http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15173154/let-all-earthly-obedience-be-obedience-to-christ

Has your desire for God withered? Is your affection for Jesus a fading flame? In the fight of faith, have you been mostly in retreat? Let me tell you a story.

In a house with three kids under three, few things happen the same way every day. Scheduled flexibility is the name of the game. Yet a few things happen so consistently they might as well be natural law — meltdowns moments before getting in the car, blowouts in brand-new clothes, senseless and ceaseless crying at the witching hour. And this.

My three-year-old son enjoys playing with blocks. He builds with the razor attention of an architect — for about ten minutes. Then interest wanes, and he wanders in search of new adventures.

However, without fail, the more fiery of my ten-month-olds finds her way to those lovely white pine blocks, picks a random one, and begins trying to gum the thing to sawdust. When Strider sees his sister holding that block — a block that failed to hold his attention moments earlier — well, I’m sure you can guess what happens next. The rivalry is real. And for a time, that pine square becomes more valuable than a hoard of gold beneath a dragon, and the war that ensues only slightly less intense than those in Middle-earth.

Now, how does this dynamic work? And more immediately important to you, what do toy blocks and tyke battles have to do with your dimmed desire for God?

You Imitate Someone

To answer the first question, Aurora’s desire for the block inflames Strider’s desire because we inevitably imitate those around us. Man is a mimetic creature.

Man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We reflect God in his world, in part, by mimicking him. Paul makes the connection explicit: “Be imitators [mimētai] of God” (Ephesians 5:1). Man is an imitative creature all the way down. It’s what we were made for.

But God designed imitating others to be a means of imitating him. Holy imitation is a community project. Paul in particular loves godly copycats: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:11; 4:16). Because Paul shows us what it looks like to mimic Christ, we should mimic Paul. But he doesn’t stop with apostles. In Philippians, he exhorts his readers to imitate him and all who imitate him (Philippians 3:17). The writer of Hebrews doubles down on this mimetic chain, calling us to imitate godly leaders and all who walk by faith (Hebrews 6:12; 13:7).

A biblical principle serves as the concrete beneath these exhortations: when it comes to imitation, the question is not whether but what. John warns, “Do not imitate evil but imitate good” (3 John 11), implying that imitation is inevitable. Again, the question is not whether you will imitate — you will. But what will you imitate? Evil or good? Or better yet, whom will you imitate?

Mimetic Desire

We need to add one more piece to this puzzle before we return to our desire for God. From what I’ve said, you might imagine that imitation is always intentional and mainly pertains to actions. But we are far more imitative than that.

Proverbs especially emphasizes that we imitate others unconsciously. Thus, virtues and vices are contagious. To paraphrase Proverbs 13:20, wise he ends who wise befriends, and Proverbs 14:7, from a fool flee or like a fool be. Why? Because you cannot avoid imitating. “Bad company . . .,” as they say (1 Corinthians 15:33).

But the mimicry goes even deeper. We imitate the desires of others. Catholic philosopher René Girard calls this mimetic desire. After assiduously observing Scripture, society, and literature, Girard noticed that almost all our desires are suggested, given, mediated by others. We look at what others desire to learn what we should desire. So, we want most things because others want them first. In short, Girard concludes that desires require someone to model them.

Modern advertising exploits that insight. By showing an appealing person valuing some product, they model a desire for you. But this tactic is as old as the garden. Satan — the first advertiser — leveraged contagious desire to get Eve to ape his own serpentine lust for divinity. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery because he made Daddy’s favor irresistibly attractive. And, of course, Strider, like a moth to flame, was drawn to Aurora’s block because her desire transformed it into the world’s most desirable block.

These examples show that when the object of mimetic desire cannot be shared (or is perceived to be withheld), envy and rivalry result. However, if it can be shared, mimetic desire forges deep friendships and reinforces our loves.

Company You Keep

Now, I hope you see how our irrepressible impulse to imitate — especially to mimic desires — connects with desire for God. If mimetic desire shapes our lesser longings — what we wear, what we drink, what we drive, where we eat, where we go to school — why would it not affect our longing for God?

“Perhaps you don’t desire God because you rarely see anyone else who desires God.”

Perhaps you don’t desire God because you rarely see anyone else who desires God. Just maybe, the pine block has lost its luster in your eyes because no one is trying to chew on it. To put it another way, the company you keep will significantly shape what you long for. You will look like whom you hang with. What you want is a function of whom you observe.

C.S. Lewis identified this principle as the very heartbeat of friendship.

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too?” (The Four Loves, 83)

For Lewis, friendship flowers from a shared love — like soccer or storytelling or theology. When that love is recognized and expressed — “What? You too?” — the shared desire is mutually reinforcing, multiplied and galvanized. Yet Lewis warns that this mimetic effect has a double edge because “the common taste or vision or point of view which is discovered need not always be a nice one” (100). The N.I.C.E. shared an urge that would loose the very gates of hell.

Yet the danger arises precisely because of the staggering goodness of friendship — a goodness that can give us more of God. When you surround yourself with those whose love for God burns bright, the desire for him is contagious. Stand near fire, and your clothes will catch. And with each friend added, the conflagration grows into white-hot worship because every person has unique kindling to contribute. Christian community is a mutual adoration society. You need other toddlers to cherish the block.

