Jonathan Edwards’ Treatise on Religious Affections, Part 3

Tonight we’re going to finish our summer study in Puritan books. If finished, we could use the word really, you never really finish a Puritan book. If it’s well written, one of those classics, you could read it and reread it time and time again, and Treatise on Religious Affections is certainly that way. This is a deep book. In some ways it’ll just kind of eat you alive. There’s just so many thoughts in there. There’s so much depth, so many things that challenge the way that we ordinarily think. Sometimes that challenge can go too far. I think you could read that if you’re of a tender conscience and kind of struggling with some things, you may be left wondering if you’re a Christian sometimes and have to go back again to what this says and to the simple testimony of faith in Christ and what God does.

Edwards is dealing with some deep things. He’s dealing with, wrestling with what God really does in a human heart when you are converted. Well, what really happens there? And it’s difficult because the work of the Holy Spirit is essentially mysterious. And our own nature and our own hearts are essentially mysterious to us, and we can’t know either one of them fully. And so therefore, you could imagine actually a multiplication of the mysterious nature when you get the Holy Spirit working within the heart of a human being. And so, we have only one guide as we do also for all spiritual things, and that is the scripture. And we try our best to go through the scripture and to understand what does the Lord do? What are marks of regeneration? How can we know if we’re saved? And what he’s wrestling with here is the issue of affections, affections. The Treatise on Religious Affections has to do with the issue of affections. Now, what he does in the first part of this book is to define affections, and he says that the human soul, (this is review) has two capacities, two capabilities given it by God. Do you remember what they were? The first was what? The ability to what- to understand, to perceive, that’s right, to take something in as it is and to comprehend it and to understand its parts.

It’s an intellectual side in which you are seeing something as it is and understanding something as it is. The second has to do with the tendency the soul has to either be attracted to or repelled away from whatever it is you’re studying, whatever it is you’re thinking about. We don’t remain neutral about these things. We have feelings toward them. We’re attracted to them, or we’re repelled away from them. We like them or we dislike them, we love them, or we hate them. We appraise them in that way. And affections have to do with your own sensible motions in your heart and in your body even about the thing that your soul is doing. You feel something when you like something or love it. You feel something inside when you hate something or dislike it, you feel it. And so, he’s dealing with that. What is the nature of religious affections?

They’re tied to religious issues. Religious things, Treatise on Religious Affections. Now, again, by way of review, he’s dealing with the aftermath or just the ongoing effects of the Great Awakening, a revival in which the Holy Spirit moved in a mighty way, and many came to faith in Christ and many had experiences, religious experiences. There were corporate experiences together in which the Spirit would move in a mighty way and people were greatly affected by the message. And there were great affections, there were great feelings. There was passion and there would be outcries, there would be physical manifestations. People would be greatly convicted of their sins, there would be great changes in their lives. All kinds of things were happening. Well, while that was going on, that’s obviously a time of great upheaval if you could imagine. Lots of churning and lots of change and lots of hard things too.

Lots of controversies came because a lot of times these people would go in here, Whitefield preached, let’s say George Whitefield and they would be converted. And they’d go back to their congregation, they’d listen to their pastor preach, and it wasn’t the same. There was a question as to whether some of the clergy were even converted. Is it possible to have an unconverted clergy? You could imagine the rendering and the ripping that would come in congregations. If a group of on-fire folks comes back to the congregation and starts saying, we don’t think our pastor’s a Christian. Well, that’s a big problem. Well, as a result of all this churning, there were some theologians in the Boston area in particular that began to question the Awakening and began to question the affections and all of what was going on. And basically, just denounced it all. It said it was just all of the devil.

And whenever you have these great outpourings of emotion and affection and passion, they called it enthusiasm. That wasn’t a good thing. That was like a dirty word back then. Enthusiasm, and they denounced it as disorderly. Everything should be done decently in good order. So, they really thought the whole thing was of the devil. Meanwhile, on the other hand, you’ve got some people that thought the more affection, the better, the more passion the better. And frankly, if you don’t show all these outward passions, maybe you’re not converted. And so, he had to kind of sift through. And so on the one side, he’s dealing with some folks that are just totally denouncing the affection or affection side, an emotional side of religion and says it’s all of the devil. Meanwhile, he’s got some on the other side that are saying, no matter how much, I mean the more passion, the better, and really just accepting the whole thing, the baby and the bathwater altogether. And just say the whole thing is great and wonderful and isn’t God in it all?

No, he isn’t. Even more troubling is as the years go on, what about somebody who’s shown great emotions and great outward changes, so to speak, but then they relapse and their old way of life, 4, 5, 6 years later, what do you do with them? Now we can say that they lost their salvation, but Edwards would never have accepted that. It violates many passages of scripture. It doesn’t make any sense theologically. You’ve got bigger problems when you start going that way, which is what Wesley, John Wesley and the Methodist definitely did. That it’s clear to them that they were saved at one point and now they’re not. And they could be saved again tomorrow if they would just repent and come back to Christ. But Edwards didn’t understand that kind of Christianity. That doesn’t make any sense. There’s many passages of scripture that would never accept that kind of “you’re in one day, you’re out the next and back in again the third day.”

How does that line up with justification, for example? It just really doesn’t. Did God unjustify you the next day? It doesn’t make any sense, and so therefore Edwards is dealing with this. And so he writes Treatise on Religious Affection. Actually, these were originally sermons that he preached in his local church. I mean, think about it. I mean we’re trying to work our way through this. These were sermons that he preached in his local church, and then he edited and put it together a number of years later, Treatise on Religious Affections. Now we’ve seen the first part concerning the nature of the affections and their importance in religion. We’ve already talked about that. There’s a review here and basically what he says is that true religion in great part consists of affections. That is Christianity. It is of the affection. He gets us out of a number of places, but probably the greatest would be the two great commandments.

The first and greatest commandment is this, that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. This is what the gospel does to you. When the gospel comes it makes you love God with all that you have when before you were his enemy. It transforms you so that what you used to hate, you now love and with a great love and an ever-increasing love. So true religion, namely true Christianity, consists very much in the affections. That’s his main point in the first section. And he tries to prove this and he does it, I think, convincingly goes through a series of proofs to show that Christianity, that true faith is a very affectionate thing. There’s a lot of affections involved, there’s a lot of emotions, a lot of outpouring, and that is a good thing.

So, he just rejects that cold kind of old light’s way of looking at things by the theologians in the Boston area, Chauncey and others. He rejects it and shows that it’s really unbiblical. We should expect the gospel to make a transformation on our affections. We should expect it. That’s what it does. And so, he works through that. That was the first part. The second part, he goes through a series of things that are no certain sign either way that you are converted. It is no sign either way. If you see this in you, it is no sign either way. If you see that or the other, this was a negative, wasn’t it? And you get at the end, and you say, well, what’s left? These are the things I was holding onto. These were the things I was trusting in so that I knew I was saved.

Well, when you see the list tonight, you’ll realize no, there were other things too. And these other things are better and more certain foundation. But he went through, and he said, it is no certain sign that your affections are from grace. That’s what he means by gracious. Gracious to him means from the grace of God, from the sovereign, saving grace of God. If you see these things in your life or you were to see them in someone else’s life, it’s no sign either way that they’re Christians. That’s what he’s saying. Okay? For example, that you would have very strong high religious affections. There’s no proof either way. You can have lots of religious passion, lots of religious emotions and still not be saved. Conversely, you could have lots of religious affections and emotions and be saved contrary to the others that were saying you couldn’t.

It’s no mark either way. That’s what he’s saying. Secondly, the fact that your emotions have some effect on your body. It’s no proof either way. He says essentially all affections, all emotions, all passions have some effect on your body. He said, I scarcely believe that there could be any affection that you could have that there weren’t some bodily fluids somewhere moving as a result. Of course it’s going to have an effect on your body. And so therefore, if the one is no proof either way, then the second must also be no proof either way. They’re linked together. So just because you were at the revival rolling on the ground or shouting, hallelujah, jumping up and down does not mean you’re saved. Neither does it mean you’re not saved. It’s no proof either way. That’s what he’s getting at. Thirdly, to be fluent and fervent and abundant in talk about Christ is no proof either way.

You might think it is, but it isn’t. I mean the ability to talk for a long time about religious things is no proof, and he went through that. This is all by way of review. Number four, that you believe that these affections came from outside you are no proof either way. Say, I’m not like this. This must have come on me from the outside. It’s no proof either way because there are other outside influences than just the Holy Spirit. There are demonic spirits. There are evil spirits that could come in influence, and so we’re told to test the spirits and see whether they really are from God. And also, you don’t really know yourself. You may have kind of unlocked a whole hidden part of you. And so, you really don’t know that these things have come from the outside, so it’s no proof either way.

