religious activity. What some have dubbed the “golden age” of church growth and missions has come to an end.

Yet (with China, there is always a “yet”) during this past decade of tightening restrictions and increasingly strident ideological instruction, an indigenous missions movement from China has emerged. Today, Chinese missionaries serve in Southeast Asia, Central and South Asia, Africa, and beyond. If, when I went to China in 1984, someone would have told me that in forty years Chinese churches would be sending missionaries to Pakistan (the country where I was born), I would have laughed. One leader of a missions movement in China has remarked that, “while China remains the largest mission field, it might also become the world’s largest sending country.”

Marks of the Chinese Church

In the past seventy years, the church in China has moved from survival to sending. In light of this remarkable history, consider four observations about the church in China and missions efforts by foreign workers.

1. Chinese Christians are resilient.

Chinese culture is often described as being a bamboo culture — strong enough to be bent to enormous degrees without breaking. During the church’s relatively short history in China, it has been buffeted by extreme winds — association with foreign imperialism, civil wars and revolutions, and attempts at eradication. Yet Christians press on, demonstrating a level of perseverance and resilience rooted in a robust theology of suffering. Most recent conversations I have had with believers in China include some variation of the following: “Yes, things are tighter, there are more restrictions, and everything is more difficult, but let me tell you what God is doing in my church.”

2. Chinese Christians are innovative.

A popular Chinese saying roughly translates as, “The leaders make the rules, and the people find a way around the rules.” Chinese Christians excel at this. When a church is no longer permitted to gather in a large group, it will divide into small groups. When landlords are no longer allowed to rent apartments to these smaller church groups, they meet in a private room in a restaurant. When a registered church is no longer permitted to have Sunday school for the children under eighteen, they rent an apartment nearby and have the parents drop the kids off.

When the government shuts down churches (and other public venues) for Covid prevention, they go online, broadcasting their services on WeChat or other streaming services. When the public streaming of services is prohibited, they move to Zoom. As a friend recently remarked to me, “Chinese Christians are some of the most tech-savvy people in the world.”

3. Chinese Christians are disciple-makers.

Most of the growth of Christianity in China took place with little or no foreign missions involvement during decades of intense persecution. While I believe there will always be a role for foreign Christian workers in China, we are not at the center of what God is doing there, and his work certainly doesn’t depend on us.

Yet God has given thousands of us the privilege to serve our brothers and sisters as they do the bulk of the evangelism and discipleship work. Opportunities abound for those sensing God’s call to serve in China in this new era. Legitimate endeavors that provide work visas include English teaching, studying Chinese, or running a business. In fact, China is actively seeking the return of international students. Now is the time for a young person with a heart for China to enroll in a Chinese university and commit a few years to studying the language. For those outside of China, opportunities to minister among the diaspora will continue apace.

4. Chinese Christians are kept by a faithful God.

God is faithful to his church in China. Yes, Chinese believers are resilient and innovative, and foreigners have been able to play a unique supporting role in the story of the growth of the Chinese church. However, underneath it all is God’s faithfulness.

In 2010, I was traveling in southwest China on a research trip. In one city, we discovered a large American-cast bell hanging in the steeple of a registered church. It had been cast for a Baptist Church in Kansas in 1863. When I saw the bell, I thought of all the twists and turns of Chinese history, particularly the brutal political campaigns under Chairman Mao, one of which — the Great Leap Forward — called for the populace to melt down all metal in their possession to make bombs to retake Taiwan. How, I wondered, had this giant bell survived the Great Leap Forward? When I asked the pastor this question, he replied that officials had tried to burn it, but it was too strong. Just like the church, I thought. All attempts to eradicate the church have been (and will be) futile because God has not, and will not, forget his people there.

Whether the Chinese church continues to grow or falls into a period of decline, we do not know. What we do know, however, is that God’s faithfulness and the power of the gospel will not change.

I keep hearing stories about young couples who do not want children.

Many are refusing kids for no better reason than preference (a euphemism for selfishness). Articles are written of lonely grandparent-age adults who “empowered” their kids to chase their career ambitions (and to neglect having children), and now are no grandparents at all. They feel something missing. You can’t read books or play catch or have sleepovers with a new boat. You don’t hang pictures of your country club on the fridge. But that is what their successful children have to offer.

The last name seems close to becoming an endangered species. We live for first names — it is John, just John — as if we came from nothing and have nothing to extend. These couples seem content to be the end of a family tree that branches no farther than them — all their ancestry leading, fortunately for them, to their personal happiness, vacations, and easy retirement. You only live once, you know; why spend it on children? If we want companionship, get a dog.

Now contrast this portrait of living for us and our first names with the alternative (men, pay close attention to your part):

Man rises above time. He can grasp his existence, he can see it in the context of a family that extends far into the past and will extend far into the future. And it is more than a blood relationship. It is also cultural: there is a sense in which he can say, We are the Smiths, and mean to include not only persons but their histories and their way of life. The father is the key to this transcendence. Think. Forget the slogans, the ideology of sexual indifference, and face what is real. A child’s connection with his mother requires no explanation. Body depends upon body. It is the father who requires explanation. (Anthony Esolen, No Apologies, 127)

Living by yourself, for yourself, requires no explanation. Living for money, for fame, for personal gratification requires no explanation. But to birth and guide and nurture immortal souls, to live and build a name and family history that transcends you, to bow as a foundation stone to a new way of living for Christ or to place your stone upon a pile already stacked — especially as a man, Esolen argues — requires explanation.

