Drinking from the Fullness of God
Phillip Johnson, the Executive Director and radio host of John MacArthur’s media ministry Grace to You, has rightly said, “Our God is not a metaphysical iceberg.” Rather, He is alive with holy and warm affections. We are at best empty and leaky vessels, so let us bring our souls to Him that He might fill us with His best and most glorious gift: Himself.
Paul describes this process in his glorious prayer:
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3: 14-19 NASB)
Note the Trinitarian nature of our communion with God. It begins as the Spirit comes down from the Father and into us and strengthens us with might in the inner man. What in particular does the Spirit strengthen in our inner man? It seems to be our capacity to believe. He strengthens our faith so that we might draw Christ down into our souls through faith (Eph. 4:17). The Christ whom He draws down into our souls is alive with the four dimensional love of God, a love which is broad enough to reach out to every soul of every man who has ever lived. It is long enough to encompass every second of time and to carry us to the boundless ocean of God’s eternal bliss. It is deep enough to reach down to the very pit of hell and the sinners who deserve banishment to the outer reaches of the blackness of darkness forever. Finally, it is high enough to raise us up and to seat us with Christ on His lofty throne of glory (Psalm 113).
This love is beyond our capacity to think and to imagine, but it is not beyond the ability of God to grant: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Eph. 3:20–21 NASB).
Along with a host of other godly men over the ages, Joel Beeke admonishes us in his excellent Reformed Systematic Theology Volume 1: Revelation and God:
“God’s affections should evoke answering affections in us . . . We should cultivate godly affections as much as possible. Edwards rightly observed, “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” Let us never rest on accurate theology in the mind without affectionate doxology in the heart. John Owen said, “Spiritual affections, whereby the soul adheres unto spiritual things, taking in such a savour and relish of them as wherein it finds rest and satisfaction, is the peculiar spring and substance of our being spiritually minded.” None of our knowledge or service is of any value without love (1 Cor. 13:1–3). God calls us to love him with nothing less than all our hearts (Deut. 6:5). Therefore, Owen wrote, “God himself” must have “the first and chiefest place” in our affections, and that “for his own sake alone.” He added, “The pattern which we ought to continually bear in our eyes, whereunto our affections ought to be conformed, is Jesus Christ and the affections of his holy soul.” Let us contemplate, therefore, the infinite, immutable affections of God revealed in the human, mutable affections of Jesus Christ, and walk as he walked” (Eph. 5:2).
. . . Strong affections and stable commitments are not opposites. Biblical zeal will not make us erratic, but wiser, meeker, and more diligent. Paul exhorted the Roman believers to be “not slothful,” but “fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer” (Rom. 12:11–12). Neither cold aloofness nor undisciplined passion should characterize God’s people, but God’s redeeming grace trains us to be “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,” living “soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world,” and “zealous for good works” as we wait in hope of the glory of God (Titus 2:12, 14).
. . . God’s impassible beatitude is a doctrine of invincible hope. His future is secure; no one can hurt him. If we belong to Jesus Christ, then our destiny is to dwell in the glory of the eternally happy God (Rom. 5:2). He will one day establish us in the joy of our inheritance, which is “incorruptible, and undefiled, and … fadeth not away” (1 Pet. 1:4). God will seat us at his banqueting table of love and wipe every tear from our faces (Isa. 25:6–8). We will spend unending ages discovering the infinitely beautiful affections of God as we commune intimately with him through his Son. Set your heart upon this hope, and your soul will feast daily.”