Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

-2 Corinthians 1:1-4

Paul’s theology of suffering is so radically different than what I’ve grown up with, to what I’ve become accustomed. Paul links suffering–affliction–with comfort and mercy. That in itself isn’t so unbelievable. But Paul goes much further. For Paul, there is no comfort apart from affliction. The substance of comfort is only experienced in light of suffering.

How can the one who never suffers experience comfort? How does a man who has never felt cold appreciate the warmth of the sun? How does the child who has never wanted for food relish the taste of bread on his tongue? No; obviously, it’s the man freezing, frostbitten, pursued by death that celebrates warmth. It’s the emaciated child who longs for the smallest scrap from the master’s table. This is the heart of a desperate thankfulness and gratitude.

There is simply no comfort outside of affliction. Can God’s character of mercy be displayed outside of a fallen world? Outside a suffering sin-wracked trial?

Yes, there is a day when suffering ends–a day when there are no more tears, no more deaths, no more pains. But is not much of the joy of that to-be the absence of suffering? And absence implies knowledge–the realization that something (suffering) that could be is not. We rejoice and long for a suffering-less day in light of the suffering we now experience.

Our joy will be the end of suffering–the removal of what we now know, the permanent comfort, the everlasting mercy of God’s presence driving back eternally the darkness of our pain and affliction.

In light of these things, though, we do not wait to grasp joy; we find joy in suffering now. Why? Because, first, suffering reveals to us God’s character. We see he is merciful; we see he is the God of comfort. And we cannot see these things apart from suffering. Paul writes this: “…with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Apart from affliction, there is no comfort by God. We rejoice because suffering causes us to encounter God.

Second, suffering sweetens the promise of Christ’s coming return. It creates a deep and stark contrast between the now and the what-is-coming. It sharpens the anguish and ache in us. It gives us something to sing toward–for which to long and ache. Suffering points to our brokenness, but more, to God’s coming consummation.

He is coming, and something that is very much now–this present suffering–will end.

There is hope, and Christ is that hope.

We know him now not in spite of suffering; or even through and in our suffering. We know him deeply because of our suffering.

Suffering is not enjoyable, but it is a means by which we may joy–knowing God in an intimacy only possible as we see his mercy and cling to his promises.

Come Lord Jesus.

Humans are better at mimicking than perhaps anything else they do. Young married couples mimic their parents–often incurring massive debt trying to live a life twenty years their senior. Children mimic their peers–it’s called peer pressure–and make choices they’d never envision. The so-called “common man” mimics Hollywood, or the NBA, and dresses like a fool, spending far too much money in the process.

While this mimicry can be fought, it’s perhaps wiser to accept it as human nature, and instead examine what–or better, who–is being mimicked. For the Christian, Jesus is our high priest, but he is also our role model. He is our brother–we are adopted sons of his father–but he is also our imitable guide. And if there is any counseling to be done, Jesus certainly is the model counselor, the template to which all other counselors should strive to mold themselves. Effective counseling “means following Christ’s example and focusing on the heart–starting with your own” (96).

Jesus first lived sinlessly, and then based on that perfect heart, counseled others. While we cannot achieve sinlessness, we can purify and cleanse our hearts through Jesus and then focus on the purification and cleansing of the hearts of others.

Jesus never laid out a system or rules; he never suggested throwing flags or passing batons or inane mechanisms by which outward behavior is reined in. Rather, he ruthlessly focused on the heart. For our counseling to be modeled after his then, we must also focus on the heart.

Desire and the heart are inexorably linked. Whether romantic love is in view, where the heart desires another person, or familial love, where the heart desires community and acceptance, or even material lusts, where the heart desires satisfaction in objects, the heart desires. At the same time, as mentioned in Heart Problems, the heart is also an idol factory.

Transitively, the heart tends to desire what it wants, and it often desires the idols it has created. In other words, the heart tries to be all things to itself: it produces idols and then meets those idols with desire. The result is idolatry. James 4:1-3 deals with the heart and its desire in great depth:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Ultimately, our desires–our passions in James 4:3–are not the right desires. We desire self-praise, self-love, attention, and for others to worship us, instead of desiring God-praise, God-love, transparency in Christ being seen in us, and the worship of God.

