Define “Christian”. What does it mean? Shift your mind out of neutral for just a moment this morning and think. What is the essence of Christianity? When the secondary issues are set aside, when the extra baggage is eliminated, when all the superficial junk so often associated with Christianity is done away, what is left? What does it mean to be a Christian? Define it in the purest, simplest, most basic and foundational terms.

I suspect that if we actually did that this morning and you each turned in your answer on a piece of paper, we’d have an incredibly enlightening experience reading them aloud. More than enlightening, it might even in some cases prove shocking.

I ask this question of you today simply because I believe Peter provides an answer in the passage before us. I have a theory about v. 8 of 1 Peter 1. I believe that what is being described here is quintessential Christianity. Don’t you just love that word: quintessential! Love it? Sam, I don’t even know how to spell it!

If you look it up in a dictionary, quintessential means “the pure and concentrated essence of a substance,” or “the most perfect embodiment of something.” So, what is quintessential Christianity?

Going to church? Tithing? Not getting drunk? Being baptized? Praying? Is that the purest and most concentrated essence of Christianity? Is that “the most perfect embodiment” of what it is to be a Christian? I certainly hope not. That’s not to say those things aren’t important, but there has to be something more basic and fundamental in being a Christian.

And Peter tells us what it is, right here in v. 8. Now, why do I say that? Where do I get off making such a grandiose claim? My justification for making this claim is the context in which v. 8 is found, more precisely, vv. 6-7 that we looked at last week. Let me explain.

The recipients of this epistle were enduring “various trials” (v. 6): persecution, oppression, slander, and affliction. One need only glance at 1 Peter 1:6; 2:20-21; 3:17; and especially 4:12-18 to see this is true. He makes it clear here in chapter one that our ability to rejoice simultaneously with the anguish of trials and troubles is based on several things.

Peter first reminds his readers of the duration of trials and suffering. He says in v. 6 that they are "for a little while." In other words, they are temporary, not eternal. Trials and pain will pass. No matter how bad it gets here on earth (and yes, it can get incredibly bad), one day it will give way to the glory and pleasure of heaven (see 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Knowing the duration of trials and suffering gives us strength to endure without taking offense at God.

He then points, secondly, to the design of trials. In v. 7 he says that suffering works to purify our faith. His point is that God never wastes pain, and therefore neither should we. The trials and tribulations of this life serve to sanctify us and to conform us to the image of Jesus himself. 1 Peter 1:7 thus reminds me of two verses in Psalm 119.

"Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Thy word" (119:67).

"It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes" (119:71).

Such experiences have a unique capacity to highlight the differences between what is true and sincere in the heart of a person as over against what is false and hypocritical. They cause the genuine beauty of true spirituality to appear more clearly. Do you not find it to be true that when you suffer you either become embittered toward God or press into his heart more fervently? In other words, it’s really hard to be a hypocrite when you are hurting. Pain and suffering and hardship tend to expose the true state of your soul. They expose your heart and its affections and your faith for what they really are.

A close look at v. 7 indicates that Peter wants us to envision the parallels between the effect of fire on gold and that of trials on faith. His point is that just as fire burns away the dross and alloy from gold, leaving it pure and solid, so also the flames of trials and tests and oppression burn away the dross of our faith. Hypocrisy and superficiality and self-confidence and pride and reliance on money and achievement do not easily survive the flames of persecution and tribulation (see Psalm 66:10; Malachi 3:3; Isaiah 48:10).

If we follow the logic of Peter’s thought in vv. 6-7 we discover that v. 8 describes what is left of Christian faith that has passed through the furnace of afflictions. In other words, v. 8 is Peter’s portrayal of the end product of persecution and pain. This is Christian experience in its purest and most pristine form. This is quintessential faith, first-rate faith, faith that is as free as it can be, this side of heaven, of sinful additives and preservatives! Peter has no illusions of perfection, but he does envision a relationship with Jesus absent the peripheral elements. This, says Peter, is the very essence of authentic Christianity.