Show me the company you keep, and I’ll tell you what you soon will want.

Spotlight Your Models

So, saint, whom do you surround yourself with? Who shows you desiring God? Who are your models?

Luke Burgis (another philosopher) warns, “There are always models of desire. If you don’t know yours, they are probably wreaking havoc in your life. . . . Models are most powerful when they are hidden” (Wanting, 21). For the sake of your joy in God, put a spotlight on your models. Interrogate the source of your desires (or lack thereof).

To help you name your models of desire — both good and bad — consider these four categories.

1. Digital Company

Where do you hang out in Internet land? Who are your digital models? Who’s in your ear, and what gets your eye?

The Net acts as a mimetic amplifier. Instead of two toddlers desiring the same block, digital media enables thousands, even millions, to fight over the same status. The only difference is adults try to mask the mimesis my children do not.

Social media, especially, is an engine of desire. Perhaps your joy in God feels diseased because digital envy is rotting your bones away (Proverbs 14:30). Perhaps you don’t desire God because the podcaster you spend hours with each week doesn’t either.

2. Dominant Company

Who gets the lion’s share of your time? What friends are you around most often, and what is your common bond — your “You too?” Lewis not only knew but demonstrated how soul-shaping a pervasive coterie of friends can be. His group, called “The Inklings,” shared two loves — Christianity and imaginative writing — and the world still rocks in the wake.

Who are the most present models of desire in your life? Family, coworkers, classmates? Do they sharpen your ache for God or dull it? Is the dominant company in your life co-laborers for your joy, “exhorting one another every day” to treasure the triune God (Hebrews 3:12–14)? Mature men and women are models who show us not only how to live but, more importantly, what to love. And these models are not limited to the living.

3. Dead Company

Do you keep company with the dead? And if so, who and what desires do they model? If you are a reader, dead company matters immensely. Books put us into conversation with their authors, and many of the most important books put us into conversation with authors no longer living. They teach us — often explicitly — what to yearn for.

The great benefit of the dead is they often desire differently than modernity. And their deep longings can expose our own as tumbleweeds. Here’s Lewis again: “The real way of mending a man’s taste is not to degenerate his present favorites but to teach him how to enjoy something better” (Experiment in Criticism, 112). The likes of Augustine and Austen, Bunyan and Bavinck, Dante and Donne, Calvin and Coleridge tutor our tastes — and preeminently, that inspired cohort of the dead who penned the Scriptures.

4. Divine Company

Speaking of taste, if you want to develop a hunger for God, nothing will stoke that desire more than keeping company with God himself. The triune God is the ultimate model of our desires, and no one can love God more than God loves God. Unlike all other forms of mediation that work on us externally, God mediates his own desires to us from within. He gives us “the desires of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:17).

But the process is not automatic. We become like God as we see God, and we see God most fully in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18–4:6). We are made and remade to imitate him (Romans 8:29). His desires for God and good are perfect, clear, fiery — and contagious. Jesus is our great mimetic model. As we learn to fix our eyes on him, his joy will kindle ours (Hebrews 12:1–2) and start a wildfire of holy desire.

Audio Transcript

The prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 65:17 something pretty incredible. In the new creation, he says, “the former things” — the experiences of this life, it seems — “shall not be remembered or come into mind.” And that raises question about eternity. In the new creation, are we mindwiped?

Two listeners are asking this exact question, Pastor John, who joins us remotely today over Zoom. Here’s David, who lives in San Antonio, Texas: “Hello, Pastor John. I praise God for you and for Tony and for your faithfulness to this podcast over the years. I’ve searched the archive high and low and cannot find your take on Isaiah 65:17” — which is true; the text has never appeared on APJ, until today. “So does this passage effectively say that we will be memory-wiped before we enter the new creation?” And then a listener named Ryland wants to know “how Isaiah 65:17 jibes with Revelation 5:12, which puts Christ’s sacrifice — the past-tense ‘was slain’ memorial of his crucifixion in this world — front and center for all of eternity. Pastor John, what do you make of Isaiah 65:17. And are my memories of this life deleted in the new creation?”

Well, here’s the quote. Let’s put Isaiah 65:17 right in front of us so that we can be specific. God is speaking:

Behold, I create new heavens     and a new earth,and the former things shall not be remembered     or come to mind.

So David is asking, Does that mean a complete memory wipe — like, I assume, the hard drive of our former life crashes and starts over as a totally blank slate? And my response is that there are numerous reasons why it does not mean that. And if we think about a few of them, we will get a clearer picture of what the Christian eternal future will be like.

Forgotten Former Troubles

First, in the immediately preceding verse, God says of his servants, “He who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from [our] eyes” (Isaiah 65:16).

Isaiah 65:17 says, “The former things shall not be remembered,” and Isaiah 65:16 limits those things to former troubles. Now that’s a contextual warning to me that we better be careful not to overstate the forgetting of verse 17. It’s probably not a memory wipe of all former things, but a selective memory wipe in some way. So that’s just a little flag warning me, “Be careful here. Don’t overdo this. Don’t overstate this.”

