Latest / Reformed Thinking / Love, or a Christian Spirit, Willing to Undergo all Sufferings in the Way of Duty (1 Corinthians 13:7) | Jonathan Edwards

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Love, or a Christian Spirit, Willing to Undergo all Sufferings in the Way of Duty (1 Corinthians 13:7) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back, we are glad you are here with us again.
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  We are opening up the archives today, blowing the dust off the
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  spine of a book and looking at a topic that, to be honest, made
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  me just sit in silence for a while after I finished reading
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  it. It had the same effect on me.
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  It is the kind of text that just stops you in your tracks.
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  It forces you to look in the mirror and ask some, you know,
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  some very hard questions about what you actually believe.
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  Before we get into all that heavy lifting, I want to welcome
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  everyone to Reformed Thinking. This is the show where just two
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  friends sit down to dig into the heritage of Reformed theology.
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  We take these historical texts, these sermons, these treatises
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  that shaped generations of believers, and we try to figure
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  out how they apply to the Christian walk right now, today.
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  And we often find that the old paths are, well, they're the
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  best paths. That is usually the case.
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  So today we are looking at a giant.
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  You really can't talk about American theology or the Puritan
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  tradition without dealing with Jonathan Edwards.
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  He is the central figure of the First Great Awakening, a mind
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  that comes along maybe once in a century.
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  And I feel like we have to address the common perception
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  right away. When people hear the name
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  Jonathan Edwards, they usually have one specific image in their
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  heads. They think of the spider.
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  Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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  Right. They picture this, you know,
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  angry man in a wig shouting at people about hanging over a
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  fire. They think of him as the
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  quintessential fire and brimstone preacher who just
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  wanted to scare people. Which is such a shame, because I
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  can't say Edwards actually spoke very calmly.
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  He didn't shout, he just let the the gravity of the text do the
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  work. But more than that, it ignores
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  the vast majority of what he wrote.
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  He was obsessed with beauty. He was obsessed with the
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  sweetness of Christ. He was arguably the theologian
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  of love. I would agree with that.
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  I mean, he wrote religious affections, he wrote the nature
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  of true virtue. His entire theological project
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  was about how the creature finds its highest happiness in the
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  Creator. And that is where we are today.
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  We're looking at a treatise. It's really a sermon series.
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  He preached on 1st Corinthians 13.7 specifically the phrase
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  charity beareth all things. The title of our source material
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  is Love or a Christian spirit willing to undergo all
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  sufferings in the way of Duty. And just that title gives you a
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  hint of the shift he's about to make.
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  It does, but here's a hook for me, and I'm going to throw this
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  to you right away. First Corinthians 13 This is the
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  love chapter. I hear this at every single
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  wedding I go to. It's printed on napkins.
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  It's, you know, soft focus. It's romantic.
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  It's sweet. Love is patient.
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  Love is kind. It's the text we go to for
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  comfort. It feels safe.
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  Right. And then Edwards comes along,
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  picks up verse 7, bears all things, and he basically says,
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  friends, this is not about tolerating your spouse's bad
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  cooking or their snoring. This is about being willing to
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  be burned at the stake. It's a massive shift, a huge 1.
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  He takes the text out of the, you know, the domestic sphere
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  and puts it right into the arena of martyrdom.
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  He argues that this verse is the battle cry of the church.
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  So our mission today is to unpack this.
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  We want to analyze Edward's argument that a willingness to
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  suffer, and I mean really suffer, not just be
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  inconvenienced, is not some optional extra for the Super
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  Saints. It's actually necessary evidence
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  that you are saved at all. That is the crux of it.
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  If you're not willing to suffer, you might not be a Christian.
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  That is the thesis. And we need to understand why.
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  So let's get into the text. We have to start with the
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  Exegetical Foundation. Edwards is a scholar First, he
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  has to prove that Bears All Things means what he says it
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  means. Because let's be honest, when I
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  read Love Bears All Things, I just think of patience.
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  Right. The common view is that bearing
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  means putting up with someone puts you off in traffic, you
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  bear it. Your neighbor plays loud music.
