Foundations of Spiritual Formation II: The Disciplines of Life

Transcription

1 Foundations of Spiritual Formation II: The Disciplines of Life SF508 LESSON 03 of 08 Gordon T. Smith, Ph.D. President of resource Leadership International in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada This is lecture number 15 in the series entitled The Christian Life: An Evangelical Spiritual Theology, and I m continuing on the theme of prayer and discernment. So far what I ve sought to do in lecture number 14 was to identify prayer, to understand prayer from a theological perspective in its understanding and in its practice in the spiritual life. And now I want to address the whole matter of discernment. By discernment I m referring to the simple task of listening to God. I have sought to stress that prayer is not a matter of speaking to God; it is a matter of communion with God. It includes both articulating our aspirations, our longings, which we long to see, of course, aligned with the aspirations and longings of God, but it also includes listening to God. One of the most critical and deepest longings that we have as Christians is to know the voice of God. Often it comes at times when we are facing critical choices in the core of our being we long to be, we long for God to speak to us, to give us wisdom, to give us direction, to guide us in the midst of confusing choices. This sense of vulnerability in times of decision is accentuated for those who live in cities where the busyness and the noise that we have living day to day can bewilder and confuse us, especially in the array of the choices that are forced upon us. Discernment. Listening to God and knowing the voice of God is a critical skill, especially for urban Christians facing so many competing and demanding opportunities each day. But discernment is also necessary because we are so transient. The average urban dweller moves every three years. We face changes in our employment, in our place of residence, and in other aspects of our lives and our only hope for sanity is if we are able in some confident measure to know that we are able to speak with God, hear the voice of our loving Shepherd amidst competing voices and know that He is guiding us, that He is speaking to us, that He is present to us. It does not make sense for a Christian to live in constant anxiety and worry whether or not the right decision 1 of 16

2 is being made, worry whether or not the Good Shepherd knows us and guides us paralyzed by the circumstances of our lives. We cannot live straitjacketed by indecision; neither can we live continually second-guessing choices that we have already made. If we are able to live in inner peace and sanity, it will be because, I contend, we are able to know God s voice in the inner recesses of our lives; and surely the Bible is clear that God longs to guide us. God longs to give us the assurance about our today and our tomorrow. Surely as Christians we are able to live with confidence because we are called to live in communion with the living God. When we come to the New Testament in this whole theme of discernment and listening to God, it is clear that discernment is a matter of distinguishing the voice of God from the noise of this world and from the false witness of the evil one. To do this, we need to remind ourselves again and again that God is eager to respond to and guide His children. He is Father. He is Shepherd. He is loving King. He does not leave us stranded, but He willingly answers when we cry out. He speaks to us. He assures us of His love. He guides us away from sin. He grants us wisdom. The epistle of St. James assures us that God is the giver of all good gifts and that this includes the gift of wisdom. If we are in doubt, we read, we should ask for wisdom. God does not abandon us but grants us the deepest need that we have. The New Testament believer also needs to be discriminating, learning to discern false teaching from true teaching, false teachers from true instructors. But the critical act of discernment for us is that of recognizing the witness or, better put, the inner witness of the Spirit. We are enjoined in I Thessalonians 5:21 to test the spirits. This includes distinguishing authentic preaching from false (II Corinthians 11), discovering the prompting and guidance of the Spirit in organizational decisions (Acts 13:1-3), but it also includes recognizing the inner witness of the Spirit or the inner prompting of the Spirit. We live now in the age of the Spirit. According to St. John s gospel, Jesus advised His disciples that He would leave them if only for a time and assured them that He would return. In His absence He would send another Counselor, a Comforter who would be with them. He would send the Spirit of God. The Spirit would guide them into truth. The Spirit would convict of sin. Recognizing the prompting of the Spirit, therefore, is essential between Christ s departure and His return, if we are to live Christianly. There s an ancient word that describes all of this, it is the inner witness of 2 of 16