We replace every God-ward desire with self-ward desire.

But, as Tripp points out, “[James] does not say it is wrong to desire,” and “James does not place the word ‘evil’ before the word ‘desire’” (79). The problem is not that we do desire, but rather that we desire incorrectly. “The heart of every person is a fount of competing desires” (79).

The goal of the Christian is not to suppress their desires, but to win the war of God-ward desire over and against self-ward desire. The desire is between faithfulness to God and spiritual adultery against God–the “sin of giving someone the love I have promised [God]” (82). We are called to depend upon Jesus and his cross for victory over wrong desires, or neutral desires elevating themselves in our heart to idolatry.

The typical approach to this battle is to attempt to reduce the wrong desires. Attention and systems are put in place to add accountability; to reduce exposure to temptation; to fill the heart with Scripture so that right desires might win out over wrong ones. These are all legitimate approaches to attacking the heart’s idols and desire problems. However, there is a fundamental flaw with this approach: all attention and focus is in fact on the wrong desires! Even though a battle is being fought, all eyes are on the wrong thing.

Here, the approach of Augustine, Lewis, and Edwards–followed now by Piper and Storms–is helpful. These men have seen in Scripture a call not to de-emphasize wrong desires, but instead to delight greatly in God, as Psalm 1:2 and 37:4–among many other references–would indicate. In this mode of thinking, the war against idolatry is best won by increasing the desire toward God, rather than controlling or decreasing desires for self. This Scriptural approach aids in the way against sin while magnifying God greatly.

John Calvin famously declared the heart “an idol factory.” There is enormous truth in those words; further, there are implications that are subtle. If the heart is an idol factory, then any attack on idolatry must necessarily attack the heart. Moral conformity, outward behaviorism, even accountability structures and God-oriented systems must be driven and controlled by counseling, reproof, and reorientation of the heart. Tripp, in Instruments, refers to this as change needing to “travel through the pathway of [the] heart” (62).

But there is more to dealing with idolatry than simply treating the heart. A factory produces products; an idol factory produces idols. If the heart is an idol factory, then, it does much more than house or even foster idolatry. Instead, the heart is the source of the idols; it produces the idol that then consumes the man or woman in idolatry.

Biblical treatment of idolatry must look at the heart not just as complicit in sin but as the source of that sin. “Change that ignores the heart will seldom transform the life” (63). Put another way, “people and situations do not determine our behavior; they provide the occasion where our behavior reveals our hearts” (64). What sin has arisen from the heart, and why? That is the inward sin that must be attacked and eradicated to “clean the plate,” using Jesus’ metaphor from Matthew 23:25-26:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

The method of attacking this sin is important, and tools and accountability are a critical part of that treatment. However, sin must be recognized as stemming from the heart before any real life change can occur and be sustained.

There is a careful distinction that must be made when the heart is addressed, though. The heart is indeed representative of the inward man, but it is not synonymous with the spirit. While the heart and the soul are often interchangeable, the spirit is a different issue. Here, Tripp over-simplifies: “[the heart] encompasses all the other terms and functions used to describe the inner person (spirit, soul, mind, emotions, will, etc.) These other terms do not describe something different from the heart” (59). This over-simplification is dangerous in its implication.

Sinful natural man has a dead spirit. Ephesians 2:1 declares us dead in trespasses and sin, and is referring to the spirit (see Eph. 2:5; John 6:63; 1 Cor. 15:45). Still, the heart is very much alive, creating idols at will. That heart is called a heart of stone (Ex. 11:19; 36:26), but it is active, unlike the dead, inert, incapable spirit of a man apart from Jesus Christ. The saving work of God quickens that spirit–makes it alive–and weds it with the Spirit of God (again, Eph. 2:1-5 and 1 Cor. 15:45). This living Spirit then has the power to war with our fallen flesh, and even our heart. The Spirit never produces sinful idols, although the heart–even after salvation–does.