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  You bear it. You keep your cool.
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  And that is a virtue we should do.
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  That Oh, absolutely, it is a virtue.
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  But Edwards looks at the Greek. The word is stay go, which means
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  to cover or to hold out against, and he looks the context.
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  He gives 3 very specific reasons why this verse is talking about
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  suffering for the cause of Christ, not just interpersonal
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  annoyance. Walk us through those because he
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  has to convince us before he can convict us, OK?
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  The first reason is about the precision of Scripture.
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  Edwards points out that Paul avoids tautology.
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  Tautology being what? Repeating the same thing in
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  different words just to fill space.
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  Correct. Edwards has a very high view of
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  the Holy Spirit's authorship. He argues that Paul has already
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  covered patience Earlier in the chapter.
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  Paul says charity suffereth long as the Greek word mecherthumio,
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  which means long tempered. He says it is not easily
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  provoked, so those phrases cover the idea of patience with
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  people, resisting anger, putting up with personal slights.
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  So if bears all things just meant putting up with annoying
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  people, all would be stuttering, he would be repeating himself.
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  Precisely. Scripture is concise.
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  Every word carries its own weight.
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  So if you already covered interpersonal patience, bearing
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  all things must be a different facet of the diamond.
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  It must refer to something else. OK, that holds water.
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  If the Bible is the inspired word of God, we should expect an
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  economy of language, was the second reason.
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  The second reason is a shift in focus in the text itself.
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  If you look at the previous verses, Paul is listing active
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  fruits of love. Envy.
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  Not vaunt, not behave, not unseemly.
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  These are things you do or refrain from doing in your
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  behavior toward neighbors, right?
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  Active conduct, How I treat you? Yes.
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  But here, Edwards argues, Paul shifts to the passive.
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  He sums up the act of conduct with rejoiceth not in iniquity,
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  but rejoiceth in the truth. And then he moves to a new
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  category in verse 7. Beareth all things, believeth
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  all things, Hopeth all things, Endureth all things.
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  Edward sees this as the transition from how we treat our
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  neighbor to how we undergo the hostility of the world.
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  So we move from action to reception, or rather how we
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  withstand what comes at us. Yes, it's the defensive armor of
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  love. And that leads to his Third
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  Point, which I think is the strongest historically, the
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  Pauling context. You can't read Paul without
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  bumping into the theology of suffering.
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  The man was constantly getting beaten up, shipwrecked or thrown
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  in jail. His resume was lifted.
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  Traumas. For sure and Edward Sites,
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  Romans 8.35 who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
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  And what's the list? It's not annoyance or bad
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  weather. It's tribulation, distress,
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  persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword.
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  He also said Second Corinthians 5.1, doesn't he right.
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  Paul frequently links the love of Christ specifically to the
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  ability to endure suffering. So, Edwards argues, it's highly
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  unlikely that Paul would write a definitive constitution of
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  Christian love, which is what 1st Corinthians 13 is, and leave
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  out the massive reality of persecution.
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  That is a great point. The early church was born in
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  blood. If this list didn't mention how
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  to handle threats, it would be incomplete.
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  It would be a theology for a safe world, and they did not
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  live in a safe world. Not at all correct.
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  So based on that, Edwards defines the doctrine very
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  clearly. He says that charity or a truly
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  Christian spirit will make us willing for Christ's sake to
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  undergo all sufferings to which we may be exposed in the way of
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  duty. I want to pause on that phrase
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  in the way of duty. That seems critical.
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  He's not saying we go looking for trouble, is he?
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  No, this is not a call to be a masochist.
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  We don't run into traffic just to get hit.
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  We don't provoke people just to feel persecuted.
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  That would be spiritual pride. So what is in the way of duty
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  mean practically? It means you're walking the path
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  of obedience to Christ. You are speaking the truth.
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  You are loving your neighbor. You are gathering for worship.
