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Genuine. Truly what something is said to be. Authentic.
There isn’t a whole lot of authenticity going around these days. Genuine isn’t the first word I think of – unfortunately – when I think of our culture today. And, tragically, genuine and authentic certainly aren’t the first words I think of to describe the church, either.
But we see of the early believers at Thessalonica a strong desire for genuineness.
“but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”
– 1 Thessalonians 2: 7-8
There was love for one-another – care and concern. There was a desire to see one-another grow up in the Lord.
There was affection – as though a mother cares for her child, so did the believers desire those around them to know the Lord, and mature in Him.
May we as the church have a love for those with whom we fellowship.
May we be dedicated to one-another, striving together to grow, mature, and become all the more conformed to His image.
May we exist in authentic, transparent community.
May our love always be evident – our love for our Lord and our love for each other.
I tire of life. Quite often, actually. My allegiance is to my God and my King, and my citizenship is to another country; the trials of this temporary home feel far too permanent. The visible community that serves to foreshadow an invisible one does its best to offer hope and comfort, yet tends to fall tragically short. Answers are rote and routine in nature, paling in comparison with the weight of the world we are often asked to bear.
When the church uses common thoughts and phrases, exhorting us to persevere in God’s grace, trust in His wisdom, and have faith He will deliver us, my soul yearns for the divine truth and reality undergirding these cliché responses. My entire being aches for His Spirit’s illuminating glow on my heart and mind. In desperation I wonder: What is faith? What does it mean to trust in that which I cannot perceive with these five senses? How do I live coram deo, when I must rely on things unseen to do so? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV)
Faith is altogether essential to the Christian life, yet seems far too difficult to conceive of. In what follows, we will embark on a discussion of the true construction of faith: What is its nature? What is its object? What are its implications? In examining the constitution of faith, I hope to present a better understanding of one of the more fundamental concepts to the Christian experience.
Aiding us in our exploration will be two individuals who, at first glance, have little in common: SÆren Kierkegaard and J. Gresham Machen. While Kierkegaard died in 1855 and Machen wasn’t born until 1881, their experiences in life were remarkably similar. Kierkegaard is well known for being the “Socratic Gadfly” of Copenhagen, and often was scathingly critical of the cultural Christianity – or Christendom as he called it – that plagued Denmark during his lifetime. Similarly, Machen fought long and hard against the Liberalism that took up a dominant position of influence during his lifetime. As a result of their viewpoints, both Kierkegaard and Machen were heavily criticized in some way or another; Kierkegaard was unceremoniously abused in the Corsair Affair and roundly criticized for his attack on the Danish National Church, and Machen was expelled from his denomination outright.
Despite having numerous enemies while living, both Kierkegaard and Machen have been widely celebrated posthumously for their work. Kierkegaard is regarded by many as the father of modern existentialism, and Machen’s work as a New Testament scholar and staunch opponent of liberalism renders his work valuable to the believer even today.
Both Kierkegaard and Machen wrote extensively on the topic of faith. In what follows we shall examine both Kierkegaard’s and Machen’s views on faith. We will see that Machen – as a New Testament scholar – is primarily concerned with the nature, construction, and content of faith. Kierkegaard – as a philosopher – is more concerned with the implications of faith for the individual.
First published in 1925, What is Faith? is a collection of lectures delivered by Machen at Grove City College. More a New Testament scholar than a philosopher – or even a “theologian” for that matter – Machen’s penchant for practical exposition of the scriptures is on display in What is Faith? His lectures were given in the climate of intense sociological upheaval, and Machen was concerned over the anti-intellectual tendencies in society at that time. “Facts, in the sphere of education, are having a hard time.”[1] This tendency expressed itself in religious circles as liberalism. “…the growth of ignorance in the Church, the growth of indifference with regard to the simple facts recorded in the Bible, all goes back to a great spiritual movement, really skeptical in its tendency, which has been going forward during the last one hundred years…”[2]
Machen was ardently opposed to this tendency, and did not want the Christian’s spiritual existence to be based on mystical leanings and uninformed perspectives. “Theology…is a setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based.”[3] To ascertain such facts as they lead the believer to faith, Machen thought it prudent to turn to our most trustworthy source on the topic, the Bible “At any rate, the Bible as a whole, taking prophecy and fulfillment together, is the supreme textbook on the subject of faith.”[4]
Foreshadowing claims of a postmodern generation that disavows allegiance to propositional statements, Machen was sure at the outset to clarify the specific nature of faith. “The Persons in whom according to the Bible faith is particularly to be reposed are God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ…it is impossible to have faith in a person without having knowledge of the person; far from being contrasted with knowledge, faith is founded upon knowledge.”[5] Is faith then merely a propositional knowledge? Surely not, for faith must not be comprised solely of knowledge, but assent to the knowledge contained therein. “In the first place, religion is here made to depend absolutely upon doctrine, the one who comes to God must not only believe in a person, but he also must believe that something is true; faith is here declared to involve acceptance of a proposition.”[6]