We must examine our hearts, then, and always appeal to the Spirit of God that dwells within us. We must appeal to God the Father through Jesus, via the Holy Spirit, and attack the idols our heart produces. We must make war with the inward man, not the outward man.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
…
For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. — Romans 8:20-21, 24-25

Hope in the Biblical sense is a word and concept that has only a passing resemblance to the word “hope” as it’s used in 2010. We hope a check comes in the mail; or that a bill doesn’t. We hope the Saints win the Super Bowl; or that our children stay healthy. Hope for us is a desire in the face of uncertainty.

Biblically, though, hope is different. In Romans 8:20, the creation “was subjected to futility.” In other words, someone subjected–and that word, “subjected,” is connotating authority and intent–creation to futility. There is a purpose and power in view in this subjection. Who is the “him,” then? It takes little exegesis: “he” is the only One outside of creation; the only One with power over creation; the “him” who is God. (Specifically, this is God the Father acting through Jesus the Son, who upholds creation through his existence.)

What does “hope” mean here, then, when God does something–subjects creation to humility–in hope? Is it possible that God hopes for his purposes in the same way we hope for that check or for our team’s success? The question is silly. There is more than just logical supposition to confirm that Biblical hope is different, too. In Romans 8:24 and 25, we are saved in this hope; we wait for this hope; and we do that waiting with patience. If our salvation is real, then hope is real. If our waiting is not in vain, then hope is not merely potential. If we are to be patient, then this hope must be sure.

Scripturally, hope is: the purpose of God not yet consummated; the construct in which our salvation rests; something we wait for with patience because we are confident in its arrival. This last has implications: for God to tell us to wait for something is, by the very nature of God’s truthfulness, to assure that something is coming; or else, God is nothing more than a cosmic tease.

What difference would this understanding of hope make to your personal theology? What difference would it make to mine? What difference would a patient, assured waiting create, in opposition to our timid, unsure, bated-breath clinging to a weak god who cannot bring his purposes to pass?

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you. — Psalm 39:7

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God. — Psalm 42:5

My soul longs for your salvation;
I hope in your word. — Psalm 119:81

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. — Romans 12:12

He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. — 2 Corinthians 1:10

For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. — Galatians 5:5

…but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. — Hebrews 3:6

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading… — 1 Peter 1:3, 4

Edwards most oft-referenced work on grace begins in a somewhat rambling and confusing fashion. Edwards muses on grace and how it connects to–later concluding that it in fact primarily is–the Spirit of God in the believer. The first 10 pages are loaded with some conflated terms: grace and the Spirit, grace and love, grace and graces, etc. Edwards doesn’t lay out as clear a case as he does in many of his other writings for these conflations, and I believe that weakens the first section of this book.
However, reading on bears tremendous reward. The second section lays out Edwards’ theology of the Spirit and the workings of grace in the believer in a clear, systematic fashion. He defines this grace as “special or saving grace” and delves into exactly what is nature (natural) and what is spirit (spiritual). Repeated readings are rewarded here; the language is typically Edwards: confusing at time, always wordy, and somewhat repetitive. However, Edwards frequently refers to Scripture and identifies the Spirit of God as grace and in fact the source of all other graces, such as hope, patience, and so forth.

It’s the third and final section that is superb, though. Edwards considers the Spirit as equivalent to divine love. This stems initially from a close reading of love (sometimes “charity”) in 1 Corinthians and its equivalence with Spirit in parallel passages and arguments from Paul. Edwards goes on, though: through careful Scriptural comparison, he argues that the Spirit is actually the Person embodying the love of the Father for the Son, and the love of the Son for the Father.

The revelation here is an elevation of the Spirit to a vital part of the Gospel and in fact to Christ’s self-sacrifice. No longer is the Spirit merely the product of that sacrifice; instead, the Spirit is the love Christ demonstrated on the cross toward His Father, and His Father’s love toward Jesus. The Spirit then becomes a vital part of the believer’s life as it allows the believer to partake of that divine love and therefore love and Father and Son properly.

This isn’t a better-known work of Edwards. It’s in fact not that easy to find. However, it’s excellent, and as for pneumatology, required reading.