Generation of First Names

One of the most famous discussions about names shows the difference between living for one’s first or last name. What’s in a name? lovesick Juliet asks. Thinking upon her Romeo, the forbidden son of the rival Montague family, she sighs that the romance should remain a dream because of a last name. If he had another, they could be together. “’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” she reasons upon her balcony.

What’s Montague? It is not hand, nor foot,Nor arm, nor face, nor any other partBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other word would smell as sweet. (2.2.41–47)

An arm is not a name. A smile is not a name. A man is not a name. A rose, whatever you call it, still smells as sweet, still looks as fair. Call the flower crimsonella, and the thorny stem and red petals remain. In a world of ever-expanding names to keep pace with our so-called ever-evolving self, we are tempted to ask the same question — what’s really in anything but a first name?

Teenage Juliet spoke of last names as arbitrary symbols keeping her from her desire. Reality, to her, remained untouched by swapping one label for another. In one sense, this is true. God, the first namer, could have called the waters “land” and the lands “water,” the moon “sun” and the sun “moon,” the night “day” and the day “night.” Adam, likewise, could have called the tiger “zebra” to no effect on either’s stripes.

“We are Christians, a people who have the Father’s name and Lamb’s name written on our foreheads.”

But her elders knew that more lay in the personal name Montague. For the elder Montagues, history lay in the name — deeds done, and deeds done against. Honor or shame was bound in the name, and bitter enmity too. More than a name lived in Montague; a past did too, ground as sacred as the graves of buried ancestors. To them, that name held something larger and older and deeper than a fleeting teenage infatuation. Montague was a body with different parts, a tree with different branches, something that outlived and outweighed the individual. A family name not to be cheaply sold as Esau’s birthright.

Erased from Earth

The spirit of Western individualism inclines us toward our own balconies, happy to cast lineage — or even biology — aside for personal desire. Each is his own author, his own alpha and omega. Families and their names are mere formalities when roadblocks to personal happiness or self-definition.

But most in the past (as well as many today in the East) did not think this way. A lot was in a name; they valued genealogies. Hear the blessing that God promises Abraham: “I will bless you and make your name great” (Genesis 12:2). Great, that is, not through his life alone, but through the lives of his offspring. Conversely, a chief curse in Israel was to “blot out [one’s] name from under heaven” (Deuteronomy 29:20). We do not know enough to rejoice in the benediction or shiver at the warning. How was a name blotted out? Overhear Saul pleading with David, “Swear to me . . . by the Lord that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father’s house” (1 Samuel 24:21).

To have your name blotted from heaven usually meant to have your lineage end (especially without a male offspring), leaving no continuance of your memory under heaven. “Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself the pillar that is in the King’s Valley.” Why make this pillar? “For he said, ‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’” (2 Samuel 18:18). Declining birth rates tell of a people building pillars in the valley because they don’t prefer sons. Yet to be finally erased from earth — physically in death, and intangibly in name — often resulted, in the Old Testament, from God’s wrath.

In that day, your name was your memory, a thread of immortality, a part of you that lived on earth after death. Solomon used “memory” and “name” interchangeably: “The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot” (Proverbs 10:7). The memory of the righteous man would live on as a blessing to his children, but the name of the wicked would rot and be forgotten. Juliet was right: Montague was not a hand or a foot — flesh and blood were mortal. But a name blessed of God lives forever.

Names in Heaven

The modern story has become no larger than our personal stories. We clamor to write our autobiographies — of our triumphs, oppressions, abuses, sexuality, freedoms. Self-consciousness, self-determinism, and self-expression are inalienable rights. We build to the heavens to make names for ourselves. Family, legacy, past generations, future — what of it? It’s Romeo, just Romeo. We are a people of first names. God, come confuse our speech to cure our madness.

But (and this narrows the point) we are not mere collectivists; we are Christians. Idolatry can be both self-absorbed or family-consumed. A people can refuse the only name given among men by which they must be saved in favor of their first name or their last. Our great hope is not in any name we have, but in the name of Jesus Christ, who, for his great name’s sake, has acted to save us.

We care about our children and future generations because we care about Christ. We care about our last names because we want a household to serve the name of Jesus Christ. What we labor to build is no Babel to either of our names, but a spiritual legacy to his. What is a Smith, a Morse, a Melekin, or a Montague? What is a Johnson or Jerome compared with Jesus? His is the name raised far “above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:21). “On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16). Those in hell live to curse this name (Revelation 16:9); we love his name, bless his name, hallow his name.