Machen relies on Hebrews 11: 6, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him,” to orchestrate an ordo salutis of sorts pertaining to faith in God. “In order to trust God or to have communion with Him we must at least believe that He exists.”[7] Machen is at pains to show, rather than subscribing entirely to one extreme that faith is entirely knowable to the human intellect or the other that faith is purely a mystical experience, faith is a mixture of both. “…the author of the Epistle of the Hebrews insists upon the primacy of the intellect; he bases religion squarely upon truth. He does not, of course, reject that immediate and mysterious contact of the soul with God which is dear to the mystic’s heart; for that immediate contact of the soul with God is a vital part of all religion worthy of the name.”[8]
However, Machen is not content with an abstract faith in an impersonal god – akin to Deism. Machen is concerned with a faith in a redeeming God who loves and saves. “In the Bible, then, it is not merely God as creator who is the object of faith, but also, primarily, God as Redeemer from sin…In Christ the redeeming work of God became visible; it is Christ, therefore, very naturally, who is ordinarily represented as the object of faith.”[9] And in having Christ as the object of our faith, there are again propositions to which we must adhere; things we must know. “For one thing, we need to know that He is alive; we need to know, therefore, about resurrection. And then we need to know how it is that He can touch our lives; and that involves a knowledge of the atonement and of the way in which He saves us from our sin.”[10]
Machen is clear to delineate three very important things regarding faith in Christ so as not to confuse the reader. First, the knowledge that precedes faith does not have to be exhaustive in any way. “…faith may come first, on the basis of very elementary knowledge, and then fuller knowledge may come later.”[11] Second, faith is intended to be simple and – as Christ Himself announced – childlike. “The faith of the modern pragmatist is a very subtle, sophisticated, unchildlike thing; what is really childlike is the faith that is founded upon knowledge of the one in whom trust is reposed.”[12] And thirdly, Machen is sure to re-affirm that through faith we receive all Christ has to offer, and through no works of our own; our knowledge cannot earn us faith. “What mars the simplicity of the childlike faith which Jesus commends is not an admixture of knowledge, but an admixture of self-trust. To receive the kingdom as a little child is to receive it as a free gift without seeking in slightest measure to earn it for one’s self.”[13]
One might be tempted to posit that in light of this, faith is solely passive and the believer does nothing but allow faith to be exercised to him, or at the very least on his behalf. In one sense it appears this is accurate. “Faith, in other words, is not active but passive; and to say that we are saved by faith is to say that we do not save ourselves but are saved only by the one in whom our faith is reposed; the faith of man presupposes the sovereign grace of God.”[14] However, it is accurate only to the extent that Machen wants to show that the believer cannot earn faith or achieve it, but instead can only respond to God. “Thus the beginning of the Christian life is not an achievement, but an experience…”[15]
Machen is quick to anticipate the obvious question when faith is painted in this picture of passivity. “But if the beginning of the Christian life is thus not an achievement but an experience, if a man is not really active, but passive, when he is saved, if faith is to be placed in sharp contrast with works, what becomes of the ethical character of the Christian religion…”[16] And in light of this question, Machen turns to the New Testament to find differing uses of the word “faith” and their different implications.
“But if the faith regarded insufficient by James is different from the faith commended by Paul, so also the works commended by James are different from the works regarded inefficacious by Paul. Paul is speaking of the works of the law, he is speaking of works that are intended to merit in order that God’s favour may be earned; James on the other hand is speaking of works like Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac that are the result of faith and show that faith is real faith.”[17]
In other words, the works that Paul speaks of are impossible for the believer, because they are an attempt to earn the gracious favor of God, while the works James references are the outward signs of the inwardly renewed life, the life of the believer that has been renewed by placing his faith in the saving and sanctifying power of Jesus Christ.
Admittedly, Machen does a great service to the believer in so clearly laying out the constitution of faith. However, for the struggling Christian, the believer who desires to know God deeply and intimately, his answers might come dangerously close to another cliché, wooden definition of faith – one that is devoid of passion, intensity, or deep-seated meaning. There is still the desire to move from the theoretical to the practical – from the conceptual premises of faith to the actual implications therein. With this mind we will for the time being turn our conversation to the second of our guides in this journey, SÆren Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard’s literary legacy is voluminous to say the least, and scattered across dozens of published works and thousands of journal entries are countless references to the concept of faith. We shall do our best to limit our discussion to only the most pertinent mentions of faith, and those that serve our greater context of comparing Machen’s and Kierkegaard’ thoughts on faith.
