Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: Jonathan Edwards 4

Jonathan Edwards and Christian Hedonism

For example Here's Edwards.

Persons need not and Ought not. That word ought there is right at the heart of the meaning of Christian hedonism. Persons need not and ought not set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites.

Rather they ought to be Endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and To obtain.

More.

Spiritual pleasures. Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement. That needs a lecture. Take that phrase home tonight. Lay yourself in the way of allurement. There is no such thing as excess in our taking of the spiritual food.

There is no such virtue as temperance in Spiritual feasting. It's not a virtue To have limited appetite spiritually, it's just a disease of our churches. Appetites for Jesus are so constricted. They're so limited and appetites for the world are Massive and being cultivated every day by every media possible.

Here's his implication for preaching. I Should think myself in the way of my duty To raise the affections of my hearers. Affections is this is an 18th century word for in his vocabulary spiritual emotions.

Don't treat them as some kind of ethereal Something other than real happiness real pleasure real joy real hate real gratitude real hope real fear these this. Constellation of this this thing in here is a desire factory.

It's a longing factory. It's an emotion factory and there are dozens of emotions with all kinds of extensions to them.

So start that sentence over again I.

Should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can provided That they are affected with nothing but truth and with affections that are not Disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.

Like don't smile When preaching on hell and and don't frown When celebrating the glories of heaven. Bring your heart and your whole bearing into what it's his word Agreeableness to the nature of what you are affected with.

And then you can lift the affections as high as possible provided they are rooted in truth and conformable to the nature of what you are being affected by. That's really a good sentence.

For every preacher.

Edwards, Self-Love, and Disinterested Love of God

My thesis Here is that Edwards is a Christian hedonist. So I pose the question. My answer is yes. So a Christian hedonist. Brief definition. Christian hedonist is a person who lives to maximize The depth and the height and the duration of joy in God in all the ways That God in Christ has made it possible for us to do.

We live.

We live.

To maximize Our joy in God in its depths and heights and duration In all the ways that God in Christ has made it possible for us to pursue. That's a Christian hedonist and my contention is that not only is he a Christian hedonist Jonathan Edwards But that he is one of the most God besotted God enthralled God Trance God-centered Christian hedonist who ever lived and that even though he was a mere New England pastor Who died 260 years ago who never traveled outside of New England?

Got voted out of his church after 23 years of ministry served as a missionary to a handful of Indians for the last seven years Of his life. Died at age 54 only 300 books in his library not hundred thousand.

He is worthy of our attention and that's what we're going to do is pay attention to Edwards now. For the next little while here's the way I would like to pay attention to Edwards and his worthiness to be listened to.

I want to hear him respond to two criticisms.

That I have heard.

From people. To the effect that he was not a Christian hedonist. Two arguments against my thesis. I'm gonna let him respond. And then secondly, I want to hear his response to six or seven Criticisms of me and my Christian hedonism.

Instead of me defending me I'm gonna let Edwards defend me. Tonight. Okay, that's that's the plan. So here's number one two arguments against His being a Christian hedonist. The two Arguments are these.

Number one. He criticized a life devoted to self-love.

That's argument number one.

Argument number two. He promoted a life devoted to quote Disinterested love of God. Disinterested love of God, that's a 18th century phrase. Now the problem with the first argument is that Edwards used this is the term self-love in two senses at least not just one approving of one and disapproving of the other and in the Approving of one definition.

He shows himself to be a Christian hedonist. And the problem with the second argument is that what you Think in your head as a typical 21st century person unless you're schooled in 18th century thought by the phrase Disinterested love is not what he meant by it probably.

Okay, so that let me take those one at a time and let him solve the issue for us. First the self-love issue. Edwards uses the term self-love.

Negatively.

Disapprovingly.

When he.

Gives it the meaning of selfishness meaning a narrowing down of what pleases us to private pleasures that Exclude your happiness from my happiness. So if I can be happy and step on you to get there not a problem.

Just so I get happy.

That's narrow.

Constricted.

Exploitive.

Self-love and.

Edwards hates it and Criticizes it so here's what he says. Negative sense. He says that people who are governed by self-love quote place their happiness in Good things that are confined or limited to themselves To the exclusion of others.

This is selfishness. This is the thing most clearly and directly intended by that self-love which the scripture condemns. And of course No one should live that.

Way.

But then he explains another meaning of the term Self-love which shows that he's a Christian Hedonist. Here's what he asks. Quote. Whether or not a man ought to love God more than himself. That's the question.

He poses whether or not a man ought to love God more than himself. Here's his answer. Self-love Taken in the most extensive sense and love to God are not Properly capable of being compared with one another for they are not opposites.

Self-love is only a capacity for enjoying Or taking delight in anything. Now surely tis improper to say that our love to God is Superior to our general capacity of delighting in anything. It's like ask this is me talking now.

It's like asking should my happiness be in God. Should my happiness in God? Be more intense than my happiness. It's like asking should I love God more than I love? Those are nonsense questions and they are nonsense Questions because they attempt to contrast two things that are not distinct the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of happiness in God.

