Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: Augustine, Part 2

Augustine’s Move Toward Ambrose and the Christian World in Milan

Ambrose was 14 years older than Augustine and preached Sunday after Sunday, and he began to go. In fact, he became a catechumen, committed him to nothing, it was the thing to do. The aristocracy in Milan were all Christian.

His mother had arrived on the scene and was trying to finagle a marriage for him, so he'd get out of this concubinage with this woman who was below him in social class. It was just easy to do. So he signed on and started going to church, and this is what he said.

In Milan, I found your devoted servant, the Bishop Ambrose. At that time, his gifted tongue never tired of dispensing the richness of your corn, the joy of your oil, and the sober intoxication. Now, let me just stop there.

This man is brilliant. The sober intoxication. You just fly over things like that way too fast. If you read, David Wells said he had a hard time getting his students to read this book slow enough. I had to read.

I did not see that until I typed it. Sober intoxication. That's all over the place in Augustine. Powerful use of language here. One of the things we're going to address now, we will again tonight, we will again tomorrow, is what David Wells said last night about this other worldview over against the therapeutic, psychologized, man-centered worldview.

He used the words, I think, clear, winsome, powerful must be this worldview presentation. Augustine will help you, brothers, as does C .S. Lewis. And anybody who's lasted centuries will help you in this to find language to commend God.

Augustine’s Platonism, the Incarnation, and the Limits of Philosophy

Now, I stopped in the middle of the sentence. Let's go back. At that time, his gifted tongue never ceased dispensing richness of your corn. Oh, God, joy of your oil, the sober intoxication of your wine.

Unknown to me, it was you who led me to him so that I might knowingly be led by him to you. That's also typically Augustine, that kind of language. So his Platonism liberated him from a mere quest for wisdom in the manatee heresy of being identified with God and great dualism in the world to a transcendent God who he suddenly felt scandalized by.

In the word made flesh.

Utterly unplatonic. This is why I said those who think he's just warmed over Platonism are not getting it, because Platonism undergoes a radical criticism by the incarnation in Augustine's own life. So Ambrose is preaching and he says, I was all ears to seize upon his eloquence.

I also began to sense the truth of what he said, though only gradually I thrilled with love and dread alike. I realized that I was far away from you and far off. I heard your voice saying, I am the God who is.

I heard your voice as we hear voices that speak to our hearts. And at once I had no cause to doubt. Now, that was not his conversion. He just knew there's a God out there, he's transcendent, and I've got to discover this personal transcendent God.

This Ambrose is preaching. That's where he was now. I was astonished, he says, that although I now loved you, I did not persist in the enjoyment of my God. Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight and dismay.

With dismay, I plunged again into the things of this world as though I had sensed the fragrance of the fair, but was not able to eat it. Now, in that sentence, I want you to notice the phrase. I did not persist in the enjoyment of my God, because right here we begin to see.

The categories in which Augustine is framing his quest and the interpretation Augustine is going to put upon his conversion and the theology of grace that he draws from it, just like the Apostle Paul put on his own conversion and the theology of grace that grew out of that stunning event on the Damascus Road, he now conceived of his quest.

As a life in search of a firm, unshakable enjoyment of God, and that's going to be utterly determinative in his thinking about everything else, including his battle with plagianism near the end of his life, which is what I hear David Wells talking about.

I'll try to say more about that in a minute. But now it wasn't intellectual anymore. What he's being held back by is one thing.

Sex.

So wake up now. One thing is keeping him back lust. I was still held firm in the bonds of a woman's love. I began to search for a means of gaining the strength I needed to enjoy you. You see the you see the issue is shaping for us.

Sex enjoyment or you enjoyment. That's the issue for Augustine. But I could not find this means until I embraced the mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. His mother, who had prayed from all her life, all his life at least, came to Milan three eighty five, the spring of three eighty five, began to arrange this marriage for him with a girl who was two years too young to marry.

I assume that puts her at about 14 or something. He's 30 or 31 here. And he is pressured to let this concubine go. And he sends her away after 15 years. Back to Africa and will never live with her again.

Never in five million words does he name her, quote, The woman with whom I had been living was torn from my side. As an obstacle to my marriage, which he never consummated, he never did get married. And this was a blow which crushed my heart to bleeding because I loved her dearly.

She went back to Africa, vowing never to give herself to any other man. But I was too unhappy, too weak to imitate this example set by a woman. I took another mistress without the sanction of wedlock.

You talk about bondage. You got bondage in your church, in your life.

There's hope. There's hope.

Augustine’s Conversion in the Garden and Romans 13:13

So the day came. Let's go to the day.

This is the day that everybody knows about.

And this day is more complex, too, than I thought it was. But I don't have time for that complexity. What happened in the morning determined what happened in the afternoon. And all we know about is what happened in the afternoon.