When discussing Kierkegaard on faith, what generally comes to mind first is his notion of “the leap”. We must point out that Kierkegaard never truly discusses a leap of faith, but more accurately the leap to faith. “He does, however, clearly and often refer to the concept of a leap (Spring) and to the concept of a transition (Overgang) that is a qualitative (qvalitativ) or, alternatively, a meta-basis eis allo genos (transition from one genus to another)…”[18] In other words, Kierkegaard does not discuss a leap of faith, where one employs faith as a tool or instrument, but more accurately a leap to faith, where one undergoes, “qualitative transformation to religiousness and to faith in an eminent sense, namely, Christian religiousness.”[19]
Kierkegaard seems to endorse – as Machen might say – not the manipulation of faith to procure an achievement of Christian living, but rather sees faith as the vehicle by which the Christian lives his life. “Can there be a transition from quantitative qualification to a qualitative one without a leap? And does not the whole of life rest in that?”[20] We began this discussion by wondering how to live a life of faith despite the fact that faith is rooted in hope and things unseen. It is becoming clear that living in faith includes wrestling with the tension of trust that which do not see. According to Kierkegaard, the choices made while existing in this tension are life defining.
Through this concept of defining oneself through choice or action we find the perfect context in which we can return to our conversation of Abraham and Isaac, whom Kierkegaard deals with in one of his most well known works, the multi-faceted Fear and Trembling. Abraham is the perfect case study for Kierkegaard because of that precarious predicament atop Mt. Moriah where Abraham gave Isaac up for dead through a divinely instructed sacrifice, only to have God prevail in His faithfulness and return Isaac to Abraham.
In Stages on Life’s Way Kierkegaard has separated life into three stages, or spheres. “There are three existence-spheres: the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious…The ethical sphere is only a transition sphere…The esthetic sphere is the sphere of immediacy, the ethical the sphere of requirement (and this requirement is so infinite that the individual always goes bankrupt), the religious the sphere of fulfillment…”[21] Kierkegaard goes on to explain that this fulfillment is not the sort to allow one achievement or accomplishment, but instead experience the fulfillment of a life of paradox, contradiction, and security. Faith has the ability to comfort despite being based on things hoped for and unseen.“…and as a consequence the religious contradiction: simultaneously to be out on 70,000 fathoms of water and yet be joyful.”[22]
In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard uses Abraham as his point of reference to further clarify his latter two stages, the ethical and the religious, by discussing the Knight of Infinite Resignation and the Knight of Faith. The individual in the ethical stage does what is right, but he does it to appease himself, having made himself the standard. This individual is the Knight of Infinite Resignation. “The act of resignation does not require faith, for what I gain in resignation is my eternal consciousness. This is a purely philosophical movement that I venture to make when it is demanded and can discipline myself to make, because every time some finitude will take power over me, I starve myself into submission until I make the movement…”[23]
It is in this distinction that we begin to see Kierkegaard’s helpfulness in determining faith as not just something we know, but something we live. The ethical sphere of existence presents itself as that in which we live without much self-awareness. We exist to follow the rules and do that which we think is right, without consideration to a why behind the what. In the ethical sphere, what the individual would call faith is actually based on something physical and tangible, my conscience and myself. In so doing, the Knight of Infinite Resignation avoids the unknown and unseen.
Were Abraham merely the Knight of Infinite Resignation, he still would have offered up his son Isaac for sacrifice, but only because his ethical consciousness bound him to the directives of God, who commanded the sacrifice. Because the Knight of Infinite Resignation has constructed for himself an ethical system of obedience to the infinite and absurd, he will follow through on the divine’s commands. In resignation he gives up his son through sacrifice, and has lost all hope. “In ethical terms, Abraham’s relation to Isaac is quite simply this: the father shall love the son more than himself.”[24] He has no choice but to subscribe to the universal and its dictates for his life.
To the outside world, the Knight of Infinite Resignation and the Knight of Faith are identical, and only to the divine are they discernable. “Now let us meet the knight of faith on the occasion previously mentioned. He does exactly the same as the other knight did: he infinitely renounces the love that is the substance of his life, he is reconciled in pain. But then the marvel happens; he makes one more movement even more wonderful than all the others, for he says: Nevertheless I have faith that I will get her – that is, by virtue of the absurd, by virtue of that fact that for God all things are possible.”[25]
According to Kierkegaard Abraham is not the Knight of Infinite Resignation, but the Knight of Faith. The Knight of Infinite Resignation sees the ethical limit as the end of his existence with nothing beyond it. “The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which from another angle means that it applies at all times. It rests immanent in itself, has nothing outside itself that is its telos [end, purpose] but is itself the telos for everything outside itself, and when the ethical has absorbed this into itself, it goes no further.”[26]
As the Knight of Faith, Abraham renounces Isaac, only to know in faith that God will return Isaac to him. In faith does Abraham live, and in faith does he offer Isaac in sacrifice, knowing he will not be left wanting. He bases this on no immediate knowledge or sensation, but on faith and hope. Faith permits the individual to live beyond the limits of the universal – the structures and strictures of this present world – and instead by relation to the absurd and the absolute. Abraham subscribes not to his own ethico-moral conscience, but to a teleological suspension of the ethical.