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  You are raising your children in the fear and admonition of the
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  Lord. You are being honest in your
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  business dealings. You know, just being a
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  Christian. And if suffering happens to be
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  on that path. You don't detour, you walk
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  through it. The suffering is not the goal.
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  Obedience is the goal. Suffering is just the obstacle
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  you're willing to climb over to get to the goal.
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  You don't seek the pain, you seek the Christ.
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  But if the pain is standing between you and Christ, you go
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  through the pain. That brings us to the next big
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  section of Edward's argument. This is where he starts to
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  separate the sheep from the goats.
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  The distinction between the true convert and the hypocrite.
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  This is classic Puritan territory.
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  They are pastors dealing with revivals, so they saw a lot of
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  emotional responses that just didn't stick.
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  They were always asking what is the evidence of a true work of
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  grace. They knew that not everyone who
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  cried in church was actually born again.
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  So how does the hypocrite handle suffering?
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  Edwards calls them the fair weather professor.
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  He says they close with Christ only to serve a turn for
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  themselves. That's such a specific phrase.
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  close with Christ. It sounds like closing a
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  business deal. For the hypocrite it is.
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  That's the point. They treat religion as a
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  transaction. I give God my Sunday mornings.
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  I give him some moral behavior, maybe some tithe money.
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  In exchange, God gives me a nice life, a good reputation and
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  keeps me. It's the mindset of the
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  Pharisees or the modern prosperity gospel.
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  Frankly, it's God helps those who help themselves.
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  It is, and Edwards points out that when the bill for religion
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  comes due, when the cost goes up, the hypocrite checks out.
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  They never agreed to suffer. That was not in their contract.
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  So as long as Christianity is culturally acceptable, as long
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  as it helps their business, networking, or their social
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  standing, they are all in. But the moment it cost them
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  something real. They're gone because they were
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  never following Christ. They were following comfort, and
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  Christ just happened to be walking that way for a while.
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  I like the analogy Edwards uses here, or rather the analogy
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  implied by his description, the sailor.
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  Yes, it is easy to be a sailor when the sea is glass.
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  Anyone can steer the ship. Then you can wear the uniform,
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  you can talk the talk, you can critique other sailors, but the
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  test of the sailor is the storm. The storm reveals what you
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  actually know and what you're actually made.
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  Of and Edwards is not just talking about a little storm.
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  He gets very specific about the extent of this willingness in
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  the true St. He breaks it down into all kinds
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  and all degrees. He wants us to count the cost
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  thoroughly. Let's look at the kinds first.
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  What is the inventory of loss here?
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  What's on the table? He starts with the good name
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  reproach that hits hard today, being cancel, being mocked,
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  being thought of as a bigot or a fool or on the wrong side of
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  history. The true St. is willing to lose
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  their reputation for Christ. That is harder than people
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  think. We crave approval.
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  We are social creatures. We want to be liked.
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  Absolutely. Then he moves to outward
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  possessions, poverty, fines, losing your job, then ease and
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  comfort, hard labor, sleepless nights, then physical safety,
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  torture, imprisonment, and finally life itself.
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  The whole list. And then he talks about degrees.
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  It's not just the what, but the how much.
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  Yes. It's not just light teasing,
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  it's cruel mockings. It's not just losing $100.
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  It's the loss of all things. He uses the metaphor of the
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  furnace. The furnace.
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  This is a recurring theme in Scripture.
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  It is true. Saints are like pure gold.
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  When you put gold in a furnace, it melts.
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  It gets hot, but it remains gold.
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  It doesn't turn into ash. The hypocrite is like, well
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  maybe like wood or hay or gold clated lead.
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  The fire consumes the plating and melts the base metal.
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  But the Saint can endure the hottest fire because of what
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  they are made of. So the suffering doesn't make
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  you a Christian, it reveals that you are one.
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  Precisely. It's the test.
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  It's the assaying process. This is a high bar.
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  I think a lot of listeners might be hearing this and thinking I
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  do not know if I have that in me.
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  I get scared just thinking about a confrontation at work.
