Do-able Christianity

It occurred to me recently as I studied 1 Corinthians 13 and thought about many of the sermons I have heard over the years that Christians who have a tendency toward legalism sometimes express it by sucking the emotions out of every virtue. Joy and happiness are defined as two completely different things, so that joy is reduced to peace or hope. Faith is said to have nothing to do with one’s feelings and is reduced to believing Gospel facts to be true. Love is said to be an action (which is true), not an emotion (which is not true). Fear of God is said to be respect or reverence, not actual fear. So one can have joy with no happiness, faith with no heart, love with no affection, and fear with no uneasiness. You can be a miserable person, but as long as you don’t deny Christ you can claim to be joyful. You can have no emotional reaction to the cross of Christ, but as long as you believe it to be true, you have faith. You can despise someone, but as long as you act good to them, you have love. As long as you behave biblically, you’re okay.

Could it be that this Christian behaviorism is nothing more than an attempt to make Christianity do-able without the Holy Spirit? I can see how legalism would push in that direction. I can’t change my heart, but I can choose to act certain ways, so I’ll define Christianity exclusively in terms of decisions of the will rather than affections of the heart. Give me the list of rules and I’ll keep them, but don’t ask me to have affection for someone I dislike. I can’t just decide to do that.

In fact, I’ve often heard preachers say, “God would never command us to do something that we can’t do!” Meaning, God would never ask us to change our emotions, because we can’t seem to do that by an act of the will. I say the exact opposite: “God never asks us to do anything that we can do.” Meaning, we cannot obey any of Christ’s commands without the Holy Spirit working in us. Legalism seems to want to make the Christian life naturally possible, whereas Scripture makes the Christian life naturally impossible. That is precisely why we need something supernatural in order to live it. I need the Spirit of God to work powerfully in my heart so that my emotions are stirred and enlivened in God-honoring ways. What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, humility, moderation? Sounds like pretty emotional stuff.

On this topic, I highly recommend Jonathan Edwards’ book, The Religious Affections, in which he establishes that true Christianity consists largely in the emotions (affections), enumerates things that don’t indicate one way or the other that your spirituality is genuine, and describes how to recognize true, grace-prompted emotions.