But in a nutshell, in the morning there was a visitor who told the story about Antony, a monk in Egypt. And as the story was being told about this monk in Egypt, who with his disciples had heard the gospel, had stripped themselves of all concubinage and all sexual lust and all possessions and sold themselves out to the monastic way of poverty and celibacy and service and went to Egypt in missionary labors, caused his heart to burn and to smite himself because he was in the bonds of lust as he heard the story and hated himself.

Hated himself because of these stories that he was telling. That he was hearing from the visitor in the morning. This is the most important day in his life. It is one of the most important days in church history.

Oh Lord, my helper and my redeemer, I shall now tell and confess to the glory of your name how you released me from the fetters of lust which held me so tightly shackled and from my slavery to the things of this world.

If you don't have time to read it, just read book 8. Just read book 8 in the Confessions. There was a small garden attached to the house where we lodged. I now found myself driven, this is the afternoon now, by the tumult in my breast to take refuge in this garden where no one could interrupt that fierce struggle in which I was my own contestant.

I was beside myself with madness that would bring me sanity. I would... Now there it is again. I was beside myself with madness that would bring me sanity. Sober, intoxication, mad, sanity.

Don't miss this.

Don't miss the power of this in your reading and your preaching. Arrest people, get people with your language. Labor to find language in the 20th century worthy of God. I was frantic, overcome by violent anger with myself for not accepting your will and entering into your covenant.

I tore my hair, I hammered my forehead with my fists, I locked my fingers and hugged my knees. I was held back by mere trifles. He began to see at this point the beauty of chastity. Now this is the miracle of deliverance.

It's the same story that was told in Leadership Magazine 18 years ago. How many of you read that article? You remember that one? The older guys maybe read it. You got to see something more powerful, more beautiful, more enjoyable, more delightful, more thrilling, more satisfying than masturbation and the internet and the concubine and the weekend fling.

It's just got to ravish you. And it did. He began to see chastity. Listen to this description. I was held back by mere trifles. They plucked at my garment of flesh and whispered, Are you going to dismiss us?

From this moment, we shall never be with you again. Forever and ever. That's exactly the way pornography talks. Never again? Can you say never again to me? And while I stood trembling at the barrier on the other side, I could see chaste beauty of continence in all her serene, unsullied joy as she modestly beckoned me to cross over and to hesitate no more.

She stretched out loving hands to welcome and embrace me. Now, the battle is down to just two things. Which is more beautiful? I flung myself down beneath a fig tree and gave way to the tears that now stream from my eyes.

In my misery, I kept crying and crying. How long shall I go on saying tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment? Some of you are saying that perhaps right now.

All at once, and I may be this for you, all at once, the sing-song voice of a child in a nearby house, whether it was the voice of a boy or a girl, I cannot say. But again and again, it repeated the refrain, take it and read, take it and read.

At this, I looked up, thinking hard whether there was any kind of game in which children used to chant words like these. But I could not remember even hearing them before. I stemmed my flood of tears and stood up, telling myself that this could only be a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the first passage on which my eyes should fall.

That's what he said.

So I hurried back to the place where Elipius was sitting, seized the book of Paul's epistles, opened it, and in silence, I read the first passage on which my eyes fell. Not in reveling, in drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries.

Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. Spend no more thought on nature and nature's appetites. Romans 13, 13. I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.

Praise God. Now, I want very much to launch into my exposition of this interpretation of his conversion as it gets unfolded in his theology of grace and joy. But I think you should hear the rest of his life quickly.

44 years in a flash.

Because it's pretty simple. As most pastors' lives are, we get up, we go to work, we preach, we go to bed.

It's a pretty simple life.

Augustine’s Ministry, Monastic Life, and Episcopal Service in Hippo

He was baptized the next Easter, 387, by Ambrose. His mother dies that autumn. A very happy woman. Very happy and ready to go. At age 34, he returns to Africa, goes back to Thagasse's hometown, wants to set up a monastery.

He has sworn off marriage. He's sworn off sex. He's going to be a monastic, literary, philosophic, knower of God, dispenser of truth through whatever means God allows. And it was not meant to be. There's a lot of parallels with Calvin here, if you read the story.

He discovers Thagasse is not a very good place for a monastery. It's off the beaten track. And if you're going to have any impact and bring other monks into your monastery, have an influence and amount to be priests and churches, you better get to a big town.

So he looked for a town where they already had a bishop so that he would not be conscripted. And he chose Hippo, where there was a good, solid bishop named Valerius. And he moved his monastery to Hippo.

And almost immediately, he miscalculates. And like Calvin, a thousand years later, he is forced into the priesthood. At the end of his life, here's the way he describes it. He stands up, preaches to his people.

A slave may not contradict his Lord. I came to this city to see a friend whom I thought I might gain for God, that he might live with us in the monastery. I felt secure for the place already had a bishop.

I was grabbed. I was made a priest. And from there, I became your bishop. And so, like so many people, it seems, who've left a mark on the church, he was catapulted out of a life of contemplation into a life of action.