Let me illustrate what Peter means. Formulate a mental picture of a solid block of granite, untouched by human hands. When a master sculptor approaches such an object, he takes hammer and chisel and, in effect, begins to chip away everything that doesn't look like a human. He cuts, hammers, and pounds away until the finished product stands before us in all its glory. In a sense, that's what God does with us through our trials and oppressive circumstances. He uses them like a spiritual hammer and chisel to chip away from our lives everything that doesn't look like Jesus! The result is what Peter describes in 1 Peter 1:8.

Or consider the athlete who fails to maintain a strict training regimen. He becomes a couch-potato, eating and drinking and refusing to exercise. Over time his muscles suffer from atrophy. He gains excessive weight. His reflexes aren't as sharp as they used to be and his lung capacity is greatly reduced. When he runs (if he ever gets off the couch), his legs feel heavy and lifeless. Then he recommits himself to a rigorous exercise program. Over the next few weeks he burns away body fat and strengthens his muscles. His endurance level increases and he returns to his former shape. The result is a finely honed body, ready for competition. The physical effect of exercise on his body is analogous to the spiritual effect of trials on our faith.

So what am I saying? Simply that 1 Peter 1:8 portrays for us what Christian faith looks like when refined and shaped and purified by the fire of hardship and tribulation. Here is Christian faith in its preeminent expression.

And of what does it consist? What is quintessential Christianity? Loving Jesus. Trusting Jesus. Enjoying Jesus.

Let’s look at this more closely.

First, observe that in v. 8 Peter says that his readers, and of course this would include you and me also, have never “seen” Jesus in the past and even “now” do not “see” him. Peter and the other apostles and hundreds of men and women who were contemporaries of Jesus and lived in Palestine when he did, had the incredible privilege of seeing the Son of God incarnate. They were eye witnesses of the God-man Christ Jesus. We are not.

But don’t think that puts you at a disadvantage to them. As great and glorious as it would have been to see Jesus, the fact that we didn’t does not mean that our faith and love and joy in him is any less genuine or less fervent or less passionate or less pleasing to God. Of course, the day is coming when we will see him perfectly and forever, but at least for now, we are in the same position as were those to whom Peter wrote his letter.

In fact, let me go even further and say something that may strike you as outrageous when you first hear it. I first heard it from a sermon that John Piper preached. I thought he was nuts when he said it, but on deeper reflection, I think he’s right.

“The gospels,” said Piper, by which he means the written record of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, “the gospels, are better than being there!”

“Hundreds of people in Jesus' lifetime saw him physically and never really saw him. ‘Seeing they did not see,’ Jesus said. There is a seeing that is infinitely more important than seeing with the eyes. In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul describes it like this: ‘The God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.’ There is a spiritual seeing in the heart of the glory of God in the face of Christ, and without it no one is saved.

How does it happen? How is this kind of seeing happening? It happens through the Word of God. When the gospel of Christ is preached, we can see Christ more clearly for who he really is than many could see in his own lifetime. If you read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with openness to Christ, you can see the true glory of Christ far more clearly than most of the people who knew him on earth could see him—Nicodemus, the Syrophoenician woman, the Centurion, the widow of Nain, Zacchaeus, the thief on the cross, the thronging crowds. They saw a snatch here and a snatch there. But in the gospels you get four complementary portraits of Christ inspired by God and covering the whole range of his teaching and his ministry.

The gospels are better than being there. You are taken into the inner circle of the apostolic band where you never could have gone. You go with him through Gethsemane and the trial and the crucifixion and the resurrection and the meetings after the resurrection. You hear whole sermons and long discourses—not in isolated snatches on hillsides but in rich God-inspired contexts that take you deeper than you ever could have gone as a perplexed peasant in Galilee. You see the whole range of his character and power which nobody on earth saw as fully as you can now see in the gospels: you see his freedom from anxiety with no place to lay his head, his courage in the face of opposition, his unanswerable wisdom, his honoring women, his tenderness with children, his compassion toward lepers, his meekness in suffering, his patience with Peter, his tears over Jerusalem, his blessing those who cursed him, his heart for the nations, his love for the glory of God, his simplicity and devotion, his power to still storms and heal the sick and multiply bread and cast out demons.

