The Spirit in the Desert-Rowen Williams

I am in the start of God answering the question of what are my hidden sins and faults. It seems as if God is taking me up on my question of what he wants to correct. Also its not all what a I would normally think sins are that i commit, but how I think. He has already brought up one issue!

So far i don’t find pain in self discovery, I probably will as the Surgeon cuts deeper! I do love Him, and i want to be like He is. More important than my love for Him is His love for me, such a delight! Hopefully down the road I can take the pain. In the past He was very pleasurably present: His presence overwhelmed the pain of resisting a temptation, so that gives me hope He will be with me as He cuts more deeply.

There is a reason why all the great ones that were His always mourned for their sins.

I don't doubt that self-examination for the purpose of finding specific sins that may have been hidden to us can be valuable. Still it seems to me that when one delves deep enough, perhaps one will find more about the existence of "sin" rather than just specific "sins", meaning the sin nature that is still there even in a Christian until death and resurrection. It is the root and source from which individual sins spring up. And it would be hard to avoid the impression that this sin nature touches pretty much everything that we do in at least some way.

As I wrote in another thread, I believe it would be just too devastating for us to become aware of the full depth and extent of our sinfulness at once. But when we keep Christ and his atoning, redeeming work on our behalf as the center of attention, we should be able to see that every crack in the rusty armor of our own righteousness is a chance for the perfect light of Christ to shine through. The process of sanctification then becomes one of finding new ways in which we are reliant on his grace and his righteousness, the beneficiaries of which we already are. Continuing with the armor imagery, perhaps one could think of it as our old rusty metal armor full of holes being gradually replaced by an armor of indestructible light. Should perhaps try to write a poem about it sometime.

Just to reinforce this point around a different set of images, it sometimes seems that many Christians think of us as cripples who are nursed back to health so that eventually we can walk on our own just fine (even though most will at least recognize that this "walking on our own" phase is beyond our current life here in the fallen world). In this way of thinking, Christ's perfect righteousness becomes almost like a crutch or a walking cane that may have been critically necessary for our healing but eventually can be thrown away. But that can't be right! So it seems to me that the proper view is that sanctification is about growing into the perfect righteousness of Christ (rather than producing our own and separate "copy" of it), until eventually we are completely dependent on his righteousness when our union with Christ is complete. What's being thrown away is anything that is of ourselves, not his perfection.

So what began as a righteousness coming completely from the outside becomes our identity in and with Christ without ceasing to be his rather than ours. Or something like that. It's hard to find the exact right words. No doubt this will only be completed on the other side of death and resurrection. On this side, we are probably not in a position to say too much about the progress of our sanctification with any great certainty (even though there are some indications that we can try to observe) because the presence of his light in us may always expose something new about where more light is needed, so that an increased awareness of one's sinfulness doesn't have to mean increase in sin. It can be just the opposite while also being a sign of God's presence.

But these are just some of my thoughts without listening to the lecture yet. I may try to convert it to MP3 format so that I can listen to it when going for a walk tonight. I find that it's easier to keep my mind concentrated on a long lecture that way.

Only now I noticed that this one is only 10 minutes. I assumed it's about the same length as the one you posted previously from Williams. Well, now there's even less excuse for me to not watch/listen to it.

I have to think on what you have said as usual

Thanks for the reply!

I really like him as a person. Very capable to speak complex thoughts clearly

Please excuse me for being so blunt, but from where in Finland are you?

Somewhere in the west coast area.

I hope its not just a little light coming through cracked armor of my own righteousness! I rather hope I am really hearing what He says needs to be corrected. If that is the case, i am just trying to do what He wants me to do.

Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect

Enter in the narrow gate

Why would He tell us that if all we had to do is wait for our sanctification, fearing if we try to do anything righteous it would be of the flesh only?

I think He expects us to cooperate with His grace. His grace is sufficient yes, but our hearts and our wills and our deeds have to follow (James)

The point that I tried to make is actually neutral regarding any specific view on the whole faith vs works debate. In other words, I think it can be made to work with almost any view on that matter because that whole juxtaposition of faith vs works is not really the focus of what I tried to say. So I'll try to clarify.