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  And that's a healthy fear. If you think you have this
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  strength in your own natural resources, you're including
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  yourself, Edwards would say. You don't generate this grit on
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  your own. It comes from the nature of your
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  union with Christ, which leads us to the theological logic.
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  Right Part 3 The why? Why must we suffer?
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  Why is this the standard? Edwards lays out several logical
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  points. The first one is the nature of
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  the union or betrothal. He goes to Hosea 2.19.
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  God says, I will betrothe unto me forever.
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  The marriage analogy. This is central to Reformed
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  covenant theology. It is.
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  And think about a marriage. When a bride gives herself to a
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  husband, she gives herself holy. She doesn't say I am yours
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  except when it is inconvenient or I am yours, but I'm keeping
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  my old apartment just in case this doesn't work out.
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  That would not be a marriage. That would be, I don't know, a
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  lease, a limited liability partnership.
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  Exactly. Edwards argues that saving faith
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  is a total giving of oneself to God.
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  If you hold back a reserve of suffering, if you say in your
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  heart, Lord, I will follow you up to the point where I might
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  lose my house, but no further, then you have not actually given
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  yourself to Him. You're holding back part of the
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  price, like Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts.
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  Yes, that's a perfect parallel. They pretended to give
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  everything, but they kept a portion back, Edwards says.
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  Avoiding suffering is holding back part of the self.
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  And if you're holding back part of the self, you're not his.
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  You're still your own. You haven't signed the marriage
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  contract. You've just drafted a proposal
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  that God never signed. That is terrifyingly logical.
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  If Jesus is Lord, he is Lord of everything, including my safety
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  and my comfort. Right.
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  And then Edwards moves to the second point of logic, the fear
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  of God versus the fear of man. He cites Luke 12.4 to 5 here.
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  Fear him which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into
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  hell. Edwards is being very rational
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  here. He's saying let's do the math.
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  You're afraid of a man. A man can torture you.
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  Sure. A man can kill your body.
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  That is bad. But that is the limit of his
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  power. Once you're dead, the man can't
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  do anything else to you. His jurisdiction ends at the
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  grave. But God, God has jurisdiction
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  beyond the grave. God can cast the soul into hell.
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  So Edwards argues that if a Christian truly believes God is
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  real, really truly believes it, then God's displeasure is
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  infinitely more terrifying than any torture a human can inflict.
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  So to sin in order to avoid human pain is.
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  Irrational. It's jumping out of a frying pan
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  into a volcano. It proves you don't actually
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  believe the volcano is real. Or at least you don't believe
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  it's as hot as the pain you're in right now.
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  That is a powerful check on our faith.
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  If we fear men more than God, it implies A functional atheism.
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  In that moment, we see the man, we don't see God.
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  Exactly. It's a failure of spiritual
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  sight, which connects to his Third Point, the spiritual
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  calculus of faith. Faith of the scale like that.
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  We have to weigh things on one side of the scale.
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  You put persecution, pain, loss of money, even death.
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  That feels very heavy to us, naturally, Sure.
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  Pain is heavy, loss is heavy. But on the other side of the
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  scale, you put the Excellency of Christ and the eternal weight of
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  glory, Edwards says. Faith is the ability to see that
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  the glory side is heavier. Much, much heavier.
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  He talks about Moses in Hebrews 11.
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  Yes, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of
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  God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
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  Why? Because he had respect unto the
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  recompense of the reward. He did the math.
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  The reward was better than the palace of Egypt.
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  So suffering is light and momentary, not because it
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  doesn't hurt, it hurts like crazy, but because of what it's
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  compared to. Relativity.
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  A feather is light compared to a truck.
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  Persecution is heavy, but compared to the weight of God's
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  glory, it is a feather. I love how Edwards doesn't just
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  say suck it up, he says look at the reward.
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  It's a motivated endurance. It is joyful endurance, finally,
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  but there's also a warning, and this is part four of our
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  discussion, The Cost of Discipleship.
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  The tower builder Luke 14. This is one of Jesus's most
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  pragmatic parables. A guy wants to build a tower?