Though you do not now see him, yet in another sense you do see him far better than thousands who saw him face to face. You see the glory of God shining in this man's face at every turn in the gospels. And because you see him with the eyes of the heart, you love him and trust him and rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. This is true Christianity.”

Now, whether or not you agree with Piper isn’t important. What’s important is to realize that your historical distance from Jesus in the first century is no impediment or obstacle to your loving him and trusting him and enjoying him. That’s the important thing to remember!

So, if not physically seeing Jesus is no hindrance to true Christian faith and life, what is the quintessence of it? What is Christianity? What does it mean to be a Christian? Peter mentions three things.

First, it is loving Jesus. The word “love” itself needs defining because today it can mean almost anything which means it means almost nothing!

When Peter speaks of loving Jesus he means unashamed, extravagant affection for the Son of God. Though we do not see Jesus with our physical eyes, we still love him. One need not see Jesus in the flesh to experience unbridled passion for him. Rather, we see him in the revelation of God’s Word and the Spirit quickens in our hearts and souls an affections a passion and love for him that is undeniable and unquenchable. The first and greatest commandment is that we are to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, and will. That is what Peter has in mind here.

When King David spoke of this kind of passion for God he compared it to the plight of a thirsty deer, alone and desperate in the desert. Even as the deer pants after the water brooks, so our souls long for the Son of God (Psalm 42:1-2; cf. 63:1). To love the Son of God, to experience passion for Jesus, is to yearn from the depths of one's being for his presence and his smiling approval. To love him with the energy of our whole soul is to settle for nothing less than his will and his ways.

Loving Jesus means experiencing him as precious and dear for all his character and virtue. It means prizing him above all that is prized. It means valuing him above all that is valuable. It means treasuring him above all that is costly. It means praising him above all that is praiseworthy.

Second, it is trusting Jesus. The word “believe” in v. 8 means more than giving mental assent to doctrinal truths about Jesus. It certainly includes that, and any attempt to trust someone you don’t know is ridiculous and dangerous. If you naively say you are trusting “Jesus” but refuse to describe and assert certain things about the “Jesus” you are trusting, you may end up trusting a figment of your own imagination.

But there is far more involved. It also means yielding to him, relying upon him moment by moment, entrusting ones soul to him, turning to him at all times for strength and encouragement and hope. It means experiencing him as reliable in all that he has promised. It means obeying him in all his counsel and guidance.

Can you imagine saying to the Lord Jesus, “I love you, but I don’t trust you”? Or conversely, “I trust you, but I don’t love you”?

Third, it is enjoying Jesus.

The end-product of a faith that has been purged and purified is joy inexpressible and full of glory. This isn’t to say that joy is absent prior to the onset of trials. We are responsible to “rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16), before, during, and after hardship. Peter’s point is simply that the quality and sincerity and fervency of joy are both refined and intensified by trials. Thus far from being secondary or something to suppress and avoid, joy is described here as that which characterizes Christian experience in its highest and most sanctified form. Two things in particular are said about joy in Jesus.

First, Peter describes it as being inexpressible or unutterable. This is a joy so profound that it is beyond mere words. It is ineffable, all-consuming, overwhelming, speechless joy! This joy defies all human efforts at understanding or explanation. The words have not yet been created that would do justice to the depths of this kind of joy. The human tongue has not yet been found that can articulate the heights to which this kind of joy elevates us. You’ll never know this kind of joy until you can’t find words to describe it. This is joy that declares, “I will not be confined to the dimensions of your mind or reduced to the definitions in your dictionary.”

Second, Peter also describes this joy as full of glory or glorified. This word evokes images of God's glory in the Old Testament, that bright, shining radiance of his presence. This, then, is a joy shot through and through with the resplendent majesty of the beauty of God's being. It is not fleshly joy, or worldly joy, or the joy that comes from earthly achievements or money or fame. It is a joy that has been baptized, as it were, in the glory of God himself.