The fact that you can quote many texts of scripture that line up with your experience is no proof. Or to have an appearance of love is no proof. He says that not love itself and he would say love itself, true love for God and love for neighbor is worked by the gospel and is most certainly a proof but having an appearance of love. He’s saying that this is the kind of thing that the devil can counterfeit. There are some people who know how to carry on an affection of love, how it looks loving to behave a certain way, and it’s external. It’s not genuine and it’s no proof either way, having different kinds of religious affection, kind of like a smorgasbord. Well, it wasn’t just one thing. I felt many things, a whole array of things happened to me at that time.

No proof either way. That the torment of your soul eventually gave way to joy is no proof. This was the pattern of conversion back in those days that there would be some kind of evangelical or let’s say legal. Let’s use the word legal terror that would come over you on by the law of God. A sense of condemnation, a sense of concern over your soul. And that it yielded eventually to a sense of release and of peace and joy is no proof either way. It happens on both sides. And you say, ouch, but that’s what happened to me. And the thing you have to be so careful of is understand that that can and does happen to you in your salvation. And you could say, but I saw that in me. Well, rejoice and be glad. Just be glad it’s genuine and not fake. All he’s saying is that these things can be counterfeited. That’s what he’s getting at, and they can and have been counterfeited.

Number nine, lots of religious service and lots of external worship is no proof either way. How about the Pharisees? My guess is that most of our lives wouldn’t come close to lining up the way those guys lived their lives. Or some of the old monastic orders and the disciplines that they would submit themselves to, the bodily subjections that they would go through. Their commitment level’s much higher than ours, much higher. And it’s no proof either way to have that kind of activity or service. And praising and glorifying God with your mouth is no proof. Or having a strong confidence and assurance based on your affections is no proof. To be absolutely convinced because of all of these things that you are saved, that’s no proof. And having a compelling testimony that other godly people tell you is the best they’ve ever heard it’s no proof either way, because you know what?

Those godly people are not going to be the ones sitting on the throne on Judgment Day, and we are fallible human beings. We stand on the outside and we cannot look in. All we can do is see what comes into our senses, and it sure does look good, it sounds good and all that, but we are not ultimately the judge. And its remarkable how Edwards at the end of this says, isn’t it wonderful that we’re not? Only God could discern the difference between wheat and tares. Only God could discern the difference between the sheep and the goats. It’s his job to do it, not ours. And you see how this line of thinking should not destabilize or upset us in any way. What it should do is make us more sober-minded when we do hear testimonies of others that were walking with the Lord for a while and then turned their backs and walked away. We don’t then overthrow biblical theology as a result.

We don’t say, well, I guess you can lose your salvation. Look what happened to Joe or to Jane. We don’t do that because we say, I don’t really know what was happening to Joe and Jane. This is what it looked like on the outside, but now this is what it looks like. And frankly, I still don’t know what’s going on with them. They may be going through this period of time in which they’re going to great delusions and they’re acting like pagans. And they may be genuinely converted. They shouldn’t think that way. They should repent with all haste. But at any rate, I don’t know what’s going on. A judge- God alone is the judge, okay? And we had to end last week. That’s a really dreary place to end, isn’t it?

So, this week we get to do the more encouraging thing, which is to go through and to see those things which genuinely are marks of regeneration. Those things that are marks of gracious or grace-produced affections from God, showing what are distinguishing signs of truly gracious and holy affections.

It is not God’s design that men should obtain assurance in any other way than by mortifying corruption and increasing in grace and obtaining the lively exercises of it.

Now, first he’s got to make some introductory comments. Now, this is pure Puritanism here. I mean, we’re ready to go, and he’s like, well, before I do it, there’s some things I want to say about what we’re doing here. So, let’s go ahead and listen to what he has to say. What he says is, first of all, it is impossible to put together a list of qualities that will enable us to determine with absolute certainty the spiritual state of others. I kind of just said that a moment ago, but there’s no laundry list or whatever that you can look and say, okay, yeah, you passed the test. That’s not what we’re doing here. We’re not able to put together a list like that so that we can, with certainty, apply it to somebody else. And why? Because we cannot see their hearts. We don’t really know.

We can know, as we mentioned this last time, in a practical way well enough to have fellowship with one another. I mean, we’re not to be constantly suspicious of whether another person’s a Christian or not. I mean, that’s not our place. We should just assume they are. If they claim to be and their life lines up in a general way, we should just assume Christians. But just realize we don’t assume in such a way that we are putting our whole weight on it so that if they fall away so to speak, they aren’t walking with Christ anymore, that our world now falls apart. Our world isn’t based on their walk with Christ. That’s what he’s saying. But we can accept one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Husbands and wives can know each other’s saved and we can be together. We can, I mean, or else how could we ever do church together?

How could we ever get married to a believer, et cetera? Of course, how would a pastor ever baptize anyone? We do accept people as Christians. We can also know the spiritual state of spiritual leaders so that we can discern who are false teachers. “By their fruit you will know them” (Matthew 7:16), Jesus said. And so I think it is possible to look and say, this is the mark of a false teacher. A great interest for example, in material wealth, prosperity, and earthly comforts, and other things. You’re going to see a lot of pride and arrogance and selfishness and self-focus. You’re going to start to see those kinds of things well enough so you can say, I really believe this person’s a false teacher. So, we can do that, but it is God’s prerogative alone to make the final distinction between sheep and goats, thank goodness.

Secondly, it is not possible to put together a list of qualities that will enable saints and others to discern their own spiritual state with absolute certainty. The problem is not with the list, but with the person. What do we mean by a low state of grace? It means basically going through a rebellious patch in your life in which you’re not strong in the Lord. Is it going to be hard for that person to pass the test and to feel good about their walk with Christ? Most certainly it is. We’re going to talk more about that relationship between how you’re living and mortification of sin and all that and your assurance. But the fact of the matter is there’s some people that are just so weak in their grace at that point that no list is going to help them and lift them up. Frankly, that’s not what the lists are for anyway. What’s going to help them is if they start keeping in step with the Spirit again and putting sin to death and walking and growing in grace of the knowledge of Christ, then assurance is going to start growing healthy again.

Alright? But there’s no list that’s going to help with those kinds of folks. Thirdly, assurance comes in one main way alone. This is so vital, so I put it in big font so that you could get it. It is not God’s design that men should obtain assurance in any other way than by mortifying corruption and increasing in grace and obtaining the lively exercises of it. This should sound familiar to you. For those of you who’ve been here, it sounds like Owen on mortification. I mean, you want to be assured? Put sin to death. You want to have problems with assurance? Let corruption have its way, give up the fight against sin and see what happens to your assurance. It’s just almost a one-to-one correspondence. Conversely, by the Spirit put sin to death, your assurance starts going back up again. It really is that simple. I’ve found that way in my life.

If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. But if you don’t, you’re going to find yourself ever weaker in the Christian life. So, there’s no shortcut here. You’ve got to be a warrior. You really do. You have to put on your spiritual armor every day and go out and fight. And when you don’t, and you start taking some hits, and you start yielding to the temptation of the flesh and doing some other things, do not be surprised if that pattern goes on for any length of time that your assurance goes down the drain. It doesn’t mean you’re any less justified, it just means you don’t know whether you are or not. God never changes his mind, his eternal, his perspective always the same. You cannot become unjustified. You understand that when the gavel goes down, it’s over.

You are not guilty of all your sins, but you don’t know it when you’re in a weak state of assurance. You don’t know whether that is true of you or not. You don’t know. And so, when you’re yielding to the sin and when you’re going through all this and the corruption it’s having its way with you very much expect to have weak assurance. I mean it’s a very strong statement. It is not God’s design that men should have assurance when they’re giving way to corruptions. That’s not what it’s for, okay? Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination as by action. That is by keeping in step with the Spirit. Paul obtained assurance of winning the prize more by running than by considering. Okay? You get out there and you run the race. Philippians 3:12-14 I love,

Not that I’ve already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

I run today’s race today. Jesus said each day has enough trouble of its own. I do today’s obedience today. And where I’m conscious that I have not done today’s obedience, I immediately confess and ask for the cleansing that is necessary and forgiveness, the experience of forgiveness that is necessary for me to maintain a healthy relationship with my heavenly Father. I’m so glad our church is about to study in Sunday School, the Book of 1 John, which is a very convicting book. And if you don’t understand it properly can lay you low. Anyone who’s in him doesn’t sin.

Well, what does that mean? That’s just too simple. Could it be that there’s somewhere some group of people I’ve never met who are really perfect, and we’re all missing it? Well, no, and there’s indications even in 1 John that is not the case. It says, “If we walk in the light as he’s in the light, we have fellowship with him and the blood of Jesus purifies us continually from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Now that tells me something. It’s not teaching perfection; it’s teaching an ongoing cleansing and grace as we are walking in the light, that’s what. It’s not teaching perfection, but that’s a freebie 1 John 1:5, you can work on that. Now, no list of virtues is of any use apart from the activity of grace in your life. Assurance is a living, dynamic thing. It’s not meant to be gotten off the sheet from the ACT study.

