Latest / Reformed Thinking / Religious Affections: The Nature of True Christianity Explained | Jonathan Edwards

Transcript

Religious Affections: The Nature of True Christianity Explained | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

0:00
So imagine watching a spiritual movement so massive it seems to
0:05
sweep up an entire nation. Like the churches are packed to
0:08
the doors, people are weeping in the aisles, and dramatic
0:11
conversions are happening daily. Oh yeah, and the local Taverns
0:14
are completely empty. Right.
0:15
It looks like the most glorious dawn imaginable.
0:18
But then Fast forward just a few years.
0:21
The dust settles and you look around.
0:24
And those same churches are now brutally tearing each other
0:26
apart. Yeah, the people who are weeping
0:28
in repentance are now hurling venom at their neighbors,
0:32
accusing them of being spiritual frauds.
0:34
The zeal that built the movement is now burning it down from the
0:37
inside. It is a devastating picture and
0:39
the outside world is watching the chaos, concluding that
0:42
religion is just a hysterical delusion.
0:45
Welcome to Reform Thinking, where we take a deep dive into
0:48
historical texts to see what they reveal about our present
0:51
realities. I am your host and I am sitting
0:53
down with our resident theological expert.
0:55
Glad to be here for this one. We have a really intense topic
0:58
today. We do.
1:00
Today we are opening up the introduction to a book called
1:03
Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards.
1:05
He wrote this in the 1740s, right in the aftermath of the
1:09
First Great Awakening. Which was, you know, a time of
1:12
massive religious revival in the American colonies.
1:14
Right. And the the core issue he
1:16
targets is this how do you identify genuine spiritual
1:20
experience versus incredibly convincing fakes?
1:24
It is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
1:28
I mean, our mission today is to understand why discerning true
1:31
religion from counterfeit religion was, according to
1:34
Edwards, the most crucial question anyone could ever ask.
1:37
And we are also going to examine his staggering historical claim
1:40
that false religion damages the church far more than open
1:43
hostility, physical violence or Roman arenas ever did.
1:47
Yeah, Edwards is not just writing an academic theology
1:49
textbook here. He is, in a way, performing an
1:52
autopsy on a spiritual movement he helped lead, trying to figure
1:55
out what went so terribly wrong. It is incredibly easy for you as
1:59
the listener to look at the modern religious sphere.
2:01
You know, the scandals, the endless social media debates,
2:05
the arguments over who is a genuine believer and who is just
2:08
a hypocrite building a brand. Oh, totally.
2:11
You look at all that and think we are living in unprecedented
2:13
times. But looking at Edward's
2:15
introduction proves that intense confusion over true faith is a
2:20
centuries old problem actually goes back millennia.
2:23
It really does. So Edwards puts his core
2:25
question on the table right at the beginning, he writes.
2:29
What are the distinguishing qualifications of those that are
2:32
in favor with God and entitled to His eternal rewards?
2:35
Or, as he rephrases it, what is the nature of true religion?
2:38
Right. And he notes a massive layering
2:40
contradiction. Right away.
2:42
He says that even though we have clear and abundant light in the
2:45
Word of God to direct us, there is no single point where
2:48
professing Christians differ more from one another.
2:51
He even references says the words of Jesus and the Gospel of
2:53
Matthew saying straight is the gate and narrow is the way that
2:57
leads to life and few there be that find it.
3:00
The sheer variety of opinions dividing the Christian world on
3:03
this specific issue is just staggering to him.
3:06
I mean, what actually constitutes saving faith?
3:09
Yeah, he looks at a Bible that he believes is entirely
3:11
sufficient and clear, yet he sees a landscape of total
3:15
confusion. Exactly.
3:16
Well, spot on. But I have to push back on his
3:18
framing right out of the gate here.
3:20
He dedicated his entire life to this study, right?
3:23
Yeah, he says his mind has been peculiarly intent on this
3:27
specific question since he first began studying divinity.
3:30
So why is it so incredibly difficult to read or write about
3:33
this topic impartially? Like, is it just human
3:36
stubbornness? Because he complaints about the
3:39
sheer difficulty of judging these things amidst what he
3:42
calls the dust and smoke is such a state of controversy.
3:45
That phrase, the dust and smoke, is brilliant.
3:48
If the Bible is clear, why the smoke?
3:50
Well, think about what dust and smoke actually do in a physical
3:53
sense. They don't just obscure your
3:55
vision so things look blurry, they choke you.
3:58
Yeah, they make your eyes water. Right.
3:59
They disorient you to the point where you lose your sense of
4:02
direction entirely. Edwards is describing A
4:04
theological environment where people are reacting emotionally,
4:08
not rationally. Oh, I see.
4:09
Taking a firm, objective stance in this area means you are
4:13
forced into an incredibly uncomfortable corner.