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  Jesus says sit down first, count the cost, because if you lay the
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  foundation and run out of money halfway through, everyone is
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  going to mock you. This man began to build and was
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  not able to finish. It's embarrassing.
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  And Edwards analyzes this suffering is the cost of the
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  building. It is the materials cost.
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  If you're not willing to pay that price, if you're not
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  willing to spend the currency of your own comfort, you shouldn't
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  start the project. That sounds almost like he's
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  discouraging people from becoming Christians.
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  He's discouraging people from becoming false Christians.
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  He wants them to know what they're signing up for.
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  Accepting the gospel means accepting the whole package.
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  You can't negotiate terms with God.
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  The. Crown on the cross.
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  You can't have one without the other, right?
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  Edwards gives this warning. If we accept the rest Jesus
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  offers, Come unto me, all ye who are weary, but we refuse the
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  yoke. Take my yoke upon you.
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  Then we have not accepted the gospel at all.
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  We have accepted a counterfeit offer that God never made.
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  We created a designer, Jesus, who serves us rather than the
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  Lord we serve. Precisely.
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  And this leads to his deep discussion of self denial.
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  This is a phrase we throw around a lot in church.
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  Oh, I'm promising self denial. I gave up coffee.
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  Or I'm not watching Netflix this week.
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  Edward says no. Look at Matthew 16.24.
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  Let him deny himself. The Greek implies something much
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  stronger. It means to disown oneself, to
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  renounce ownership, to say I do not know this man.
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  To treat yourself as if you are not you.
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  He uses a brutal example from the Old Testament to illustrate
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  this the Levites. The golden calf incident.
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  Exodus 32 Moses comes down, sees the idolatry, and says who is on
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  the Lord's side? The Levites gather and Moses
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  commands them to take their sores and go through the camp
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  and execute judgement on the idolaters, even if those
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  idolaters are their own brothers, companions, and
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  neighbors. That is a hard text to read.
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  It makes modern readers very uncomfortable.
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  It is, but Edwards uses it to show what not acknowledging
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  means. Deuteronomy 33.9 says of Levi,
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  who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him,
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  neither did he acknowledge his brethren.
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  Meaning, when it came to the glory of God, they put their
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  natural affections for their family second.
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  They acted as if they did not know them.
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  Now Edwards is not calling for violence.
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  He's applying this internally. He says a Christian suffering
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  for Christ must act as if they have no mercy on themselves.
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  They must treat their own body, their own life, their own
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  comfort as if it belongs to someone else, as if they don't
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  even know it. I do not acknowledge my own
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  comfort. That is radical self denial.
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  It's the death of the ego. It's saying this body is just a
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  vessel for God's glory. If it gets broken in the
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  process, so be it. I don't own it.
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  That puts giving up chocolate in perspective.
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  It certainly does. It changes the entire definition
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  of what it means to be a disciple.
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  So we have the what and the why, but now let's talk about the
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  purpose. Part 5.
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  Testing the metal. Why does God send these trials?
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  Why does he let his people suffer?
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  Edwards uses the imagery of a saying refining Zechariah 13.9.
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  I will refine them as silver is refined.
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  We talked about the furnace earlier.
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  Yes, the purpose of the fire is twofold. 1 to purify, but two to
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  prove. You can't really know if you're
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  holding a piece of solid gold or a piece of gold plated brass
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  just by looking at it. They both shine in the sun, but.
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  Put them in the fire. The brass melts and separates,
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  the plating burns off, the gold remains.
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  God uses suffering as a diagnostic tool.
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  We don't know our own hearts until we are squeezed.
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  And this leads to one of my favorite biblical images that
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  Edwards brings up. The footmen and the horses.
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  Jeremiah 12.5 Jeremiah is complaining to God about how
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  hard his life is. He's dealing with some local
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  opposition and God basically, says Jeremiah, you're worn out
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  running a foot race against men. How are you going to race
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  against horses? If thou has run with the
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  footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou
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  contend with horses? It's a rhetorical question that
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  pierces the soul. Edwards interprets it this way.