What was that list again? Okay, good. Now I can feel good about myself. That’s not how it works. This is just a matter of insight, biblical insight and understanding, but it’s grace that gives assurance. It’s the Holy Spirit that gives assurance. It’s not a list somewhere on some sheet.

Number five, some hypocrites are so hardened and self-deceived, no matter how sharply you word the list, they’ll still pass every test and feel great about themselves. It’s a sad thing, but it’s possible that self-deceived to go through that kind of thing. Now, what are we looking at tonight? “Distinguishing signs of truly gracious and holy affections.” Alright, I did not get everything out of this list that I could. I really want to read this section again, it’s long and it’s involved, and I will not ask how many of you read it. You can read it on your own, but it’s deep.

There’s a lot of things in here, but I think it’s helpful to look across at all the headings and see what he’s going to say and after a while we’ll start to get a sense of his heart. And it is he’s looking for signs or marks of truly gracious affections. “First, truly gracious affections arise from divine influences and operations on the heart. Secondly, their ground, the ground of truly gracious and holy affections is the excellent nature of divine things,” not what you can get out of them. It’s the fact that they are beautiful and perfect and excellent in themselves. “Thirdly, truly gracious affections are founded on the loveliness of the moral excellency of divine things.” By that we read holiness. We’re going to talk more about holiness, but that’s a yearning for holiness, an appraisal of their holiness. “D or fourth, they arise from the minds being enlightened to understand or apprehend divine things.”

What do we mean by that? Well, it’s a combination of intellectual reasoning with the affections of the emotions. It’s heat and light, light and heat together. It’s insight and understanding coupled with passion, emotion. Together we’re going to talk about that. And this is so key. They’re attended with a conviction of the reality and certainty of divine things. They’re certain that these things are true. I’ll tell you what about a Christian, even if they’re not sure what their own situation is with God, they still know that Jesus is God, and that the gospel is true and that all of it is true. They just know it. There’s nothing that can take that away from them. They just are so certain that Jesus is the Son of God. And there’s nothing that could be found up out of the ground in archeology, or no new insight in the gospel of John, or no new finding somewhere that’s going to shake that they just know that Jesus is God.

They just know it. And then six, there are these religious affections. These gracious affections are attended with evangelical humiliation. What that means is a true work of humbling, of brokenness in the heart. He breaks you of yourself. He breaks your pride. It works against your pride. They’re humble, they’re low and meek. They’re attended, it says with a change of nature. What that means, is a transformation of who you are at your core. It’s not an external thing. It’s something that God changes from within, a transformation from within. They’re attended, it says, H, they’re attended with a lamb-like, dove-like spirit and temper of Jesus Christ. Isn’t that wonderful that we are conformed to Christ’s meekness and his lowness of heart? We become like Jesus.

I, it says they’re attended with a Christian tenderness of spirit. We’re going to talk about that means tenderness, that means the softness of heart. They have a beautiful symmetry in proportion. They’re not grotesque and malformed. Beautiful symmetry conformed to Christ’s symmetry. We see a beauty of joy and sadness of zeal and of gentleness. You see all of the proportions of Christ’s person growing up also in the Christian as well. They’re not all in one direction, kind of misshapen. The higher they’re raised; the more is a longing of soul. After spiritual attainment increases, the more you taste, the more you want. The hungrier you get. It’s kind of like this, like Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst. But the water that I give him will become within him” (John 4:14), what? “A spring of water welling up.” Well, it’s interesting. You just said we’d never thirst, and yet what do you need a spring for then? Well, what’s a spring for? Its so that you can drink again and drink again and again and again.

And so, there’s this kind of a cycle of thirsting and of satisfaction and thirsting more and more satisfaction and ever more, and up it goes. And we can show this, we can see it in Philippians and Philippians 3, I think more than anything. Or Paul, the apostle who’s seen more of Christ than anybody who had ever walked on earth. He’d had visions up to the third heaven of Christ, and what does he say? You know what I want more than anything? I want to know Christ. That’s what I’m talking about. He has tasted already, and all he wants is more. He wants Christ. And then finally they have their exercise in fruit and Christian practice. They’re not just affections. They eventually are going to affect the way you live. They’re going to affect your practical, daily life. Alright, that’s a big broad overview and we have half an hour to get through that list in depth.

So, let’s get to it. Let’s start with the first one. Truly gracious affections arise from divine spiritual influences and operations on the heart. Christians are essentially spiritual. In the Greek, in the book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, it uses this Greek adjective pneumaticos. We’re spiritual ones, we’re not sarkikos, we’re not the fleshly ones. We’re not flesh-like, we’re spiritual. And he really nails ’em for this in 1 Corinthians 11:3 when he says, “The fact that there are factions and divisions among you shows that you’re behaving like the fleshly ones.” You should be behaving like what you really are the spiritual ones. So, we are essentially spiritual beings. I’m not denying that we have physical bodies. We definitely do, but you know your physical body is a thing of this present age and it will die. It will be stripped from you. There is some mysterious continuation of your present physical body on into your resurrection body.

I don’t understand it, and I don’t think anybody does. There is some continuity between your present. It is a seed that’s sown, and it’s raised incorruptible. All I’m saying is flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And so, you’re going to leave this body behind. You are, when I’m speaking to you, I’m speaking to Christians. And I’m speaking to you in your new creation person. And your new creation person is listening to me and is relating to what I’m saying. And it is an eternal thing that God has built in you. It’s eternal. It will never die. It will survive Judgment Day. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s a new creation thing inside you. It’s a holy seed that’s been planted in you, and it is essentially spiritual. You are spiritual. And so Romans 8 speaks so plainly to this. Romans 8:5-9, “those who live according to the sinful nature have their mind set on what that nature desires.”

Sinful nature is flesh. It’s what the NIV does with flesh. “But those who live according to the flesh have their mind set on what the flesh desires. Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires.” So, it’s two categories of people there. Do you see in Romans 8:5, there’s the fleshly ones, and there’s the spiritual ones. And the difference between the two is in the way they think. It’s in the thinking. The fleshly ones are thinking about the flesh, and it’s what they want. The spiritual ones are thinking about the things of the Spirit, and it’s what they want. It says, “The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” The fleshly mind, let’s say, is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

“Those controlled by the flesh, the sinful nature, cannot please God. You however are controlled not by the flesh, the sinful nature, but by the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you” (Romans 8:8). That’s such a vital verse. You know what it teaches me? That the Holy Spirit is a winner and not a loser. He’s in charge, and he’s not going to share you. He’s very zealous and jealous over you. He’s not going to take sin lying down. There’s a kind of a dynamic with sanctification, which he allows you to sin. He’s not going to force on you the holiness that he has, but instead what he’s going to do is he’s going to get you on the backside so that you’re so grieved over what you did that you ever more want to be holy. And in the end, he’s very, very active in you. He’s controlling you.

the Holy Spirit is a winner and not a loser. …He’s very zealous and jealous over you. He’s not going to take sin lying down.

Do you see that in verse 9? He is calling the shots in your life. You are controlled it says, by the Spirit if you’re a Christian. If the Spirit’s in you, he’s in charge, he’s running the deal. If he’s not in you, are you free? No, you’re controlled by the flesh. Either way, you’re going to be controlled, right? You say, but I don’t like that. I want to be free. I like the idea of freedom. Well, the sad thing is that we are, I don’t know if it’s sad, we’re just created to be either slaves to God or slaves to sin. We’re going to be one or the other. Slaves to righteousness, following its bidding, submitting to Christ, doing what he wants. Or we’re going to be doing the same for the devil and the flesh and all the evil stuff. There are no free people who aren’t doing either one.

You know that there’s no third category. Well, I don’t serve Christ, and I don’t serve sin. I’m just my own person. You’re serving sin, okay? That’s what it sounds like when somebody’s serving sin. They say, I don’t serve anybody. I do what I want. I’m the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. That’s the way a person speaks when they’re under the control of the flesh. That’s exactly what it sounds like. But you are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. So, if this isn’t true of you, you’re not a Christian. I’m not saying it, Paul said it, and he’s saying that the Spirit is in you and it’s running your mind. It’s controlling your life.

It’s the way you’re thinking. Does it lead to sinless perfection? Yes. Just not in this world, okay? In this world, you struggle, you fail. You have to confess sin. And there’s a struggle with the flesh and the Spirit and it goes on. But in the end, he’s going to make you perfect. He’s going to finish it. Isn’t that wonderful? I think that’s so great. I praise God for that. Alright, so what does it say of us? Well, we are born of the Spirit. It was the Spirit that gave us birth, this new creation in us. Flesh gives birth to the flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. That’s what he gives birth to in us. It’s a spiritual thing. And so therefore our mind is controlled by the Spirit. We’re feeding on spiritual truths. We’re yearning for spiritual blessings. Ephesians 1:3 means something to us, we like it. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” The Esau person’s going to say, what’s that to me? I’m dying of hunger. Give me a bowl of soup. Give me a warm blanket. Give me an entertaining ballgame. Give me a beautiful wife. Give me something for this earth and for this body of mine. But the spiritually minded person says, tell me more about every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. I want to know what I have in Christ. That’s wonderful to me that I get all of these spiritual blessings. And so, we are spiritually minded. We are enticed by and excited by things we can’t see and hold and touch physically. But non-Christians are essentially carnal or fleshly people. Esau is the paradigm example in the Bible.