3 the Spirit: The assumption that we can speak of an inner witness by the Holy Spirit wherein the prompting we feel represents the direct unmediated voice and witness of the Spirit. The critical question for Roman Catholic Christians has tended to be: How does this relate to the authority and voice of the church? The critical question for Protestant and especially evangelical Christians has tended to be: How does this inner witness relate to the authority and voice of the written Word of God? And it s this perspective it s this interplay in particular that I am then going to address, given that I m addressing primarily an evangelical audience. How are we to understand this inner witness of the Spirit when it comes to its relationship to the objective witness we find in the inscripturated voice of the Spirit in the Holy Bible? First in this regard, I think it s helpful to... consider the input of the Reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin. The manner of the inner witness was something that they wrestled with regularly, but it was something they were fighting more than they were affirming. Nevertheless, their battles are instructive for us today. Martin Luther had a continuing battle with Thomas Muntzer whose group lived by daily witnesses from God and Luther s objection was that the group refused to submit to critical standards of examination, brotherly conversation, and the Bible. Luther obviously stressed the importance of Holy Scripture, but he also faulted Muntzer for the lack of commitment to spiritual community. True wisdom, Luther insisted, was not divisive but peace loving. The subjective witness must be balanced by the objective, the Spirit s witness through Scripture, and the Christian community. This, as we shall see, is the primary contribution of the Reformers to this whole matter of discernment and the inner witness. John Calvin is recognized by some for example, Klaus Bockmuehl, who used to teach at Regent College in Vancouver as the one who first introduced the expression the inner witness of the Spirit to Protestantism, if not to Christianity. Though he, Calvin that is, initially affirmed the reality of an inner witness, he ended up spending much of his public life fighting off those he termed spiritualists. But his condemnation of these groups was because they failed to be informed by and subject to Scripture. They sought inner illumination but they ignored the Scriptures. By the end of his life and teaching, Calvin even began to question the place of private Bible studying, insisting that the Spirit 3 of 16

4 speaks through the preached and taught Word exclusively. His hesitancy to affirm that the Spirit can communicate directly to the believer has shaped Protestant churches ever since then, particularly those in the Reformed tradition. It s unfortunate that Calvin had to react so strongly to the abuse of those he called the spiritualists; yet his perspective, taken together with the concerns of Luther, offer a valid lesson that any inner witness, any subjective prompting of the Spirit must be balanced, must be understood, must be heard in the context of the objective witness of the Spirit through Scripture on the one hand and the church or the Christian community on the other. If we neglect the Scriptures, and if we fail to live in mutual submission within Christian community, we have no context, no setting in which to be able to discern, to assess, to respond to the inner witness of the Spirit and know that it truly comes from God. But though Luther and Calvin provide us with the parameters, we need to look to others to enable us to appreciate the actual character or nature of this inner witness; and there are three voices each representing a different tradition that are particularly helpful in this regard. I find it noteworthy that the three voices come from different theological streams: Ignatius Loyola representing the Catholic Reformation, John Wesley the Wesleyan Armenian tradition, and the third one that I m going to look at is Jonathan Edwards, representing the Puritan Reformed tradition. And I m going to suggest or raise this possibility: that if these three voices all in some form or another point in the same direction, that we have something that is particularly instructive. All of this is rooted in the fact that I don t think the Bible itself specifies how this inner witness is supposed to be heard or understood or its particular content. That s why, as much as anything, we look to the Christian tradition to instruct us; and in looking at three different traditions Roman Catholic (at least a counterreformation or Catholic reformation, a Spanish mystical tradition), Wesleyan Armenian, and Puritan Reformed if all three point in the same direction, it seems to me that we have the weight of evidence pointing us towards a particular understanding of this inner witness. First, Ignatius Loyola, the 16th-century Catholic Reformation Spanish mystic best-known for his work The Spiritual Exercises, part of which includes the rules for discernment. These rules for discernment, as actually is the case with the whole of The Spiritual Exercises, summarize the wisdom of the late Middle Ages on discernment and on the work of Christ in the inner life 4 of 16

