In St. John 7, we find that there is a prerequisite to spiritual illumination. Jesus tells us in v. 17, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” Obedience to what is known comes before understanding of the unknown. Instead of our saying, “Once I understand everything, then I’ll start doing it,” we should say, “I’ll start living by what I know now, and I will trust the Lord to help me understand more later.” That is the way to grow in spiritual illumination.
God’s truth always has a moral component. There is no such thing as something God has for us to know that is not also, in some way, something he has for us to be or do. Everything has its ethical implications. Also, God does not give us more illumination if we do not appreciate what we already have. As Jesus said in Matthew 13, speaking of spiritual illumination, 12: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance….” Thus, if we do not live out what we already know, we cannot expect to know any more. Indeed, we will begin to lose what little understanding we have gained, for, quoting Jesus again, “but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”
A failure to understand the moral element to spiritual truth is one of the things that is so dangerous about an academic spirituality. Sadly, we have Christians and churches who think that they have lives pleasing to God because they know so much. Their lives and their services are focused on religious academic learning. The sanctuary is a lecture hall, and the private devotion is like doing school homework. But if the learning does not lead to living, then it becomes false learning and spiritual ignorance. Those who seek to know so much, while neglecting the moral implications of all the things they are piling up in their heads, are in fact understanding less and less. Indeed, they may be able to parse the various views of the decrees of God, but frankly God doesn’t care, because Paul said, “If I have all knowledge … and have not love, I am nothing.” Academic learning is not the Christian life; it is meant to serve the Christian life. Christianity is about a Person, not a body of knowledge.
That is why churches have throughout the centuries had more than just three hymns and a sermon in their service. They did not gather to merely learn more of what the Bible says about things. They gathered to meet with Jesus. This is also why they constructed their sanctuaries to inspire awe and reverence. We don’t meet Jesus in some heavenly auditorium behind a podium; He sits on the throne of God, depicted in the Scriptures as a place of great majesty.
To help us avoid an academic spirituality, which misses the whole point of Christian learning, we must keep the sanctuary the sanctuary, the place where we are confronted with God through its appearance and the liturgy conducted therein. When we gather in Word and sacrament, in prayer and praise and public confession and dramatic ritual and all the other things we do, it all makes us realize that what we are about is more than systematic theology. We have come into the presence of God to meet with God and to be changed by the vision of his glory and grace in Jesus.
Academic spirituality fails because it is merely knowledge when God’s truth is a living thing. It also fails because it just plain misses the heart of the whole matter: the love and adoration of God. If there is anything our Bible knowledge is supposed to do in our lives, it is to make us lovers and worshippers of God. That is where we start doing the will of God so that we may better know the teaching of Jesus.
God’s truth always has a moral component. There is no such thing as something God has for us to know that is not also, in some way, something he has for us to be or do. Everything has its ethical implications. Also, God does not give us more illumination if we do not appreciate what we already have. As Jesus said in Matthew 13, speaking of spiritual illumination, 12: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance….” Thus, if we do not live out what we already know, we cannot expect to know any more. Indeed, we will begin to lose what little understanding we have gained, for, quoting Jesus again, “but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”
A failure to understand the moral element to spiritual truth is one of the things that is so dangerous about an academic spirituality. Sadly, we have Christians and churches who think that they have lives pleasing to God because they know so much. Their lives and their services are focused on religious academic learning. The sanctuary is a lecture hall, and the private devotion is like doing school homework. But if the learning does not lead to living, then it becomes false learning and spiritual ignorance. Those who seek to know so much, while neglecting the moral implications of all the things they are piling up in their heads, are in fact understanding less and less. Indeed, they may be able to parse the various views of the decrees of God, but frankly God doesn’t care, because Paul said, “If I have all knowledge … and have not love, I am nothing.” Academic learning is not the Christian life; it is meant to serve the Christian life. Christianity is about a Person, not a body of knowledge.
That is why churches have throughout the centuries had more than just three hymns and a sermon in their service. They did not gather to merely learn more of what the Bible says about things. They gathered to meet with Jesus. This is also why they constructed their sanctuaries to inspire awe and reverence. We don’t meet Jesus in some heavenly auditorium behind a podium; He sits on the throne of God, depicted in the Scriptures as a place of great majesty.
To help us avoid an academic spirituality, which misses the whole point of Christian learning, we must keep the sanctuary the sanctuary, the place where we are confronted with God through its appearance and the liturgy conducted therein. When we gather in Word and sacrament, in prayer and praise and public confession and dramatic ritual and all the other things we do, it all makes us realize that what we are about is more than systematic theology. We have come into the presence of God to meet with God and to be changed by the vision of his glory and grace in Jesus.
Academic spirituality fails because it is merely knowledge when God’s truth is a living thing. It also fails because it just plain misses the heart of the whole matter: the love and adoration of God. If there is anything our Bible knowledge is supposed to do in our lives, it is to make us lovers and worshippers of God. That is where we start doing the will of God so that we may better know the teaching of Jesus.
Comments