4:17
If you set down a rigorous biblical standard for true
4:20
faith, you end up condemning certain religious expressions
4:24
that people absolutely love. Oh wow, and you end up approving
4:27
or justifying things that other people fiercely hate.
4:30
Spot on and people take that very personally.
4:33
He actually writes that many will be hurt in their spirits to
4:36
find certain things condemned, while others will react with
4:39
indignation and contempt. He is putting himself at immense
4:42
personal risk here, isn't he? He is.
4:44
He mentions being charged with inconsistency by his own peers.
4:48
He wants to be a zealous friend of the good things happening in
4:50
the rivals, but he vigorously attacks the bad things.
4:54
And in a polarized environment, people demand that you pick a
4:59
side. You're either all in on the
5:01
revival, excusing the wild excesses in the chaos, or you
5:05
are totally against it, throwing out the genuine conversions
5:08
along with the fanaticism. That binary thinking is the trap
5:11
Edwards absolutely refuses to fall into.
5:14
He insists that unless we learn to rejoice in the good while
5:18
earnestly opposing the pernicious and bad, we will
5:21
never be in the way of truth. Let's connect this to the bigger
5:24
picture for you listening right now, think about a time when a
5:27
favorite author, a beloved pastor, or a movement that
5:30
changed your life was criticized.
5:32
Emotional attachment to a specific spiritual experience
5:35
makes objective analysis feel like a direct personal attack on
5:38
your own soul. Right.
5:39
If someone tells you that the moment you felt closest to God
5:42
might have been, I don't know, a psychological manipulation, a
5:45
product of groupthink, or an empty counterfeit, you don't
5:48
just disagree with him intellectually.
5:50
No, you feel a visceral pain, You feel hurt in your spirit,
5:53
just as Edwards described. You feel indignant because your
5:56
experience is tied to your identity.
5:59
If that experience is fake, you start wondering if your entire
6:03
faith is fake. Which leads us to the root cause
6:05
of all this confusion. I mean, why is it so hard to
6:07
separate the real from the fake in the first place?
6:10
Edwards says is because the genuine and the fake elements
6:13
are physically and spiritually tangled together.
6:16
He calls it a mysterious but real phenomenon.
6:19
Yeah, he notes that saving grace and extreme corruption,
6:22
hypocrisy and iniquity can dwell in the exact same heart.
6:26
That is the internal struggle every believer faces.
6:29
But on a larger corporate scale, multitudes of hypocrites spring
6:32
up right alongside true Saints during times of religious
6:36
revival. It is a dual mystery individual
6:38
mixture and corporate mixture. You have genuine fruit and
6:41
poisonous weeds growing in the same soil, watered by the same
6:45
rain. Let's let's think about planting
6:48
a row of carrots in the garden. OK, I like this.
6:50
As the carrots grow, a specific type of weed sprouts up right
6:53
next to them, and this weed has evolved to share the exact same
6:57
root system as the carrot. Wow, so above ground they look
7:01
different enough if you look closely, right?
7:04
But below ground, they're completely intertwined in the
7:06
dirt. If you try to RIP the weed out
7:09
by force, you destroy the carrot.
7:11
It is nearly impossible to pull one without killing the other.
7:14
That visualization captures the dilemma perfectly.
7:17
That is the situation Edwards is describing in the human heart
7:21
and in the church at large. And Edwards proves this is not
7:24
an isolated incident confined to 18th century New England by
7:28
launching into a rapid fire list of historical examples.
7:31
He really wants to demonstrate that this interquined root
7:34
system is the historical norm. It is the baseline reality of
7:38
living in a fallen world. He starts with the Old
7:40
Testament, pointing into the great revival in King Josiah's
7:43
time. Let's unpack that Josiah
7:44
example. Sure.
7:45
If you read the historical accounts in Kings and
7:47
Chronicles, Josiah was the gold standard for reforming king.
7:51
He finds the lost book of the law, he tears his clothes in
7:53
repentance, he physically smashes the idols in the land,
7:57
and he institute's the greatest Passover celebration Israel had
8:00
seen in generations. On paper, it is a total
8:03
miraculous national revival. But Edwards points out what
8:07
happened immediately after Josiah died.
8:10
Massive apostasy. And he quotes the prophet
8:13
Jeremiah to explain why that apostasy happened so fast.
8:17
Jeremiah, who was preaching during Josiah's reign, says that
8:20
Judah did not turn to God with her whole heart, but faintedly.
8:24
Meaning deceptively. Right.
8:26
The outward administration of the religion changed.
8:29
People conformed to the new rules because the king demanded
8:31
it, and there was probably genuine emotional fervor at
8:34
those massive Passover gatherings.
