Tag: Thomas Watson

Affliction as Art

Post author By Clint
Post date October 29, 2019

No one likes affliction. We spend most of our time doing all that we can to avoid it, secure against it and make it go away.

Yet could it be that affliction can be used by God to create beauty? Can we appreciate affliction as art?

Consider that the lustre of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ shines more brilliantly against that dark backdrop of Adam’s fall into damnation. All of the other trials and triumphs of Scripture filter these contrasts with varying degrees of intensity.

Thomas Watson and the Limner

I didn’t know what a limner was when I read about one in Thomas Watson’s writing. A limner is an artist who illuminates manuscripts (like the beautiful work of the Lindisfarne Gospels). A limner can also be a portrait painter, especially of miniatures. Watson said:

As the limner mixeth with his dark shadows bright colours, so doth God mingle the dark and bright colours, his crosses and his blessings, and so causeth “all things to work together for good to them who love him.”
Puritan Gems; or Wise and Holy Sayings of the Rev Thomas Watson AM

So in Watson’s view there was a beauty that could be created using affliction in a Christian’s life. This is important for us to recognize because we can look at the dark colours only. We can forget that the afflictions are used to make the brighter blessings shine.

Monochrome Afflictions?

How frequently do our afflictions become monochrome in our sight? It is as if we are colour-blinded by the cares and sorrows of this world. But if we were to see the dark shades in something other than black and white, we would see the brilliance of God’s blessings in all their vivid tints and textures.

So the intent of these dark colours of affliction are to not to plunge into unrelenting darkness, but to celebrate the light and to point to the one who is the light (John 8:12). Even in the grand contrast of the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy which Paul explains in the ninth chapter of Romans, the art of comparison stands out vividly. The intent of God is to craft the dark hues which colour the vessels of wrath for a beautiful purpose. Paul says:

in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
Rom 9:23

The afflictions are intended to cause “the riches of his glory” to be set in contrast. But when they are compared, the conclusion is that that the glory is beyond comparison. As Paul said,

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison
2 Cor 4:17

The wonder of Rembrandt as an artist was that he could show the brilliance of light in contrast to the dark hues. God has an artistry that is incomparable to any other ‘creative’. The darkness of affliction has to be seen as part of God’s whole canvas for our lives.

Marvel and wonder at how God is even able to create art from affliction.

Andrian Valeanu

Tags Affliction, Art, Rembrandt van Rijn, Thomas Watson

Clint Gospel Puritans Suffering & Trials Theology

Our Heart’s Delight is in the Destination

Post author By Clint
Post date September 18, 2019

If you are raising kids you might have a plan for their schooling and their activities.

Or if you’re going to school yourself, you might have a path for the courses you want to take in order to start a career.

Or if you are in business you might have a map for the sales and the growth that you want to get.

All of us have plans and tracks and maps.

But often we find ourselves with the wrong map, or what we think is the right map with the wrong destination.

Just ask the person next to you when was the last time you were lost. Did you look at the GPS? Did you ask for help?

Your answer to that question might depend on whether you’re male or female.

The Philippian Church thought that they had arrived. They were mature. They had a connection to an apostle. They were successfully Roman in a Roman World. But they had become discontent, divided, and despairing.

They had gotten off track. They thought they had arrived, but they still had a long way to go. They thought that their success, or their status, or their theology could make them happy.

Is that you this morning? Have you been tempted to think that you’ve arrived?

When we look to the Word of God, we may discover that some of us here have not arrived and are lost— horribly lost. Or we may find, that the destination we’ve mapped for our joy is totally wrong.

Instead, we need to map our joy— so that in the Lord, we rejoice— always (Phil 4:4)

The Start and Finish

Paul starts with this command: Rejoice. What is joy? Joy is the heart’s delight in the heart’s destination. As Augustine, the 5th Century North African theologian said:

You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.
Confessions and Letters of St Augustine, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1:1

Are you restless today? Maybe it is because you are not delighting in God, nor finding your rest in God. Maybe your heart’s delight is aimed at the wrong destination.

