Guest Post by Charles Jacobi
“We Protestants get nervous when talking about water and works,” penned Pastor Bill Smith in a piece for Kuyperian Commentary months back. We, Protestants of the Reformed tradition, have a robust history of rich systematization of the scriptures. But in our systematizing, we can lose the granular resolution and diversity of the holy text, resulting in our quease when someone quotes a verse seemingly contrary to our system. This isn’t to say our doctrinal formulations are incorrect—essential doctrine has been abstracted in the history of systematic theology—or that systematics is inappropriate. However, our posture must point to a need for semper reformanda.
We’ve done this with water and works like Pastor Smith points out. Also, with the rise of the modern New Apostolic Reformation types and Postmodernists, we’ve done the same with emotions. Surely much of the Reformed response to the growing hyper-charismatic movement(s) and subjectivists of the early 2010s was right and good as one need deny that experientialism and emotionalism are the standards of truth in themselves—or knowing biblical truths—but we’ve overcompensated. We’re hesitant to talk about emotion like the scriptures do for fear of coming off as experiential.
Take the emotion of joy, for example. Joy is one of the most mentioned emotions in all of scripture. The Psalmist is fond of using the term to express himself and describes a deep emotion-God relationship. He calls on Yahweh to “Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which you have crushed rejoice” (Ps. 51:8) and “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.” (51:12) According to these words, the psalmist seems to think God can generate the feeling of joy within his heart; that the nature of the joy-God relationship can be causal. He claims God can do this to inanimate objects even, “They who inhabit the ends of the earth are in fear on account of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy” (65:8). Paul, too, pleads with God to “fill” the Christians in Rome with joy (Rm. 15:13) and reminds the Galatians that joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Moses says Yahweh will “cause His people to shout for joy;” (Deut 32:43). There are other references in scripture that describe this emotion-God relationship as causal, but rarely do Reformed protestants speak about their emotion in such a way.
Cessationists, like myself, have created a boogeyman about subjective states. When a friend says something about their emotions contrary to the cessationist air, like, “I felt the joy of The Lord at worship today” or, “I was anxious, but The Spirit made me feel joy at that moment. Praise God!” our charismatic antenna perks up. We caution our brother his emotions are leading him and that he should steer clear from emotionalism and experientialism, yet this is all the while he’s nearly quoting David, “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comfort delights my soul” (Ps. 94:19). Moreover, we do this while enjoying our own feelings of joy, awe, and reverence in our immediate experience while critiquing another’s. We likely perceive the same subjective phenomena. Yet, we speak and interpret those phenomena in different ways. Feelings of joy are described as both reactionary and Spirit-caused in scripture. So coupled with a rational temperament, what’s the issue with speaking about our joy as Spirit caused if one faithfully deduces that during worship? If we’re consistent, we ought not to let our emotions determine how we deduce the nature of emotion from scripture.
“Veering off into making the subjective-objective” is a likely response to my inquiry. But scripture describes a God that does generate emotion within us; when we’re downtrodden, fearful, or burdened. This is described objectively in scripture, speaking to something subjectively real: like the assurance of salvation, binding of the conscience, or holy guilt of sin. We’re open to voicing those subjective states as Spirit-caused, but we’re fast to skip over joy and other emotional states like comfort (Ps 71:21), peace (Rm. 15:13), satisfaction (Jer. 31:14), spiritual stirring (Haggai 1:14) and other good things (Ps. 107). If Yahweh gave (and gives) unbelievers a spirit of stupor (Rm 11:8) or drunkenness (Jer 14:14) as he pleased, and we’re fine with using causal language accordingly for those parties, it’s tenable to use language about our own subjective state when it’s warranted as well. It’s not experiential or mystical to speak like scripture does.
If we’re to be truly Reformed, bound to the testament of holy writ, we ought to view emotion through the lens of the biblical authors instead of Seneca. This can be done if we’re careful to stay committed to scripture in all of its diversity, language, and richness and continue to use it as our sole standard of truth and knowing the truth even if it goes against our notions.
Charles is a PhD student at Texas Tech University, studying neuroscience. His writings have appeared in Lubbock-Avalanche Journal, WrongSpeak.net, and American Pigeon. He often writes about Christian life, culture, and politics.