Jewels in His Crown

Before his name, all names shrink into obscurity. What is really in a name? Only that which finds its place next to his. He alone bestows upon us that name worth having beyond death; he alone makes his sons into his pillars:

The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. (Revelation 3:12)

We are Christians, a people who have the Father’s name and Lamb’s name written on our foreheads, inscribed by the Spirit of God (Revelation 14:1; 22:4). He names us sons, daughters, citizens, saints, children, conquerors. We name him Lord, Savior, Groom, Master, Friend. We live to bring all glory to his name. We raise families, not simply for our family name, but (we pray) for his. We live and breathe and have our being in relation to his name. It is our sun by day, our North Star by night. Our names shine as diadems set within his crown, as spoils from his victory, as letters written in his book recording his great triumph — “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8).

Two red finches dance around a bird feeder in my front window, their crimson wings painting the morning air. Beyond them, the rising sun sends golden light dripping through the leaves of my crabapple tree to pool in patches on the front lawn. A few towering cedars stand sentinel above. They nod their hoary heads in time with the silent breeze as if to give their approval to the sunrise. And nearer than all these, twin baby girls sit smiling, full of milk and flexing their newfound voices in infant glee. The scene is soaked in pleasures and fills my heart with a wild joy.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience and have wondered, as I did, whether this kind of scene makes God happy. Does he enjoy this lovely slice of creation with the same delight I do? Does he actually like what he has made? If we can answer those questions, not only will we gain insight into the fathomless gladness of our God, but we will also be better equipped to engage with God’s world as he does.

Trinitarian Fullness

To begin, yes, God delights in his creation! The Lord rejoices in the works of his hands, from the red finch to the rising sun to the little girls made in his image (Psalm 104:31). How could it be otherwise? God is no idolator, and so God is foremost in his own affections. From all eternity, the Father and Son have perfectly delighted in one another by the Spirit. This unfathomable abundance of life and love, beauty and joy is his Trinitarian fullness. And creation externally expresses some of this internal fullness.

Everything that is not God makes God’s divine nature and power visible (Romans 1:20). The world with a deafening voice declares the glory (Psalm 19:1). So, if God loves himself perfectly, how could he not take pleasure in his creation? Jonathan Edwards explains, “As he delights in his own light, he must delight in every beam of that light” (God’s Passion for His Glory, 157). To do otherwise would demonstrate a defect in his love.

Furthermore, no one can force God to do anything. He is the freest and happiest being imaginable. Therefore, if things exist (and they do), they exist because God is satisfied that they should be. As someone once observed, if God wanted to erase the universe, he wouldn’t have to do anything. He’d have to stop doing something. You exist, trees exist, stars exist, mosquitoes exist because it is God’s present pleasure to make it so. To riff on G.K. Chesterton, creation is the continual, exuberant encore of a God who delights in all that he has made. The sun rises each morning because God gives it a daily bravo.

Divine Hedonics

For Christian Hedonists, God’s happiness in creation comes as no surprise. But can we say more? Can we, as with fine wine, discern the different hints, flavors, and bright undertones of God’s pleasure in creation? Indeed, we can. In an analogous way, our human joys as subcreators give us a glimpse of God’s joys as Creator. So, what specific kinds of pleasure does God enjoy in his creation?

1. The Pleasure of an Artist

I have a juniper bonsai tree sitting on my back porch. I’ve cultivated — the correct term is “trained” — that tiny tree for years to fit the aesthetic standards of bonsai. It came home with me from the hardware store a wild bush, untrained, uncultivated, and unbalanced. But now it reveals a delightful symmetry — one long, graceful branch on the left harmonizing with two short ones on the right and topped with a tampering crown. I have invested much time, thought, and creative effort to make that bonsai tree beautiful. It is (even if not a great one) a work of art.

All trees are bonsai trees. God “trains” every tree on the planet. In my limited way, I cultivate my little tree with care and attention, but much lies outside my artistic control. Not so with God. He is not only exhaustively sovereign; he is exhaustively artistic. Every elm and ash, each birch and oak, the rowans, maples, poplars, and palms, the innumerable variety of trees — and yes, the crabapple in my front yard — are all God’s bonsais.

“Like sunlight through stained glass, triune beauty dances through the cathedral of creation.”

This bonsai principle extends far beyond trees. All of creation displays what George Herbert calls God’s curious art. He designs, erects, cultivates, paints, chisels, tunes, sculpts, fills, molds, finishes, and crafts all things to showcase his diverse excellencies. Realizing this led Augustine to pray, “The voice with which [created things] speak is self-evidence. You, Lord, who are beautiful, made them for they are beautiful” (Confessions, 11.4.6). Like sunlight through stained glass, triune beauty dances through the cathedral of creation, filling it with music, magic, and light.

When the divine Artist proclaimed his finished work “very good” (Genesis 1:31), he declared his aesthetic approval and artistic pleasure in what he had made.

2. The Pleasure of an Architect

Speaking of cathedrals, if you want to witness the genius of an architect, spend some time in a great cathedral. From the symmetry of the structure to the harmony of the whole, the particular attention given to each stone, and the symbolic significance of the materials, a cathedral puts the architect’s wisdom, power, and patience on full display.