He is the guy who traded it all for bowl of soup. Paul says in Philippians 3, their God is their stomach. They live for earthly passions. That’s what their life is made up of. And they feed on fleshly things. Their minds are controlled, by the flesh, they have fleshly desires and ambitions. And so, for the indwelling Spirit, the indwelling Spirit influences Christians directly in terms of their affections. Now you see how this relates to the first mark. If your affections are moved to the indwelling Spirit, they are gracious. You see, the Spirit within you transforms your affections and makes you love spiritual things. And that can’t be counterfeited. That’s something that the Spirit doesn’t do in a non-Christian. He does it with us. And so, he’s moving in you these affections. You’re controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit. And we have this indwelling Spirit as we already saw in Romans 8:9, also 1 John 4:12 says, “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us.”

Isn’t that striking that we are in some measure different than Christ, but in some measure, an incarnation of the triune God, he’s living within us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He’s living within us. And if he’s not, we’re not Christians. But when we become Christians, he makes his dwelling with us and he’s there. You feel him? There was a transformation when he became a Christian. He comes and lives within you. 1 John 4:15-16, “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he lives in God.” Isn’t that beautiful? “And so we know and rely on the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him.” So therefore, Christians are made partakers of the divine nature by the Spirit. They participate in God by the Spirit.

Lots of verses on that, but we don’t have time. Page five. The Spirit gives Christians a spiritual sense, which is a new ability to sense spiritual things and partake of them. We have our five senses, we have our eyes, we have our ears, we have our skin, our tongues. They give us our five senses and those five senses are our portals to the physical world. All of science makes use of what you can take in through the five senses and then reasons out what we have learned through the five senses. Okay, well, there’s spiritual senses too, aren’t there? Doesn’t the Bible speak of these things? That there’s a spiritual sight, that there’s a spiritual hearing, a spiritual tasting, right? Look what I mean. For example, in the sight, Jesus saying to Philip says, “Don’t you know me, Philip?” I’ll tell you what John 14:8-9 is so interesting.

Philip says to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it will be enough for us.” You remember that? He’s saying anyone, he says, “I am the way and the truth of the life.” If you want to come to the Father, you come through me. And they’re saying, well, for the Father, the Father, the Father, show us the Father. Show us the Father, and it will be enough for us. And you know what Jesus said? Don’t you know me? That’s striking. It struck me. I’d read it so many years and it never struck me. What a shock that is. Show us the Father. Don’t you know me, Jesus says. After all this time, don’t you know me? Anyone who’s seen me has seen the Father. That’s amazing. That is an unbelievable thing for Jesus to say if he’s not God, do you realize that? I mean, it’s just blasphemous if he’s not God. But it isn’t blasphemous because he is God.

And when you look at Christ, you’re looking at the exact representation of God the Father. And so, this is what I say to you. You have a spiritual sight in this matter. Have any of you ever seen Jesus? Philip saw Jesus, but we’ve never seen Jesus. And yet we see him by faith, don’t we? There’s a spiritual sight. We can see him. It says in Ephesians 1:18-19, Paul says, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Okay, what are the eyes of your heart? Do you ever wonder about that? Alan, have you ever worked on somebody’s eyes of their heart? I’m grateful you’re here and do the ministry you do. The laser just doesn’t go that deep. Okay?

There’s no such thing as the eyes of the heart for Lasik, or Lasik for the eyes of the heart. That’s all the Spirit. He’s not all the time, but there is this thing called the eyes of the heart. And you almost sometimes have to close your eyes in order to see some things. Because we walk by faith, not by sight. But we see something that we never seen before. It’s the glory of God in the face of Christ. Interesting, isn’t it? I could go about this for a long time in Galatians 3:1, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Christ Jesus was portrayed as crucified.” Do you think they did one of those passion plays? I don’t think so. It was in the preaching. And when he preached Jesus dead on the cross, bloody and all that, they saw it in their minds.

They had an internal perception of Christ, of spiritual vision, sight.

Hearing. “My sheep,” said Jesus, “hear my voice. They follow me. I know them. I give them eternal life, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27). If you’re Christ’s sheep, you hear his voice, you hear him speaking and you know when it’s him, don’t you? And you’re not going to listen to the voice of another. This is the mark of being a child of God. Jesus, after one of his parables said, “He who has ears,” what? “Let him hear.” Is he talking physical ears? No, their eardrums vibrated. But some people heard, I mean they heard, they had the hearing of the heart, a spiritual hearing.

Okay, how about taste? “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8), or in 1 Peter 2:3, “Now that you have tasted that the Lord is,” there’s a tasting. Psalm 119 is full of tasting, like the word of God’s like honey, there’s this tasting of spiritual things. Touch was the hardest for me. I had a hard time, and you guys have to work on this with me. I couldn’t find one. As a matter of fact, I kept finding opposite things like Mount Zion. “We’ve not come to a mountain that can be touched, but we’ve come to a spiritual mountain” (Hebrews 12:18). The best I could do is a Philippians 3 where Paul says, “I press on to grab hold of that for which Jesus grabbed hold of me.” So that’s kind of touch, pretty aggressive as a matter of fact. But there’s this touching and then smell. We are to sum the aroma of death and to others the aroma of life. And there’s just this, what am I saying? That the Holy Spirit when he comes into you gives you a new sense world and it’s in the spiritual world and it’s alive, isn’t it?

It’s a real world for you. And before you were Christian, it wasn’t even there. You didn’t even realize, just like Elisha’s servant didn’t even know that they were surrounded by chariots of fire. Oh Lord, open his eyes, let him see what’s there. It’s there. And by the way, it was there before the physical world. And it’ll be there after the physical world’s gone. The spiritual world is therefore more real than the physical, even though we don’t live like it the way we should. Yes, there’s tons of physical touch that Jesus did in his incarnation, and for me that’s significant because I think all of Jesus’ miracles really were spiritual. When he opened blind eyes, he was really also working on spiritual eyes too. And he actually even talks about that in John 9 when he said, for judgment, I came into the world to open seeing or to close seeing eyes in open blind eyes.

And if you tell me you can see, you’re blind, that’s how it works. That’s beautiful. Jesus frequently touched people when he healed them and hence, we get the songs, “He touched me,” et cetera. But I’m not going to sing that tonight. That’s all part of it. I actually looked for some scriptural background to “He Touched Me,” and I couldn’t find it. But the physical miracles are the best that we can do. I believe in a large measure this is what we’re talking about when we talk about the sealing of the Holy Spirit. We are sealed with the Spirit of God, okay? Who is a deposit, an arabone, a down payment guaranteeing the full inheritance. What are we talking about there? What is the nature of this sealing? This down payment? I believe it’s relational with God. He has brought you into a spiritually alive relationship with God, alright?

Do we have all of that relationship that we will have? No. We have a little down payment. We have a little stipend that we get paid out of the billions that are part of our inheritance. And so, the Spirit mediates God’s presence to us from within says here I am. I love you. I am holy. I am righteous. I am your God. I’m your Savior. I am your destiny. I am your reward. Here I am. He’s just mediating that to you. But we see through a glass darkly, then we shall see face-to-face. So, we get the down payment. And so, the indwelling Spirit mediates these affections to us directly. He doesn’t do that for a non-Christian. You can see how this can’t be counterfeited. And that’s why he spent so much time on this first one because this is kind of the key to the whole thing.

All right? The mark of the Spirit, the deposit. “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21), meditated on that. To me, to live is the down payment, and to die is the full inheritance. That’s what I get out of that. Alright? I get the down payment now. And it’s pretty good, and I always want more. The more I taste the more I want. But oh, for the whole inheritance. Oh, to see him face to face. Oh, to embrace him with all that I am. And to be free from my sin so that I have the capability to embrace him fully. Oh, how sweet that will be. To live is Christ and to die is more Christ more. I think that’s wonderful. Alright, secondly, alright, summary. Truly gracious affections come to influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart of the believer. This is something he works in you.

Secondly, the ground of truly gracious affections is the excellent nature of divine things. Not self-interest. The Christian has his breath taken away by the thing itself, by spiritual things themselves. Edwards said, “The glory of God and the beholding and enjoying of his perfections are considered things agreeable to him, tending to make him happy.” Things agreeable. They make you happy in themselves. They’re beautiful and excellent. God’s nature, his attributes. You don’t get tired of looking at a list of God’s attributes and supporting verses because this is the God who is the one who rules and reigns in the universe. And you want to know him. It’s wonderful to you and attractive. And you wish you could know more actually. You wish you could know more. And so, we’re enticed by these things. And the ground of the affection is how excellent they are, not what you’re going to get out of it.