“Faith is precisely this paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to but as superior – yet in such a way, please note, that is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.”[27]
In faith Abraham suspends the universal, ethical system through his love for and devotion to the absurd and absolute – God. Abraham acted out of his absolute relation to the absolute, and not out of his duty to the universal and ethical. “Abraham’s situation is different. By his act he transgressed the ethical altogether and had a higher telos outside it, in relation to which he suspended it.”[28]
Is living in this fashion, subscribing to something above a universal ethic, dangerous? Certainly. “Without risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not then have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith. If I want to keep myself in faith, I must continually see to it that I hold fast the objective uncertainty…”[29]
This leap to faith, this existence where one lives by abiding in the teological suspension of the ethical, this life depending on the balance of objective uncertainty and subjective inwardness, is a life–defining commitment. Wrestling in that tension is part of existence and is something every individual involves himself in. “The existing subject…is engaged in existing, which is indeed the case with every human being.”[30] Through the lens of Kierkegaard’s existentialism, where one is continually engaged in the process of defining one’s own existence, the leap to faith is a foundational part of this defining move. “…existence itself, the act of existing, is a striving.”[31]
One’s project in life – one’s means of defining one’s own existence – is centered on the essential knowledge that informs us. “All essential knowledge that pertains to existence, or only the knowing whose relation to existence is essential is essential knowing. Essentially viewed, the knowing that does not inwardly in the reflection of inwardness pertain to existence is accidental knowing, and its degree and scope, essentially viewed, are a matter of indifference.”[32] Living an authentic faith based on decision, then, is the project the individual must take up to find himself living an authentic existence in the face of the tension of subjectivity. “Only in subjectivity is there decision.”[33]
What then, is faith? Faith is the inward resolve to live in the face of that uncertainty. Faith relies on a type of sight that is not limited by our five senses. To live by faith, I must learn not to bemoan the fact that I cannot learn of faith through my five senses, but I must rejoice in that fact, for faith truly is the assurance of things hoped for and of things unseen. “Thus faith is not merely founded upon knowledge; but also it leads to knowledge.”[34] As knowledge, faith is not blind, but truly a means by which we are illuminated. “Faith is closely connected in the New Testament with hope; and it is contrasted in notable passages with sight.”[35] It is with the sight that faith affords do we truly see, and in seeing have hope.
In Machen we have seen what faith is, and in Kierkegaard we have seen what faith may require of the individual believer. We see that as Machen pushed for faith based on objective and propositional knowledge, Kierkegaard reminds us we will not have an exhaustive or completed knowledge of God, even if we do have a truthful knowledge of Him. Through faith we see, and through seeing we have hope. And in having hope, we are equipped to truly persevere, and we praise God that “…the Christian lives by hope.”[36]
We do not press to merely know about God. No, we press to know about God that we might know Him personally and intimately. Faith is not the achievement of knowing about God, but is the experience of truly and simply knowing Him. And in knowing Him, may we glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
[1] Machen, J. Gresham. What is Faith? Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle; 1991. 15.
[2] Ibid 23
[3] Ibid 32
[4] Ibid 45
[5] Ibid 46
[6] Ibid 47
[7] Machen 48
[8] Ibid 49
[9] ibid 87
[10] ibid 91-92
[11] ibid 94
[12] ibid 94
[13] ibid 95
[14] ibid 195
[15] ibid 197
[16] ibid 198
[17] ibid 204, emphasis original
[18] Ferreira, James M. Faith and the Kierkegaardian Leap in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Hannay, Alastair and Marino, Gordon D. Cambridge University Press; New York: 1998. 207.
[19] ibid
[20] Journals and Papers, Volume I, page 110; as found in Ferrerira 207.
[21] From Stages on Life’s Way as found in: Hong, H and Hong, . ed. The Essential Kierkegaard. Princeton University Press; Princeton: 2000. 182.
[22] Ibid
[23] Hong, H and Hong E ed. Fear and Trembling, Repetition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1983. 48.
[24] Ibid 57
[25] Ibid 46
[26] Ibid 54
[27] Ibid 55-56
[28] Ibid 59
[29] From Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as found in The Essential Kierkegaard, 207.
[30] Kierkegaard in Concluding Unscientific Postscript as found in Bretall, Robert, A Kierkegaard Anthology. Princeton University Press; Princeton: 1946. 206.
[31] Kierkegaard in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as found in Guignon, Charles and Pereboom, Derek. Existentialism: Basic Writings. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.; Indianapolis: 2001. 7.
[32] Concluding Unscientific Postscript as found in The Essential Kierkegaard, 205.
[33] Ibid 206
[34] Machen 229
[35] Ibid 223
[36] Ibid 220.
I often wonder if I have a burden for this world – if I love those around me to share with them the freedom of Jesus Christ.
Do I recognize their need for fulfillment in the only One who can fulfill? Am I sensitive to their need for purpose, a purpose only He can give? Can I overcome my personality – my desire to stick to my own business and not bother with other people – to be authentic with them and share the Light of my life with them?
The believers at Thessalonica had no problem in doing this, none whatsoever.
In verse 2 we see that God was present with them, He gave them help and boldness and courage.
