Nothing looks the same again!

"Tepid acknowledgment is not an optional response to Jonathan Edwards' perspective on motivation. His teaching must be either rejected outright or embraced as the all-transforming foundation for one's life. We cannot half-heartedly accept the truth of the need for an inner relish.

If heartfelt gladness in God is definitive of authentic Christianity, every sphere of human existence becomes increasingly colored with the 'delight to draw near to God' (Isa. 58:2) in a way never before feasible. Reading the Bible, for example, is done neither to appease some demand from God or even primarily to gather new doctrinal data, but to cultivate enjoyment of Him. Prayer is not undertaken mainly to prevent illness and ensure safe travel-legitimate and necessary as these requests are!-but to indulge the insatiable universal human impulse to worship something beyond ourselves. Attending church is not a three-hour interruption into an otherwise relaxing weekend; it is an opportunity to taste the sweetness of Christ together in the nurturing fellowship without which even the most earnest believer will sputter along and eventually languish. And what about the more mundane daily activities in which we are all engaged - driving to work in thick traffic, taking a coffee break, doing a load of laundry, devouring a good burger, changing a diaper ... These too are opportunities not for Christians to have a break from bothering with God, but to see and rejoice in Him, the God who 'satisfies your hearts with food and gladness' (Acts 14:17) ... A Christian is one who has been given a new set of glasses. Nothing looks the same again." (Ortlund, Dane. A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008. 147-8)

More from Ortlund

Why do we still struggle with sin after having been born again?

... the mere (though glorious) fact of regeneration does not suddenly cause all temptations and struggles with sin to vanish away. Christ's work on the cross completely eliminates the penalty of sin, progressively eliminates the power of sin, and does not eliminate the presence of sin. Sin continues to dwell in believers just as good continues to be done by unbelievers. We will avoid much confusion and simplistic overstatement if we remember both the remaining presence of sin in the regenerate and the remaining presence of the image of God in the unregenerate. (Ortlund, Dane. A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008. 122)

Merely speculative knowledge

So we can know God in a 'merely speculative' way or we can know Him with 'the will, or inclination, or heart.' In the first we consent to the fact that something is beautiful. In the second, we feel its beauty. This is central to Edwards' understanding of human experience, and we as the Church today do well to hear him lest we mistake the former kind of knowing for the latter and rest content with a faith in which truths about Christ replace love for Christ. (Ortlund, Dane. A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008. 59)

As Ortlund discusses, in the excerpt above, Edwards' concept of two kinds of knowledge, a few things come to mind. First, Edwards, and Ortlund would agree, is not against speculative, intellectual knowledge. Edwards' legacy is one of world-class scholarship leading to a profoundly intelligent mind that has few peers. And Ortlund has his PhD. What Ortlund is suggesting, by way of an analysis of Edwards' thinking on this matter, is that merely intellectual, speculative knowledge falls short of what we are called to and what is available to us in Christ. We need to have an inner sense of the beauty of God in Christ; we need to taste God's goodness, we need to delight in Christ's compassion, we need to enjoy the delicacies of the Divine. Secondly, what comes to mind is that "I want this!" I want a deep, accurate, and thoroughly biblical knowledge of God; I also want to taste His wonder and sense His awesomeness in my inner man. I want to know Him with my head and know Him with my heart.

Ortlund on A Divine and Supernatural Light

A Divine and Supernatural Light is a famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards. Dane Ortlund, in his book entitled A New Inner Relish (Ortlund, Dane. A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008. Print.), discusses the main focus of this sermon:

The central idea of the sermon is that conversion is not primarily an intellectual assent to a new set of beliefs regarding God. Conversion is rather the event in which this Being who created the universe causes His light to shine into a human heart. God gives a glorious and utterly new perspective on life in which the individual sees the excellency and glory of God in Christ and is brought to gladly love and cherish Him. (59-60)

This is not the way I used to view salvation. I used to see salvation exactly the way Ortlund describes Edwards as not seeing it; I believed salvation was my intellectual assent to God. How much has changed? I now agree with Edwards in that my salvation was a solo work by God in my heart where, by grace, he brought me to life. His light shone in my heart; this new perspective was given to me and it was not one I assented to on my own.

An Interest In Obeying

In his excellent book on Jonathan Edwards' ideas about Christian motivation, Dane Ortlund discusses the legitimacy of being motivated by the end result of obedience. However, he also cites Edwards' position that this is not a stand alone type of motivation.

This is a key theme in Edwards to which we will return. Edwards has said that it is perfectly legitimate - because it is for perfectly biblical - to allow oneself (and even to seek) to be motivated because of one's vested interest inextricably linked to the obedience commanded. Our existence will be a happier one if we obey. At the same time, and very importantly, Edwards says this cannot stand alone; these kinds of reasons to obey 'be not the only thing intended'. As we will continue to see, Edwards believes that on the subject of Christian motivation the gain experienced in obedience is incomplete apart from something more, something that resides not essentially in the results of the commands but in the one who commands; there is a motivation that comes simply by virtue of the worthiness of the one calling for the obedience. The reality of God and the weight of His glory beckon a certain response, quite independent of the truth that there is also good incentive for doing so. (Ortlund, Dane. A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008. Print.50-51)

Of interest, here is Dane's bio from his blog:

I live with my wonderful wife and two boys in Wheaton, Illinois, where I serve as Senior Editor in the Bible division at Crossway Books. This site exists (1) to encourage gospel-rootedness and (2) to remind those of us in theological training and church leadership that our doctrinal knowledge of God is meant to fuel, not outgrow, our doxological knowledge of him. I call my brothers to join me in living (2 Cor 5:15) to delight in (Ps 37:4) and display (1 Tim 1:15) the glory (Rom 15:8-9) of the grace (Eph 1:6) of God in Christ (Col 1:15-20).

Christian motivation

A New Inner Relish by Dane Ortlund is a book that investigates Christian motivation in the thought of Puritan Jonathan Edwards.

From A New Inner Relish by Dane Ortlund:

We will look at Christian motivation from the three perspectives of past, present and future. Simply put, the past motivation is that of gratitude, the present is that of identity, the future is that of benefit. (23)

Ortlund recognizes and explores 3 perspectives on motivation. The motivation relating to the past considers what God has done and is motivated through gratefulness. The motivation corresponding with the present is one based on our identity; we are motivated because we realize we are children of God. Thirdly, the future benefit of the glorification of our bodies and eternal life also motivate us. However, despite these perspectives legitimacy, Ortlund declares them as secondary motivations that are subject to the primary motivation in the Christian life: a divinely-bestowed inner relish.

Each of these motivations, then – past, present and future – provides spiritual potency in daily Christian living. Yet my aim in this book is to hear with you Jonathan Edwards' supremely relevant message that while all three are legitimate and even crucial encouragements towards obedience, Christian motivation is fundamentally achieved by a divinely-bestowed taste ... the believer is moved to obey God not essentially by any logical reasoning (such as the three mentioned thus far) but by an immediate sense of and inclination toward God. While the motivations mentioned above may be used as kindling for obedience, they cannot in themselves provide the spark. Christian motivation is, at the bottom, the granting of a new inner relish. (34-35)