8:36
But the inward reality, the actual affections of the heart,
8:40
remain totally corrupt for the vast majority of the population.
8:43
So the moment the external pressure of Josiah's leadership
8:46
was removed, the true nature of the people was exposed and they
8:50
rushed back to idolatry. But wait, if this was just an
8:53
Old Testament problem under Josiah, we could write it off as
8:56
a quirk of ancient Israel under the Old Covenant.
8:58
Yeah, you could try to make that argument.
9:00
But the terrifying thing is that the exact same pattern hijacked
9:04
the crowds following John the Baptist in the New Testament.
9:07
Oh, absolutely. John is out in the wilderness
9:10
preaching repentance and massive crowds are flocking to him.
9:14
Even the religious elites are coming out to see him, but
9:17
Edwards points out they're only willing to rejoice for a season.
9:21
A temporary high Jesus himself said of John the Baptist.
9:25
He was a burning and a shining light, and you were willing for
9:29
a season to rejoice in his light.
9:31
They love the spectacle. They love the harsh preaching
9:34
against the establishment. They were moved by the drama of
9:36
baptism in the Jordan River. But when the novelty wore off
9:40
and the actual cost of discipleship became apparent,
9:43
that massive crowd vanished. The root system was shallow.
9:47
And it gets even more concerning when Edwards brings up Jesus
9:49
Christ himself. It really does.
9:52
You would think that the Son of God, preaching perfectly without
9:55
any human flaw or error would produce a pure movement with 0
9:59
counterfeit elements, but that isn't what happened.
10:01
Edwards's interpretation of the ministry of Jesus is sobering.
10:04
Here, we often think of Jesus drawing massive crowds as a pure
10:08
success story. Right, we read about the feeding
10:11
of the 5000 and think what incredible revival.
10:14
But Edwards points out that of the multitudes roused and
10:17
affected by his preaching, elevated with joy and
10:19
admiration, crying out Hosanna, very few actually stood the
10:23
shock of the trials that followed.
10:25
By the time Jesus is arrested, the crowds have either turned on
10:29
him or scattered. He compares those crowds to the
10:32
Stony and thorny ground in the parables, Jesus told.
10:35
The seat of the word falls on the rocky soil.
10:38
It springs up immediately with joy.
10:39
There is an emotional response. But there is no root.
10:43
So when the sun comes up, when persecution or hardship hits,
10:47
the plant Withers and dies. Out of this massive movement
10:50
following Jesus in Galilee and Judea, only a tiny fraction
10:54
endured. And this pattern doesn't stop
10:55
after the resurrection. No, Edwards lists the apostles
10:58
days, referencing the letters to the Galatians in Corinthians.
11:01
The Apostle Paul plants these churches and within a few years
11:04
they are falling apart from within.
11:06
The Galatians are being seduced by a counterfeit gospel of
11:09
works, and the Corinthians are dealing with gross immorality,
11:12
division and people faking spiritual gifts for status.
11:16
In every single ERA of great religious reviving, you have
11:20
this mysterious mixture. So we unpack the biblical
11:24
imagery Edwards uses to summarize this, and it is the
11:27
image of the harvest. He says a whole heap is gathered
11:30
onto the threshing floor. You look at this massive pile
11:32
and think what an incredible harvest we have enough wheat to
11:35
feed the entire region. But then the widowing fork is
11:38
used, throwing the grain into the air, and the wind comes, and
11:42
the wind drives away massive amounts of chaff.
11:44
When the wind stops blowing, the heap of actual sustaining wheat
11:48
that is left on the floor is comparatively small.
11:50
It forces a radical shift in how we measure spiritual success,
11:54
doesn't it? It really does.
11:56
We tend to measure the harvest by the size of the heap before
11:59
the wind blows. We count attendance.
12:01
We count emotional responses. We count the number of books
12:04
sold or the size of the. Platform.
12:06
But Edwards is arguing that the only metric that matters is what
12:09
remains remains after the wind of controversy, temptation and
12:12
trial has blown through. It is a heavy, almost
12:15
pessimistic reality looking at history and seeing this constant
12:20
cycle of massive growth followed by massive apostasy with the
12:24
wind blowing away huge amounts of chaff.
12:26
Yeah, if I stop right here, I'm feeling pretty discouraged about
12:29
the state of the church. Understandably.
12:31
But then Edwards pivots. He moves from that heavy reality
12:36
to a surprisingly beautiful natural analogy to offer some
12:39
hope. He compares times of religious
12:42
reviving to fruit trees in the spring.
12:44
He paints a picture of an orchard in the spring.
12:47
The trees are covered in a multitude of Fair, beautiful
12:49
blossoms. There is a promising appearance.
12:52
The tree looks healthy and vibrant.
12:54
But many of those blossoms are of short continuance.