5 of the individual. These rules, the rules for discernment, serve as guidelines of the way in which the Spirit of God functions and the evil one responds together with the nature of the human mind. There are three things that I would note in particular from Ignatius understanding of discernment and of the inner witness, although he does not use that expression the inner witness. First, for Ignatius the first and most fundamental question is allegiance. The fundamental question is one of allegiance. In the Exercises, we read: In every good choice, as far as it depends on us, our intention must be simple. I must consider only the end for which I am created. That is, for the praise of God our Lord and for the salvation of my soul. That is, for Ignatius, nothing is so critical to understanding and responding to the inner witness, nothing is so critical to discernment as one s basic disposition or attitude. That is, we cannot know God and hear God speak to us unless we are clear about our ultimate loyalty, our ultimate allegiance. The central question is one of willingness to do the will of Jesus and a commitment to the glory and kingdom of the Lord. Effective discernment of the inner witness is dependent on allegiance to Christ. Thomas Green, a student of Ignatius, adds the following insight: that this commitment to Christ must include a measure of passivity or openness to God and the purposes of God. A religious zealot may be piously active but still unable to hear the voice of God. Misguided zeal can be mistaken for true loyalty. Selfimportant bustle can really replace a quiet devotion to Christ. Therefore, Ignatius sees discernment of the inner witness as taking place in the context of prayer; especially prayer where our loyalty to Christ is affirmed and our motives are purified. The greatest danger in discernment to our capacity to hear God is that our pride and our selfish motives would lead us astray; and in the setting of prayer, we can be honest about and clarify our motives as we seek to discern God s inner voice. Secondly, the teachings of Ignatius stress this: that when it comes to the inner witness, it is our feelings that we attend to, it is our feelings, our heart, the affective that we discern. Our feelings are the data that we use to reflect and analyze the inner witness of the Spirit. This does not for a moment mean that Ignatius would 5 of 16

6 imply that if something feels right, it is right. That if something feels good, then it must be from God. Not for a moment. Rather Ignatius then calls us to discern our feelings, to recognize which feelings represent genuine inner peace, genuine joy. It s only that he s recognizing the primacy of feelings when it comes to a recognition of the inner witness, and as we come further to discuss the matter of discernment, we ll come to then say: How do we test which feelings then have legitimacy? And then, thirdly, Ignatius stresses the importance of humility. That humility is essential for discernment. It is no coincidence that in The Spiritual Exercises the section on humility precedes the explanation of the three times for making a choice or a decision. For Ignatius, as for the late medieval mystics who shaped his thought, humility is seeing oneself in truth. This is also the understanding of humility that was articulated by Thomas Aquinas. Humility is, as true self-understanding means, that we see ourselves for all that we are our motives, our feelings, our weaknesses, and our strengths. Secondly, John Wesley (born in 1703), 18th-century leader and founder of the movement we now know as Methodism. When it comes to the inner witness, we are making a shift from Ignatius to Wesley, and obviously there s going to be a shift in language representing different eras, different spiritual traditions, different religious language. But it seems to me that the differences in language should not hinder us from seeing that they were describing something very similar. The vital elements of Wesley s theology that are relevant to a discussion of discernment include his understanding of the inner witness of the Spirit and his conviction about the safeguards that serve as parameters to this inner witness and his call to humility. Three things, then, with respect to John Wesley. First, Wesley spoke of the inner witness of the Spirit, and in so doing he affirmed the priority of the heart. His basic assumption was that true Christianity is rooted in a heartfelt encounter and response to God. His own perspective was profoundly shaped by his experience, and nothing in his experience was so formative in his religious development as a time when, in his words, his heart was strangely warmed, a phrase he would come to use to describe a God-given assurance of his acceptance in Jesus Christ. But Wesley lived and preached in an era that was suspicious of anything that threatened the rational on the one hand and the visible hierarchical authority of the church on the other. In a 6 of 16

7 rational age, Wesley could not live his confession down. He was accused of being a fanatic, an enthusiast, because he believed that there was a direct witness or experience of the Spirit by the Christian believer. He taught that the Holy Spirit could reveal Himself personally, a word from the Lord to the common believer. Wesley admitted that there was a real danger in acknowledging this kind of direct revelation from the Spirit. He saw the possibility of fanaticism and that people would presume to know the voice of God, but he also believed that the message of Scripture and of his Christian heritage was that the individual could know the witness of the Spirit. He built his whole doctrine on this matter around the pivotal expression of St. Paul: The Spirit witnesses with our spirit (Romans 8:16; see also Galatians 4:6). This concept assumes a union of spirits. Wesley believed therein there was a harmony, an understanding. The validation and primary expression of this union is joy, the joy of creature in union with its Creator, of child with father. Wesley described this witness of the Spirit as an inner impression on the soul wherein the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God, that Jesus Christ hath loved me, hath given Himself for me. That all my sins are blotted out and that I, even I, am reconciled to God. For Wesley, this confidence that we are loved and accepted by God is essential and foundational to the rest of our Christian experience. We cannot mature in faith, grow in love, and be men and women of hope unless we have an assurance granted to us by the Spirit in our spirits that we are children of God, accepted and forgiven by God. Wesley then begins here. But he goes further. He believed that the Spirit also shines upon His own work and clearly shows what He has wrought to quote him. That is, there s a continuous ongoing relationship with the Spirit. A Christian believer can know assuredly that his spirit is in union with the Spirit of the living God and live with this as a basic and most elemental fact of his or her existence. To be Christian for Wesley is to be in union with the Spirit, to be in fellowship with the Spirit. Vital to Wesley s doctrine at this point is the firm conviction that this inner witness of the Spirit would always have an outward expression. A test of this experience in inward knowledge is essential. Wesley himself noted how many have mistaken the voice of their own imagination for this witness of the Spirit of 7 of 16