Not some personal self in it. What’s in it for me serving? He talks a lot about self-love. Serving God from self-love is a topic in scripture. Remember what Job said? Does Job fear God for nothing? Remember Satan said that? Does Job fear nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him? What’s the implied accusation there? But Job is a mercenary, right? Job is a mercenary. He loves God for the stuff he can get out of it. If that stuff stops coming, he won’t love God anymore. Isn’t that it? That Job is at heart a mercenary. Was Job at heart a mercenary? No. He said, though he slay me yet will I trust in him. Alright. He was not at heart a mercenary, but he was wrestling with the pain of the trial. That is true. But he was not at heart a mercenary. And neither is a Christian at heart a mercenary.

We love God because of the beauty of it. We would in one sense, love God even if he condemned us because there’s a sense of the perfection of his quality and his character. And we would sense his righteousness and his justice, and we know that we deserve it anyway. But praise God, he doesn’t condemn us. Praise God we get saved. But the fact of the matter is that these affections are pulled out from us by the grandeur and majesty of it. When you’re standing, for me as I was earlier this summer before the Grand Canyon, “I love you for what you can do for me.” You don’t feel that. You just say, ah, wow, awesome. It just comes out of you. It’s natural almost because of the immensity of that hole in the ground. It’s just huge.

I parked in the parking lot, and I came down. I was trying to get my cell phone to work. I was going to call Christie, and I kind of turned and saw it. I just about dropped my cell phone. Was I at that moment thinking what they’re going to do for me? I wasn’t actually thinking what it could do for me. I was thinking how great it was and how immense. And I think that’s what Edwards is getting at here. It’s not the ground of the is the immense magnetic pull of the immensity of the glory of God. Not a secondary thought. Hey, there’s some good things coming to me as a result. We’re not thinking that way. There’s not a mercenary side to it. I have to be careful here because of course we want to be saved. And of course, we have a personal delight in God and all of those things are true.

But what he’s saying is that there’s almost a reflexive reaction of the greatness of God and his majesty and excellence. So, he talks at this point about mercenary things and all that bribery, just skip it. You can read it later. Asked a question, what about rewards? The rewards? Page seven, rewards. Do not violate this wanting rewards as long as you understand it properly. Landis and I were talking about this in Hebrews 11:6. It says, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Because anyone who believes in him or comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.” You say, well, what about the reward? Well, the verse tells you what the reward is. The verse tells you what the reward is. What are they diligently seeking? Or should I say, who are they diligently seeking? They’re seeking God.

Can you imagine all your life diligently seeking God? And God says, well, you made it. Now I’m going to give you this thing over here. What a disappointment. I mean anything of you other than himself isn’t what you wanted. What you wanted was God, and you were seeking him all your life. And he says, now you have me. This is what you wanted. Now you have me, and I will reward you with myself. And all of the lesser rewards for service are the same thing because they are praise from God in which he says, well done, good and faithful servant. It’s the same thing. I am pleased with you. There’s a relationship there. It’s God, God, God. Very God centered, God focused. So, is it possible for somebody to want heaven for the stuff you get out of it? Absolutely. Like for example, Pliable in Pilgrim’s Progress,

“Isn’t it this,” Pliable says, “Come Navy or Christian since there are none but the two of us here, tell me how now further what the things are and how to be enjoyed whether we are going. Tell me more about heaven. I want to hear about heaven. Sounds wonderful.”

Christian: I can better conceive of them with my mind than speak of them with my tongue. But yet since you are desirous to know, I’ll read of them in my book.

Pliable: And do you think that the words of your book are certainly true?

Christian: Yay verily. It was made by him that cannot lie.

Pliable: Well said. What things are they?

Christian: Well, there is an endless kingdom to be inhabited, an everlasting life to be given us that we may inhabit that kingdom forever.

Pliable. Well said. And what else?

Christian: There are crowns and glory to be given us, and garments that will make us shine like the sun in the firmament of heaven.

Pliable. This is very pleasant. And what else?

Christian: Well, there shall be no more crying or sorrow for he that is the owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes.

Pliable. And what company shall we have there?

Christian: there we shall be with seraphims and cherubims, creatures that will dazzle your eyes to look on them. There are also you shall meet with thousands and 10 thousands that have gone before us to that place. None of them are hurtful, but loving and holy. Everyone walking in the sight of God and standing in his presence with acceptance forever. In a word there we shall see the elders with their golden crowns. There we shall see the holy virgins with their golden harps. There we shall see men that by the world were cut in pieces, burned in flames, eaten of beasts, drowned in the seas for the love that they bear to the Lord of the place. All well-clothed with immortality as with a garment

Pliable: Oh, the hearing of this is enough to ravish one’s heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be shares thereof?

Christian: The Lord, the governor of the country hath recorded that in this book. That in this book, the substance of which if we be truly willing to have it, he will bestow it upon us freely.

Pliable: Well, my good companion, glad I am to hear of these things. Come on. Let’s mend up pace. Let’s hurry up. Come on, let’s go. I want to go now.

Pliable at this moment, is he converted? No. The slough of Despond will prove that he can’t handle even the slightest trouble in the Christian way, he will give up. But is he moved to affection about heaven? Oh, very much. What are his thoughts of heaven? Purely carnal. He looks at that list and says, wow, what a place I’d like to see it.

It’s kind of like a show like Barnum and Bailey or something we’re going to see. What else will we see and what else will there be? Does he have a desire to have the Hebrews 11:6 reward? He doesn’t even think about God at this moment. He’s not passionate after God. That’s not his reward. His reward is just the spectacle and the freedom from sorrow and the other things. And this feasting, and perhaps he thinks about it like a Muslim thinks about paradise, a place of sensual pleasures, not a place of God. And so a false Christian may be very much affected by thoughts of enticing, the enticing nature of heaven and may think much about the benefits of serving Christ without a true spiritual apprehension of the value of God in the spiritual things. Christians also enjoy meditation on the secondary aspects of benefits in heaven.

Hey, I admit it. I’m looking forward to seeing the streets of gold. I want to know what transparent gold looks like. I don’t know what it is. How can gold catch and permeate the glory of God? I am looking forward to that. And I want to see the new heavens and the new earth. I want to see what it’s going to, if this earth is so beautiful, what’s that one going to look like? But this is not the foundation of my structure. It’s what Edwards calls the super structure. It’s the window dressing. It’s not the thing itself. It’s not the thing itself. The thing itself is God is God, and that’s what I want. Okay?

Third, they’re founded in the loveliness of the moral excellence of divine things. He focuses here on holiness. Now, I’m not going to read these long quotes, but lemme just sum it up. Holiness is the perfection of God. It’s a summation of all of his attributes. It’s the one that God himself focuses on the most. It’s the one that seraphim focus on the most when they say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.” It’s the attribute that seems to sum it all up. And therefore, holiness is very much the essence of Christ and his incarnation. It is his holiness more than anything that sets him apart, apart from any other human that’s ever lived. His absolute perfection and holiness. That he never sinned. When God looks at Christ, it’s not the miracles. It’s not all the teaching, it’s not all that. It’s his absolute perfect holiness in obedience to God’s commands. That’s what he sees in his Son, and that’s our righteousness too. What a gift. That’s what we stand in. That’s what he earned for us, and we’re standing in that perfect holiness.

You can’t do that. That’s justification. And so, Christ is the perfect holiness of God manifested in physical life. Holiness is also the essence of the gospel. It’s a holy gospel. It’s a gospel that makes us holy. And that’s what makes it so beautiful. And therefore, saints are characterized by their holiness too. We long for it. We yearn for it. It’s our heartbeat. We hunger and thirst after righteousness of Jesus and we will be satisfied. It’ll be given to us as a gift. But it’s our heartbeat, and we sense that we’re speaking in alien language when we sin. We still do it. We still speak it, but it’s not our heart language anymore. And we’d like to no longer speak that strange tongue. It’s bizarre and weird to us now. We’d like it gone forever, but we don’t have all that we want. We wrestle with the flesh and it’s hard. But if we could, we would have it out, and we would even suffer greatly to have it out.

That’s what he’s saying. So, a yearning for holiness, a hunger and thirst for it is the ground of these affections. And we’re moved emotionally by it. We want it, and we yearn for it very much. And we’re attracted to it, too. We actually want to be near it. Whereas pagans, non-Christians want to be away from it. John 3:20, very clear, “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But everyone who lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” What a beautiful way John wrote that. Because even we who are righteous by faith in Christ come in to show Christ’s righteousness and his work in us not our own, alright? But we want to be there.

I want to be where the light is bright, alright? Even though it would slay me, I’d want to be there. And I’m so grateful that flesh and blood can’t inherit because I couldn’t survive the glory, the full-on glory. But I’m glad for the transformation, and I can’t wait to see that holiness. I’m attracted to it, want to go there. But the unbelievers are running the opposite direction. They’re calling to the mountains and to the hills, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb. I don’t want to be anywhere near them. They’re too holy for me. They’re running. They’re scared. They’re terrified. And why? Because their deeds are going to get exposed. So, they’re running the other way. They hate the holiness.

