Sola Christa Part III

Knowledge Beyond Knowledge

The knowledge of the love of Christ is available to all who desire it. For millennia, the ancient practice of spiritual disciplines has proven a powerful pathway for people, from mystics to laymen, that they may experience the reality of Christ’s love. This knowledge is beyond information. “And so the Christian community has always insisted that Holy Scripture that reveals God’s ways to us is necessary and basic to our formation as human beings. In our reading of this book we come to realize that what we need is not primarily informational, telling us things about God and ourselves, but formational, shaping us into our true being.”[1]

“That one can know what Christianity is without being a Christian is one thing. But whether one can know what it is to be a Christian without being one is something else entirely. And this is the problem of faith. One can find no greater dubiousness than when, by the help of ‘Christianity,’ it is possible to find Christians who have not yet become Christians.”[2] Many know about Christ without knowing Him. In the same manner, there are many who have been told that Christ loves them but have never experienced that love personally. It is one thing to tell people that they are loved and another thing to lead them to the path of experience.

The framework for this work will consist of examining the Spiritual Disciplines from three perspectives:

Theological Perspective

Philosophical Perspective

Experiential Perspective

Theological Perspective

It is critical, at the outset, to establish the theological framework for this work. Without question, it is impossible for any human to attain any measure of spirituality apart from the work of grace in his/her life. “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV). This “gift of God” was not earned by anything humanity could do. This “gift of God” is to be received. Luther writes:

Because an eternal, unchangeable sentence of condemnation has passed upon sin – for God cannot and will not regard sin with favor, but his wrath abides upon it eternally and irrevocably – redemption was not possible without a ransom of such precious worth as to atone for sin, to assume the guilt pay the price of wrath and thus abolish sin.

This no creature was able to do. There was no remedy except for God’s only Son to step into our distress and himself become man, to take upon himself the load of awful and eternal wrath and make his own body and blood a sacrifice for the sin. And so he did, out of the immeasurably great mercy and love towards us, giving himself up and bearing the sentence of unending wrath and death.

So infinitely precious to God is this sacrifice and atonement of his only begotten Son who is one with him in divinity and majesty, that God is reconciled thereby and receives into grace and forgiveness of sins all who believe in this Son. Only by believing may we enjoy the precious atonement of Christ, the forgiveness obtained for us and given us out of profound, inexpressible love. We have nothing to boast of for ourselves, but must ever joyfully thank and praise him who at such priceless cost redeemed us condemned and lost sinners.[3]

Enlightenment for the Eyes of the Heart

In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul writes a prayer for this community of believers.

Ephesians 1:15-22 (ESV):

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all .

In verse 17, Paul prays that God the Father would grant them, through Jesus, a revelation from the “spirit of wisdom and of revelation”. “Some Jewish sources characterized the Spirit of God as the ‘Spirit of wisdom’ (the Old Testament especially emphasizes this: e.g., Ex 28:3; 31:3; 35:31; Is 11:2; cf. Deut 34:9).”[4] Paul knew that the only way for the people of Ephesus to understand and experience this heart knowledge of Christ was through the revelation of the Holy Spirit of God.

Pay special attention to his use of language in his prayer when he speaks specifically of the eyes of their heart would be enlightened. The metaphor alone alludes to a deeper revelation of the reality of a life lived in Christ. This revelation is experienced in the hidden heart of humanity and measured only in the currency of intimacy with Christ alone.

Jesus reveals the importance of this same knowledge when he prays for Himself in John 17.

John 17:1-3 (ESV):

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Eternal life then, consists in the knowledge of God. Since the knowledge of God is mediated through the revealer whom God has sent, and is indeed embodied in that revealer, the knowledge of the revealer is one with the knowledge of the God who is revealed. Nor is this knowledge a matter simply of intellectual apprehension: it involves a personal relationship. The Father and the Son know each other in a mutuality of love, and by the knowledge of God men and women are admitted to the mystery of this divine love, being loved by God and loving him – and another – in return.[5]

This knowledge of God is the goal of “eternal life”. Experiential knowledge of God is what Jesus prays for, not a mind bound knowledge. The knowledge Jesus speaks of is a deep intimate knowledge that is experienced in the context of a relationship and not through academic process.

It is imperative then for the reader to understand that in no way should the disciplines be viewed as a means to an end. The disciplines are a pathway (not the pathway) whereby someone can avail himself/herself to a God that is completely other than him/her. The disciplines should serve every seeker and not mistakenly be served by them. If someone were to dismiss the disciplines as dogma they would miss the point entirely.

“The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.”[6] St. Benedict opens his “Rule” by calling all of his “sons” to a life of obedience. By his own definition, Benedict explains, “It is called a rule because it regulates the lives of those who obey it.”[7]

David understood and modeled the truth of obedience as worship beautifully when he wrote Psalm 119:32, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart” (ESV)! The end note allows for another translation, “I will run in the way of your commandments (when you set my heart free)” (ESV). The language alone creates a problem. I will run in the way, the path, the clearly defined trail, of your commandments when you set my heart free. How can freedom and a preplanned path, paved with commandments, exist in the same thought?

David’s son Solomon had the same understanding, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law” (Proverbs 29:18 NIV). Without a word from the Lord, the God of the Universe, humanity will do whatever she wants. Spiritual beings must awaken to the revelation of the activity of God in their lives.

Ephesians 4:17-24 (ESV):

“17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off our old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Ephesians 5:8-10 (ESV):

“8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.”

The revelation of God shines like a light through the lives of souls awakened to the reality of Christ at work in them. That light pierces the darkness around them and stands as a beacon for all those who are being awakened by the Holy Spirit.

John Calvin said:

True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves. But while these two branches of knowledge are so intimately connected, which of them precedes and produces the other, is not easy to discover. For, in the first place, no man can take a survey of himself but he must immediately turn to the contemplation of God in whom he “lives and moves;” (Acts 17:2) since it is evident that the talents which we possess are not from ourselves, and that our very existence is nothing but a subsistence in God alone.[8]

How then would one come to the knowledge of God or the self? What would be the point of such a pilgrimage?

Our knowledge of God should rather tend, first, to teach us fear and reverence; and secondly, to instruct us to implore all good at his hand, and to render him the praise of all that we receive. For how can you entertain a thought of God without immediately reflecting, that, being a creature of his formation, you must, by right of creation, be subject to his authority? That you are indebted to him for your life and that all your actions should be done with reference to him.[9]