Or think of a total memory wipe. Think what it would mean. If you remember nothing from your former life, you are not you any longer. You have no identity at all. There would be nothing in your mind that could identify you as you. In essence, a total memory wipe means you don’t exist anymore as the person you were. And if you are to have any personhood at all, it would start all over again, like a new creation. You’d be a new total person, and there would be no continuity with that former person at all.

But that contradicts several things we know from Scripture. It contradicts the parables of Jesus and the teachings of the apostles, that we will be rewarded in the age to come according to our works in this life. So, there’s a correlation or a continuity between the person you are and what you did in this world and the person you will be in the new earth.

A complete memory wipe also contradicts the fact that we will recognize each other in the age to come. The risen Christ is the firstfruits, Paul says, of that final resurrection reality (1 Corinthians 15:20), and he relates to his disciples after the resurrection as one that they know. We will know Jesus as the one who came into the world and worked wonders and died for us and rose from the dead — and we will know each other. All that assumes that our memories have not been wiped out.

Song of the Lamb

Perhaps the most important of all is the fact that the ultimate purpose of history, the ultimate purpose of redemption, from creation to consummation, is the praise of the glory of the grace of God. That’s a quote from Ephesians 1:6. God has worked in history so that his wonders would be remembered and praised, especially the wonders of his grace.

“He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful” (Psalm 111:4). God is not going to obliterate the memory of his thousands of works of grace, as though they didn’t matter. On the contrary, according to Isaiah 63:7, God will cause to be remembered “the steadfast love of the Lord . . . the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion.”

This is why Ryland’s question about Revelation 5:12 is relevant. He’s right that the book of Revelation pictures the perfected saints in heaven as singing the song of the Lamb. That’s the Lamb that was slain at a point in history at a place called Golgotha. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” We’re going to be singing that in the age to come.

God did not send his Son to die and just have his sacrifice be forgotten for all eternity. The death of Jesus was the high point of the glory of the grace of God. And that’s the point of the universe: the praise of the glory of the grace of God. We will sing it forever. We will not forget the high point of the grace of God in this history, which means that the death of Jesus will make sense forever. And the only way the slaughter of the Son of God makes sense is to remember sin.

We have to remember sin — our sin. Christ died for our sin. The most poignant expression of Paul’s worship of Christ, it seems to me, is Galatians 2:20: “[Jesus] loved me and gave himself for me.” Do you think Paul won’t say that forever? “He loved me. He gave himself for me.” That poignant love and thankfulness will not be memory wiped. It’s the reason Christ died, to win for himself everlasting songs of thankfulness and worship for his bearing our guilt.

“The reality of hell would make no sense if there were no memory of the outrage of sin.”

Or consider the other side of the coin. In the age to come, we will know that there is a reality called hell. The very last verse of Isaiah pictures the saints in the new age gazing on the defeated foes of God (Isaiah 66:24). But the reality of hell would make no sense if there were no memory of the outrage of sin and no memory of the patience of God in this age.

Remembering in Eternity

So, I conclude that Isaiah 65:17 does not mean that we are memory wiped in the new heavens and the new earth, which would cause David and Ryland to say, “Well, then, what does it mean? Okay, Piper, we get that. We get what you’re saying. What does it mean when it says the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind?” Here are three observations that suggest there is a kind of forgetting and there is a kind of remembering that is different from what we now experience.

The Bible speaks of God not remembering our sins against us. I think that’s a crucial phrase. Psalm 79:8: “Do not remember against us our former iniquities.” Or Ezekiel 18:22: “None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him.” This is probably what the Bible regularly means when it says that God will not remember our sins, as in Isaiah 43:25: “I will not remember your sins.” That is, God will not remember them against us. He will not call them to mind to in any way harm us or punish us. But he does not cease to be God, with perfect knowledge of all reality — past, present, and future. So there is a way to remember sin that is very different from our present experience.

Second, the Bible pictures us in our eternal future as having fullness of joy. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). That means no memories will ruin this joy. We may not be able to imagine how any memory of all our sins could serve our joy, but that leads me to my third and last point about how forgetting and remembering in the age to come will be different from how we experience forgetting and remembering now.

Memory Will Serve Worship

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” In other words, there is a way we know our sins now, and there’s a different way we will know our sins in the age to come.

“Whatever God grants us to remember of this world will only serve to deepen our joy, the joy of worshiping Christ.”

We will know them as God knows them, as we are known. We will be granted the capacity to see them as the reason why Christ died, and yet the effect of that seeing, that remembering, will be so changed that the pain of it, the guilt of it, the shame of it will be transformed into a pure, joyful magnifying of the grace of God, which is why God made the world and sent Jesus to save us. That’s what he was after: the magnifying of his grace.

So I take Isaiah 65:17, “The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind,” to mean this: in the new heavens and the new earth, whatever God grants us to remember of this world will only serve to deepen our joy, the joy of worshiping Christ. Everything will be forgotten in the sense that everything that would hinder that worship will be excluded or transformed.