Christ Church

Compassion and Its Counterfeits

Grace Sensing on

THE TEXT

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3:12-14)

6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. (Deuteronomy 13:6-9)

INTRODUCTION

These two passages display the complexity of the biblical witness on compassion. In the first, we are to clothe ourselves in compassion (literally: bowels of mercy), which leads us to bear with each other and forgive each other as love binds us all together. Elsewhere Paul “yearns for the Philippians with the affection of Christ” (Phil. 1:8). Affection and sympathy are bonding agents (Phil. 2:1), enabling us to be single-minded and in full accord. The Lord, who is compassionate and merciful, is our ultimate model for compassion, and he has given us the fathers and mothers as images of his compassion (Isa 49:15; 1 Kings 3; Psalm 103).

In the second, we are forbidden to show pity or compassion on those who would entice us to idolatry. Similar commands are given with respect to first degree murder and lying in court (Deuteronomy 7:16, 19:13, and 19:21). In such cases, God is adamant that “your eye shall not pity them.” And again, in doing so, we are to follow God as our model, who executes his judgment without pity or compassion (Jer. 13:14; Lam. 2:17; Ezek. 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:18).

So how should we make sense of this?

DEFINING COMPASSION AND ITS VICES

The virtue of compassion (or sympathy) is habitual inclination to share the suffering and pain of the hurting which moves us to relieve their suffering and pursue their ultimate good. As Lewis writes, “Pity is meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery.” The biblical imperative is to weep with those who weep, to clothe ourselves with “bowels of mercy,” to relieve suffering because, like Christ, we are “moved with compassion.”

Virtues go wrong through defect or excess; a defect of compassion is apathy, a callous refusal to identify with and share the pain and suffering of others. On the other hand, (untethered) empathy is an excess of compassion, when our identification and sharing of the emotions of others overwhelms our minds and sweeps us off our feet. Empathy loses sight of the ultimate good, both for ourselves and for the hurting.

And this is precisely our challenge. As Chesterton put it, “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

THE PASSION OF PITY

We live in a sentimental age, one that is drowning in a sea of feelings. And thus we are more susceptible to the manipulation of empathy. C.S. Lewis helps us to see ways that empathy or pity goes wrong. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes the problems with the Passion of Pity. In the final interaction between Sarah Smith and her husband Frank, Sarah describes Frank’s besetting sin, the sin that he must turn away from if he is to be saved.

[Stop] using pity, other people’s pity, in the wrong way. We have all done it a bit on earth, you know. Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.

You see, I know now. Even as a child you did it. Instead of saying you were sorry, you went and sulked in the attic . . . because you knew that sooner or later one of your sisters would say, “I can’t bear to think of him sitting up there alone, crying.” You used their pity to blackmail them, and they gave in in the end. And afterwards, when we were married . . . oh, it doesn’t matter, if only you will stop it. (131–132)

The passion of pity (or the sin of empathy) makes us vulnerable to emotional blackmail.

Emotional blackmail happens when a person equates his or her emotional pain with another person’s failure to love. They aren’t the same. A person may love well and the beloved still feel hurt. They may then use their felt pain to blackmail the lover into admitting guilt he or she does not have. Emotional blackmail says, “If I feel hurt by you, you are guilty.” There is no defense. The hurt person has become God. His emotion has become judge and jury. Truth does not matter. All that matters is the sovereign suffering of the aggrieved. (Piper)

Empathy, because it is myopic, can lead to great cruelty. “Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice, leads through anger to cruelty. Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy’s atrocities; and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror” (Lewis). 

THE ANTIDOTE

So how should we live? First, we must repent of the Sulks. We must refuse to wield our afflictions (especially our minor afflictions) as tools of manipulation. It’s easy to magnify our inconveniences in order to elicit sympathy from those who love us, to make martyrs out of ourselves and send our loved ones on a guilt trip. The Sulks are not only a danger for children.

Second, we must refuse to wield the suffering of others in the same manner. Compassion is a great good, a spur to joy to help those who are suffering. But the line between spurring joy to help misery and using the misery of others to steer the merciful is not always easy to see. In their empathetic zeal, advocates can often overthrow other virtues, such as honesty and justice, in their zeal to help the hurting.

Third, we must be aware of the link between feminism and toxic empathy. By God’s design, women are the more empathetic sex. It’s why women are the glue that holds communities together. Crucially, however, what is a blessing in one place is a curse in another. The same impulse that leads a woman to move toward the hurting with comfort becomes a major liability when it comes to guarding the doctrine and worship of the church. Like in Deuteronomy, there are times–usually involving grave error or gross sin–when God forbids empathy and pity. It’s one reason why the empathetic sex is ill-suited to the ministerial office.

Fourth, refuse to concede what cannot be conceded. Don’t embrace the lie. Biblical compassion reserves the right not to blaspheme. This is especially true in an age of gay “weddings” and other celebrations of wickedness. Be willing to be labeled “heartless” as you seek the ultimate good of other people by refusing to join them in the Lie (even under pressure from other soft-hearted Christians). 