8 God and then oddly presume that they were children of God while they were doing the works of the devil. Consequently, Wesley stressed that there were two signs that gave evidence of this union of the Christian with the Spirit. The first is confidence, an assurance that we are children of God, and the second is character, moral transformation that is the fruit of union with the Spirit. Wesley often quoted I John 2:3, We know we love God if we keep His commandments. Joy and the desire to do good and turn from evil might summarize this verification of this inward reality. The one without the other is not half the evidence. Inward joy and confidence of knowing that we are children of God must be accompanied by moral reform. Joy without transformation is mere sentimentality. Moral transformation without inner joy is morality, not true religion. Joy with the turning from evil to holiness is the essential stance that we have as we discern the feelings, the voices in our conscience, and make sense of the fellowship that we have with the Spirit of God. For Wesley, then, the heart is important to Christian experience. The inner consciousness of the presence of God is critical to our spirituality. The central feeling or the emotional state is joy, which for Wesley was a consciousness that the believer is a child of God, an awareness that brought assurance of personal identity with God, security with God, and acceptance by God. Thus, Wesley not only affirmed the inner witness and the priority of the heart, but also stressed safeguards and parameters to that inner witness. He spoke out of his own heritage, out of his own Anglican heritage. He was a churchman. He also believed strongly in the Scriptures, the role of the Scriptures and of the church and of reason and so affirmed that the inner witness of the Spirit would never contradict the Scriptures. The Spirit s inner witness would be in harmony with the Spirit-inspired written witness. Consequently, for Wesley, he could assert that a Christian believer matured in fellowship with the Spirit through prayer, but equally through rigorous study of the Scriptures. Then also, Wesley maintained that the church is a parameter of this inner witness. There are two dimensions of Wesley s thought here. On the one hand there s the tradition of Christian orthodoxy, but then also there is the community of likeminded believers. His assumption was that each 8 of 16

9 maturing believer was part of a small group or band of likeminded believers for worship, study, prayer, and discipline. And the third parameter was reason. Wesley always insisted that God s inner witness would not be irrational. He believed that God does not usually violate human prudence and seasoned human judgment. And then, thirdly, Wesley emphasized the vital place of humility. In this respect he echoes Ignatius Loyola. For Wesley, humility had several expressions. On the one hand, it included the awareness of sin and the need for repentance. On the other, it included courageous self-disclosure and honesty with God and before God. For Wesley, humility was necessary because of recognition of our own potential for self-deception. The knowledge that we all live with a practiced ability for self-deception and with misguided motives should, he would tell us, keep us humble. Finally, humility is the posture that keeps us disposed to the purposes and will of God. We are not manipulators of God. We can only attend to the inner witness if there s a fundamental humility, a fundamental meekness expressed in a submission of Spirit before the holiness and goodness of God. Only then is there knowledge of God. Only then is there a genuine attentiveness to the witness of the Spirit and the capacity to discern that Spirit. This submission is the antithesis of self-exaltation and selfcenteredness and only in this state of humility can we, properly speaking, hear God. John Wesley is usually, of course, associated with the movement known as Pietism. He s been identified by some as an enthusiast. His reputation in some circles is that he and his followers because of his emphasis on the affective were sentimentalist. In his defense, we need to state that Wesley definitely called for a religion of the heart, a faith that had profound emotional expression. But that in itself does not make him a sentimentalist or an enthusiast per se. Wesley s religion of the heart, his call for an affective faith, was affirmed within the context of the Christian community in submission to Holy Scripture and demanded the transformation of character. It was an affirmation of an inward reality that included objective verification. He did not call for a denial of tradition, reason, or the authority of Scripture. On the contrary, he affirmed all three, but he did so with a thorough conviction that the spirit of the believer could abide in fellowship with the Spirit of the living God and that we could know this, feel this, and live with this union as the dynamic center of our spiritual experience. 9 of 16