12:57
They soon fall off, blown away by a spring breeze or a light
12:59
frost, and they never come to maturity.
13:02
Only a fraction of those blossoms actually turn into
13:04
fruit. This analogy changes everything
13:06
about how we view failure in these spiritual movements.
13:09
Yeah, if you have an apple tree in your backyard and in May it
13:12
is covered in 10,000 white flowers, you don't expect 10,000
13:16
apples in October. Exactly.
13:18
When a windstorm comes and knocks thousands of petals to
13:21
the ground, covering the grass in white, you don't stand there
13:24
weeping, saying the tree is dying or the tree is a failure.
13:27
You look at it and say that is just what spring looks like.
13:30
It normalizes the fading of initial enthusiasm.
13:34
The falling blossoms are not a defect in the tree's design.
13:37
They are a natural expected phase of growth in this present
13:41
world. The initial display of religious
13:43
affection is often broad and spectacular.
13:45
People get excited. Their emotions are stirred.
13:48
But the actual mature fruit, the persevering faith, the deep
13:52
repentance, the lasting change in character is much rarer.
13:56
And Edwards is telling his readers not to panic when they
13:59
see the blossoms fall. Wait, but if human nature is
14:02
essentially unchanged, how can he realistically predict a
14:05
future Church of greater purity? That sounds completely naive.
14:09
He insists that while there will never be perfect purity in this
14:12
world, there will come a time of much greater purity in the
14:14
Church than in ages past. He lists all these verses from
14:18
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah and Malachi promising a purified
14:23
people. But if we are still the same
14:25
flawed humans who produce more chaff than wheat, how on earth
14:29
will the Church ever reach this promised state?
14:32
That is the critical question. How does the church get better
14:34
if human nature doesn't? Edwards argues that the
14:37
mechanism for this coming purity is not a sudden magical upgrade
14:41
to baseline human nature people. Will still be born totally
14:44
depraved. Right.
14:45
Instead, he says, God will grant much greater light to his people
14:48
so they can distinguish between true religion and its
14:51
counterfeits. He quotes the prophet Malachi
14:53
describing God sitting as a refiner and purifier of silver.
14:57
So we aren't talking about humans suddenly getting better
14:59
hearts on their own, we are talking about an epistemological
15:02
upgrade. God is literally changing how
15:05
they perceive and verify truth. The refining fire he mentions is
15:09
truth and clarity. When a silversmith refined
15:11
silver, he heats it up so the dross the impurities float to
15:15
the top where they can be skimmed off.
15:17
Edwards is saying that God will use the heat of these
15:19
controversies, combined with a greater illumination of His
15:23
Word, to give the church the ability to look at the heap and
15:27
accurately identify the chaff before they try to bake bread
15:30
with it. The upgrade is in discernment.
15:34
Let's think about what this greater light looks like for you
15:36
today. It is not about seeking the next
15:39
emotional high, chasing signs and wonders, or trying to
15:42
replicate the massive crowds of the past.
15:45
It is about developing sharp, rigorous biblical discernment.
15:49
It is the tedious, unglamorous work of knowing the difference
15:52
between a psychological thrill and a genuine, lasting movement
15:56
of the Holy Spirit. It is.
15:58
Studying the scriptures so closely that when a counterfeit
16:00
appears, you recognize it instantly.
16:03
Not because you were a cynic, but because you know the genuine
16:05
article so well. And if light and discernment are
16:08
God's chosen tools for purifying the Church and advancing His
16:11
Kingdom, then it makes perfect logical sense that the lack of
16:14
discernment is the devil's absolute favorite weapon.
16:16
Which brings us to arguably the most staggering historical claim
16:20
in this entire text. It is a big one.
16:22
Edwards says, point blank that the mixture of counterfeit
16:25
religion with true religion is the greatest advantage the devil
16:29
has ever had against the Kingdom of Christ.
16:31
He says it is the principal means by which Satan has
16:34
prevailed against all revivings of religion since the Christian
16:37
Church was founded. He is making a massive
16:40
theological argument here, one that forces us to re evaluate
16:44
how we understand spiritual warfare.
16:46
And I find it hard to swallow at first glance.
16:48
Is Edward seriously arguing that fake religious enthusiasm, a
16:53
lack of discernment, a bunch of people faking spiritual gifts,
16:56
or getting overly emotional is worse than actual physical
17:00
martyrdom? Is he saying that hypocrisy in
17:02
the pews is worse than the Roman arenas, the torture, the bloody
17:06
persecutions by emperors who are literally throwing Christians to
17:09
wild animals or burning them at the stake?
