I think this one is about his conversion. The joy is his unexpected joy in God. (It’s one of the few of Lewis’s books I’ve read.) I love the part about how he unexpectedly found himself believing God on his way from one place to another. I quoted it around here somewhere. ……
Ah, yes, here:
Right, this was his autobiographical book. I remember being surprised by the British boarding school culture he described that he attended. Not part of the joy, by the way.
Wow … So now I can’t remember what book it was that I did read about his relationship. And apparently I haven’t read the Surprised by Joy book at all then! Embarrassing!
Thanks for the corrections though.
It is a totally common one…just met someone else with the same thing. Sure appreciate your knowledge and discussion on both Macdonald and him and his friends.
(248) Justice and Revenge
There is no satisfaction of revenge possible to the injured. The severest punishment that can be inflicted upon the wrong-doer is simply to let him know what he is; for his nature is of God, and the deepest in him is the divine. Neither can any other punishment than the sinner’s being made to see the enormity of his injury, give satisfaction to the injured. While the wronger will admit no wrong, while he mocks at the idea of amends, or while, admitting the wrong, he rejoices in having done it, no suffering could satisfy revenge, far less justice. Both would continually know themselves foiled. Therefore, while a satisfied justice is an unavoidable eternal event, a satisfied revenge is an eternal impossibility. For the moment that the sole adequate punishment, a vision of himself, begins to take true effect upon the sinner, that moment the sinner has begun to grow a righteous man, and the brother human whom he has offended has no choice, has nothing left him but to take the offender to his bosom–the more tenderly that his brother is a repentant brother, that he was dead and is alive again, that he was lost and is found. Behold the meeting of the divine extremes–the extreme of punishment, the embrace of heaven! They run together; ‘the wheel is come full circle.’ For, I venture to think, there can be no such agony for created soul, as to see itself vile–vile by its own action and choice. Also I venture to think there can be no delight for created soul–short, that is, of being one with the Father–so deep as that of seeing the heaven of forgiveness open, and disclose the shining stair that leads to its own natural home, where the eternal father has been all the time awaiting this return of his child.
From MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “The Final Unmasking ”
@yofiel, You’ll find George MacDonald’s books digitized (transcribed, not just ORC’ed) at Project Gutenberg, and
digitized (scanned and/or ORC’ed) at Internet Archive. Links to these are over in this thread:
Many printed versions are available at Amazon and other book sellers, but it’s worth it to pay attention to the publisher. Many older works like his are published by low-quality fly-by-night places. Look for publishers like Penguin or Dover, etc.
This is my favorite part of this sermon, specifically what I had in mind, when I suggested “redemptive judgement.”
Our worst impulse — that deep-seated, woven-in, gut-driven, evolutionarily-granted NEED for vengeance — is utterly thwarted, but in the most deeply satisfying way. (Mud pies <=> holiday at the sea)*
This image of God refusing to give his child the thing that seems most desirable, intolerable to live without even, and giving something so much better — more righteousness, more love, another one to love, more redemption — shows the baseness of the desire for revenge in contrast to the wisdom and goodness of God.
I am frustrated that MacDonald’s ideas expressed here and elsewhere, so different from what is commonly held as orthodox, seem more philosophically grounded than scripturally. Much like Kierkegaard’s sermons (the very few I’ve read), it seems like both men are taking a verse and spinning it out, ignoring contrary scriptural evidence. I hate to say: cherry-picking. On the other hand, I think most any position could be criticized as “cherry picking,” requiring one to ignore certain parts of Scripture in favor of others one’s position favors as relevant to the topic. And that IS a philosophical foundation for a theological conclusion.
Hermeneutical debates aside for now, I love this part of this sermon, and find it helps temper others like “Consuming Fire.”
Thanks for working your way through this book with us, Merv. I haven’t been able to give it all the attention I’d like to, but I’ve learned a lot.
*[Sorry math people. “<=>” is my personal note-taking convention for “in opposition to”. I see it has an “official meaning” as well.]
Any place you see him doing this, please point it out to me! Because GM seems like one of the most scripturally grounded authors I’ve ever had the privilege of reading! Which is ironic, given that he isn’t even aiming for that at all … he has his sights set on Christ, and scriptures “merely” happen to be one of his most direct accesses to Christ’s teachings and the testimonies about him from the apostles. In my point of view, GM ends up (biblically) surpassing the hosts of believers today with all their noisy contests to see who can build the highest pedestals for “the Bible”, and as a result their actual knowledge and actual application of it ends up shipwrecked - blown onto the reefs by every ideological wind that comes along, while authors like GM appear to have just quietly and studiously studied, read, and observed everything they could. I know he isn’t perfect - and I occasionally run across a scriptural passage and wonder to myself “How did GM engage with that?!” So I don’t mean to hold him up as perfect - as he himself would be the first to staunchly forbid in any case. But he just seems so much more scripturally grounded than nearly every other popular Christian voice these days.