“Humans need truth from outside themselves to make sense out of life” (45). This is a monumental statement from Tripp, bearing both spiritual and philosophical ramifications. If humans cannot define truth, then all of life is a decision-making process of the most important degree: who defines truth? There are numerous sources that would claim to provide truth: the news, religions, a pantheon of gods, spiritual beings, fellow humans, even espn.com and the iPhone. If truth must be received from outside of oneself, then the decision to listen to one source over another, or to amalgamate various sources, is the decision to believe one truth–or version of truth–over another.

Further, many of these information-providing sources do not themselves claim to define truth, but to pass on information that is true. The distinction is not merely worthy of academic argument. If a news source, for example, is only passing on truth, then the question is begged: where is the source of the truth passed on? Truth definition is left largely, then, in the realm of religion and philosophy. Some would claim tolerance and allow for relativistic truth. But this is nonsense; to state that all opinions are truth is to make truth an absurd contradiction. All that is left, then, is to choose one of the many conflicting truth claimants, like Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism.

But before that choice can be made, another realization dawns. Truth on its face is rarely enough. Humans beings are ultimately what Tripp calls “interpreters” or “meaning-makers” (41). It is not enough to look up and see a particular arrangement of cones on the retina. Humans must determine that what they see is sky, and the pigment is blue. In fact, there is interpretation in determining that “up” is in fact “up.” The question is not just one of truth, then, but what to make of that truth.

Tripp details Genesis 1 and 3 as primary instances where God purports to define truth, and then Satan seeks to interpret truth. God told Adam and Eve to not eat of a particular tree, or they would die. Satan–in Tripp’s words–interprets God’s truth to be something else. Here, though, Tripp pushes the boundaries of what can be seen as interpretation. Satan does not merely interpret God’s words; he denies them. He re-defines truth, or better, causes Eve to decide which truth-claim she will act upon: God’s or Satan’s. Satan certainly does provide an interpretation of what his truth-claim will provide–the ability to see and function as God–but Satan’s truth claim is in opposition to God’s.

This can all seem a bit philosophical and heady; theoretical, and best for writing but perhaps for not living. However, there is a practical and essential component of living wrapped up in these realizations. If humans must decide on a particular set of truths to truth, and then choose an interpreter for those truths, then man is deeply dependent upon the claimant and interpreter they choose. The Christian–choosing God for both truth-giver and truth-interpreter–is often inconsistent, believing God for some truths but rejecting him for many others. The pagan–choosing some other religion, and ultimately himself as at least truth-interpreter–must be shown the contradictions in their own beliefs. This all must occur before a particular relationship or need can be addressed. Truth must be determined before lives can be changed.

“The Bible makes a poor encyclopedia” (27). Tripp’s words summarize the truth of God’s redemptive story: Scripture as a revelation of God’s plan was never intended to “fix” humanity. Instead, Scripture tells the story of God’s redemptive plan and purposes, leading to and pouring out from Jesus Christ. This is the consistent and continual message of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

Based on this supposition, then, any attempt to life a verse or passage from this context and apply it to a specific practical problem is necessarily abusing Scripture. Only within the overarching context of God’s story of redeeming mankind and creation itself can help be found for daily struggles.

The overarching story reflects that our problem as human beings is deeper than the individual sins we commit each day, creating the specific problems that complicate our lives. Our deepest problem is that we seek to find our identity outside the story of redemption. If the entire goal and direction of our lives are wrong, we need much more than practical advice on how to do the right thing in a particular situation. (27)

These are staggering words, at least in part because they are simple. Scripture would say that a problem in marriage; a struggle at work; repeated arguments with children; even depression and other mental imbalances; all these are at their root a lack of finding our identity in Christ. There may be practical considerations–there usually are–but these considerations are meaningless when cast outside of the context of the gospel saving us from sin.

Underlying this entire chapter is a reliance on Scripture. Tripp points out the inconsistency of a sermon being delivered on the back of hours of preparation in Scripture, compared to counseling being delivered on the back of, what? personal experience? positive or hopeful anecdotes? an outline ripped from a bestselling book? Personal interactions and counseling must be based on Scripture, and the whole of Scripture. Redemption must come through the redemption story, not a line of that story without the overall view.