17:11
He is arguing that without hesitation, he explicitly states
17:15
that this internal counterfeit hurt the cause of Christianity
17:18
much more than all the persecutions of both Jews and
17:21
heathens. We have to understand the
17:22
mechanics of how persecution works versus how internal
17:26
corruption works. Open persecution often does the
17:29
opposite of what the persecutor intends.
17:31
Right. When you attack a group
17:33
violently from the outside, you purify it.
17:35
Because the cost of faking it becomes too high.
17:38
If claiming the name of Christ means you lose your business,
17:40
your home, or your life, the casual members flee immediately.
17:44
The chaff is blown away by the threat of violence and the core
17:48
members who remain are united. The lines are drawn clearly.
17:52
The Church in the first 3 centuries grew exponentially
17:56
under massive Roman persecution because the watching world saw
17:59
their genuine faith and their willingness to die for it.
18:02
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
18:05
But counterfeit religion operates differently.
18:07
It rots the structure from the inside out.
18:09
It causes confusion, division and a complete loss of identity.
18:12
An external enemy unites you. An internal counterfeit turns
18:16
you against your own brothers and sisters.
18:19
Edwards lists specific historical victories attributed
18:22
to this tactic. He says it stopped the progress
18:25
of the reformers Martin Luther and Holdrich Swingley, bringing
18:29
their reformation into disgrace. How exactly did false religion
18:33
stop Luther and Zwingli? When I think of the Reformation,
18:37
I think of Luther standing against the Pope and the Holy
18:40
Roman Emperor. I think of massive external
18:43
opposition. The external opposition was
18:45
fuels, but Luther anticipated that what caught the Reformers
18:49
off guard was the Radical Reformation, specifically groups
18:52
like the Zwickow prophets. While Luther was in hiding at
18:56
the Wartburg Castle after the Diet of Worms, these men showed
19:00
up in Wittenberg claiming to have direct special revelation
19:03
from the Holy Spirit. They said the Bible was a dead
19:05
letter and that God was speaking to them directly.
19:08
They whipped the town into a frenzy, tearing down images,
19:11
disrupting services and inciting violence.
19:14
They took Luther's doctrine of Christian liberty and twisted it
19:16
into anarchy. So it looked like a supercharged
19:19
spiritual movement, but it was completely detached from
19:21
biblical authority. And that terrified the secular
19:24
Princess who are protecting the reformers.
19:27
The authorities looked at the chaos in Wittenberg and later
19:30
the massive bloodshed of the German Peasants War and the
19:32
Minster Rebellion, and they said if this is what Protestantism
19:36
leads to, total societal breakdown and madness, we want
19:40
nothing to do with it. The counterfeit revivals caused
19:43
the political and financial support for the Reformation to
19:46
pull back. The Catholic Church didn't stop
19:49
the momentum of the Reformation in those areas.
19:51
The wild, unchecked counterfeit enthusiasm did.
19:54
That is a terrifying mechanism, and Edwards points out that the
19:58
same tactic was used in his own backyard.
20:00
He mentions that it quenched the revivals in New England 100
20:03
years prior to his writing, and most tragically for him, he says
20:07
he has seen plainly that by this same method the devil has
20:10
prevailed against the late great revival of religion in New
20:13
England. The very first great awakening
20:15
that Edwards himself was a key leader of, he writes.
20:17
By this he has foiled us. There is a deep sadness in that
20:20
sentence. It is the lament of a general
20:23
who realizes he lost the war not because the enemy breached the
20:27
walls, but because the troops mutinied and started shooting
20:31
each other in the barracks. Think about how this applies to
20:33
your perspective on modern spiritual movements today.
20:36
When we look around, the instinct is almost always to
20:39
point to external cultural opposition.
20:41
We point to political shifts, secular media, hostile
20:45
legislation or changing social norms as the great enemies of
20:48
faith. But Edwards is suggesting that
20:50
the real danger is rarely external.
20:53
The most devastating threat is internal deception that looks
20:56
highly spiritual. It is the fake that destroys the
20:59
real, not the open enemy. The open enemy is easily
21:02
identified. You know where they stand.
21:04
You can brace yourself against their attacks.
21:06
The counterfeit slips right past the guards because it is wearing
21:09
the uniform of your own army. Which leads Edwards into this
21:12
incredibly tragic, almost poetic lament for his own community.
21:16
We transition from the broad historical tactical manual of
21:19
Satan to the specific tragic aftermath Edwards was witnessing
21:23
out his own window in Northampton.
21:25
He paints A devastating picture of the church in New England.
21:28
He calls her the daughter of Zion and the imagery he uses is
21:32
brutal. He describes her lying on the
21:34
ground, her garments rent, her face disfigured, her nakedness
21:38
exposed, her limbs broken. She is weltering in the blood of
21:42
her own wounds, completely unable to arise.