10 A third voice representing yet another tradition is that of Jonathan Edwards ( ), the American preacher, theologian, Congregationalist, Puritan. His most notable work in this regard is Religious Affections, at least notable in terms of its contribution to a discussion regarding discernment and this matter of the inner witness of the Spirit. The context in which Jonathan Edwards wrote was revival, notably what is now called the Great Awakening. His desire in the midst of a broad and powerful movement of the Spirit of God was to recognize and affirm where and when God was present and at work and when the supposed manifestations of God s presence could not be attributed to God. On the one hand, there were those who celebrated revival and viewed any emotional outpouring as wonderful and as a sign of God s blessing, a sure sign of the presence of God. And on the other, there were the critics who viewed the revivals as nothing more than emotionalism, what some called enthusiasm. Jonathan Edwards saw the need to defend the place of emotion in religious experience but also to respond with discernment and to recognize the potential for illusion. He was convinced that long-term revival would come through a critical and discerning response to revival experiences. What is intriguing is his methodology. Though a Bible scholar and theologian, his approach was phenomenological. He interviewed people thousands of them and in listening to what happened to them and the outcome of their experience, he came to some conclusions about the way in which the Spirit of God works. Edwards had an assumption that guided his investigation. The real test was the outcome, the fruit of the experience. For example, if we feel great grief for sin, it should result in a life that moves away from sin. If we have great joy in the midst of worship, it should lead to a life in which joy is more fundamental and central in our day-to-day experience. So Edwards interviewed, listened, and catalogued to see what it was that God was doing and to discern what was the manner of the work of the Spirit and the appropriate response. And to this end, Edward called for a discernment of what he called distinguishing marks. That is, the distinguishing marks of God s work. I quote, What I aim at now is to show the nature and signs of the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit by which they are to be distinguished from all things whatsoever that the minds of men are subject of which are not of a saving nature. He was keen to show, that is, Edwards was keen to show not so much whether God was active in an experience but how God was active. I m convinced, as an aside here, that his contribution is noteworthy 10 of 16

11 in many respects. It has great relevance in our understanding of worship in our practice of worship. For many, true and good worship is worship that makes us feel good, but we have little by way of critical discussion of whether such feel-good worship is really true worship. A contemporary passion for choruses, for example, is as much as anything a passion for worship that feels good. But is this true worship? If we feel good, does this necessarily mean that God is present and active in a manner that is transformative? And this was Edwards concern, to show how God was present in a manner that was salvific or redemptive. That is, a manner that could bring personal and corporate transformation. The problem for Edwards was twofold. What mattered was not the depth of emotion or feeling but rather: Through the experience was a person s life changed? Was there genuine transformation and spiritual growth? As I have already indicated, he challenged the assumption that if there was dramatic emotional experience then of necessity it must mean there was going to be a transformed life. Edwards conclusions then: First of all, for Edwards the substance of true religion is found in the affections. He used the words affections. Wesley would use the language of heart. Ignatius might use the language of consolations or feelings. That is, Edwards affirmed that as humans we have understanding, we have affections, and we have will. But his contention is that it is in the affections, in the heart, that we find the center point of the spiritual life. The affections represent the central or defining orientation of the human being. As John Smith, a scholar at Yale University, puts it in his analysis of Edwards: Affections for Edwards are the signposts indicating the central direction of the soul. Elsewhere he writes (still Jonathan Smith), The essential point is that the affections manifest the center and unity of the self. They express the whole man and give insight to the basic orientation of his life. True religion, in great part, consists then for Edwards in holy affections; and the essence of true or holy affections is love for and joy in Christ. He speaks of this joy as full of glory. In other words, Edwards acknowledges and affirms that the heart as found and expressed through affection or emotion represents the central part of true religion, though he does not speak of it as the whole of religious experience or religious expression. Secondly, having affirmed the priority of the heart, Edwards 11 of 16