I really love this sermon too - and in particular, along with you, - this thought about God offering us something so much infinitely higher than the vengeance that tastes so immediately sweet in our mouths.
Not wanting to start a Bible Drill War. At all!
But MacDonald clearly rejects eternal conscious torment, which Jesus warned about without negating that I can tell. That’s a tough one for me. (I should probably just quietly go back and review the Universalism threads.)
MacDonald seems to deal with it philosophically, based on his understanding of God’s character. I could be persuaded, but how does one argue that with the folks in the pew next to me, who see the view as counterscriptural and dangerous?
Part of the matter is probably tradition and the paradigm of interpretation that one is familiar with. It’s not an easy thing to evaluate another paradigm without knowing the whole thing and evaluating it as a whole, also examining what seems to be left out for the sake of the paradigm. That would be true, I think, of any. But that really is the work of a life time as well.
Was that The Problem with Pain? I have not read it, but vaguely remember it being in part about his wife’s death.
Maybe that was it. I’ll have to look it up once I’m back home tonight - since I’m curious what my memory’s been doing with such things now.
I hear you! And following in the spirit of GM, I have no interest in trying to start one either. He never seemed interested in provoking protests or getting in anybody’s face about any of this. His only besetting “sin” is that he quite passionately holds his own dearly bought convictions so strongly that they can’t help but shine through as he writes on things dear to his heart.
Bible Drills! Never participated but I have vague recollection of what those might be?
Not to get into a long side-discussion about models of hell, but F.Y.I. I think Jesus’s descriptions are also consistent with “Annihilation” and don’t lock one in to Eternal Conscious Torment. I do agree that Jesus’s warnings seem harder to reconcile with Universalism… I should also read up more about it.
I should also add that one of GM’s strongest passions - so it seems to me - is that he refuses to entertain any possibility that the God we worship could be involved in doing anything that would be considered unrighteous if we ourselves did it (with all the same full knowledge of everything involved of course). All GM would allow of this is that at most he would only admit “…then there must be something of this that I do not yet understand, which if I did, I would see God’s righteousness in it.” He thought it infinitely better to insist that God will never do anything unrighteous (and thereby be mistaken on some point because you could not see all sides and outcomes of it) than to willingly attribute unrighteousness to God. The latter (to GM) was the equivalent of being willing to worship a demon.
(249) Recognition Hereafter
…awaiting this return of his child.
So, friends, how ever indignant we may be, however intensely and however justly we may feel our wrongs, there is no revenge possible for us in the universe of the Father. I may say to myself with heartiest vengeance, ‘I should just like to let that man see what a wretch he is–what all honest men at this moment think of him!’ but, the moment come, the man will loathe himself tenfold more than any other man could, and that moment my heart will bury his sin. Its own ocean of pity will rush from the divine depths of its God-origin to overwhelm it. Let us try to forethink, to antedate our forgiveness. Dares any man suppose that Jesus would have him hate the traitor through whom he came to the cross? Has he been pleased through all these ages with the manner in which those calling themselves by his name have treated, and are still treating his nation? We have not yet sounded the depths of forgiveness that are and will be required of such as would be his disciples!
Our friends will know us then: for their joy, will it be, or their sorrow? Will their hearts sink within them when they look on the real likeness of us? Or will they rejoice to find that we were not so much to be blamed as they thought, in this thing or that which gave them trouble?
Let us remember, however, that not evil only will be unveiled; that many a masking misconception will uncover a face radiant with the loveliness of the truth. And whatever disappointments may fall, there is consolation for every true heart in the one sufficing joy–that it stands on the border of the kingdom, about to enter into ever fuller, ever-growing possession of the inheritance of the saints in light.
From MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “The Final Unmasking ”
This entry concludes Lewis’ quotes from this particular sermon, and is in fact, the conclusion of the sermon.