21:45
What makes that image so haunting is the phrase weltering
21:48
in the blood of her own wounds. The damage was self-inflicted.
21:52
No secular army came in and broke her limbs.
21:55
She fell down and tore herself apart through this internal
21:59
confusion in theological warfare.
22:01
And this happened, he notes, so quickly after her late great
22:04
joys and hopes just a few years prior, they thought they were
22:08
ushering in a golden age of Christianity to.
22:10
Explain how this rapid, catastrophic fall occurred.
22:14
He uses a specific biblical analogy.
22:17
He compares the New England revival to the Garden of Eden.
22:20
And he points out how Satan operated there.
22:22
Satan did not attack Adam and Eve as a roaring lion.
22:25
He didn't come in as a conquering army with swords
22:27
drawn. He came as a friend.
22:29
He pretended he wanted to advance their pair to say state
22:32
to a higher degree. This is the cunning serpent
22:35
tactic. The offer wasn't to destroy
22:38
their relationship with God. The offer was a shortcut to
22:41
becoming like God. It was framed as an upgrade.
22:44
God is holding out on you. Eat this fruit and your eyes
22:47
will be opened. You will have a more intense,
22:50
more profound spiritual experience.
22:52
By perverting believers from the simplicity that is in Christ,
22:56
Satan deprived New England of its fair prospect of a heavenly
22:59
church, just as he deprived Adam and Eve of Eden.
23:03
Think about your laptop. A hacker rarely tries to force
23:06
their way through your firewall with a brute force attack
23:09
anymore that triggers alarms. Your antivirus software catches
23:12
it immediately. Instead, they write a computer
23:14
virus and disguise it as a highly recommended critical
23:18
security update. A pop up appears on your screen
23:20
saying Install this patch to make your system run faster and
23:23
safer. You click install because you
23:25
genuinely want to make your system better.
23:27
You invite it in. You grant it administrative
23:29
privileges. And the moment it is inside the
23:32
walls, it encrypts all your data and crashes the hard drive.
23:36
The destructive force is welcomed because it mimics A
23:38
beneficial operation. The Church in New England
23:40
thought it was installing an upgrade to its spiritual zeal.
23:43
They thought the dream, emotional outbursts, the harsh
23:46
judgments of other ministers and the claims of direct revelation
23:50
were signs of a more advanced, more passionate faith.
23:53
But they were actually installing a self replicating
23:56
bug of counterfeit affection that crashed their entire
24:00
ecclesiastical system. So now that this virus is inside
24:03
the walls, how precisely does it execute its destruction?
24:06
Edwards explains this through what he calls the fatal stab
24:09
unseen. He notes a very common human
24:12
tendency, especially in leadership.
24:14
When religion revives, enemies naturally appear the.
24:17
Secular world Moss it and formal dead religion opposes it.
24:21
And the people who are engaged in defending the church become
24:24
entirely focused on the opposition that is openly in
24:27
front of them. They are standing at the wall,
24:29
looking outward, making head against the visible critics.
24:33
They are writing pamphlets defending the revival.
24:35
They are preaching sermons against the skeptics.
24:38
And while they are wholly intent on the front lines, neglecting
24:40
to look around them, the devil sneaks up from behind.
24:43
Edwards writes that he gives a fatal stab unseen and he strikes
24:47
at his leisure, meeting absolutely 0 resistance or
24:50
guard. The defenders are so busy
24:52
fighting the external critics of the revival that they refuse to
24:56
critically examine the revival itself.
24:59
They assume everything happening inside the walls is a work of
25:02
the Holy Spirit. And because of this lack of
25:04
distinction, this lack of rigorous gatekeeping, Edwards
25:07
catalogs A terrifying chain reaction of consequences.
25:11
First, people end up offering abominations to God, fully
25:14
believing it is a pleasing and acceptable service.
25:17
That is one of the most chilling concepts in the text, Doing
25:20
something guy actively hates, like slandering a brother in
25:23
Christ or disrupting a worship service with manufactured
25:26
hysteria while genuinely thinking you're pleasing him.
25:29
Then, he says, multitudes are to siege about the state of their
25:31
own souls. They think they are something
25:33
when they are nothing. They establish a strong
25:35
confidence in their eminent holiness, while in reality they
25:38
are, in his words, the vilest of hypocrites.
25:41
Because they have equated an intense emotional experience
25:44
with the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, they felt A
25:47
rush of fear followed by A rush of joy, and they conclude they
25:51
are saved. But their fundamental nature
25:53
hasn't changed. They still harbor pride,
25:55
bitterness and worldliness. And for the actual Saints, the
25:59
genuine believers in the congregation, this counterfeit
26:02
environment dampens and wounds their religion.
26:05
It obscures their genuine faith with corrupt mixtures.