His Spirit was there, in their midst and in their hearts in a very real way. He empowered them and strengthened them.
I also often wonder – when I do share the Gospel, why I do.
Do I want public acclaim?
“I have led three people to Christ in the past year.”
Do I want public recognition?
“Look how big our church is.”
Do I want public approval?
“I must be a good preacher, look at how many people raised their hand after my sermon.”
God purified the desires of the believers at Thessalonica; there were no ulterior motives or secondary purposes. God selected them, instilled them with a burden for their lost and dying world, empowered them, and was confident they could share His truth with their community.
The Thessalonian believers had no ulterior motives, they simply wanted those around them to know the Lord and love Him. They had no fancy methods, simply His Spirit and His truth.
What are my motives in forming relationships? Do I desire fellowship? Do I love non-believers enough to share God’s Word with them, that they may know Him?
How bold am I? How daring? Who do I try and please? What am I afraid of? Who do I fear?
My the sovereign God, who inspires us with life and truth, have free reign over our souls, to transform us daily for His purposes. May we have no agenda but His kingdom, and no purposes but to worship Him.
We see that the believers in Thessalonica became a model for others.
The word here for model comes from the Greek word tupos, and refers to a pattern that has been hammered out on wood or brass.
Think of an etching: A pattern is made on a piece of copper, washed in acid, and then pressed with ink on paper to make prints. In the same way, the believers at Thessalonica were the first pattern, the pattern upon which other believers could model their lives after.
For whom were the Thessalonian believers to model the Gospel?
Paul is very explicit in saying that the message of the Gospel spread first to Macedonia, then to Achaia, and then throughout the whole world. Paul was basically telling the church to focus on its own immediate community first, and the Gospel would progress from there.
Notice what is mentioned in regard to the Thessalonian church’s spreading of the Gospel: Not their mechanism, or method, or mannerism, but their motivation.
No one noticed how effectively they spread the Gospel or how many “souls were saved.” All that mattered was why.
“They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.”
– 1 Thessalonians 1: 9-10
Others made mention of one thing: Why the believers were so passionate in their belief and their desire to spread the Gospel.
The Gospel was not delivered in the most effective fashion possible, but was delivered at all because of repentant, transformed lives. The Thessalonian church was eagerly looking for Christ – the risen Christ who they knew would come again.
They didn’t model themselves for others so they could have the most efficient program or church service, they modeled themselves for others because they desired that their entire community would share in their spirit of repentance, live transformed lives, and expectantly look to Jesus Christ in all things.
We are told in verse 5 of 1 Thessalonians 1 that the Gospel of Jesus Christ came not just in words, but in power.
The greek word for power here comes from dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite. The idea carried with dunamis is an inherent power, or a power that comes simply from the nature of the empowering thing.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not need to rely on schemes of man, emotional appeals, or miraculous confirmation – the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the embodiment of transformational and life-giving power.
The Gospel is effectually applied through the life of the Holy Spirit. Theologians would say the job of the Holy Spirit is spiration, whereby He engages in the application of redemption.
We see also that the Holy Spirit brought joy to the early believers at Thessalonica, and that He did so in spite of suffering. In our emotional vocabulary, suffering and struggling are independent spheres of existence and have no room for anything except for the woes therein.
But our God is bigger than that, and so then promises joy in spite of – and indeed in the midst of – our most trying circumstances.
As numerous as the clichés regarding the journey of life and the paths we take are, there is truth behind every one of them. From the second we wake up we have infinite choices in any number of different combinations as to where the day will take us. Sadly, this complication reaches far beyond our surface into the very depths of our existence. The things we ascribe to as our morals, ethics, and values are all part of the cacophony of choices facing us. It can be argued that the underlying foundation for all these choices that dictate how we comport ourselves to the world is our faith, whatever it may be in and however it may manifest itself.
Oswald Chambers was an evangelistic minister in England during the early 1900’s and is the well-known author of many books, including the daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest. One of the daily readings by Chambers speaks to the primacy of our personal relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Chambers does not refer in this particular passage to one’s receiving Christ as Lord and Savior, but instead to the daily walk one must endure in order to live a life bringing honor and glory to God.
What is interesting about Chambers’ point is his emphasis on the personal aspect of this relationship, and how that influences all other areas of life. One’s personal and private daily relationship to the Ultimate above us can sometimes go neglected, misunderstood, and underestimated. Often, rather than the daily relationship, the support systems surrounding the individual are considered with too much prominence. While these are good things and a blessing from God – Bible studies, fellowships, churches – they are not the ultimate authority nor do they contain the ultimate answers; they are fallible, man-made, and part of the fallen creation. Unfortunately, society gets caught in the discourse arising from organized religious structures and is worn down before it acknowledges its need for God’s truth.