True affections, fourthly, arise from the enlightened to understand or apprehend divine things. These holy affections come from understanding. They come from exegesis, right interpretation of passages of scripture. They come from scripture memorization. They come from truth and good teaching and systematic theology, and just growth and grace and the knowledge of Christ. They are understanding based. They’re not just silly things like balloons without strings flowing around, and just who knows what they’re tied to. They’re very much connected to truth that never changes. So, they come up out of a solid foundation of understanding. There’s a mixture, a mingling of heat and light. Light is truth, understanding of truth. Heat is passion about it. And so, they are… (I wrote something here, I dunno where I put it).

Anyway, the fact of the matter is our affections are very much stimulated and strengthened by our understanding. So, you want to feed your mind with scripture, don’t you? You want to be happy. You want to be joyful. You want your affections to soar in Christ. Just know him better. Feed your mind with the Bible. Don’t say, oh, you’re getting deep for me now. I mean, that’s an old way of talking, deep. I want you guys to get deep. Come on, let’s find out more so that we can go high and then we can know him better and rejoice in him more and serve him better. Yes, we’re getting deep. That’s okay. It’s a good thing. We don’t want to be shallow. And it’s such a beautiful thing. The greater our understanding, the greater our affections.

You want your affections to soar in Christ. Just know him better. Feed your mind with the Bible…it’s such a beautiful thing. The greater our understanding, the greater our affections.

Fifth, they’re attended by a conviction of the reality and certainty of these things. Oh, that’s so sweet. We know that these things are true. We’re not just waving our arms. Christ is real. He’s true. The Bible is real. The scriptural promises are true, and we know it. Listen to what Jesus said in his priestly prayer. I love this. John 17:6, “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you, for I gave them the words you gave me, and they accepted them.” Do you see that? I gave them the words plural. I passed a bunch of teachings onto them, and they accepted them. Now listen to this. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believe that you sent me. You see that phrase with certainty?

It’s like translated another place of a truth. They just know of a truth with certainty that I came from you. Do you know that? Do you know it of a certainty that Christ came from God? I do. And there’s a sense that that’s unshaken. You just know. It doesn’t matter what trials you’re going through, it really doesn’t. You will always know that Christ is God, and it can never be taken from you. There’s an absolute unshakable certainty. The scripture, by the way, was given to produce this kind of certainty. Luke says at the very beginning of Luke 1:4, “I have written these things in good order so that you would know the certainty of the things you’ve been taught.” That’s a beautiful thing.

Anyway, other statements of that, I want to get to the last one. We’ll close with this one. The rest you can read. They, these evangelical or these gracious affections are attended with what he calls evangelical humiliation. I believe this is one of the most vital aspects of Edward’s presentation. What does he mean by that? He slays your pride. He kills it. It is his mortal enemy. He hates it. He fights against it. He doesn’t want anyone boasting in themselves on that final day. And so, he gives you a lifetime of wrestling with sin so that you will not in any way boast in yourself. You will know you were saved, you didn’t save yourself. You’ll know it. I know it. I know it more now than I did 20 years ago. I cannot save myself. And if you think you can, say it, “Lord, okay, I got it now. I think I got the Christian thing going here. Let me alone now. Just let me do it for a while.” How will you do? Would you like one day like that? Just one day?

Jesus already told you how you would do. “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Actually, we know that that doesn’t mean you can do nothing. You can do lots of things apart from correct. They’re all bad, all of them. You can’t do anything good, anything of eternal value. You can’t do anything beautiful and righteous and pure apart from Christ. And so, you’re humbled. This is the great and most essential thing in true religion. The whole frame of the gospel and everything appertaining to the new covenant and all of God’s dispensations toward fallen men are calculated to bring to pass this effect in the hearts of men. The gospel is a very humbling thing. That’s one of the reasons I embrace the doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God, because it really humbles me. And that’s a good thing. I want that because I see that that’s the tendency of the gospel.

Anyway. We’re not left with anything to say, “Yes, but this was good about me.” We’re left saying, you saved me by faith, by grace through Christ. You saved me. You did this to me. Thank you. And so, it’s a beautiful thing. “The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). “This is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever and whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit” (Isaiah 57:15). Isn’t that wonderful? I am the high and lofty one and powerful. I live way up there, but I also live with humble and lowly and meek people, broken-hearted people. Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The Holy Spirit comes to slay your pride.

And that’s I love Philippians 3:3, a beautiful definition of what it means to be a Christian. “We are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God who glory in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh.” What does that mean? I don’t trust myself to do anything but sin. If you leave me to myself, I will sin. But by grace I will not, by his power working in me. And so, these affections are, they’re humble, they’re lowly. They’re like a broken box out of which comes this beautiful, these beautiful ointments. Page 12, it says, “All gracious affections that are a sweet odor to Christ and that fill the soul of a Christian with heavenly sweetness and fragrance are broken-hearted affections.” Did you hear that? They’re broken-hearted, a truly Christian love either to God or man as a humble, broken-hearted love.

The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope. Joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble, broken-hearted joy. And leaves the Christian more poor in spirit and more like a little child and more disposed to universal lowliness of behavior than before. That’s a beautiful thing. And we’re safe when we’re like that. And we’re in danger when we start getting uppity. Uppity is bad, okay? It’s meek and lowly. Because when you go up, he’s going to smack you down. But when you humble yourself, he will lift you up. Let’s close in prayer. (prays)

Historical Context
A.   The Great Awakening (1742)
B.    Edwards Battling on Two Fronts, Against Two Extremes… Submitted the Treatise on Religious Affections in Three Parts in 1746
Part I.  Concerning the Nature of The Affections, and Their Importance in Religion
Part II.  Showing What Are No Certain Signs That Religious Affections Are Gracious (i.e Saving Grace from God), Or That They Are Not
Part III.  Showing What Are the Distinguishing Signs of Truly Gracious and Holy Affections
I.  Concerning the Nature of The Affections, and Their Importance in Religion
A.   Section I:  Introductory Remarks Concerning the Affections
1.   Edwards Central Treatise:
True Religion, in Great Part, Consists in Holy Affections
2.   Definition of Affections of the Mind soul’s two principal faculties (endowed by God)
a.   perception (understanding) by which it discerns and judges all things
b.   inclination (will, heart) by which it is inclined or disinclined to every single thing
B.    Section II:  Proofs That True Religion, in Great Part, Consists in the Affections
Proof #1:  Obvious Nature of Religion
Proof #2:  Affections are the spring of actions
Proof #3:  True religion takes hold in the soul no further than they affect them
Proof #4:  Scripture places religion very much in the affections
Proof #5:  Scripture presents LOVE as the summation of all true religion
Proof #6:  The religion of eminent saints in the Bible consisted of affections
Proof #7:  The Lord Jesus Christ displayed constant affections, of the deepest sort
Proof #9:  Religious duties commanded by God focus much on affections
Proof #10:  Sin of the heart = “hardness of heart”… proof that affection is the core of true religion
C.    Section III:  Some Inferences Deduced from this Doctrine
Part II.  Showing What Are No Certain Signs That Religious Affections Are Gracious (i.e Saving Grace from God), Or That They Are Not
Simplified List
1)      Strong, high religious affections is no proof…
2)      Effects on your body is no proof…
3)      Fluent, fervent, and abundant talk about Christ is no proof…
4)      That you believe these affections came from outside you is no proof…
5)      Having many texts of Scripture is no proof…
6)      Having an appearance of love is no proof…
7)      Having many different kinds of religious affections is no proof…
8)      That torment of soul gave way to joy is no proof…
9)      Lots of religious service and external worship is no proof…
10)   Praising and glorifying God with your mouth is no proof…
11)   Strong confidence and assurance based on these affections is no proof… 12)  Having a compelling testimony that godly people love is no proof…
 
Part III.  Showing What Are Distinguishing Signs Of Truly Gracious And Holy Affections. 
Introductory Comments:
1)   It is impossible to put together a list of qualities that will enable us to determine with absolute certainty the spiritual state of others
However… we can know in a practical way well enough to have fellowship or to judge false teachers
We can also know the spiritual state of others well enough to minister appropriate Scriptural medicines to their souls… whether warnings, comforts, rebukes, corrections, praise, etc.
BUT it is God’s prerogative alone to make the final distinction between sheep and goats
2)   It is not possible to put together a list of qualities that will enable saints in a low state of grace to discern their own spiritual state with absolute certainty.  [The problem is not with the list but with the person who applies the list in a faulty way]
3)   Assurance comes in one main way alone:
Edwards:  “It is not God’s design that men should obtain assurance in any other way than by mortifying corruption, and increasing in grace, and obtaining the lively exercises of it.”
“Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination as by action…. Paul obtained assurance of winning the prize more by running than by considering.”
Philippians 3:12-14  Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
4)   No list of virtues is of any use apart from the activity of grace in your life… assurance is a living, dynamic thing
5)   Some hypocrites are so hardened in self-deceit, no matter how you make the list they will survive unconvicted of their danger
Distinguishing Signs Of Truly Gracious And Holy Affections: 
A.  Truly gracious affections arise from divine influences and operations on the heart 
B.  Their ground is the excellent nature of divine things, not self-interest 
C.  They are founded on the loveliness of the moral excellency of divine things. 
D.  They arise from the mind’s being enlightened to understand or apprehend divine things. 
E.   They are attended with a conviction of the reality and certainty of divine things. 
F.   They are attended with evangelical humiliation. 
G.  They are attended with a change of nature. 
H.  They are attended with the lamblike, dovelike spirit and temper of Jesus Christ 
I.    They are attended with a Christian tenderness of spirit. 
J.    They have beautiful symmetry and proportion. 
K.  The higher they are raised, the more is a longing of soul after spiritual attainments increased.  L. They have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice 
 