26:09
He uses one of the most visceral images in the text to describe
26:12
this rotting process. He says their religious
26:16
affections woefully degenerate and become like the manna in the
26:19
wilderness that breadworms and stank.
26:21
Let's look at the context of that.
26:23
In the Book of Exodus, manna was literally bred from heaven.
26:27
It was a miraculous divine provision to keep the Israelites
26:30
alive in the desert. But God gave specific
26:32
instructions on how to handle it.
26:34
You gather only what you need for today.
26:36
When the Israelites hoarded it out of fear or greed or a lack
26:40
of trust in God for tomorrow, it rotted overnight.
26:43
It is a stunning parallel. Edwards is saying that even
26:47
genuine divine spiritual experiences, when mixed with
26:51
human corruption, pride or the desire for attention, do not
26:55
just slowly fade away. They rot.
26:57
They become putrid and offensive.
27:00
When a genuine movement of God is hijacked by human ego, it
27:03
breeds worms. The very thing that was meant to
27:05
nourish the church becomes toxic.
27:07
And this internal rotting has a massive external consequence.
27:10
What happens to the broader culture, the surrounding
27:13
society, when the church is in this state of rotting mana?
27:16
Edward spells it out with devastating clarity.
27:18
First, the friends of religion unwittingly do the work of the
27:21
enemies. The zealous people inside the
27:23
church destroy religion far more effectively than any secular
27:26
critic or atheist philosopher ever could, all while thinking
27:29
they're advancing God's Kingdom. The flock is scattered,
27:32
congregation split, people are set against each other with
27:35
great heat of spirit, all under the guise of zeal for God.
27:38
Edward says religion degenerates into what he calls vain
27:41
jangling. It becomes meaningless noise, a
27:44
cacophony of theological arguments and personal attacks.
27:47
And during this strife, both parties are driven far out of
27:51
the right way. One goes to the extreme right,
27:54
becoming rigid, legalistic and dead.
27:57
The other goes to the extreme left, embracing chaos,
28:01
subjectivism and fanaticism. The right path in the middle,
28:04
the path of truth and sound doctrine, is almost wholly
28:08
neglected. This extreme polarization inside
28:10
the church creates an environment where the devil gets
28:13
the government of everything into his own hands.
28:16
He controls the narrative on both extremes.
28:18
But the ultimate result, the final domino to fall, is how the
28:22
general public reacts to this chaos.
28:24
I want to point this out for you listening, because this is the
28:26
catastrophic stake Edwards is warning about.
28:29
When people in the culture see this terrible consequence of
28:31
counterfeit religion, when they see the infighting, the rotting
28:35
mana, the extremes, their minds become completely unhinged and
28:39
unsettled. They don't know what to think or
28:40
do. They look at the church, which
28:42
claims to have the absolute truth of the universe, and they
28:45
see a madhouse. Edwards concludes this chain
28:47
reaction by stating that as a direct result of this internal
28:50
chaos, heresy, infidelity and atheism greatly prevail.
28:54
Internal religious hypocrisy is the greatest manufacturing plant
28:57
for societal atheism. If the people who claim to have
29:01
been changed by God act like arrogant maniacs or hateful
29:04
hypocrites, the watching world simply concludes the truth does
29:07
not exist. Given these catastrophic stakes,
29:10
from rotting mana to the explosion of atheism across
29:12
society, Edwards knows he must provide a concrete solution to
29:16
help the reader. He cannot just diagnose a
29:18
disease. He has to offer a cure.
29:21
And that leads us to the final goal of his entire project in
29:24
religious affections, he says it greatly concerns us to clearly
29:28
discern and establish wherein true religion consists.
29:31
He argues that until this rigorous standard is
29:34
established, any great revivings of religion will be short lived.
29:38
All the warm debates and conversation, all the
29:40
theological arguments printed in the press, are totally useless
29:43
if we don't clearly and distinctly know what we are
29:46
fighting for. We have to define the terms.
29:48
We have to know what a genuine work of the Holy Spirit looks
29:51
like in the soul of a human being.
29:53
He says his design is to contribute his might, his small
29:56
offering referencing the widow's might in the Gospels, to this
29:59
massive problem. He wants to show the nature and
30:02
signs of the gracious operations of God's Spirit.
30:05
And here he makes a crucial theological distinction about
30:08
his own writing that we need to understand.
30:10
He mentions a former book he published a few years prior, a
30:13
Treatise on the Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of
30:17
God. In that book he included both
30:19
common and saving operations of the Spirit.
30:22
What is the difference between a common operation and a saving
30:24
operation? Well, in Reformed theology we
30:28
make a strong distinction between common grace and saving
30:31
grace or effectual calling. A common operation of the Spirit
30:35
is an influence that anyone might experience, whether they
30:38
are elect or not. It includes things like a moral
30:40
conscience, feeling a sense of awe at creation, feeling a pang
30:44
of terror or guilt over a wrong action.