What tends to happen in sanctification is that gradually more and more of our being gets aligned with Christ. This can happen in various ways, such as abandoning some sinful habits, being able to glorify God in new ways, etc. It can also happen when we begin to recognize our still existing sin more deeply and more fully. So just for now, I'll just assume that all of this is true regarding sanctification and that we probably agree. In what I write below, I'm not meaning to dispute anything about this.

At the background of the point that I'm trying to make are New Testament concepts like Christ as the new Adam and the old man / new man distinction. I'm trying to interpret and conceptualize them in a certain way that would seem to make sense of a problem that otherwise seems to arise.

Regarding the "old man", that is in some sense "Adam in us". Similarly, the "new man" would be "Christ in us". So my point is that when we become more sanctified, it is not that we are creating an instance of righteousness that is separate from Christ's righteousness. In other words, it's not a mere "copy" of Christ's perfect example or anything like that. Rather, we are "growing into" Christ's righteousness. We are already heirs of it as it has been given to us by grace, but we are "growing into it" and starting to "live from it" rather than from Adam. It is already ours by right (as the children of God) but it becomes gradually "actualized" through sanctification.

Our identity becomes more deeply bound with Christ as he indwells in us in some mysterious way, leaving less room for the "old man" which is our old identity in Adam. Let's say that you are able to give up a particular sin or at least resist it more and therefore fall into it less frequently. That "area" within your being is now open for Christ and his righteousness to be more present in. When we manage to do righteous deeds as the fruit of our sanctification, it is Christ's righteousness at work with us, not something that imitates Christ's righteousness as a "copy" separate from it. Of course we still remain fallen (although redeemed) creatures, so the "old man" still influences what we do, and so our deeds (or even thoughts) can be far from being perfectly aligned with Christ and his righteousness, but the process of sanctification is still the process moving in the direction of being more dependent on Christ as he is more present in us.

Here's the question. I think we agree that after our death and resurrection we are completely sanctified and sin no longer has any power or presence in us at all. In this situation, are we now "independently righteous" and only seeing a past role for Christ's perfect righteousness? Or are we righteous at that point precisely because we are in perfect union with Christ so that his righteousness is now indwelling us completely so that we literally live from and by him and his righteousness?

I'm happy to try and clarify this further if necessary. And certainly I could be mistaken about this whole thing. I just can't easily bring myself to think that the end result of our sanctification moves us away from Christ and from dependence on him rather than make us live in and through Christ's perfection that will then perfectly indwell us.

I would also say that this kind of understanding seems to make better sense of the intimate metaphor of marriage between Christ and the church as his bride, and the mystical language of union with Christ and becoming one with him.

Yes i know from what you have written we are not far apart.

Especially here:

I would also say that this kind of understanding seems to make better sense of the intimate metaphor of marriage between Christ and the church as his bride, and the mystical language of union with Christ and becoming one with Him.

Here is what I wrote to my many year friend

I love Him very much to the point it is a romantic relationship. I use terms like He embraces me, He caresses me and so forth. There are no real words I can say that are exactly correct because it's through my mind, heart, and spirit I feel these things. He overwhelmingly loves me, not just a little bit. Because I am close to Him, my mind and spirit also sees some of His beauty and sweetness. I also see vaguely what heaven is like. I know in a small part who He is.

In my heart and in my mind I know how imperfect I am next to Him. I do not want to offend Him in any way and want to discover my hidden sin to be forgiven and change. He is not anxious to tell me, similar to being a newlywed, He just doesn't want to bring it up, just tells me how much He loves me. At least lately He has given me (gently) one thing to work on, in the way I think.

So yes, I understand some things about the Song of Solomon, St. John of the Cross, The Little Flower, Theresa of Avila, and Julian of Norwich, how they loved Him and He loved them. I hope someday to be like them.

Here is what my friend said that led to the rely above;:

I read Song of Solomon again recently, and it has a lot of the same sentiments as your poem. Must be the same Holy Spirit.