You can't ask which of those is stronger. It's not a reasonable question. It's a nonsense question so self-love is Rejected by Edwards as evil when it means the confinement of our desire for happiness to our private self-exalting benefits.

But when it means.

The love of happiness without any confinement and with God as its chief object Expanding to include others in it then self-love is not only permitted it is Necessary to an eternal life of joy that the Bible promises.

So this the self-love that Edwards approves is Desiring your greatest happiness and finding it in God and All that he is for us in Christ, which is exactly what a Christian hedonist believes. Now that doesn't make any sense.

You need to write on a question and say say that again.

Or whatever.

But that's my answer to the first objection that Edwards Disapproved of a life of self-love. Therefore. He can't be a Christian hedonist. And my answer is he disapproved of one kind of self-love. He approved of the other kind and the other kind is what makes him a Christian hedonist because the other kind Defines self-love as the pursuit of your happiness and you maximize it by finding it in God.

Here's the answer to the second question. Or the second argument against his being a Christian hedonist namely that he commended a life of disinterested love to God. Which sure sounds like to most modern ears.

Mine anyway sounds like You're supposed to love God.

Without.

Pursuing any interest any benefit any joy any reward. From him and Edwards shocks us out of our Misunderstanding of that phrase by using another one.

Namely.

Disinterested delight which is a.

Total oxymoron for most modern years. Like bored enthusiasm sad happiness, right. Disinterested delight. Like he doesn't even crack a smile when he uses that phrase. That makes as much sense and to his 18th century philosophical contemporaries as anything.

Why would that be.

It just shows how careful you have to be when reading things outside your little world and you think they look Anti-christian hedonist how slow you need to be to jump to that conclusion. So here's the quote from religious affections where he talks about disinterested delight.

What in the world. As It is with love the love of the Saints so it is with their joy and Spiritual delight and pleasure.

The first.

Foundation of it. The first foundation of your spiritual delight is.

Not any.

Consideration or conception of your.

Interest.

In divine things.

But.

It primarily consists in the sweet entertainment that your minds have in the view or Contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things as they are in.

Themselves.

So disinterested. Love to God Cannot be contrary to Christian hedonism because it consists in the sweet entertainment that the mind has as It contemplates God's.

Beauty.

If you took away the sweetness and the delight There would be nothing left of the essence of love for God. So what Edwards means when he commends Love that is disinterested is that we love God that is delight in God.

Enjoy God. Find satisfaction in God as our supreme treasure first and foundationally because of his intrinsic worth and beauty not because of any benefits other than that delight. Like health wealth and prosperity.

Christian hedonism Abominates the prosperity gospel first criticism. I got When I wrote my first article in his magazine in 1970 something Was from a missions leader in California. He said here just another American expression of the old prosperity gospel.

I Said you didn't read it. You didn't read it. What he's saying here is if Your delight your satisfaction your happiness your joy in God is not in God But only the kickback of health the kickback of a marriage that works the kickback of kids that follow Jesus.

You don't love God.

You love your kids you love your wife you love your job you love your fame and you're an idolater so. This is not part of the prosperity gospel. This is an axe to the root really radical sharp axe. To the root of the prosperity gospel because it says God is glorified when we are satisfied in him and not his gifts, which is why suffering and sacrifice and Death are the way God chooses for many of his children to glorify him.

Most because they find fullest satisfaction in him at that very moment. So my conclusion on this first part namely that there's these two arguments brought against Edwards etiquette as a Christian. He knows that he he renounced a life of self-love and he promoted a life of disinterest to God.

Both of those arguments collapse when you listen to Edwards when you learn how to read and.

Watch how he.

Unpacks each of those phrases in a radically Christian hedonist way. So here's the here's the last section of this talk namely what help can Edwards give to John Piper who over the years has listened as Criticisms come against Christian hedonism.

Does Edwards help me? Answer those criticisms and the answer is yes, and I want you to listen to him and and in the process I Think your understanding of Christian hedonism and his role in it will become clearer.

Why Christian Hedonism Does Not Make Self Central

Objection number one. And we'll I didn't see when I started here, but we'll tick these off as quickly as we can. There's six or seven of them and they go by pretty fast. So hang on write your questions down.

Objection one. Doesn't Christian hedonism God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Doesn't Christian hedonism make me central in salvation. Doesn't it put me at the bottom of my joy and make me the focus of the universe.

Edwards answers with a very Penetrating distinction between the joy of the hypocrite and the joy of the true Christian here goes like this. This is the difference between the joy of the hypocrite and the joy of the true saint.

The hypocrite rejoices in himself. Self is the first foundation of his joy. The true saint rejoices in God. True saints have their minds in the first place inexpressibly pleased and Delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God.

This is the spring of all their delights the cream of all their pleasures. But the dependence of the affections of the hypocrite is in a contrary order they first Rejoice that they are made much of by God.

And then on that ground he seems a sort lovely to them.

That's devastating.