30:47
Or even being intensely moved to tears by a powerful sermon.
30:51
The Spirit restrains sin in the world and enlightens the mind to
30:54
some degree. These are real operations of
30:56
God, but they don't necessarily mean the person's heart has been
30:59
permanently regenerated. The Stony ground hearers in the
31:02
parable had a common operation. They received the word with joy,
31:06
but they had no root. A saving operation, however, is
31:09
a fundamental, permanent alteration of the heart's
31:12
nature. It is the giving of a new heart,
31:15
granting true, persevering faith and genuine repentance.
31:19
So his previous book was casting a wider net, saying here is
31:23
evidence the spirit is moving in our towns.
31:25
In a general sense, people are thinking about eternity.
31:28
They are terrified of hell. But this new treatise, Religious
31:31
Affections, has a much more specific surgical aim.
31:34
He wants to isolate the gracious saving operations from
31:37
absolutely everything else in the human mind that is not of a
31:40
saving nature. He's trying to build the
31:42
ultimate spiritual counterfeit detection machine.
31:45
He wants to answer the question, what is the undeniable evidence
31:48
that a person has truly been born again?
31:50
It is an incredibly ambitious and demanding task.
31:54
He is trying to separate the wheat from the chaff on a
31:56
psychological and spiritual level, documenting exactly what
32:00
regeneration looks like and the affections of a believer.
32:03
But notice the tone at the very end of this excerpt.
32:05
It feels exhausted but resolute. He expects his attempts to be
32:10
reproached. He calls the era captious and
32:12
censorious times, meaning people are just looking for reasons to
32:16
find fault, trap you in your words and condemn you.
32:19
They don't want clarity, they want to fight.
32:21
Why does he proceed anyway, knowing he is going to be
32:24
attacked by the very people he is trying to help both on the
32:27
pro revival side and the anti revival?
32:29
Side because he relies entirely on the mercy of a gracious God
32:33
to accept the sincerity of his endeavors, He knows the danger
32:36
of the fatal stab unseen is far too severe for him to remain
32:40
silent. The stakes are eternal souls.
32:43
He asked for the candor, the fair mindedness and the prayers
32:46
of true followers of Christ. He understands that without a
32:48
reliable biblical standard to test our own internal
32:51
experiences, we are completely vulnerable to self deception and
32:55
the destruction of the church. And that is why Edwards's
32:58
precise criteria matter to you today.
33:00
We live in an era that prizes subjective feeling above almost
33:04
everything else. My truth, my experience, what I
33:08
feel God is telling me. But if Edwards is right, relying
33:11
solely on intense feelings, internal impressions or crowd
33:15
validation leaves the door wide open for the system crashing
33:18
virus of counterfeit religion. Without a rigorous, objective
33:23
biblical standard to test what is happening inside our own
33:26
hearts, we are blind to the fake.
33:28
To summarize the ground we have covered, we started by
33:31
acknowledging the sheer difficulty of impartial judgment
33:34
when emotional and spiritual stakes are so high.
33:36
We examine the historical reality that genuine wheat and
33:39
deceptive chaff are always intricately mixed in the
33:42
harvest, from the days of King Josiah to the modern church.
33:45
We look at how Satan's most effective weapon is not external
33:48
physical force or persecution, but the internal rod of
33:52
convincing counterfeits that cause the church to tear itself
33:55
apart. And we established the absolute
33:57
necessity of rigorous spiritual discernment to prevent the
34:00
Church from bleeding from its own wounds and driving society
34:03
toward atheism. The demand is for light, not
34:06
just heat. The church needs the refining
34:09
fire of biblical truth to expose the dross.
34:12
So I want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over as we
34:16
wrap up this deep dive. We started by talking about
34:18
counterfeit movements that look perfectly real until they're put
34:21
under the pressure of time and trial.
34:24
Edwards has argued that counterfeit religion is so
34:26
dangerous precisely because it actively mimics the most
34:30
beautiful and zealous aspects of the truth.
34:33
It looks like the real thing. It sounds like the real thing.
34:35
It might even feel like the real thing.
34:37
So looking at your own life, your own convictions, what part
34:41
of your own personal certainty, your own spiritual zeal might
34:44
just be a spring blossom. A blossom that is prone to fall
34:47
off when the wind of hardship or temptation blows, rather than
34:50
genuine mature fruit that can withstand the refining fire.
34:54
It is a question that requires us to look past the fair
34:56
appearance, past the emotional high, and critically examine the
35:00
root system of our faith. Thank you for joining this deep
35:03
dive into the sources today. Keep seeking clarity in the
35:06
midst of the smoke.