In the same way, the cathedral of creation displays God’s genius. Scripture repeatedly connects the structure and order of the world with God’s wisdom.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!      In wisdom have you made them all;      the earth is full of your creatures. (Psalm 104:24)

God himself describes creation in architectural terms when he points out his providence to Job. The divine Architect “laid the foundations of the earth” and “determined its measurements.” He sunk the cornerstones of the cosmos, set the pillars of the world, and leveled the land. He circumscribed the sea and handcrafted the doors of the deep (Job 38:1–11). Absolutely nothing falls outside this sovereign construction.

Why did he do all this? Why did he construct the world in this way? For the same reason a great architect builds — because he delights in doing it. “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6). God finds pleasure in orchestrating order and instilling degree. He loves hierarchy and harmony. Only the Architect can rejoice in the foundations only he sees.

3. The Pleasure of an Author

Although I am a bit biased, I suspect few pleasures surpass the pleasures of an author. Words make worlds, and wielding that magic thrills the soul. And it should! When our words make our internal life visible, we touch the very principle of our being — like seizing a lightning bolt. We exist because the Word speaks (Hebrews 1:3). Just like our words make what is internal external, God’s cosmos-creating words — words that we can taste and feel, smell and see — communicate his internal fullness.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge captures the enchanting speech of God beautifully in his poem “Frost at Midnight.” Coleridge rejoices that when you attend to creation,

. . . so shalt thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligibleOf that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and all things in himself.Great universal Teacher! he shall mouldThy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Creation is God’s “eternal language” — his never-ceasing speech act. Through this cosmic story, God “teach[es] Himself” to all with ears to hear. And the more he tells the tale, the more we desire to know it.

When Macbeth says life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, he’s only partially correct. Reality is indeed a story, but a perfect narrator, full of goodness and glory, tells it. God never struggles with his story, unlike even the greatest human authors. He never reaches for the right word in vain. He never fails to connect plot points. He never suffers from writer’s block. He never wearies of filling in the details of his characters — from tears shed to hairs on their head (Psalm 139:16). He is the perfect wordsmith. And because creation captures the story of his glory, because the tale ends in the happily ever after, he takes divine delight in the telling. He is the Author of joy (Hebrews 12:2).

4. The Pleasure of a Father

Finally, as a happy Father, God delights in sharing the goodness of his creation with his children. He rejoices in sharing his joy with us because he’s that kind of father. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). All of it! Every square inch of creation — all that God has declared “very good” — he gives to his people.

Dads get a taste of this pleasure when we share new joys with our kids. I recently introduced my two-year-old to chocolate chip cookies, and — let me tell you! — that moment was far sweeter for me than for him. But there are two ways God’s pleasure as a father outshines mine. First, in giving us creation, God gives himself. The trajectory of our joy goes beyond creation. Like bright sunbeams, the goodness, truth, and beauty of creation give a glimpse of and guide to the Sun. In inviting us to delight in the tiny theophanies of creation, God gives us God.

Yet there is a deeper magic still. God invites us into his own joy. God put his joy in us by giving us his Spirit so that when we rightly delight in creation, we do so with our Maker’s own pleasure. Augustine explains, “When people see these things [creation] with the help of your Spirit, it is you who are seeing in them. . . . Whatever pleases them for your sake is pleasing you in them. The things which by the help of your Spirit delight us are delighting you in us” (Confessions, 8.31.46). It boggles the mind, but when saints enjoy creation for God’s sake and by God’s Spirit, God himself is delighting in the sunshine of his glory through them. Here indeed is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore in the presence of a happy Father!

Your Maker’s Pleasure

God does not simply tolerate creation as if it were an unsavory means to a good end; he takes divine delight in the worlds he has made. His is the pleasure of an Artist, an Architect, an Author, and a Father. And our God is no miser, hoarding his happiness away. The whole point of creation is sharing his fullness with creatures for their joy in him. To borrow the words of Aslan, in creation, everywhere and in everything, God bids us, “Enter into the pleasures of your Maker. You are not yet nearly as happy as I mean you to be.”

Audio Transcript

It’s been almost three years since our last episode on dating, Pastor John. You’ve briefly mentioned dating in a couple of episodes since, but there have been no episodes devoted to the topic for a long time — our longest drought ever for such a major theme on the podcast, which you can begin to appreciate by scanning my digest of all those many episodes in the APJ book. I titled that section “On Dating, Romance Idols, and Fornication” (pages 141–65). Much has been said already, but not everything — no. Because you all surprise us with great questions, like this one today: Can a single pastor date within his local church? Should he? Why wouldn’t he?

Here’s the email: “Pastor John, hello! I’m a 23-year-old pastoral intern and MDiv student preparing to enter full-time pastoral ministry soon, sooner than I expected. I’m a single man and find it challenging to date while being on this pastoral track. First, I find many young women intimidated by the stereotypes of the pastor’s wife — stewarding a meager income, maintaining a pristine public image, and ministering to the women in the church. All lofty callings. Second, due to the busy amount of work and school, I meet very few women outside my church. Third, I hesitate to date inside my church, due to my position on the pastoral team. What’s your advice for someone in my situation? Is it appropriate for pastors to use dating apps? And if this is even remotely possible, how would a pastor wisely date within his own church? The closer I get to becoming a pastor, the smaller the possibility of marriage appears to me. Your wisdom and encouragement would be greatly appreciated.”