One of my own struggles with this whole concept of the full disclosure and complete transparency of judgment is that I know I have held, at least in passing, many a thought of criticism, judgment, or what could only be taken (by the unknowing subject if they saw my mind completely) as outright contempt for something about themselves. And yet I bury those thoughts of mine with shame because I know how hurtful (and unproductive) they would be, in many cases against people I love. So I try (only partially successfully) to consider the problem to be mine and not theirs. I know that isn’t always true, and psychologists have long had a field day calling this out as a dangerous practice of repressing bad things that must eventually emerge anyway - probably in yet more explosive or destructive ways because of all the prior containment. Of course there is much truth in that, and things should not be allowed to fester. But … every negative thought? Really?! I don’t want people to see themselves as I sometimes see them through my own fallen eyes - I want to see them with eyes of love, and if on judgment day - every last thought of criticism I had ever entertained about another is to be brought out for everyone’s inspection, then the resulting torments would not be mine alone. It’s because of love that I don’t want to hurt them, and yet … wouldn’t I want to know the truth about how people perceive me, even as painful as that might be for me? Wouldn’t I hope that anything provoking their contempt of me might be cast out of my redeemed self? I suppose that not only will we have total transparency with each other, but we will all also have much thicker skins about our former selves and the weaknesses we harbored, many of which would rightly provoke contempt from others. From our fully sanctified perspectives, I’m guessing that we ourselves will no longer feel any insecurity and will be the first to be able to see ourselves as we were and (as MacDonald says) “loath those hurtful parts of our former selves tenfold more than any others possibly could.” But it still doesn’t sit right that, in the service of some sort of finally shared “omniscience”, all old wounds should be made fresh again.
And I do think many such things can already be forgotten, even while we still live in the flesh to work on it. Hence the urgency of leaving one’s gift at the altar to go and take care of more urgent matters - either literally with one’s brother, or even figuratively dealing with unworthy thoughts in ourselves that do need eternal burial more than they need public airing. That’s my hope, anyway - that love will cover over a multitude of sins.
(250) From Dante
To have a share in any earthly inheritance, is to diminish the share of the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which each has, goes to increase the possession of the rest.
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance” (The source of entries 250-257)
MacDonald seems to understand that full disclosure to everyone is the most terrifying aspect of judgement. Once all things are exposed, God really wouldn’t have to do a thing in regard to judgement. We could deliver judgement on our own, and everyone else will as well. A jury of all peers of all time.
If this is how the final judgement will go, the miraculous will be in God’s laying claim to his right declared in “vengence is mine” and setting it aside for the sake of ultimate forgiveness, reconciliation and love.
We can’t fully love or be loved, when there is something to hide. When all is exposed, and dealt with by God, we have hope of finally being entirely free of the burden of sin that inhibits our ability to love and receive love.
But the prospect of getting there……
Well, you’ve heard my concerns before,
That sounds more like a “Kingdom of God” way of handling wealth than the worldly approach of hoarding it only for oneself. Which would make it a great example of exactly what GM was speaking of!
And yet, on the other hand… now that I take in more of the opening paragraph of this final sermon, (part of which is today’s entry below) - I see that what GM meant by the inheritance of the saints is: the Light (that is, God). And he reminds us that this is the only inheritance worth having and that all other lovliness derives from and has its very soul in God.
(251) What God Means by “Good”
If you think of ten thousand things that are good and worth having, what is it that makes them good or worth having but the God in them? That the loveliness of the world has its origin in the making will of God, would not content me; I say, the very loveliness of it is the loveliness of God, for its loveliness is his own lovely thought, and must be a revelation of that which dwells and moves in himself. Nor is this all: my interest in its loveliness would vanish, I should feel that the soul was out of it, if you could persuade me that God had ceased to care for the daisy, and now cared for something else instead. The faces of some flowers lead me back to the heart of God; and, as his child, I hope I feel, in my lowly degree, what he felt when, brooding over them, he said, ‘They are good;’ that is, ‘They are what I mean.’
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance”
I think this is a very good analysis. Thanks.
I struggle with the image of others knowing – I honestly think that having a God who independently and wisely judges is a refuge from the imperfect assessments of other mortals. I know that there are “clouds of witnesses.” However, I’m struggling to find a biblical basis for what I’m thinking Macdonald is saying (as I’ve said before, he’s one of my favorite authors!).
My daughter loves “Truth Be Told,” by Matthew West. She knows it annoys me, even though I like West in general–he implies that we have to be truthful about how we feel with our neighbors in order to fix things. I just don’t think we have to expose everything–that we have hope that God will help us to fix it in the end.
On the other hand, my daughter is a wonderful, open book–and loves her friends and tells them everything–some people do that.
There is a book by a Swiss psychologist, Paul Tournier, called “Secrets;” I think that it’s about how we all have our own boundaries. I have never done more than scan it–but it intrigues me.
I do like the thought of leaving one’s gift at the altar, though, and taking care of things that need eternal burial.
Thank you for the deep discussion.
The needed reply is in the next sentence of your quote from MacDonald.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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