Joy

The ‘Now’ of Eschatological Joy (Take 1)

Tony Reinke Joy, Martin Luther

Martin Luther explained the symbolism of his seal in a letter to Lazarus Spengler (July 8, 1530):

Honorable, kind, dear Sir and Friend!

Since you ask whether my seal has come out correctly, I shall answer most amiably and tell you of those thoughts which now come to my mind about my seal as a symbol of my theology.

There is first to be a cross, black and placed in a heart, which should be of its natural color, so that I myself would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. For if one believes from the heart he will be justified. Even though it is a black cross, which mortifies and which also should hurt us, yet it leaves the heart in its natural color and does not ruin nature; that is, the cross does not kill but keeps man alive. For the just man lives by faith, but by faith in the Crucified One.

Such a heart is to be in the midst of a white rose, to symbolize that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace; in a word it places the believer into a white joyful rose; for this faith does not give peace and joy as the world gives and, therefore, the rose is to be white and not red, for white is the color of the spirits and of all the angels.

Such a rose is to be in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that such joy in the Spirit and in faith is a beginning of the future heavenly joy; it is already a part of faith, and is grasped through hope, even though not yet manifest. And around this field is a golden ring, symbolizing that in heaven such blessedness lasts forever and has no end, and in addition is precious beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable and precious metal.

May Christ, our dear Lord, be with your spirit until the life to come.

Amen.

Source: Luther’s Works, vol. 49: Letters II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Fortress, 1999), 358–359.

The Tone of Joy

Tony Reinke B.B. Warfield, Cross-centered life, Joy

Writes theologian B. B. Warfield (Works, 7:114):

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves. But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.

Adolf Harnack declares that this mood was brought into Christianity by Augustine. Before Augustine the characteristic frame of mind of Christians was the racking unrest of alternating hopes and fears. Augustine, the first of the Evangelicals, created a new piety of assured rest in God our Savior, and the psychological form of this new piety was, as Harnack phrases it, “solaced contrition,” — affliction, for sin, yes, the deepest and most poignant remorse for sin, but not unrelieved remorse, but appeased remorse.

There is no other joy on earth like that of appeased remorse: it is not only in heaven but on earth also that the joy over one sinner that repents surpasses that over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.

Lift Up Our Hearts!

Tony Reinke C.S. Lewis, Confessing sin, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Joy

C.S. Lewis wrote the following in a corrective letter to his friend, the 78-year-old Don Giovanni Calabria [12/26/51; Letters, 3:152]:

. . . This emboldens me to say to you something that a layman ought scarcely to say to a priest nor a junior to a senior. (On the other hand, out of the mouth of babes; indeed, as once to Balaam, out of the mouth of an ass!) It is this: you write much about your own sins. Beware (permit me, my dearest Father, to say beware) lest humility should pass over into anxiety or sadness. It is bidden us to ‘rejoice and always rejoice.’ Jesus has cancelled the handwriting which was against us. Lift up our hearts!

Permit me, I pray you, these stammerings. You are ever in my prayers and ever will be.

Farewell.

C.S. Lewis

Cheerful Labor

Tony Reinke C.H. Spurgeon, Joy

Charles Spurgeon said the following in sermon #537 delivered on October 18, 1863:

Labor is light to a man of cheerful spirit!

You can work all day and almost all night, when the spirits are right. But once let the heart sink and your soul lack encouragement, and then you grow weary, and cry, “Would God it were evening, and the shadows were drawn out, that we might rest from our toil.”

Success waits upon cheerfulness.

The man who toils, rejoicing in his God, believing with all his heart, has success guaranteed.

He who sows in hope shall reap in joy.

He who trusts in the Lord and laughs at impossibilities, shall soon find that there are no impossibilities to laugh at, for to the man who is confident in Jehovah, all things are possible. It is thus of paramount importance that the spirits of the Christian should be constantly kept up.