Well, I’m just smiling here, because I think 95 percent of our listeners are not in this category of being a pastor (or almost a pastor) who would like help in finding a wife, but I’m betting 90 percent of them are not going to turn this off. They wonder, What is Pastor John going to say? And so I’m wondering that too. Only I get a chance to turn this off and think about it.

I’m going to focus on the young pastor himself, not just the seminary student or the apprentice. I know that’s where he is, but I’m just thinking about a young pastor. He comes right in — maybe he’s an associate or a youth pastor, or maybe he’s the senior pastor at age 27 or 28 — and he’s single, and he’d like to be married. What do I have to say to him? And I’m going to start and end with the glorious truth of God’s mysterious providence.

1. Believe in God’s providence.

There are two mysteries of God’s providence that I never cease to be amazed at. I’m amazed at all of them, but these two just blow me away. One is the mystery of how God in his providence calls people into full-time, vocational, Christian service in the church or on the mission field. How does that happen? This strikes me as astonishing and glorious. One year, here’s a person studying in school — maybe a junior, senior, or maybe high school, or maybe serving in a trade or a profession selling shoes, for example, like one of our missionaries did. And then ten years later, there they are — a devoted, full-time, lifelong missionary in a distant, hard place. How in the world did that happen? What did God do to make that happen?

The other mystery is how God in his providence brings a man and a woman together from who knows where — a thousand miles apart, ten thousand — in such a way that they come to know each other, trust each other, love each other so deeply that they get married and live together for sixty years. I look back on how I came to meet and fall in love with Noël, my wife, as a totally unexpected, undeserved, inexplicable gift of providence.

So, that’s where I’m starting. And I just want to say to young pastors, single pastors, believe that. Believe in the providence of God. He is up to something. Yes, he is, in ways you can’t even see.

2. Seek a ministry-minded woman.

The next thing I would say to this young pastor or aspiring pastor is that if a woman is put off by the thought of being a part of your full-time ministry, she’s not the right woman. You want a woman who will not just tolerate your calling, your burden, your passion, your risks in ministry, but a woman who loves the thought of throwing her life into that with you. This is what God has been making her to be. She wants to share that kind of life, walking on the edge of eternity — with all of its difficulties and risks and challenges.

And you can believe — yes, you can — God is raising up many such women in our day. He’s always been doing this — women who want to find and be found by a trustworthy, strong, kind lover of God who wants to live his life radically in the service of Christ. That’s what they want. She’s been dreaming about this. She wants to live that kind of life herself, and she would love to do it with a like-minded husband. Believe that; wait for that. She’s out there.

3. Ask for help from your church.

The third thing I would say is this: be realistic and mature and candid with your fellow church leaders — the older, mature, trusted fellow pastors or laypeople. Tell them how you’re thinking, how you’re feeling, how you’re hoping, and ask them to partner with you in praying and working toward a happy outcome of finding God’s woman for you. Now, if this sounds pragmatic rather than romantic, it is. Finding a compatible Christian spouse ought to be a practical community project involving family and church, not a secretive solitary quest. Just get over that. That’s not the way you need to think about it.

When I say “ask for their help,” I mean ask them first to pray. Oh my goodness. Over the last fifty years, I have prayed specifically with many young men especially. They’re the ones who feel most free, I think, to come forward after a service and tell me, “I want to be married. Would you pray with me?” And I prayed with them. All the ones I can remember are married. There’s no shame in this to go to a friend or a pastor and say, “Pray that God would lead me to the woman that I could spend my life with.”

“Lots of couples meet because they follow their ministry heart on some venture and discover each other in the process.”

And besides prayer, I mean ask your leaders for their counsel. Ask them to keep their eyes open in regards to their near and far networks. My wife kept her eyes open at our church for husbands, for example, for her sisters. And she introduced three of her sisters to the men they married at our church, and she did it very intentionally. This was quite intentional. Yes, it can be awkward, but it can be glorious. It can be glorious. Be a mature, confident young man. This will not be your last brush with awkwardness. So grow up, put your big boy pants on, and be confident that these folks are for you and can help you in this process.

4. Consider apps with caution.

The fourth thing I would say is that I’m not opposed in principle to dating apps. How you go about meeting a person is not nearly as crucial as how you go about discerning that person’s character. That’s another challenge, and it’s not going to happen on an app. But I would offer this caution: it seems to me that a pastor is a fairly public person, and the secrecy surrounding the use of dating apps could tarnish your reputation as one who wants to be totally candid with his church and especially with his leaders. Now, that’s not a veto — I don’t have a veto vote here against dating apps — but it is a caution. I would give preference to the open networks that you have rather than to secret ones.

5. Give yourself to ministry.

The fifth thing I would say is this: pursue various ministry ventures, like short-term mission trips (you might lead them or just go on them) or mercy-ministry ventures (hurricane in New Orleans, and your church packs a bus full and goes down to help put sandbags up or rescue houses) or educational tours where the nature of the venture might be self-selecting. In all these ministries that you go on, they might be self-selecting for the kind of woman that would go on it too. Lots of couples meet because they follow their ministry heart on some venture and discover each other in the process.