Remember how Jesus had joy and delight in doing the Father’s will? In the language of Psalm 40:8: “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” On the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Lk 22:42). How could he say that? As Hebrews 12:2 says about Jesus, it was, “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Joy is Commanded

John Piper, has written more on Joy than any modern writer. He describes his awakening in 1968 to the importance of joy for the Christian. He said:

Perhaps most shocking to me in 1968 was the simple and obvious observation that this joy in God is commanded.

The Psalms are littered with joy in God commanded for us:

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 33:1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.
Psalm 32:11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

So our joyless-ness is disobedience.

Are There Two Classes of Christian?

Now before you balk at that. Just let that sink for a minute. Paul’s command to rejoice always might tempt you to think that there are two classes of Christian. Joyful Christians and UnJoyful Ones.

But there are not two classes of Christian. Paul commands all believers to rejoice. Paul and James are in complete agreement here. James opens his letter with this command to rejoice, in trials even:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4

Where is the sphere of your joy? Where is it located? If you were to show me a map of where your joy is could you direct me there? For the Christian, they are always driving to the Lord, and their joy is located there.

The Happy Place

The Christian may not be always happy with circumstances, but they are happy in that location— in the Lord. Consider this “happy place” that is “in the Lord”

In his love for you
In his forgiveness for your sins
In his cleansing of your guilt
In his Holy Spirit, who is your Holy Spirit
In his Father, who is Your Father
In his Rule and Reign
In his soon return.

The Puritan Thomas Watson made the observation that, “one smile from Christ’s face will make us forget all our afflictions.” This is why our joy is a fruit of the Spirit, as Galatians 5:22 says.

Our joy comes from God because our heart’s delight is our heart’s destination.

photocredit

Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau

Tags Augustine, Thomas Watson

Canada Clint Puritans Spiritual Growth

More Beauty Than The Beach or The Mountains

Post author By Clint
Post date August 7, 2019

When weary-ness with the world collides with spectacular natural beauty, our soul aches for heaven. Often this soul ache will become acute when you pause from your routine and see the glories of God on earth. It is in that paused moment that we can meditate on the glories of God in heaven.

Natural Beauty and Heaven’s Glory

Passing over the Rocky Mountains, the landscape is so vast that it cannot be comprehended, even as the sky-scraping beauty of the peaks stretches our ability to appreciate them.

Heaven is greater than the Rockies.

The problem is the same only worse. To see God in heaven is to be stunned with infinite brilliance which the creaturely capacities cannot encircle. Our souls will have new capacities which heaven will require, but they will still be limited as mere creatures. But imagine that in the resurrection, we might taste colour or see smells all while hearing textures. Heaven will be a blessed sensory overload for eternity.

When the Novelty Wears Off

Our capacity to know incomprehensible beauty on earth has another problem. No matter how stunning the initial sight of the peaks or the waves or the rivers and canyons, after a short time, the brilliance of the beauty fades. Our sin-marred finiteness thinks everything is a little bland after a while. People who live in the mountains may like the peaks, but they don’t gaze at them like the first-time visitor. Ocean-scapes arrest the attention of someone who has never been to the beach. But after a week, the novelty wears off.

Heaven doesn’t wear off.

Heaven will be stimulating and enlivening with such electricity that only God’s act of protecting his redeemed could permit a person to stand it. Without God’s work of glorifying the saint, we would not be able to cherish Christ forever. We would get bored if our sin came with us to heaven. Sin would make us get tired of seeing the face of Jesus. We would think angel armies would be just more of the same, instead of being repeatedly astounded by the purity of the seraphim surrounding the court of God.

“The quintessence of all delights”

The Puritan Thomas Watson spoke of the glories of heaven:

Is there a kingdom of glory coming? then see how happy are God’s saints at their death! They go to a kingdom—they see God’s face, which shines ten thousand times brighter than the sun in its meridian glory; they have in the kingdom of heaven the quintessence of all delights; they have the water of life, clear as crystal; they feed not on the dew of Hermon, but on the manna of angels. In that kingdom the saints are crowned with perfection; the desires of the glorified souls are infinitely satisfied; there is nothing absent they could wish might be enjoyed; there is nothing present that they could wish might be removed.
Puritan Gems, 74.

When we look at natural beauty in a mountain lake or a baby’s face, we need to remember that as our appreciation fades, we are being reminded that the world is not our home (Heb 13:14)

The highest heaven is where we belong.