What is it about the gathered masses that make them harbingers of such untruth? Soren Kierkegaard has several views on the dynamics of individuality versus existing as part of the crowd, the implications of which reach the shallowest facets of our cultural comings and goings to the deepest and most convicting aspects of our personal faith in Jesus Christ. In The Point of View, Kierkegaard attacks the crowd as untruth and focused on time-present, the finite and the temporal; the Infinite has no place in the crowd. Through Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard delves into the intricacies of the relationship between God and Abraham and Abraham and Isaac; and thereby examines what it is for one to exist in solitary obedience to God; the knight of faith.
Kierkegaard begins by speaking to the dichotomous views on the crowd, saying that one may look to the crowd to find truth while another may avoid the crowd, for within it lays the untruth. “…even if every individual, each for himself in private, were to be in possession of the truth, yet in case they were all to get together in a crowd – a crowd to which any sort of decisive significance is attributed, a voting, noisy, audible crowd – untruth would at once be in evidence.”
Each individual in the crowd seeks after themselves and forgets about what truly matters. “Hence where there is a multitude, a crowd, or where decisive significance is attached to the fact that there is a multitude, there it is sure that no one is working, living, striving for the highest aim, but only for one or another earthly aim; since to work for the eternal decisive aim is possible only where there is one, and to be this one which all can be is to let God be the helper – the ‘crowd’ is the untruth.”
In the crowd, each individual is focused on the temporal, the here and the now as opposed to the infinite and the eternal. Material goods and earthly worries consume the individual as opposed to concern for serving and glorifying the Infinite. Man looks to his left and to his right in an attempt at finding relevance; he does not look upward. The highest aim Kierkegaard speaks to concerns a life centered around God, something only attainable through His strength flowing through His people; hence the phrase, “God be the helper.” From this miniscule statement, much is divulged pertaining to Kierkegaard’s intentions.
The individual seeks the crowd because He fears the truth God will reveal to him, he fears living a life as God has called him. In the stead of this living, breathing, dynamic relationship with his Father in heaven, the individual seeks out a man-made construct that serves him as he attempts think his way to God and relate to Him on his own terms. In this circumstance, God is nothing more than the thing placed on a pedestal to live in relation to, not have a relationship with. Conversely, God truly desires direct interaction with His children; a Helper to the needy and the Truth beyond which there is nothing else. God is the Ultimate and the Inescapable, there is a reason He cannot be comprehended by man.
Yet what is it that has frightened the individual so much that he would run from the truth – God – and instead seek a falsifiable and fallen structure that forces him into serving himself rather than allowing him to serve His Father? For this it is necessary to turn to Fear and Trembling, in which Kierkegaard examines the anxiety and tension defining the life of an individual who follows God above all other directives; even forsaking moral law for the sake of a higher one – the teological suspension of the ethical.
In the Biblical passage recounting God’s instructions to Abraham concerning the sacrifice of his long awaited only child, much is revealed about the dynamics of the trust one has when living obediently for God. Abraham is asked, contrary to all ethical, moral, and logical considerations, to take his son up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. In this test of the devout the particular results of living the individual life for God are made visible; the silence a true follower of God might live in and the resulting implications are made frighteningly clear.
Abraham is devoted to both God, his Father in heaven, and his son, the lone child for whom he waited so long. In the tension that exists here, between obeying his Father and attempting to preserve the life of his son, faith appears. Faith exists insofar as it calls into question human logic and reason because they are fallible and based on man’s mind; faith defies the world system that wants to define man. “…Moreover, it must be fixed in one’s memory as the highest rule, that what has been revealed to us by God is to be believed the most certain of all things; and even though the light of reason should seem most clearly to suggest something else, we must nevertheless give credence to the divine authority only, rather than to our own judgment.” It is in this tension that the individual solely seeking after God, namely Abraham in this case, is resigned to live.
First, Abraham can speak with no one about what he has been told; what can he be but insane for attempting to explain a loving God has ordered him to sacrifice the son for whom he waited one hundred years. “Humanly speaking, he is crazy and cannot make himself intelligible to anyone.” Abraham must not disclose what has been revealed to him, so he continues existing as an individual quietly resolved to obey God no matter the implications; Abraham trusts God. Now the resulting implications of said silence come into play and the reasons the individual flees his solitude for the comfort of crowd, albeit the crowd of untruth, are elucidated.
Abraham has a faith in God that he will not betray, his foundation is on God and God alone; he places faith not in man-made structures of organized religion that have been fabricated by men seeking to use God, not be used by Him. As a result of this unbreakable faith, Abraham displays no visible struggle accepting what God has to say; once God says to wait, Abraham waits. When Isaac asks where the sacrifice is, Abraham explains God will provide the sacrifice. Through his unshakable faith in the living and breathing God with whom he has a relationship, Abraham is able to successfully live the solitary life of faith in God.
Conversely, the man who flees solitude with God for the untruth is the man who panics when he cannot comprehend the wisdom of God that transcends man’s thinking; the finite cannot grasp the infinite and this scares him. The reality is that God’s ways go beyond men and call the individual to existence as a being in the world but not of the world. The individual flees because he is attempting a self-sufficient life and has not the strength to see himself through. Apart from God’s strength in him, he has no ability to survive.