6. Rest in God’s providence.

And finally, I would return to God’s mysterious and wonderful providence.

I have seen God lead two people together in the most unlikely ways. For example, two people at our church both wanted to be in missions, both were single, and both wanted to be married. They didn’t know each other. They surrendered. They just said, “Okay, it’s over. We probably won’t get married.” They gave themselves utterly to the mission. Both of them were sent by various missions, posted to one of the hardest places on the globe. And guess what? They discovered each other there after they had basically surrendered and said, “Well, it didn’t happen at home. It’s sure not going to happen on the mission field.” And that was not true.

So, trust God’s mysterious providence. Focus on doing your ministry with all your might. Walk through the doors he puts in front of you. Pray without ceasing. And trust God’s good timing.

If we could distill God’s will for his people into a simple prayer, we may do no better than an often-repeated plea from Robert Murray M’Cheyne: “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made” (Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, 159).

How often does such a prayer find its place upon your lips? How deeply does such a desire shape your hopes and plans? If the longings of your heart could speak, would any of them cry out, “Make me as holy as I can be”?

God’s desire for our holiness burns through the Scriptures like a purifying fire. Paul would have us think so: “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Peter would have us think so: “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Hebrews would have us think so: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

And in a hundred other ways, God would have us think so. Our holiness delights him (Psalm 40:6–8), pleases him (1 Thessalonians 4:1), rises before him like a fragrant offering (Philippians 4:18), elicits his approval and praise (Romans 2:29; 12:1). If you want to please a holy God, be as holy as you can be.

Holiness and Its Hoaxes

Before we consider why holiness makes God happy, ponder for a moment what we even mean by holiness. Like many familiar Bible words, holiness can get lost in a haze of abstraction. And over time, if we’re not careful, we may come to associate the word with images or ideas at odds with the real thing.

Some, for example, may hear holiness and (perhaps subconsciously) think bland or boring. Holiness belongs in a museum or antique shop, hushed and stuffy. True holiness, however, knows nothing of blandness and cannot abide boredom. Scripture speaks of “the splendor of holiness,” of holiness as “glory and beauty” (1 Chronicles 16:29; Exodus 28:2). As Sinclair Ferguson writes, holy people shine with something of God’s own brilliance:

“To sanctify” means that God repossesses persons and things that have been devoted to other uses, and have been possessed for purposes other than his glory, and takes them into his own possession in order that they may reflect his own glory. (The Holy Spirit, 140)

True holiness is breathtakingly beautiful. It participates in God’s own glory — a glory bursting with life and majesty.

Others may hear holiness and think mainly of religious ritual: food laws and temple sacrifices, perhaps, or a devotion to churchly routines. But such was the mistake of many Pharisees — those punctual, precise, “worshiping” bundles of corruption (Matthew 23:25–28). True holiness pierces to the deepest parts of a person; it touches and transforms “spirit and soul and body” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Holiness is a hand that plucks the heart’s hidden strings, filling all of life with heavenly melody. It is not smoke arising from the altar, but faith and love arising from the soul (Psalm 40:6–8).

Then, finally, some may hear holiness and wonder what relevance it holds to daily life. Maybe holiness seems like a cloud: miles above the ground and impossible to grasp. But true holiness has everything to do with everyday life. When Jesus and his apostles call us to holiness, they address our thinking and speaking, our eating and drinking, our spending and saving, our working and resting. Even on the most ordinary day, there never comes a moment when “be holy” doesn’t mean something practical. Holiness embraces and dignifies our daily doings.

And such holiness — beautiful, deep, broad — makes God happy.

God’s Complex Pleasure

Depending on your personality and theological background, the thought of our holiness pleasing God may raise some questions. Some, especially lovers of the doctrine of justification, may wonder, Doesn’t God already delight in me? And others, especially the sensitive and scrupulous, may ask, How could God ever delight in me?

Doesn’t God already delight in me?

For some, the idea that our holiness delights God seems to undermine (or at least sit in tension with) justification by faith alone. Doesn’t God’s delight rest on Christ’s perfect holiness now reckoned to me through faith? Doesn’t he call me “holy and beloved” before I obey (Colossians 3:12) and even after I sin (1 Corinthians 6:11)?

These questions press us toward a helpful distinction. At one level, God has an unshakeable delight in his people because we are united to “his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13), our holy Savior who remains the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). We are in Christ — wrapped in his righteousness, sanctified by his purity — and therefore fully approved in God’s sight. And yet, above this foundation of God’s unchanging favor, we really can please him more or less, depending on how we live. We can grieve the Spirit or gladden him (Ephesians 4:30); we can delight God Almighty or displease him (Ephesians 5:9–10).

The image of fatherly discipline in Hebrews 12 brings these two kinds of pleasure together. All discipline implies some degree of displeasure or disapproval. At the same time, all good discipline springs from deep love. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). Beneath the displeasure of God’s discipline is his deep and unchanging fatherly affection.