12 identifies what he sees to be the distinguishing marks of the Spirit in and through the affections. Edwards concludes that the activity of the Holy Spirit can be identified with the affections of the soul, but, and this is crucial, along a similar line as we find in Ignatius Loyola, for Edwards not all emotional experience or expression is then by definition to be attributed to the Holy Spirit. Rather the affections must be tested. That is the focus of discernment is the affective because that is where the Spirit is at work. Therefore it is foolish to reject all affections because of the excess of some or the zeal of others. That is the role of the posture of the rationalist. But it is equally foolhardy to accept all affections uncritically. He taught that Satan sowed tares in true revival in the form of false affections that mislead the people of God, and the primary way in which the Spirit did this was to imitate true affections. Satan counterfeits the operations of the Holy Spirit. Thus, his conclusion again (as John Smith puts it so well): Affections are essential, but since there are false as well as true affections, critical tests are required. And the critical act then for Edwards would be to test the spirits. As a side note here, for many of the Puritans the true sign of God s grace was a certain order or rule of salvation, the order by which a person experienced conversion. But Edwards parts ways with the dominant views of the Puritans in this regard and insists that there s room for variety and diversity of experience, and therefore he rejects what is common among the Puritans, the idea that the Holy Spirit works in a particular order and that unless you have that order, your experience is not true. He comes to this conclusion not so much from a study of Scripture, as from his observation of the phenomena of spiritual experience. Further, and this is noteworthy, Edwards makes it clear that the ultimate test is one s test of one s own heart, one s own affections. There s a radical individualism here in part two of The Religious Affections. He speaks of the approval of the godly, as it is often phrased, where there s a contention that if you have had the right external judgment or verification of your own inward experience, it gives legitimacy to that experience. But Edwards was convinced of a central contention that in the end the judgment of another was unreliable and perhaps even impossible. We can only discern our own hearts, not the hearts of others. Therefore the testing of the Spirit s work can only be done by one s self for one s self. We seek the council of others, but we cannot pronounce final judgment on any but ourselves. 12 of 16

13 So Edwards response was to point his readers towards the certain signs of God s presence and saving work, what he called the distinguishing marks. Again it should be noted that he came to these conclusions on the basis of his observations. He was convinced that though the Scriptures describe the outcome of true religion, at no point in the Bible do we have the actual means by which we determine the presence of the Spirit. Edwards outlines 12 signs or 12 distinguishing marks, which I m going to summarize in four points four things that I think Edwards gives to us and I m summarizing, of course, here. First, a genuine inner witness of the Spirit arises from that which is spiritual. By spiritual, he does not mean nonmaterial. Rather, he means it arises from a posture or position of a soul that is in the Spirit as opposed to in the flesh, that is, oriented towards God and peace with God. In this respect, I would hear him as echoing the language of Ignatius who says that the fundamental issue is one s allegiance. Secondly, Edwards stresses that a genuine inner witness of the Spirit arises from a mind that is enlightened by truth. He refuses to separate or place in opposition the intellectual and the affective or the intellectual and the spiritual. There is in Edwards (as there is by the way in Wesley), there is no opposition between head and heart. The heart, the affective, is informed by truth. There s no tension between the affective and the rational. Thirdly, we are tended with humility and changed nature. Humility is central, but Edwards uses the whole of the Beatitudes to speak about what it means to have a changed nature. Note for Edwards pride is the greatest single enemy of the soul and of spiritual vitality. He writes, This is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of religion, and thus he places great priority, as do Wesley and Ignatius, on humility. And then, fourthly, there is fruit in Christian practice. There s fruit in Christian practice. There is in Edwards review of religious experience the conviction, as I ve already intimated or already indicated, that religious experience, however great and wonderful that experience is going to have, is going to be evident in love for others, the peace of God, the joy of believing, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in our hearts. These are all 13 of 16

14 significant but the ultimate expression of this is found in joy and in love for others. What I find remarkable as I read Edwards, along with Ignatius and Wesley, is that there s an extraordinary degree of convergence between them. I read about the priority of the heart, that discernment is a matter of attending to what is happening in the deepest core of our beings. I see the call for critical discernment in that not all emotional expression or experience is of God. There s the need for safeguards, the Scriptures, and the community of faith. And finally I see in all three the priority of humility. And thus I come to the following conclusions. That, yes, we must attend to the inner witness of the Spirit. Indeed, I would go so far as this, that if I want to live as an individual who honors and lives before God as a child of the Father, and if I want then to live in union with Christ, to know, to love, and to serve Christ with my whole being if I want to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ that the genius of this, as per our Lord s words in John 16, is that I live in intentional response to the inner witness of the Spirit. We can and must affirm the inner witness of the Spirit to the believer, not as a substitute, no, no, for the Scriptures; and not as a substitute for the ministry of the Spirit, but that which enables us to hear the Word, for the Word to dwell richly within us and that which enables us to live with integrity in the context of the Christian community. It enables us to hear the Word; it enables us to live with integrity in community. In my own mind, I ve come to the conclusion that the essence of being a Christian is found in intentional response to the inner witness of the Spirit. We can come to know, love, and serve Jesus, and we do so by attending to the Spirit that He has given to us. Secondly, as I listen to these three voices I come to a confirmation or an affirmation that this inner witness is found in the heart, which requires us then to recognize the priority of the heart in Christian discipleship. I m not going to outline this at length now. I m coming to a whole lecture entitled With Heart and Mind, in which I want to address extensively the whole question of emotion; and though it s taken for granted in this lecture, it will be outlined more at that point. To know then, thirdly, from these sources that we must test what s happening to us in our feelings, in our emotions, in the affective. To know when and where that feeling is genuinely from God; and 14 of 16