Every bit of good news must stem from a bad state or situation. News cannot be good if it is not relative to a state that is not good, or at the least, not as good. Humans strive and seek for better marriage, more money, greater happiness; all of these seekings, then, are for improvements in an initial condition. Tripp implicitly acknowledges this when he begins his treatment of the redemptive work in and through humans with an extended discussion of sin.

The gospel saves and redeems people. That is the Christian message. And the gospel is, by its nature and definition, “good news.” If good news requires a relatively worse initial state, though, what is the gospel saving from? Most Christians would point out their personal problems: abusive pasts, issues with anger, chemical imbalances, or consistently hurtful relationships. Tripp digs much deeper, though, and identifies one single common problem that all mankind faces: sin. Before the gospel can be effective good news, the bad news must be acknowledged: sin is present in all humans.

Tripp goes further, though. “Scripture [defines] sin as a condition that results in behavior” (10). Using this definition, there is no ability to shuttle sin into a corner of a particular area of life. Sin cannot be seen as “bad choices” or “trouble with the past.” Instead, sin is rightly pictured as an all-pervasive, all encompassing disease that affects all behavior. Tripp puts it this way: “Because sin is my nature as a human being, it is inescapable” (10). This is the bad news that must be accepted and recognized before the gospel can be seen as good news.

Tripp hammers this point home by explaining the effect of sin on behavior. He begins by acknowledging what most Christians would assent to: “sinners tend to respond sinfully to being sinned against” (11). There is no radical admission here; but Tripp goes further. If sin is inescapable, then it does not simply manifest in awful situations. It is pervasive. “Something is so wrong inside us that we can’t even handle blessing properly” (12). Sin causes us to sin not just in the face of being sinned against, but in the face of being loved and treated well.

The depth of sin is perhaps best seen in our inability to do right. Even in God reaching toward us, we sin. This malfunction “colors every situation and relationship of our lives” (15). We cannot reach out to God; we cannot respond in kindness. We are broken. Against this dark canvas, though, the gospel can finally be seen rightly. Only in deep despair can the gospel be received without dilution. Only when we cease trying to mix in man’s wisdom or systems can the gospel be effective.

Jonathan Edwards stands as a giant in Christian literature and history. Particularly among the Reformed Christian camp, he is mentioned in the same breath as Calvin and Luther. Fortunately, he wrote often, and there are no translation barriers to make his works less accessible in English.

On Revival is a collection of three works: “A Narrative of Surprising Conversions,” “The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God,” and “An Account of the Revival of Religion in Northampton 1740-1742.” The first and last are letters; the middle is a treatise or long sermon (if by long you accept 75 pages!).

Edwards systematically details the amazing movement of the Spirit of God in Boston and on the east coast, focusing particularly on the years 1732 and following (in “Narrative”) and 1740-1742 (in the piece by the same name). In one sense, then, these are historical accounts, with Edwards serving as narrator, highlighting the movement of God among people he pastored and walked with daily.

More importantly, though, this is Edwards work on what revival meant to him, practically and especially theologically. He spends great time in “Marks” detailing not just what marks a revival, but what does <i>not</i> disqualify a revival from being true. In other words, he deals with diversities of how the Spirit of God moves; over-zealousness toward the lost; fear of hell; and errors in doctrine; and insists that all are not on their own enough to say, “Such-and-such is not really experiencing a revival.”

These works are immensely helpful in, first, illuminating what revival looked like 300 years ago; and second, detailing the various workings of the Holy Spirit throughout history apart from the works recorded in Scripture during apostolic times. You get a sense of Edwards’ being a continuist rather than a cessationist, at least to some degree; as well as his view on fear of hell being a useful device in moving a man or woman toward heaven.

The only drawback with this work is that, by the time you’re finished, you’re going to get some repetitive sections. 160 pages on revival, in three different works, can be at time a bit mono-themed. The repetition is good and profitable, and serves to reinforce Edwards points. However, there are definitely times when you’ll need to focus to not drift over a paragraph or two that are substantially the same as you’ve already read.