Because he loves us, he responds to our displeasing sins with discipline — and by discipline, he makes us more pleasing. He gives us the security of his everlasting approval in Christ — and amazingly, he also gives us the dignity of becoming the kind of people who will hear his “well done.”

How could God ever delight in me?

Others ask a different question about God’s delight. They understand why holiness pleases God, and they would love to know themselves pleasing before him. But they can’t seem to imagine their holiness — their small, stumbling holiness — ever being pure enough to please him. Maybe in heaven they’ll delight God, but how could they do so now?

I feel the force of the question. Our sins are still many, our present imperfections run deep, and mixed motives taint even our best deeds. This side of heaven, God can always disapprove of something inside us. So it can feel safer to simply take refuge in the righteousness of Christ and wait till we’re perfect to believe ourselves pleasing. But that would be a great mistake.

“God is happy with our holiness because the heart of true holiness is happiness in God.”

If we, though trusting in Jesus and seeking to follow him, doubt that God could delight in our holiness, we need to reckon with how often God uses the language of pleasure to describe his posture toward his partly sanctified people. He says brotherly love pleases him (Romans 14:18), sharing with others pleases him (Hebrews 13:16), praying for kings pleases him (1 Timothy 2:3–4), a child’s obedience pleases him (Colossians 3:20), even that we can be “fully pleasing” to him (Colossians 1:10). And in each of these examples (and many more), he is not lying. The holy, holy, holy God is astoundingly, wonderfully pleasable.

Roots of His Approval

If we ask why such imperfect holiness pleases God, we might give several answers. We might remember that our present holiness is nothing less than the emerging character of Christ in us (2 Corinthians 3:18), his image rescued and renewed (Romans 8:29) — and God loves the glory of his Son. We might also remember that our holiness is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) — and just as in the beginning, God regards the creative work of his Spirit as “good,” indeed “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Or we might remember, as Richard Sibbes writes, that God is able to take a long view of our holiness, seeing today’s small step as part of a much bigger and more beautiful picture:

Christ values us by what we shall be, and by what we are elected unto. We call a little plant a tree, because it is growing up to be so. “Who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10). Christ would not have us despise little things. (The Bruised Reed, 17)

Today’s edifying speech, purity of thought, self-denying service, prayerful yearning toward heaven — these are acorns becoming oaks, buds about to bloom, mustard seeds destined to outgrow and outlast the thorns and thistles of our sin. And so they please him.

Yet we can dig still deeper.

Happiness at the Heart

At bottom, we might say that God is happy with our holiness because the heart of true holiness is happiness in God. God made the world so that people like us would find our greatest joy in him and so glorify him as the Greatest Joy in the world— the treasure in the field, the pearl of infinite price, the fairest among ten thousand (and far more). And if we could peel back the layers of a truly holy life, we would find a heart that pulses with such pleasure in God.

People growing in holiness have felt, with Paul, something of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” a worth that makes us more ready to suffer than to sin (Philippians 3:8–10). With Jeremiah, we have left sin’s broken cisterns, drunk deeply from the fountain, and now refuse to leave (Jeremiah 2:13–14). With John, we have taken up the commandments of God and said, with a cry of joy, “Not burdensome!” (1 John 5:3). And with David, we have tasted and seen that God is good (Psalm 34:8) — his presence the height of joy, his right hand the province of pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).

Such holiness is beautiful, a flicker of the love between Father and Son, the aroma of heaven’s atmosphere. Such holiness is heart deep, filling our innermost parts with rivers of living water. Such holiness is broad, spreading over life as comprehensively as the waters cover the sea. And such holiness makes God happy.

So, if we want to distill God’s will for his people into a simple prayer, we may do no better than M’Cheyne’s striking line: “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made.” And as we pray, we’ll know what we mean deep down: “Lord, make me as happy in you as a pardoned sinner can be made.”

I am always intrigued when I read the writings of missionaries from previous generations, especially missionaries of the pioneering sort. Where did their initial drive come from? How was their sustaining perseverance instilled in them? Without a doubt, they were, first and foremost, men and women who did not count their lives as precious; they only aimed to finish the work given to them by their God (Acts 20:24). But what of their upbringing, education, peers, teachers, and mentors? What role did these play in their zeal?

Certainly, the parents and mentors of many shaped them to value the call to leave behind home and family for the glory of the King. John Paton and Amy Carmichael serve as good examples here. Others were influenced by a forerunner in missions, such as David Brainerd. His biography and writings arrested men like William Carey, Robert Morrison, and Henry Martyn, eventually guiding them to faraway lands. But the more I read about the history of missions, the more I see the crucial role of institutions, and especially their key leaders, in shaping so many long-term missionaries.

In particular, a breakout session at a recent Radius Conference made me aware of the radical nature of Princeton Seminary as a missions hotbed.

Nursery of Missions

Two centuries ago, Princeton was the jewel of theological education in the English-speaking world. It is no overstatement to say that it was the most known, trusted, and respected seminary of the nineteenth century.