But there may be even more involved in Peter’s use of the phrase “filled with glory.” The “glory” here may also be a reference to the glory of the coming age when our salvation is consummated and we enter into the fullness of our relationship with Christ. His point then would be that even now, in the present, though we do not see Jesus, we experience something in advance of the great and indescribable glory of that coming day. The future glory has broken into the present and changed us forever.

In the final analysis, what makes this joy good and godly and holy, rather than the kind of carnal and depraved and useless joy so often evident in our world? What makes joy ugly or beautiful? Depraved or noble? Dirty or clean? The answer is, of course: the thing enjoyed. That is what determines the character or moral quality of joy and ultimately determines the moral quality of your own soul.

If you enjoy pornography or deceitfulness or people who have abandoned integrity and purity, then your heart is dirty and your joy is dirty. If you enjoy cruelty and arrogance and revenge, then your heart and your joy have that character. Or the more you get your joy simply from material things, the more your heart and your joy shrivel up like a mere material thing. You become like what you crave. That is why the focus of our joy must be Jesus!

We must also be clear about the inter-connection or inter-relationships between love, faith, and joy. You can’t have one without having all three.

For example, would it not be a contradiction to say: “I am attracted to the precious and sweet character of Christ, in other words, I love him, but I don’t think I trust him. I’m not inclined to believe what he says or put my confidence in what he’s done.”

Or again, it would be a contradiction, would it not, to say, “I am confident and persuaded in the promise of what Christ will do for me, but I don’t love him. I really have no good feelings in this confidence. I have no passion or affection of joy or love in this trust.”

In fact, Peter appears to suggest that the joy in Jesus which transcends human speech is itself the fruit of our faith in him. How could it be otherwise? One cannot meaningfully rejoice in a person of whom one knows nothing! Our knowledge of the incarnate Christ and his redemptive work is the foundation of our faith in him to be true to his covenant commitment. And faith or belief in the integrity of his person, the saving power of his atoning death, and the literal reality of his life-giving resurrection is the soil in which the flower of inexpressible joy blooms.

Similarly, love that is not tethered or tied to or rooted in the revelation of the one true God easily becomes idolatry, and joy that is not deeply rooted in the historical realities of what Christ has accomplished is little more than infatuation. When trials ensue (as vv. 6-7 indicate they most assuredly will) such fleeting feelings, divorced as they are from truth, will collapse, a mere subjective vapor of little value in sustaining the human soul.

The joy that Peter portrays as the quintessence of Christian experience is one that erupts from the volcanic depths of knowledge of the truth. This is joy that energizes and empowers the human heart to withstand any and all trials. This is the joy that elevates the human soul to heights of confident celebration, a delight that no pain or tribulation or shattered dream can diminish.

So, in a word, Peter envisions the pinnacle of Christian living as a dynamic interplay between solid, substantive belief in all that God is for us in Jesus and a joy and affection for Jesus that quite simply exceed the capacity of the human mind to grasp and the human tongue to utter. Not all the collective brilliance of the human race can conceive or articulate the heights of joy and love that are available to the believing heart.

Objections

Not all Christians are happy with that sort of language. In theory they may nod their heads, but when it comes to their own religious experience, affections such as Peter describes are either dismissed as undignified and indecent or as incompatible with a faith that is rigorously intellectual. Some fear that people who feel passionately do so as an excuse for not thinking profoundly. These people are often secretly terrified of their feelings. They view their passions and affections as an alien element in their psychological makeup, a dangerous and threatening intrusion rather than a divinely ordained feature of what it means to be created in the image of God.

Such folk concede that we may not be able to escape or entirely suppress our affections, but we should be leery of them. They have the potential to submerge our souls in the murky waters of fanaticism and subjectivity and must therefore be monitored with great care and concern. It’s not surprising that there is great suspicion toward anything that might arouse or evoke our affections or lead to their public and overt expression.

In fact, instead of the word “feelings” or “emotions” let’s use the word affections to describe what Peter has in view here in v. 8.

Affections are more than ideas or thoughts or intellectual notions in our heads. They are lively and vigorous passions, for example, of either delight, love, joy, and hope, on the one hand, or displeasure, hatred, grief, or despair, on the other. When we evaluate our response to someone or something in life, we use such terms as sorrow, happiness, revulsion, attraction, bitterness, anger, peace, fear, and delight.