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  The footmen are the smaller trials.
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  A snide comment, a small financial set back, social
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  awkwardness, feeling tired, the daily grind.
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  The daily resistance we feel the little things.
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  Right. And the horses are the swelling
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  of Jordan, the floodwaters, real persecution, torture, death, the
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  collapse of society. So the logic is, if you collapse
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  under the small stuff, you have zero chance against the big
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  stuff. It serves as a diagnostic for
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  the listener. Right now, Edwards asks us to
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  examine ourselves. If you compromise your ethics to
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  save $5, you will definitely compromise to save your life.
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  If you can't handle being unfriended on social media, you
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  certainly will not handle being thrown in a dungeon.
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  It's a training ground. The footmen are there to show us
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  we need more strength before the horses show up.
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  Exactly. It reveals our spiritual fitness
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  level and usually it reveals we are wildly out of shape.
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  This is heavy, and Edwards is relentless, but he doesn't end
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  on the heavy note. He moves to Part 6.
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  Encouragement and reward. Because of all we had was suffer
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  and die. That would be a grim religion.
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  It would be Stoicism, not Christianity.
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  Christianity is teleological. It's moving toward an end, a
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  goal. So what's the encouragement?
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  1st The company, the cloud of witnesses.
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  Edwards reminds us that this is not a lonely path.
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  When you suffer for truth, you are joining the most elite
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  company in the universe. Who was on the roster?
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  David, who was mocked and haunted.
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  Jeremiah threatened with death constantly.
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  Daniel in the lion's den, The three Hebrew boys in the
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  furnace. And ultimately, Jesus himself.
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  Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross,
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  despising the shame? We are walking in his footsteps.
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  There is a camaraderie and suffering.
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  And then the promises. Edwards shifts from the grim
• 21:12
  reality of pain to the explosion of the reward.
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  He goes to the Book of Revelation, the.
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  Letters to the seven churches. Each one ends with a promise to
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  him that overcometh. Not to him that participated.
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  No to the victor, to the one who endured.
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  What are the promises? To eat of the tree of life, to
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  not be hurt by the second death, To eat of the hidden manna, to
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  receive the morning star, to be clothed in white raiment, to sit
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  on the throne with Christ. Sit on the throne that Blues my
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  mind. It's the promise of reigning.
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  Edwards is clear that these are not participation trophies.
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  They are crowns, and a crown implies A struggle.
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  You don't crown someone for sitting on the couch, you crown
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  them for victory. So the suffering is the path to
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  the throne. Just as it was for Christ.
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  No cross, no crown. Wow.
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  OK, let's try to wrap this up and summarize what is the main
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  take away here. Edward's main thrust is that
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  love, true Christian charity, is not just a soft emotion, it's a
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  steel spined loyalty to Christ. It bears all things because it
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  values Jesus above safety, above reputation, above life itself.
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  And this is not extra credit. No, that is the most important
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  part. This is not for the Super
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  Christians. This is standard operating
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  procedure for a disciple. If you're not willing to bear
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  the cross, you are not a disciple.
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  Full stop. Which brings us to our closing
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  thought. We always like to leave you with
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  something to chew on. Here is the question I'm asking
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  myself and I would ask you, the listener, to consider.
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  Most of us listening to this, especially in the West, are
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  living in an era of peace. We rarely face the horses.
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  No one is dragging us to prison today.
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  But are we failing against the footmen?
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  That's it. If we compromise our faith today
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  to avoid a little social awkwardness at the office.
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  If we stay silent when we should speak because we don't want to
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  be looked at strangely, what does that predict about our
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  souls if the fire ever actually comes?
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  If the footmen weary us, how will we contend with the horses?
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  We need to train now. We need to be faithful in the
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  little suffering so we can be faithful in the big.
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  Ones a sobering but necessary word from Jonathan Edwards.
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  Thank you for walking us through that.
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  My pleasure. And thank you for joining us on
• 23:18
  Reformed Thinking. We will see you next time.