Luminaries like B.B. Warfield, James Boyce, Jonathan Edwards, J. Gresham Machen, and so many others served as professors or studied as students at this venerable institution. And amazingly, in its prime, one out of every three Princeton graduates headed out to be involved in serious long-term missions (Princeton Seminary, 406).

When Princeton was formed, one of the stated pillars of the school was to be a “nursery for missionaries,” and professors led and taught to that end (Princeton Seminary, 139). This intentionality fostered student-led groups that met regularly to pray that some among them would be led to missions. The “Society of Inquiry” dealt with logistical issues in reaching faraway countries, collected language data, and worked steadily to gather a library of books to aid those students setting out to be missionaries. Students also queried active missionaries, asking for information about their field of service, the surrounding people groups, and ways they could pray for the work on the ground.

In short, the faculty of Old Princeton made missions a primary topic of discussion and study, and students caught what the professors prioritized, resulting in over one-third of graduates moving to places where no church existed. Oh, for God to raise up in our day more seminaries, Bible schools, and colleges with the Old Princetonian values!

Schooled by Princeton

Considering that most who will read this article will not help to lead a Christian institution of higher education, what applications can we take from the model of Old Princeton for our churches and other institutions today?

1. Making missions primary helps, not hurts, the church.

David Livingstone, the famous missionary to Africa, is reported to have said, “The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet.” While many would expect a missionary to say as much, hearing the same sentiment from other Christian leaders is rare. The spirit that existed at Old Princeton was alive for Christ-exalting missions, and the faculty at every level bought into it. Archibald Alexander, the seminary’s first president, would remark, “we regard the missionary cause as the greatest beneath the sun” (quoted in John C. Lowrie’s 1876 paper, “Princeton Theological Seminary and Foreign Missions,” 11). This spirit grew the seminary numerically, but more importantly, in zeal.

There exists today, as in earlier days, an unvoiced fear that if a church or seminary pushes missions too hard, the building projects won’t get done, the giving will decline, and some who are needed on the home front will be sent to the field. The problem with this fear is that it views the task of missions through man-centered eyes. If the task of taking the gospel to those peoples still in darkness is merely conjured up by fallen men, then we are right to hold back resources, avoid speaking about it from the pulpit, and generally tamp down the entire enterprise.

“The astounding legacy of Princeton can be measured by what its graduates gave their lives for.”

But if Christ himself issued the Great Commission, then the God of all grace has stamped his own name on this task, and it remains binding on the church today. He must bring in his sheep that have yet to hear his voice (John 10:16). And his voice, his call of the gospel, comes through God’s ambassadors, as though God himself were making his appeal through men (2 Corinthians 5:20). Far from being a man-centered task, the Great Commission is given by God, is orchestrated by God, and will result in God’s eternal glory.

The church, the school, the seminary that puts the commission of the God of heaven and earth above endowments, above building plans, above succession plans works in harmony with the heart of our God. The institution that makes itself a “nursery for missionaries” will not regret that path. How wonderful for a local congregation to foster sister congregations around the world raised up by men and women whom they have sent! On that great day, the glory accorded to those pastors and congregations will be something to behold.

2. Champion missions from the front.

The astounding legacy of Old Princeton can be measured by what its graduates gave their lives for. But most of the graduates didn’t go into the seminary with missions in mind; they caught the passion of the institution’s leaders. Men like Archibald Alexander, Charles Hodge, Samuel Miller, and others led from the front.

Listen to what James W. Alexander said in a talk to the seminary students about “calling” in missions:

Candidates for the sacred office [church pastor] are too much accustomed to think, “I will prepare myself to serve God as a preacher in my native land, and if I should be specially moved, and loudly called, I will become a foreign missionary.” Here there is altogether an error, and an error so great, that we need not be surprised to find him who harbors it, as really unfitted for the ministry at home, as he supposes himself to be for the ministry abroad. (Considerations on Foreign Missions, 125–26)

Did you catch that? According to Alexander, if you think you need a special call to go into missions, you’re unsuited for ministry in your home country. This is coming from the leadership!

No amount of zeal from a young person and no depth of history from a missions committee can substitute for a pastor leading his flock into long-term missions. If the pastor isn’t “into it,” it likely won’t happen. There may be the proverbial missions weekend or an offering for some overseas cause, but there will be scant few who leverage their futures to go to the nations unless the church leadership is genuinely leading that way from the front.

I don’t mean every Sunday brings a Matthew 28 or Acts 1 message, but the pastor clearly and regularly puts the burden of reaching those groups who still have no access to the gospel before the congregation. He tailors the church’s book reading so missions is in the mix (good biographies to start with) and ensures that those in the next generation are taken to the right conferences, exposed to missions regularly, and given a chance to see what it might be like to consecrate their lives to the task of cross-cultural church planting. What would the world look like with church leaders who fearlessly lead in “come and die” missions?

Legacy in Foreign Tongues

The lessons from Old Princeton are too good not to be retold. Today, Old Princeton is spoken of most often in regard to its theological acumen and well-known graduates who changed the course of the English-speaking world. But when the King does the final accounting of this school someday, Old Princeton will likely bear a far more glorious legacy — one sung in foreign tongues.

May God raise up more like her for his glory to the ends of the earth.