 
A. Truly gracious affections arise from divine spiritual influences and operations on the heart 
1.   Christians are essentially “spiritual” people
Romans 8:5-9  Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
a.    born of the Spirit
John 3:6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
b.   mind controlled by the Spirit
c.    feeding on spiritual truths
d.   yearning for spiritual blessings
Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
2.   Non-Christians are essentially “carnal” or “fleshly” people
a.    not born of the Spirit
b.   mind controlled by the flesh
c.    feeding on fleshly things
d.   fleshly desires and ambitions
3.   Indwelling Spirit influences Christians directly in terms of their affections
Romans 8: 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:15-16  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
4.   Christians are made partakers of the divine nature by the Spirit… therefore they “participate in God” by the Spirit
5.   Spirit gives Christians a “spiritual sense”… a new ability to “sense” spiritual things and partake of them
a.    five senses:  sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell
b.   used as analogies of spiritual perception and experience i)  sight
John 14:9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Ephesians 1:18-19  I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power at work in you who believe…
ii)     hearing
John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me…”
Matthew 13:9 “He who has ears, let him hear.”
Hebrews 3:7-8  So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…’”
iii)   taste
Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
1  Peter 2:3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Psalm 119:103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
iv)   touch
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
v)     smell
2  Corinthians 2:15 For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
6.  This is a large measure of what the “sealing” of the Spirit is… a partial payment of joyful fellowship with God Himself
NASB 2 Corinthians 1:22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.
 
Ephesians 1:13-14  And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession– to the praise of his glory.
I consider the “deposit” of the Spirit to represent actual spiritual fellowship on earth with God, but far short of the full amount awaiting our inheritance in heaven:
Philippians 1:21  For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
7.  Summary:  Truly gracious affections come from the direct influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart of the believer
B. Their ground is the excellent nature of divine things, not self-interest 
1.   Christian has his breath taken away by the thing itself… by spiritual things themselves
Edwards:  “The glory of God and the beholding and enjoying His perfections are considered things agreeable to him, tending to make him happy.”
2.   Contrasted with affections from self-love
a.    self-love asks “what’s in it for me?”
b.   self-love has a sense of benefit separate from the divine things… perhaps a carnal apprehension of what heaven will be like (like the Muslims:  sensual indulgence)
c.    serving God from self-love a topic in Scripture
Job 1:9-11  “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Luke 6:32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them.”
Deuteronomy 16:19 Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Edwards:  “Thus Saul was once and again greatly affected, and even dissolved with gratitude towards David, for sparing his life, and yet remained a habitual enemy to him. And as men, from mere nature, may be thus affected towards men; so they may towards God.”
3.  Truly gracious affection arise from a sense of what these divine things are in themselves… not from a mercenary spirit, expecting a payday
Question:  What about rewards?  
Answer:  Rewards do not violate this truth if they are understood as being more and better partaking of God Himself… of God’s pleasure and nature and presence
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Note:  God rewards those who seek Him… in other words, those whose hearts show that it is God they want, and God alone.  They will be rewarded by getting what they have sought:
Genesis 15:1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
Example:  Pliable in Pilgrim’s Progress:
Come, neighbor Christian, since there are none but us two here, tell me now further what the things are, and how to be enjoyed, whither we are going.
Chr. I can better conceive of them with my mind, than speak of them with my tongue: but yet, since you are desirous to know, I will read of them in my book.
Pli. And do you think that the words of your book are certainly true?
Chr. Yes, verily; for it was made by Him that cannot lie.
Pli. Well said; what things are they?
Chr. There is an endless kingdom to be inhabited, and everlasting life to be given us, that we may inhabit that kingdom for ever.
Pli. Well said; and what else?
Chr. There are crowns and glory to be given us, and garments that will make us shine like the sun in the firmament of heaven. 
Pli. This is very pleasant; and what else?
Chr. There shall be no more crying, nor Sorrow: for He that is owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes.
Pli. And what company shall we have there?
Chr. There we shall be with seraphims and cherubims, creatures that will dazzle your eyes to look on them. There also you shall meet with thousands and ten thousands that have gone before us to that place; none of them are hurtful, but loving and holy; every one walking in the sight of God, and standing in his presence with acceptance for ever. In a word, there we shall see the elders with their golden crowns, there we shall see the holy virgins with their golden harps, there we shall see men that by the world were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, eaten of beasts, drowned in the seas, for the love that they bear to the Lord of the place, all well, and clothed with immortality as with a garment.
Pli. The hearing of this is enough to ravish one’s heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be sharers thereof?
Chr. The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, he will bestow it upon us freely.
Pli. Well, my good companion, glad am I to hear of these things: come on, let us mend our pace.
Chr. I cannot go so fast as I would, by reason of this burden that is on my back.
 
A false Christian may be very much affected by thoughts of the enticing nature of heaven, and may think much about the “benefits” of serving Christ… without a true spiritual apprehension of the value of God and of spiritual things.  Christians also enjoy meditation on the secondary aspects of benefits in heaven… but this is “superstructure” or “window dressing”… not the substance itself.
Edwards:  “…that which is the true saint’s superstructure is the hypocrite’s foundation.”
C.  They are founded on the loveliness of the moral excellency of divine things. 
1.   Edwards focuses on holiness as the perfection of God’s nature
Edwards:  “Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellency of intelligent beings: there is no other true virtue, but real holiness. Holiness comprehends all the true virtue of a good man, his love to God, his gracious love to men, his justice, his charity, and bowels of mercies, his gracious meekness and gentleness, and all other true Christian virtues that he has, belong to his holiness. So the holiness of God in the more extensive sense of the word, and the sense in which the word is commonly, if not universally used concerning God in Scripture, is the same with the moral excellency of the divine nature, or his purity and beauty as a moral agent, comprehending all his moral perfections, his righteousness faithfulness, and goodness.”
2.   Holiness is also the perfection of Christ’s being
Edwards:  “Herein does primarily consist the amiableness and beauty of the Lord Jesus, whereby he is the chief among ten thousands, and altogether lovely, even in that he is the holy one of God, Acts 3:14, and God’s holy child, Acts 4:27, and he that is holy, and he that is true, Rev. 3:7. All the spiritual beauty of his human nature, consisting in his meekness, lowliness, patience, heavenliness, love to God, love to men, condescension to the mean and vile, and compassion to the miserable, &c., all is summed up in his holiness. And the beauty of his divine nature, of which the beauty of his human nature is the image and reflection, does also primarily consist in his holiness.”
3.   Holiness is the perfection of the gospel:  it is the holy gospel
4.   Holiness is, therefore, the perfection of the saints
a.    they are the “holy ones”
b.   they are thus conformed to His image of holiness
c.    this is the essential nature, and what they long for the most
5.   Thus truly gracious affections arise out of love for and yearning for holiness
Saints are given a “taste for holiness” which is alien to the true nature in Adam
6.   Holiness becomes our “food” and “entertainment”, because a “holy love has a holy object”
Edwards: [speaking of Psalm 119]  “The Psalmist declares his design in the first verses of the Psalm, and he keeps his eye on this design all along, and pursues it to the end: but in this Psalm the excellency of holiness is represented as the immediate object of a spiritual taste, relish, appetite, and delight of God’s law; that grand expression and emanation of the holiness of God’s natures and prescription of holiness to the creature, is all along represented as the food and entertainment, and as the great object of the
love, the appetite, the complacence and rejoicing of the gracious nature, which prizes God’s commandments above gold, yea, the finest gold, and to which they are sweeter than the honey and honey comb; and that upon account of their holiness, as I observed before.
7.   We are now attracted to holiness where we were once repelled from it
John 3:20-21  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
 