The individual with no understanding of God’s calling flees it in an attempt to comprehend it, yet he flees God’s call to understand it on his own terms, and in the wake he has left God behind. The man who flees forsakes the relationship by which God will show Himself as all knowing and all powerful when he too quickly abandons the place God has put him and runs for a place of supposed clarity and understanding.
In his concluding comments to the Individuality and Subjective Truth portion of The Point of View, Kierkegaard deals specifically with this issue of knowledge, or lack thereof, and the ability to believe despite this. “The truth is precisely the venture which chooses an objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite…But it is for this very reason that the inwardness becomes as intense as it is, for it embraces this objective uncertainty with the entire passion of the infinite.” Man cannot comprehend God, and that is His intension. Simply because humans do not see how and why God works does not mean God hasn’t got a firm grasp on His world.
The man who flees because he does not understand is missing the point; he is not supposed to understand. In the space where he is left open with no basis for belief is the space in which he flees; yet this is the very space where instead he needs to embrace that which he knows exists but cannot fathom because he knows It is larger than he. “…So the only thing that can save him is the absurd, and this he grasps by faith. So he recognizes the impossibility, and that very instant he believes the absurd; for, if without recognizing the impossibility with all the passion of his soul and with all his heart, he should wish to imagine that he has faith, he deceives himself…” The moment he realizes he cannot grasp the Infinite, he is to fall to his knees in broken desperation and cry out for God. Only through brokenness will the individual understand he is depraved and separate from God, realizing he has nothing to offer up to God of any value save for his humility and desire for God’s truth.
Yet at what point does the individual leave go of this world, and what are his intensions in finally doing so? The knight of Infinite Resignation forsakes this world because he knows he will gain it back. Through the knight’s recollection of the finite – the princess – he does not lose this world, he simply keeps it alive for himself in his mind and in his heart. “So the knight remembers everything, but precisely this remembrance is pain, and yet by infinite resignation he is reconciled with existence…This impossible however, the knight makes possible by expressing it spiritually, but he expresses it spiritually by waiving his claim to it.”
The knight of Faith looks strikingly similar to the knight of Infinite Resignation, indeed because externally they are one in the same. Both knights renounce this world and all it has to offer and look instead to things of greater importance. Where the knight of Infinite Resignation gives up this world for himself, the night of Faith gives up this world for the Infinite and Eternal, desiring not to serve himself as does the knight of Infinite Resignation, but instead to laud praises upon and glorify the Ultimate in everything he does. Only the Ultimate, as omnipotent and omniscient, truly can differ between the two; a startling reality, for is it not possible the knight of Infinite Resignation is deceived, believing he is seeking the Eternal yet still pursuing his own interests?
We return to Oswald Chambers and the personal, private, and daily relationship to the Ultimate; this relationship must be nurtured, energy dedicated to knowing the Ultimate and understanding what it is to live a life for Him and not one’s own self. Once focus is removed from the Ultimate, man embarks on a journey fulfilling only himself. Chambers often asks, “Who is on the throne, God or man?” The true romantic knows what his love desires because he cares enough to ask her what she desires; in the same way, the true knight of Faith knows enough that listening to the Ultimate is the only way to live a life in pursuit of Him.
Day by day it is a struggle to exist in relation to God who is beyond comprehension. Day by day it is impossible to exist for God when man attempts to dictate how God should relate to humans, and then attempts to live in relation to that concept on his own strength. However, there is a solution. Day by day, man has no task except to wake up and commit to weakness and humility, for only when man offers himself to God as empty will God fill him with Himself. The knight of faith lays down his claim to himself and this world, and in return he is awarded all he needs to survive; he is provided for through God. He lets go and is sustained not by self-fulfillment and turning inward, but by self-emptying and looking upward. “He resigned everything infinitely, and then he grasped everything by virtue of the absurd.”
“The knight of faith knows that to give up oneself for the universal inspires enthusiasm, and that it requires courage, but he also knows that security is to be found in this, precisely because it is for the universal.” Through man’s emptiness does God instill in him love, wisdom, and understanding; and then man has no task except to glorify God in all that he does.
I ran track all throughout college, and the first week of practice was always the hardest.
Sure, we had been running and lifting all off-season, but there was nothing that could match that first week; nothing could replicate the intensity, the fervor, and the harshness of that first week. Our coach was always there, guiding us and putting our hard work in perspective, reminding us to persevere. He was especially cognizant of the freshman, who had a tendency not to understand what we were doing or why, and was always careful to encourage them.
That is essentially what I Thessalonians is, a letter of encouragement and joy from the apostle Paul to a group of believers who were new in their faith; challenging these new believers to remain strong in their faith and persevere through persecution and opposition.
Paul makes it very clear in verse 1 that the church at Thessalonica is a true church, an ekklesia; “those who are called out, those who are called for a special purpose.”