Romans 15:13

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Faith, Holy Spirit, Joy, spurgeon

Paul’s prayer wish for the believers in Rome:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

A collection of thoughts from my morning reflections:

  • God is the source and object of all hope.
  • Personal joy, peace, and hope are gifts from our gracious heavenly father–and he desires to give us more!
  • God fills us with joy, peace, and hope via our abiding trust in him. Personal faith and trust in God is the conduit God has chosen to communicate his joy, peace, and hope to us [causal: ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν].
  • Hope does not operate apart from our trust, the forward-looking aspect of our faith.
  • If I do not trust God for the future, I cannot experience his joy today.
  • In faith, the Holy Spirit fills us with hope.
  • Joy, peace, and hope are all external to us, they are gifts.
  • Piper: “Confidence in the promises of God overcomes anxiety.”
  • Faith’s object is the gospel (Rom. 1:16–17). To have faith in the gospel is to receive peace, joy, and hope.
  • Schreiner: “Faith and hope are functioning here as virtual synonyms, for the God who gives hope does so by increasing faith, which results in joy and peace.”
  • As we grow in our faith and in the content of the gospel promises we experience greater peace, joy, and hope. These are gifts from God.
  • Paul’s pastoral concern in this prayer for the Roman believers is simple: he wants to see them grow in faith in order to experience more of God’s abounding and abundant joy, peace, and hope.
  • Mounce: “Our role is to maintain a relationship of continuing trust in God.”

Joy’s Ignition

Tony Reinke Joy, Psalms, Rick Gamache

This Sunday at his church (Sovereign Grace Fellowship; Bloomington, MN), my friend Rick Gamache kicked off a new summer sermon series in the Psalms. The series begins with Psalm 33.

On the opening three verses (Psalm 33:1-3) Rick made the following comments in his sermon:

This is not a casual suggestion to worship God. This is not a suggestion at all. It’s a command. There are five imperatives in this three-verse invocation to worship. Here they are: “shout,” “give thanks,” make melody,” “sing,” “play.” We are to do all those things joyfully and so we are to do all those things very loudly. It is a call to passionate, exuberant exultation. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Joy is the soul of praise to God.”

This is a hymn to be sung when the people of God gather together. The Psalmist, by commanding that we worship joyfully, is saying that joy should mark the people of God. Joyful praise, the Psalmist says in verse 1, befits the people of God. In other words, joy is the appropriate response to God. It’s not the only response. There are other hymns that call for other types of response: stunned silence, or awe and wonder, or holy fear, or brokenness and contrition, or deep longings. But in all those other responses to God, there should be an undercurrent of joy because joy is the soul of praise. So when the people gather–like we are gathered this morning–the accent should be on joyful celebration.

Note that the joyful shouts and the joyful expressions of gratitude and the joyful singing and all the joyful playing are not tied to our circumstances.

Were not told:

  • Shout for joy in the Lord … if everything is going well with you.
  • Give thanks to the Lord … if everything went as you planned it this week.
  • Sing a new song to God … if you got a raise.

The imperatives are not tied to our situations or our circumstances. …

So what is all this joy about? Why give exuberant thanks? Why sing new songs? The Psalmist does not encourage us to put on a show. He’s not saying, “Gather with the people of God and when you do, do all that you can to appear joyful.” This is not a command to be disingenuous. The Psalmist and God expect us to experience joy–real joy–as we shout and give thanks and sing. And so the rest of the Psalm tells us why we should be joyful.

Three verses tell us what to do (1–3), and those are followed by 17 verses that specifically tell us why (4–22). And that’s evidence of the fact that we need all the help we can get to be stirred to joyful praise.

If you are anything like me, then you are fickle, you are distracted, your joy wanes, and sometimes it seems to disappear completely. And yet here is a call to joyful worship. Why? What or who ignites this joy? God. God is the one who ignites the joy. The 17 following verses answer why we worship with joy—because of God, who he is, and what he’s done for his people. God is the reason for our joy. And it is this joy that runs as an undercurrent and withstand all the attacks of life.