Finally, we must labor to be faithfully compassionate, weeping with those who weep, considering both their immediate feelings and their ultimate good. In compassion, we meet people in suffering and say, “This is hard. I know you feel that way. I’m with you in this, and I have hope.”

At the same time, we refuse to be totally immersed in the feelings of another. We refuse to allow other people to steer our emotional vehicles. We resist attempts to subordinate truth to the feelings and sensitivities of the most reactive and immature members of a community. We move deliberately deliberately and intentionally into the pain of others while clinging to Jesus for dear life. 

As Christians, we must have deep feeling for the hurting, the broken, and the suffering. We are, after all, called to clothe ourselves with “bowels of mercies.” But our feelings, and our sharing in the feelings of others, must be tethered to Truth, to Reality, to Christ. God help us. 

Read Full Article

Blasphemous and Absurd (Ascension Sunday 2024)

Grace Sensing on

INTRODUCTION

We must learn how to stop doing is the bad habit of dividing the world up into separate compartments. Every aspect of our being—emotional, spiritual, psychological, mental—is occurring in the same created order. All truths that we affirm, whether biological, or theological, or anthropological, are true or false in the same created order. Christ remains your high priest, which means that He still has His resurrected and glorified body. That body is still within this created order, but because He has ascended, He is no longer under the sun. His authority is greater than that.

One of the great problems that secularists have is that they pay no attention to the things they are saying. But this problem is matched and compounded by the fact that we Christians too often pay cursory attention to the implications of the truths we confess. Remember that word implication. 

THE TEXT

“The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The introduction to this psalm is quoted numerous times in the New Testament, and in ways that are not in any way ambiguous about what it means.  In the gospel accounts, Jesus stumps His adversaries with the question of how David, ancestor of the Messiah, could possibly call his descendant Lord (Matt. 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42-43). This verse is quoted to show the greatness of the Christ over all the angels (Heb. 1:13). And the whole glorious consummation is summed up in Acts 2:32-36. God raised Jesus up, with eyewitnesses (v. 32). He was exalted to the right hand of the Father, where He received the Holy Spirit, which He then poured out (v. 33). David didn’t ascend into the heavens, but he did prophesy it—with our text (v. 34). Christ will remain there until His enemies are made His footstool (v. 35). Let all Israel know that this “same Jesus,” the crucified one, has been made both Lord and Christ (v. 36).  

THE CENTRAL IMPLICATION

One of our central duties in this wicked generation is to set out various doctrines which we confess, lining them up on the table before us. Having done so, we need to stare straight at the central implication. 

Jesus of Nazareth is fully God and fully man, a fact we celebrate at Christmas. The hypostatic union of God and man was miraculously accomplished in Him. In this incarnate body, He lived a perfect and sinless life, which He then offered up on the cross as a perfect sacrifice. God showed that the sacrifice was accepted when He raised Jesus from the dead, a fact we celebrate at Easter. Christ ascended into the heavenly places, and in doing this, He did not leave the Incarnation behind—He is still our high priest. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34). He was there given universal dominion (Dan. 7:13-14). A human being, our elder brother, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will remain there until all His enemies are subdued through the gospel, a fact we celebrate on Ascension Sunday. And last, He poured out His Spirit on Pentecost, which is what enables us to celebrate anything about any of this at all (Acts 2:3-4).

Now I have mentioned that word implications a few times. What are the implications of this? The implication is that the only principle of unity available to man is a unity that is outside the world. This, and only this, is the death knell of anarchy, for tyranny, and for anarcho-tyranny.  

SECULAR FUTILITY

Just as the secular mind oscillates between rationalism and irrationalism, so they also veer back and forth between radical individualism and total statism. Not only so, but each bounce on their teeter-totter gives energy to the opposite reaction. When they discover that they cannot hold everything together, they give up and it all disintegrates. But then they discover that they cannot live in such a chaotic world, and so they begin to flail, looking for a principle of unity that is immanent, under the sun, under the control of man. It might be the church, it might be the state, it might be the tribe, it might be some ideology. Whatever they settle on, it is down here, within their reach.

Tyrants want the locus of unity to be within the world, where they can control it. This pipe dream—seen clearly at Babel—was forever destroyed by the Ascension of the Lord Jesus into Heaven. What do we confess? We confess that there is only one possible locus of true unity, and that arche of unity is outside the world, at the right hand of the Father.  

“That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Ephesians 1:10). 

He ascended into Heaven, and the yearning lusts of all despots (libido dominandi) were thwarted in principle.

The Lord told us plainly that His kingdom is not from this world (John 18:36). If it were, we would be trying to seize power the same way that the worldlings do. But the fact that the Lord’s authority is not from here does not mean that it is somehow impotent here. No, our weapons are mighty for pulling down strongholds (2 Cor. 10:3-5). 