In verse 2, Paul thanks God for the believers’ dedication and persistence, and brings their names before the Lord in prayerful petition. Paul is thankful for the fruits of grace that were revealed in the lives of the believers.
Verse 3 can be translated various ways:
NASB: constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and of our God and Father
NIV: We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
ESV: remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
The similarities in the words used within the verse is very striking: Work, labor, endurance, steadfastness, hope, inspired…it seems to me that Paul had something very important to say, something that isn’t quite captured by the English rendering.
When we break down the different words, we find the following:
Work is the word ergon, and denotes something by which an individual is occupied, something that takes up all their time and energy.
Faith is the word pistis, and carries with it the idea of faith, confidence, conviction, commitment, trust, fidelity, and guarantee. It is derived from peithomai (be persuaded, have confidence, obey).
Labor is kopos, and Paul envisions one who beats his breast with grief and sorrow when he uses this word, a beating of the breast which leads to intense labor.
Love is agape, agape being the highest form of the words used for love in the NT, meaning God’s love, love with deep respect, love according to value, love expressed in good will or deeds, love that manifests itself and puts itself on display; literally demonstration of love.
Steadfastness/endurance is hypomone, meaning endurance, from hypomeno, meaning to endure, to wait expectantly. The connotation is of someone who is not swayed from his purposes by even the most severe trials or sufferings. Those reading this in Paul’s time would envision this endurance as the most potent of all virtues, the vigor and perseverance of an Olympic athlete.
Hope here is elpis, referring to hope inspired by Jesus Christ, a confident, expectant, and joyful hope of salvation. This spiritual hope is contrasted with human hope, which is the uncertain or anguished longing for a desired good.
When we put verse 3 back together, we read Paul’s words in a slightly different light:
remembering all your time and energy occupied by obedient works of commitment, your passionate and intense labor of love that is not merely spoken, but demonstrated, and your confident and expectant hope in Jesus Christ, of which you are certain and for whom you endure all things.
Each of us have something that we chase, something that we desire above all else.
We may not be able to put our finger on it – name it or identify it – but it is there. Haunting us and taunting us, inviting us evermore to long for it and ache for it.
Identity. Purpose. Meaning. Happiness. Popularity. Contentment. Success.
I don’t know what it is, but I do know this: What we desire shapes who we are. What we long for – what it is in life that our heart breaks over not having – defines our very existence.
In the book of Genesis, we find Jacob working for a man named Laban. Jacob falls in love with one of Laban’s daughters, Rachel, and desires to marry her. Laban draws up a contract with Jacob in which Jacob would work for Laban for seven years in return for marrying Rachel.
However, Laban is deceitful, and after the seven years are up, he tricks Jacob, putting Rachel’s sister Leah in the marriage bed instead of Rachel. Jacob awakes the next morning and – realizing he was duped – is so overwhelmed with love for Rachel that he pledges another seven years of work in return for the right to marry Rachel.
In the same way, we desire something. We all are willing to sacrifice – to give of ourselves – to obtain what we desire.
We seek affirmation, emotional security, and love, and often seek it in the un-loveliest of places.
We – if given the chance – will alter our lives in some way to obtain what it is we desire; which always bears some significance on those around us.
So the question is, what we you desire? What are we seeking so feverishly? What is the ends by which we measure all our means?
What we desire will shape who we are; what do we desire?
I was asked awhile back what I thought a commitment to Christ entails.
I think, first, a commitment to Christ must be passionate.
I think of a parable Christ told in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 13:
“God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidently found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic – what a find! – and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.
Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.”
Can you imagine? A treasure so worthy, so rich, so precious, so magnificent, that you would be willing to sell everything for it. Your house, your car, your clothes – give up everything for the sake of having it.
That is a passionate pursuit of something more wonderful than words can imagine.
Christ is that treasure, so worthy and so deserving that we are called to give up our all – our everything – for His name’s sake.
We are told in the Gospel of Luke that after two individuals meet with Christ on the road and He explains the Scriptures to them, their hearts, “burned within them.” (Luke 24:32)
In all we do, may our pursuit of Christ be passionate; may our hearts burn within us as we seek Him.
Idolatry is a funny thing: we always imagine the big golden calf:
[ The Golden Calf ] Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
– Exodus 32:1
Kevin Smith's vision of a Golden Calf in DOGMA
Or, we think of forfeited grace:
Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs
– Jonah 2: 8
We don’t necessarily build little wooden statues in our backyard and burn incense to them, so therefore we must not be idolators, right? We take all the necessary precautions to avoid idolizing self, or money, of power, or countless other things that obviously lead us down the road to perdition.
But do we think of the good things in life?
Do we think of family? Or work?
How about church? Or maybe even [gasp] theology?
“What!?” you ask; how can the study of theology be anything but good and God glorifying?
Well, Carl Trueman says it better than I ever could, so here I will take my leave and allow him to explain it very clearly.
Have a good read – the next time we’re together we’ll unpack Trueman’s thoughts in general, and idolatry specifically.
