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Enjoying God Blog

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What is the first and foundational reason for your joy in God? Is it the “sweet entertainment” that arises in your mind when you contemplate the beauty of God as he is in himself? Or is it based first on some notion that you personally benefit from being the object of God’s love and that he makes much of you? Continue reading . . .

What is the first and foundational reason for your joy in God? Is it the “sweet entertainment” that arises in your mind when you contemplate the beauty of God as he is in himself? Or is it based first on some notion that you personally benefit from being the object of God’s love and that he makes much of you? Here is how Jonathan Edwards addressed the question in his treatise, Religious Affections:

“And as it is with the love of the saints, so it is with their joy, and spiritual delight and pleasure: the first foundation of it, is not any consideration or conception of their interest in divine things; but it primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the view of contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things, as they are in themselves. And this is indeed the very main difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The former rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy: the latter rejoices in God. The hypocrite has his mind pleased and delighted, in the first place, with his own privilege, and the happiness which he supposes he has attained, or shall attain.

True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures; ‘tis the joy of their joy. This sweet and ravishing entertainment, they have in the view of the beautiful and delightful nature of divine things, is the foundation of the joy that they have afterwards, in the consideration of their being theirs. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice, and are elevated with it, that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them” (Yale, 2:249-50).

2 Comments

Wow, this seems like rather harsh language to me. I've really felt led to focus on understanding God's love and have been reading and praying about this a fair bit recently. It's something I have a real need to know at a deeper level. And that seems scriptural, in light of Ephesians 3:18. But according to Edwards, this makes me a hypocrite. :-(

Thank you so much for this reminder of why I so delight in God’s delightfulness (Ps. 27:4). Edwards’ use of the word “entertainment”, while trite when employed in describing most contemporary worldly ‘entertainments’, is somehow very suitable when describing the sense of delight that I experience when contemplating the beauty of God and His ways. You described this most eloquently in Signs of the Spirit, p.193 — “We need what Edwards repeatedly referred to as “the new sense of the heart” in which Christ’s glory appears ineffably sweet and pleasant to the soul and does so with such intensity that all rival pleasures are soiled and sullied by comparison.”

I could have cited many other quotations from your interpretation of this wonderful treatise. Virtually every page of my copy contains a variety of underlines, highlights and margin notes. The book is a continuing source of insight and encouragement to continue in my daily meditation on Christ’s beauty. Thanks again for the book and for this post.

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