Affections and Christian Living

So the more important questions is: "What role, if any, do the affections play in the Christian life?"

Although it may not be immediately evident, I believe Peter is telling us that, far from being secondary or sub-Christian, the very essence of Christianity is the enjoyment of sanctified affections. Let me say it again with even greater emphasis. What characterizes the Christian life in its purest and most concentrated form is the enjoyment of sanctified or holy affections.

One can easily point to numerous texts of Scripture that seem to portray the essence of our relationship with God as more than merely mental or intellectual. Our affections or emotions are absolutely crucial. For example, we are often commanded to experience joy (Psalms 37:4; 97:12; 33:1; 149:2; Matthew 5:12; Philippians 3:1; 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:16). We read of the critical importance of fear and awe of God (Jeremiah 17:7; Psalms 31:24; 33:18; Psalms 146:5; 147:11; Romans 8:24; 1 Thessalonians 5:8; Hebrews 6:19; 1 Peter 1:3), together with hope (that confident expectation and yearning for the future consummation of all that God has promised; see Psalms 31:24; 33:18; 146:5; Jeremiah 17:17; etc.), hatred (Proverbs 8:13; Psalms 97:10; 101:2-3;119:104; etc.), holy desire (Isaiah 26:8-9; Psalms 27:4; 42:1-2; 63:1-2; 84:1-2; etc.), and sorrow and mourning (Matthew 5:4; Psalms 34:18; 51:17). I could also list numerous texts that speak of gratitude, compassion, mercy, zeal and the like, each of which is a passion, an emotional energy that characterizes our relationship both to God and his people.

People of Passion

A brief look at a few key figures in Scripture also reveals how much of their relationship to God was wrapped up in passion and affection. Consider David, King of Israel and prolific psalmist. I think most Christians turn instinctively to David’s poetry for devotional meditation or during times of depression because of the honesty of his desperation for God and the intensity of his spiritual appetite. As Edwards notes,

"Those holy songs of his . . . are nothing else but the expressions and breathings of devout and holy affections, such as humble and fervent love to God, admiration of his glorious perfections and wonderful works, earnest desires, thirstings and pantings of soul after God, delight and joy in God, a sweet and melting gratitude to God for his great goodness, holy exultation and triumph of soul in the favor, sufficiency and faithfulness of God, his love to, and delight in the saints, . . . his great delight in the Word and ordinances of God, his grief for his own and others' sins, and his fervent zeal for God, and against the enemies of God and his church” (108).

Another example would be the apostle Paul. Although you may not think of Paul as an emotional or passionate person, there is hardly an epistle he wrote that does not drip with feelings and earnest longings of soul and spirit.

Paul's letters are filled with references to his overflowing affection for the church (2 Corinthians 12:19; Philippians 4:1; 2 Timothy 1:2; and especially 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8). He speaks of his "bowels of love" (Philippians 1:8; Philemon 12,20) for them, of his pity and mercy (Philippians 2:1), of his anguish of heart and the tears he shed for their welfare (2 Corinthians 2:4), of his continual grief for the lost (Romans 9:2), and of his enlarged heart (2 Corinthians 6:11). Countless texts could be cited in which Paul portrays his life as filled with godly passions and desires.

Surely Jesus himself was a passionate man greatly moved in heart and spirit with holy affection. He was not ashamed or hesitant to pray with "loud crying and tears" (Hebrews 5:7). The gospel writers speak of him as experiencing amazement, sorrow and grief (Mark 3:5), zeal (John 2:17), weeping (Luke 19:41-42), earnest desire (Luke 22:15), pity and compassion (Matthew 15:32; 18:34), anger (John 2:13-19), love (John 15:9), and joy (John 15:11).

In Luke 10:21 Jesus is said to have "rejoiced in the Holy Spirit" as he was praying to the Father. He himself said in John 15:11 and 17:13 that one of the principal aims in his earthly mission was to perfect the joy of his followers. Thus our joy is the joy of Jesus in us!