THE DECLARED WORD

The fact that they are defeated does not mean that the secularist lords cannot still be conceited in their humiliation. They still sneer at us. How many regiments do we have? How many nukes? How many flotillas can we assemble?

Our weapons look paltry to them, but that does not distress us at all. It should not even slow us down. The Word of God is not bound (2 Tim. 2:9), and goes forth conquering and to conquer (Rev. 6:2). What do we have? We have word and water, bread and wine, and that is more than sufficient.

What do we have? Christ died and rose, and He reigns from Heaven. Just as they taunted Him to come down from the cross, in the same way they taunt Him to come down from Heaven in order to prove He rose from the dead. But the place where His proofs were ultimately received was the throne room of the Ancient of Days, and that proof was declared sufficient. The risen Christ is Lord.

Read Full Article

Discipline as Genuine Love (Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #5)


Grace Sensing on

INTRODUCTION

In our message last Lord’s Day, we defined what we mean by the word discipline. Our subject this week is “discipline as genuine love,” and so it is important to begin with a definition of love. What does it mean to love God, and what does it mean to love our neighbor? These are the two great commandments, and so we should know what they summon us to.

To love someone is to treat someone lawfully from the heart. To love God is to do what He calls us to do, and to do it from the heart. Nowhere does Scripture identify love with our emotional “feels,” that approach being an error that is currently destroying millions. At the same time, we are called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Dt. 6:4-9; Mark 12:30), and this would certainly include our “feels.” But this simply means that our emotions must be obedient, along with the rest of our being. But obeying commands is not the same thing as issuing commands. 

So loving God means doing what He says to do, from the heart. “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). And His commandments include bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition, applying physical correction when necessary, and providing loving instruction all the time. 

THE TEXT

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). 

“And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:5–10). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Words like love and hate are to be defined by the Scriptures, and not by our emotional frame of mind. There are sentiments that we would call kind, or loving, or tender, but which are toxic by the standard of the Word. A man might mix up a batch of cyanide or arsenic, and it does not much matter how much emotional sugar was put into the recipe.

And so Proverbs defines hatred of a son—a form of disowning a son—as withholding the rod. But when we think of all the people who withhold this form of correction, what is it that motivates them? Is it what we normally call “hate?” No, it would be what we would normally call sentimentalism or, in its true colors, hatred.

The Hebrews passage teaches us something similar. One of our assurances of our adoption as sons is the fact that God chastens us. He doesn’t spank the neighbor kids, but rather His own (vv. 5-6). We should endure chastening, knowing it to be a mark of sonship (v. 7). If you don’t receive this kind of correction, then that is a sign that you are a bastard, and no legitimate heir (v. 8). If we revere our earthly fathers who do this, then how much more should we do the same with the Father of spirits (v. 9)? Our earthly fathers did it with temporal goals in view, but God has our holiness in mind (v. 10). Notice that while the goals may differ, the process of discipline is the same. 

THE COLD CONCRETE OF COVENANT

The illustration here is aimed at the relationship between parents and children, but it actually applies to all your relationships. But settle it in your minds first with regard to your marriage, and the children God has blessed you with. 

You build your household the same way you build a house. Go down into your basement and look at the concrete walls. They are hard, cold, straight, and gray. There is no warmth to them at all. And because there is no warmth there, it is possible to have warmth elsewhere. Now go upstairs and look at the living room—pillows on the sofa, curtains, soft carpet, pictures on the wall. The surroundings there are truly pleasant. But the only reason anything is pleasant is because the concrete is where the concrete is, and the living room stuff is in the living room. Roll up the carpet, gather the cushions, throw on the sofa, and try to erect a stud wall on it. It will be the wobbliest thing in the world, and this explains why your family interactions are so full of so much unedifying drama. 

THE GREATEST ACT OF LOVE

What was the greatest act of love ever rendered by a human being? The answer to that question has to be the love that Christ showed for us when He laid down His life as a sacrifice for sin—doing this when we were still in rebellion, still in our sins. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This was the greatest act of love ever, and it is the template for measuring every other act of love (Eph. 5:25) .

And yet, Christ didn’t feel like it. “Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). And on the basis of what He felt, He prayed earnestly in the Garden of Gethsemene—asking His Father three times if the cup could pass from Him. “And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words” (Matthew 26:44). And so He obeyed the will of His Father, from the heart, and He did so for the joy that was set before Him. The joy was not behind Him, pushing, but there before Him, beckoning—the way a field of grain beckons a farmer doing the hard work of plowing the field months before (Heb. 12:11).

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” (1 John 3:1). 

The love we experience in our salvation is a triune love. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). Everything the Son sees the Father doing, He also does, love included. “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love” (John 15:9). And the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). The persons of the Godhead always work together in harmonious unity. 

So there was love in the assignment of the mission, there was love in the execution of the mission, and love in the application of the mission. It began with love, and it ends with love, but there was agony in the middle. Our Savior was no sentimentalist, and neither should you be.

Read Full Article