15 we need to hear the voice of the masters of Ignatius, of Wesley, and of Edwards who would guide us in this. And, fourthly, the ultimate critical test of the inner witness is the transformation of our behavior evident in joy, in confidence, and evident in moral transformation. I find it helpful then, in response to all of this, to recognize that the Spirit of God speaks to us in different ways. There are diverse ways in which the Spirit witnesses with our spirit, and while I don t claim for a moment to be exhaustive in this regard, I find it most helpful as we learn together, as we seek to respond together, recognizing together the inner voice of the Spirit, the inner witness of the Spirit to each of our hearts. I find it most helpful to affirm and you ll find all of this coming from the three traditions I have just described in light of the objective witness of the Spirit in the testimony of the Holy Spirit that generally speaking the inner witness or inner voice of the Spirit finds four distinct expressions. I m going to consider each of these four as we conclude this lecture and then going on to the next lecture I want to consider each of these four, but each of them is the voice of God to us that finds its primary, not exclusive, but its primary expression in prayer, that is, prayer is a time in which, yes, we speak to God. We affirm the articulation of our hopes, of our aspirations, of our longings to God. When we pray, we pray, Thy kingdom come. We speak these words. But prayer also includes attending to God, allowing God to speak to us, responding intentionally, discerning the inner witness in our hearts of the Spirit; for in communion there is speaking to God and there is attending to and listening to God. My observation is this: That I find it most helpful to recognize that there are four distinct dimensions to this inner witness of the Spirit. First, the Spirit assures us that we are loved. To use the language of John Wesley, the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, and I would contend that this is the most fundamental or most foundational witness of the Spirit to the Christian believer. Secondly, the Spirit convicts us of sin. Here I m following the teachings of our Lord in John 16, The Spirit, when he comes, Jesus says, the other counselor will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. One of the most vital dimensions of the Spirit s inner witness is that witness that calls us away from sin. The key issue here is we feel guilty, but then we need to discern whether or not this feeling is from God, when this guilt that we feel is from God. So first there is the inner witness of the 15 of 16

16 Spirit wherein our spirits are united with the Spirit of Christ in such a way that we are assured of God s love. Secondly, there is the inner witness of the Spirit wherein our hearts are convicted of sin and we are called away sin. Thirdly, there s the inner witness in which our spirits are illumined with truth and where the Spirit of God takes truth and illumines our minds and allows the Word of Christ to dwell richly within us; where our lives are transformed by truth through the inner witness of the Spirit illuminating us and enabling truth to dwell richly within us. And Jesus anticipates this, speaks to it also in John 16 when he speaks of the Spirit of truth. The counselor s name is the Spirit of truth who would guide His followers, guide His disciples in truth. And then, fourthly, is the inner witness of the Spirit that guides us in times of choice. And, of course, for many this is where they want to immediately leap to. They want to know the guidance of God. They want to be able to listen to God in times of choice and know that God guides them; and clearly we have the witness of Scriptures that this is the case: Abraham was guided by God. But in the New Testament we find a similar experience of the initial Christian community. Acts 13, for example, telling the initial leaders... the leaders of the Antioch church who were in prayer and fasting, telling them to set aside Paul and Barnabas. The Spirit guided them in a time of choice. Four, then, dimensions to the inner witness: The first, the assurance of love; the second, the conviction of sin; the third, illumination of truth; and the fourth, guiding in times of choice. I am convinced that each of these is distinct but that there s a distinct, logical progression to what I had just outlined. I ll outline these then in the next lecture and talk about the interrelationship between them. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 16 of 16