Other examples could be cited, but one in particular comes to mind. Think for a moment of heaven itself. The essence of life in heaven, says Edwards, "consists very much in affection. There is doubtless true religion in heaven, and true religion in its utmost purity and perfection. But according to the Scripture representation of the heavenly state, the religion of heaven consists chiefly in holy and mighty love and joy, and the expression of these in most fervent and exalted praises” (113).

Affections and Public Worship

That holy affections are the essence of true spirituality can also be seen from what God has commanded concerning our public worship. Jonathan Edwards argues that virtually all external expressions of worship “can be of no further use, than as they have some tendency to affect our own hearts, or the hearts of others” (115).

Consider, for example, the singing of praises to God, which seem “to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned, why we should express ourselves to God in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only, that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections” (115).

Some actually orchestrate worship in such a way that the affections of the heart are reined in and, in some cases, even suppressed. People often fear the external manifestation of internal zeal and love and desire and joy. Though they sing, they do so in a way that the end in view is the mere articulation of words and declaration of truths. But if that were what God intended, why did he not ordain that we recite, in prose, biblical truths about him? Why sing? It can’t be simply for the aesthetic value of music or because of the pleasure it brings, for that would be to turn worship manward, as if we are now the focus rather than God. We sing because God has created not only our minds but also our hearts and souls, indeed our bodies as well, in such a way that music elicits and intensifies holy affections for God and facilitates their lively and vigorous expression.

The same may be said of how God operates on our souls in the preaching of his Word. Books and commentaries and the like provide us with “good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the Word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men’s hearts and affections” (115). So, with a view to affecting sinners and not merely informing them, God has appointed that his Word be applied in a particularly lively way through preaching.

Therefore, when we think of how public worship should be constructed and what methods should be employed in the praise of God and the edification of his people, “such means are to be desired, as have much of a tendency to move the affections. Such books, and such a way of preaching the Word, and administration of ordinances, and such a way of worshiping God in prayer, and singing praises, is much to be desired, as has a tendency deeply to affect the hearts of those who attend these means” (121).

When people object that certain styles of public worship seem especially chosen for their capacity to awaken and intensify and express the affections of the heart, they should be told that such is precisely the God-ordained purpose of worship. What they fear, namely, the heightening and deepening of the heart’s desire and love for God, and the expansion and increase of the soul’s delight and joy in God, what they typically call “emotionalism” or even “manipulation”, is the very goal of worship itself. For God is most glorified in his people when their hearts are most satisfied (i.e., when they are most “affected” with joy) in him.

Conclusion

What is the common link among these three affections of the heart? Love, trust or confidence or belief, and joy . . . what unites them and makes them good and right and glorious? The answer is Jesus!

Everywhere you turn today you hear professing Christian people, people who are deeply immersed in all forms of “spirituality” and “religion” and pursuit of enlightenment and self-improvement who talk a lot about love and belief and joy.

But such love is often lacking in discernment. It is undiscriminating, such that things are loved that ought to be hated; things are cherished that ought to be rejected; things are valued that ought to be cast aside. There are guidelines in Scripture about what we are to love and what we are to hate. If nothing else, consider 1 John 2:15-17 -

“¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

It’s the same with belief or trust. We are told at every turn that it matters little what or whom you believe, but only that your belief be sincere and meaningful to you and helpful in life and fulfilling and pleasant. And whatever you do, don’t ever suggest that what or whom you believe is superior to what or whom someone else believes. For someone ever to say that what one person believes is false and wrong and what another believes is true and right is declared intolerant, an example of “hate” speech.

And so it also goes with joy. Whatever makes you happy, go for it. Whatever enhances your sense of self-esteem, embrace it. Whatever feels good, do it. But joy or delight or satisfaction in some things will destroy the human soul both now and in eternity.

Being a Christian means loving Christ, believing and trusting Christ, enjoying and delighting in Christ! He is the center of our affections. He is the source of our joy. He is firm foundation for our trust and belief. Without him, all the affections and feelings and beliefs and hopes of the human heart are empty and vain and end in death.