That is devastating, you know, I've grown up I've ministered for the last 50 years in in a in a world where self-esteem It's kind of faded in the background now, but for for decades. It was the motif of counseling.

It was the motif of education. It was the motif of Incarceration fixing it was just it was the air everybody breathed and God was made a servant to it and the cross was turned in to an exaltation of it and Edwards just slices it to piece and and saves us.

He saves us. I'll read that last sentence again.

The hypocrite.

First rejoice that they are made much of by God and then on That ground he seems a sort lovely to them. That's totally upside down. I will love you. Provided you are making much of me which means who's God?

That's his answer to my first objection. Doesn't it make me central. Emphatically it does not. Number two won't this emphasis of Christian hedonism on pleasure play into the central corruption of our age the unbounded pursuit of personal ease and comfort and sensual pleasures.

Won't this emphasis soften our resistance to sin? I like these objections. I wrote them. I Feel them. I feel the dangers of them. I know how deceitful my heart is. There are many Christians who think Stoicism is A good antidote to sensuality and we live in an age Drowning in sensuality.

Just turn on any program and if the program isn't the ads are drowning sensuality. And many people think Stoicism is a good antidote. Paul emphatically in Colossians 2 23 said it will never work. It will never work.

Will power. Religion will not work against the flesh and the reason it fails. Is that the power of sin? Comes from its promise of pleasure. Nobody sins out of duty. We sin because sin promises pleasure and It is meant to be defeated by the promise of a superior pleasure in God.

Not a religion of willpower.

It won't work.

Willpower. Religion even when it succeeds fails. Because the will gets the glory it produces legalists not lovers. Edwards saw the powerlessness of this approach and here's what he said we come.

With double forces.

Against the wicked.

To persuade them to a godly life the common argument is the Profitableness of religion, but alas the wicked man is not in pursuit of profit.

His pleasure he seeks.

Now then we will fight them with their own weapons. In other words Edward says the pursuit of pleasure in God is not only not a compromise with the sensuality of the world It's the only weapon that can defeat it because it produces lovers of God not legalists who boast in their willpower.

If you love holiness And if you weep over the moral collapse of American culture You will do well to get to know Edwards vision of the power of the pleasure of God as The axe laid to the root of the promises of sin.

You try to raise teenagers.

Will tower religion.

Will not take hope it will last about as long as they're in your house. They've got to love God a miracle has to happen. They got to love holiness. They got a delight in him above everything the world is throwing at them.

So my answer is no. Christian hedonism does not play into the sensual Corruptions of our culture. It points to the one power that provides God exalting freedom. Namely the promise of superior pleasure in God.

Christian Hedonism, Contrition, and Revival

Objection number three.

Surely.

Contrition sorrow for sin is a painful thing and Will be undermined by the stress on seeking our own pleasure. Surely the beginning of revival is broken-hearted contrition for our sin. But you seem to make the awakening of delight the beginning.

The answer to this objection Is that no one can feel broken-hearted For not treasuring God. Until that person tastes the pleasure of having God as their treasure.

Complicated sentence Maybe I better say it again.

No one can feel broken-hearted for not treasuring God. Which is what contrition.

Should be.

Not treasuring God. You've treasured other things more than God. No one can feel broken-hearted for not treasuring God. Until that person tastes the pleasure of having God as his treasure. You can't feel remorse.

For not having what you don't want. I know this sounds paradoxical.

Paradoxical.

Pleasure makes the pain of broken-heartedness possible.

That's what I'm arguing.

Pleasure in God makes the pain of broken-heartedness for not having the pleasure Possible you'd never recognize it. Otherwise In order to bring people to the sorrow of contrition You must first bring them to see God as their supreme delight so that they can regret that he hasn't been so.

Let me read Edwards. This is where I. You know when you when you read somebody who's thought a hundred miles ahead of you on almost everything it's wonderful. Wonderful though repentance be a deep sorrow For sin that God requires as necessary to salvation yet the very nature.

Of it.

Necessarily implies delight. Repentance of sin is a sorrow arising from the sight of God's excellency and mercy. But the apprehension of excellency and mercy must Unnecessarily and unavoidably beget pleasure in the mind of the beholder.

It is impossible that anyone should see anything that appears to him excellent and not behold it with pleasure and it's impossible to be affected with the mercy and love of God and his willingness to be merciful to us and love us and not be Affected with the pleasure at the thoughts of it.

But this is the very affection that begets true repentance. How much so ever a paradox it may seem it is true that repentance is a sweet sorrow. So that the more of this sorrow the more There are people in the world who have gone very deep with God and we need to listen to them.

This is astonishing and true what he just said if you have lived long with Christ And are aware of your own indwelling sin You will have found it to be so. Yes, there is contrition. Yes, there are tears of remorse and brokenheartedness.

I dare say every day but they flow From a new taste of the soul for the pleasures at God's right hand. That you have scorned and if you don't taste them you won't feel remorse for scorning them. I don't know how to make it clearer right now.

This is really important for you for all of us.

So no Gospel contrition is not undermined by Christian hedonism. It is made possible by revealing what we missed.