D.  They arise from the mind’s being enlightened to understand or apprehend divine things. 
1.   Holy affections spring from the UNDERSTANDING… they are not merely emotions
Edwards:  “Holy affections are not heat without light; but evermore arise from the information of the understanding, some spiritual instruction that the mind receives, some light or actual knowledge. The child of God is graciously affected, because he sees and understands something more of divine things than he did before, more of God or Christ, and of the glorious things exhibited in the gospel; he has some clearer and better view than he had before.”
2.   Hypocrites may have some passions about intellectual knowledge… but these affections arise from spiritual understanding 
3.   Thus the New Testament makes MUCH of the understanding as central to spiritual development
1  Corinthians 2:14-16  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: 16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Colossians 1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
4.   The Christian understands spiritual things with his heart, and relishes them based on that heart understanding 
5.   The greater the understanding, the greater the affections
E. They are attended with a conviction of the reality and certainty of divine things. 
1.   The Christian can speak with absolute assurance that these divine things are TRUE
2.   The Christian can scarcely imagine a universe in which there is no God, or in which Christ is not the Son of God, or in which the gospel promises are not true, etc.
3.   A Christian is someone who no longer “halts between two opinions”… they know with certainty that Christ is God the Son
John 17:6-8  “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.  For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.
4.   Scripture is given to produce this kind of certainty
Luke 1:3-4  Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
5.   Many such statements of absolute certainty
2  Corinthians 4:13-14  It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.
2 Corinthians 5:6-8  Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
6.   Therefore, our joy is a reasonable joy, and our reasoning is a joyful reasoning
7.   As a result, we go from “big picture” delight to detailed delight in every aspect of the Gospel and the Scriptures
Edwards:  “And thus the Spirit of God discovers the way of salvation by Christ; thus the soul sees the fitness and suitableness of this way of salvation, the admirable wisdom of the contrivance, and the perfect answerableness of the provision that the gospel exhibits (as made for us) to our necessities. A sense of true divine beauty being given to the soul, the soul discerns the beauty of every part of the gospel scheme.”
F. They are attended with evangelical humiliation. 
1.   This is one of the most vital aspects of Edwards’s presentation
2.   God is constantly at work slaying our pride and confidence in ourselves… this is precisely what the gospel does to us
Edwards:  “This is a great and most essential thing in true religion. The whole frame of the gospel, and everything appertaining to the new covenant, and all God’s dispensations towards fallen man, are calculated to bring to pass this effect in the hearts of men. They that are destitute of this, have no true religion, whatever profession they may make, and how high soever their religious affections may be.”
Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
Isaiah 66:2 “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
3.   All truly gracious affections are broken-hearted affections
Edwards:  “Now, it is out of such a heart as this, that all truly holy affections do flow. Christian affections are like Mary’s precious ointment that she poured on Christ’s head, that filled the whole house with a sweet odor. That was poured out of an alabaster box; so gracious affections flow out to Christ out of a pure heart. That was poured out of a broken box; until the box was broken, the ointment could not flow, nor diffuse its odor; so gracious affections flow out of a broken heart. Gracious affections are also like those of Mary Magdalene (Luke 7), who also pours precious ointment on Christ, out of an alabaster broken box, anointing therewith the feet of Jesus, when she had washed them with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. All gracious affections that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken hearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble broken hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit; and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior.”
4.   “Evangelical humiliation” goes to the core of our prideful hearts and slays us… “legal” humiliation does not do this… 
Edwards spoke of the humblings of monks and others that abase the body, and say they may be very proud of their humblings
True evangelical humiliation breaks the heart and makes it forever a beggar at the throne of grace
It is not proud, lofty, arrogant, boastful… it lays low and delights to lay low G. They are attended with a change of nature. 
1.  The true Christian life begins with the radical (i.e to the root) transformation of the person in his nature
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Edwards:  “All Gracious affections do arise from a spiritual understanding, in which the soul has the excellency and glory of divine things discovered to it, as was shown before. But all spiritual discoveries are transforming; and not only make an alteration of the present exercise, sensation, and frame of the soul, but such power and efficacy have they, that they make an alteration in the very nature of the soul.”
“And no discoveries or illuminations but those that are divine and supernatural, will have this supernatural effect. But this effect all those discoveries have, that are truly divine. The soul is deeply affected by these discoveries, and so affected as to be transformed.”
“The Scripture representations of conversion do strongly imply and signify a change of nature: such as “being born again; becoming new creatures; rising from the dead; being renewed in the spirit of the mind; dying to sin, and living to righteousness; putting off the old man, and putting on the new man; a being ingrafted into a new stock; a having a divine seed implanted in the heart; a being made partakers of the divine nature,” &c.”
2.  With every new, true, spiritual discovery comes a further transformation of the nature
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
3.   Only divine power can produce this supernatural transformation
Edwards:  And no discoveries or illuminations but those that are divine and supernatural, will have this supernatural effect. But this effect all those discoveries have, that are truly divine. The soul is deeply affected by these discoveries, and so affected as to be transformed.
4.   If this transformation has not taken place, the person is not a Christian and their affections are not from grace
 
H. They are attended with the lamblike, dovelike spirit and temper of Jesus Christ 
Matthew 11:28-30  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Edwards:  “Truly gracious affections differ from those affections that are false and delusive, in that they tend
to, and are attended with the lamblike, dovelike spirit and temper of Jesus Christ; or in other words, they naturally beget and promote such a spirit of love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness and mercy, as appears in Christ.”
1.   This follows from the earlier observation about evangelical humiliation
2.   It also follows from God’s predestined goal that we should be made imitators of Christ’s nature
Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Edwards:  “Christ, the great Shepherd, is himself a Lamb, and believers are also lambs; all the flock are lambs”
3.   Therefore there are many commands that we should carry ourselves with this Christlike meekness and lowliness toward each other
Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
4.   This is very much the work the “dove”, the Holy Spirit works in us
5.   It does not equally appear in all Christians, and some allowance must be made for natural temperament… but all Christians bear this distinguishing mark
I.    They soften the heart, and are attended with a Christian tenderness of spirit. 
1.   False affections actually have the tendency to harden the heat and to alienate the person from God
2.   Gracious affections always tend to soften the heart and make us more yielded and open to the Kingly leadership of God
Edwards:  “Gracious affections are of a quite contrary tendency; they turn a heart of stone more and more into a heart of flesh. A holy love and hope are principles that are vastly more efficacious upon the heart, to make it tender, and to fill it with a dread of sin, or whatever might displease and offend God, and to engage it to watchfulness, and care, and strictness, than a slavish fear of hell.”
3.   This tenderness of heart Christ compares to the heart of a child… easily and humbly yielded to leadership, and greatly affected by the sufferings of others
Edwards:  “A little child has his heart easily moved, wrought upon and bowed: so is a Christian in spiritual things. A little child is apt to be affected with sympathy, to weep with them that weep, and cannot well bear to see others in distress: so it is with a Christian.”
4.   Noisy, pushy, boisterous, self-advancing spirits are totally contrary to this tenderness
Edwards:  “Hence gracious affections do not tend to make men bold, forward, noisy, and boisterous; but rather to speak trembling.”
5.   This tenderness is characterized by “rejoicing with trembling” Psalm 2:11 Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling.
J.    Gracious affections have beautiful symmetry and proportion. 
1.   This is true because the whole image of Christ is being worked within the soul
2.   They are not imbalanced and grotesque, but balanced and proportioned
3.   Christians do not wholesale face one sin only and fight it, but hate all sin because it does not conform to the image of Christ
4.   Christ’s balanced and perfect affections are the model for this balance and symmetry
K.  The higher they are raised, the more is a longing of soul after spiritual attainments increased. 
Edwards:  “The more a true saint loves God with a gracious love, the more he desires to love him, and the more
uneasy is he at his want of love to him; the more he hates sin, the more he desires to hate it, and laments that he has so much remaining love to it; the more he mourns for sin, the more he longs to mourn for sin; the more his heart is broke, the more he desires it should be broke the more he thirsts and longs after God and holiness, the more he longs to long, and breathe out his very soul in longings after God: the kindling and raising of gracious affections is like kindling a flame; the higher it is raised, the more ardent it is; and the more it burns, the more vehemently does it tend and seek to burn.”
1.   A Christian is constantly satisfied and yet not satisfied
2.   Thirsty, he is totally quenched by Christ;  and soon as he tastes, he is instantly wanting more
3.   This is true because be accelerate in our sense of our sinfulness and of God’s glorious worth
Edwards:  “The reasons of it are, that the more persons have of holy affections, the more they have of that spiritual taste which I have spoken of elsewhere; whereby they perceive the excellency, and relish the divine sweetness of holiness. And the more grace they have, while in this state of imperfection, the more they see their imperfection and emptiness, and distance from what ought to be: and so the more do they see their need of grace.”
The Apostle Paul perhaps demonstrates this more than anyone else:
Philippians 3:10-12  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
L.   They have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice 
1.   Gracious affections move out into practical life
2.   They produce a yearning for total conformity and total obedience in every area of life
3.   They grieve over the discrepancies between affection and practice and yearn to remedy the situation
4.   Therefore they devote themselves to all the duties of the Christian religion, not trusting in them as a form of righteousness, but rather as a path to ever-increasing joy in holiness