He would visit jails to protect prisoners. He would intervene in criminal disputes because in Hippo, the bishop was granted civil authority to settle all the civil disputes for those who were members of the church.

And he groaned that his mornings were spent doing what Jesus wouldn't do, who made me, you know, judge over you. And they said, settle accounts. And, oh, my brother and I can't figure out this inheritance.

And Jesus wouldn't touch it. Well, Augustine touched it week after week after week. And he groaned like many of us groan under certain aspects that are necessary in the ministry. Forty years of service to this church, biblically saturated priests turned out of his monastery, changed the face of North Africa, vigilant over his personal life, a vegetarian diet, except when the guests came,.

Poverty.

When he came to the end of his life, there was no will because there were no possessions. He held everything in complete commonality. He had no money to will to anybody when he died. He had his own books, and he had his clergy, and he had his monastery.

Those were his legacy to the world. Now, what's the point that I would like to develop my thesis? And here's what it is. R .C. Sproul is right, I think, that the church today is in a Pelagian captivity.

I would add, here's my prescription, I don't know whether he would agree with this, that the cure, let's say a piece of the cure, is for the Reformed community to recover a healthy dose of Augustine's doctrine of sovereign joy.

My assumption is that too much Reformed thinking and preaching and worship in our day has not penetrated to the root of how grace actually triumphs through joy in believers' lives. And therefore, our Reformed thinking and writing and preaching and worshiping is only half Augustinian and half biblical and half beautiful.

It isn't beautiful to people. Now, let me try to unpack that. Pelagius was a British monk who lived in Rome. He was there when it was sacked, he had to leave. He taught, though grace may facilitate the achieving of righteousness, it is not necessary to that end.

Grace is not necessary to making right choices. He did not believe in the doctrine of original sin, and he believed that human nature was at its core irreducibly good, and we are able to do everything we are commanded to do.

And therefore, Pelagius and Augustine were on a collision course because when he read the Confessions, this sentence infuriated him. Give me the grace, O Lord, to do as you command, and command me to do what you will.

O holy God, when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them. Well, Pelagius went ballistic at this sentence because it was an assault on human goodness, it was an assault on the freedom of the will.

In his judgment, it was therefore an assault on responsibility, and the whole moral fabric of the world would unravel if Augustine had his way in this assessment of his own conversion and experience with God.

Well, now, Augustine had not come to this conviction quickly, namely, that anything good he does is a gift from God. He had not arrived there quickly. I walked into a bookstore at Hope College and saw the book by Augustine, On the Freedom of the Will.

I said, oh good, I've got a lecture on this in a year. So I picked it up and started reading.

I said, yowie, what is this?

I don't want a lecture on this. He wrote that book four years after his conversion and radically changed his mind from what that book says. So be careful claiming what Augustine thinks about this or that.

When he wrote his Confessions, he had settled the matter differently and deeply and unchangeably in his own mind. This paragraph that I'm about to read here, in my judgment, for me and my theology and my ministry and my life, is the most important paragraph I've ever read in Augustine.

Here it is.

During all those years, where was my free will? What was the hidden secret place from which it was summoned in a moment so that I might bend my neck to your easy yoke? How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose.

You drove them from me. You who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and you took their place. You who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to the flesh and blood. You who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts.

You who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves. Oh Lord, my God, my light, my wealth, my salvation. There's a theology in that quote. It's called Christian hedonism.

I call it Christian hedonism. Nobody else calls it Christian hedonism. And you don't have to call it Christian hedonism, but I hope you believe it.

You drove them from me.

You are the true, the sovereign joy. Now there's the missing piece in contemporary Reformed preaching. Augustine's understanding of grace is this. Grace is God's giving us sovereign joy in God that triumphs over the joy of sin.

That's grace in the thought of Augustine. I'll say it again. Grace is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over the joy in sin. In other words, God works deep in the human heart to transform the springs of joy so that we love God more than we love sex or anything else.

Now Mark, here's another problem with contemporary American Christianity. Loving God in Augustine's mind is never reduced to deeds of obedience or acts of willpower. How common that is in our day. Love is commanded so it can't be an emotion.

Love is an act of will. Love is obedience to God.

For Augustine in our day, here's his definition of the love of God. I call charity the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for his own sake and the enjoyment of one's self and one's neighbor for the sake of God.

Joy is the essence of love. And for American Christianity, it's a caboose. No wonder our reformed thinking and preaching is unappealing. We don't get grace. Grace is the giving of a sovereign joy that triumphs over all competitors.

Loving God for Augustine is always conceived essentially as delighting in God above all things and in other things for the sake of God. He loves thee too little, O God, who loves anything together with thee which he loves not for thy sake.

That is a revolutionary sentence. I read that years ago and it just blew me away. I like my wife.

She's here somewhere.

I like Talitha. I could idolize my family. My four boys are a treasure to me. And better that they die than that I love them more than God or love them for any reason but for God's sake. That's Augustinianism at its core.