8: THE FIRST SIGN OF AUTHENTIC AFFECTIONS

Affections that are truly spiritual and gracious, do arise
from those influences and operations on the heart, which
are spiritual, supernatural and divine.

BEFORE WE CONSIDER THIS first sign, we must begin with an important distinction found repeatedly in Scripture. Some men and women are said to be spiritual because the Spirit of God has caused them to be born again and has taken up residence within them as the temple of his abiding presence. Such people are the recipients of those influences of the Spirit that are saving and redemptive. They are partakers of a new, divine nature by virtue of the Spirit’s supernatural influence in them. “The Spirit of God so dwells in the hearts of the saints that he there, as a seed or spring of life, exerts and communicates himself in this his sweet and divine nature, making the soul a partaker of God’s beauty and Christ’s joy, so that the saint has truly fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, in thus having the communion or participation of the Holy Ghost.”

Those whom the Bible calls natural men, on the other hand, may well be the objects of the Spirit’s influence and activity, but such is not saving or redemptive. Notwithstanding all the gifts and blessings the Spirit may impart, he stops short of the miracle of regeneration. In other words, “though the Spirit of God may many ways influence natural men; yet because it is not thus communicated to them, as an indwelling principle, they don’t derive any denomination or character from it; for there being no union, it is not their own.”

From this we may conclude that those gracious and saving influences experienced by true believers “are entirely above nature, altogether of a different kind from anything that men find within themselves by nature, or only in the exercise of natural principles.” In other words, those gracious affections are from influences that are supernatural. It follows, then, that true believers experience “a new inward perception or sensation of their minds, entirely different in its nature and kind, from anything that ever their minds were the subjects of before they were sanctified [i.e., saved].”

The objects of God’s saving work experience an entirely new kind of perception that is impossible for mere human nature or human reason or human willpower to produce. It is “a new spiritual sense that the mind has, or a principle of a new kind of perception or spiritual sensation, which is in its whole nature different from any former kinds of sensation of the mind, as tasting is diverse from any of the other senses.” This new sense is as different from a merely natural one as the taste of honey is different from the mere idea or description of its flavor.

This “new sense” and the new dispositions that attend it are not new faculties of mind but simply new principles of nature. More specifically, “this new spiritual sense is not a new faculty of understanding, but it is a new foundation laid in the nature of the soul, for a new kind of exercises of the same faculty of understanding. So that new holy disposition of heart that attends this new sense is not a new faculty of will, but a foundation laid in the nature of the soul for a new kind of exercises of the same faculty of will.”

The fact that God may reveal to an unsaved and natural man facts that he otherwise didn’t know but that he would soon discover through the normal use of his physical senses is no indication that he has received a new spiritual principle. God is doing no more than assisting “natural principles to do the same work to a greater degree, which they do of themselves by nature.” But when it comes to the saints, God “operates by infusing or exercising new, divine and supernatural principles; principles which are indeed a new and spiritual nature, and principles vastly more noble and excellent than all that is in natural men.”

The point is that people’s claims to have “seen” in their minds or “sensed” in their imaginations some idea or spiritual reality, apart from the use of their five senses, proves nothing concerning the origin of such experiences. For example, some claim to have experienced in their imagination or “mind’s eye” a great light and take it to be a revelation of the glory of God. Others testify of having “sensed” within themselves the idea of Christ hanging on the cross, or having “seen” him with open arms to receive them, or having had a “lively idea” of Christ on his throne. Some even argue they have “heard” in their minds, apart from the physical sense of hearing with the external ear, Scripture verses or spiritual ideas spoken to them. They believe such experiences are from God “because they say they don’t see these things with their bodily eyes, but in their hearts; for they can see them when their eyes are shut.” In other words, they think that because these experiences are entirely inward and subjective and vivid, without the aid or use of the five senses, they must be from God.

But none of these experiences is necessarily of God. Anyone can have experiences or ideas or impressions in the imagination like this, even unregenerate folk; one needs no more than what is natural to man to experience them. They don’t require regeneration or the Spirit or a new sense of divine things. “A natural man is capable of having an idea, and a lively idea, of shapes and colors and sounds when they are absent, and as capable as a regenerate man is; so there is nothing supernatural in them.” Such imaginations or impressions don’t require the Holy Spirit and therefore can’t be infallible signs of truly gracious and saving affections. Truly gracious affections can be accounted for only by the sovereign and supernatural work of the Spirit and not by human nature alone. In fact, it is often the weakness of mere human nature that accounts for the increase of such impressions.

But when it comes to “a truly spiritual sensation, not only is the manner of its coming into the mind extraordinary, but the sensation itself is totally diverse from all that men have, or can have, in a state of nature, as has been shown.” One might still acknowledge that a person can experience such sensations in the mind and imagination, but that the ones that come from the Spirit are different both in their nature and in how they are brought to bear on the human mind.

One cannot deny that God can impart such ideas and impressions on the mind of man. In fact, he did so with Balaam (see Num. 24:16–17). But this is merely the common grace activity of the Spirit, and any affections that arise from such an experience are not necessarily gracious and saving.

Furthermore, Satan himself is capable of suggesting thoughts and words and ideas into the minds of men as a way of tempting them to sin. The false prophets of the Old Testament who claimed to have experienced vivid ideas and images by means of dreams and visions actually received them from Satan (see Deut. 13:1; 1 Kings 22:22; Isa. 28:7; Ezek. 13:7; Zech. 13:4). “And if Satan, or any created being, has power to impress the mind with outward representations, then no particular sort of outward representations can be any evidence of a divine power.” Any affections that are built merely on the foundation of such experiences are not spiritual and saving. True and saving affections always come from an undisputed and exclusive divine and supernatural cause.

Certainly the Spirit can make use of Scripture texts that come to mind, if the excellency of what is contained in the texts excites one’s affections and not merely the immediate manner in which the texts came to mind. If there is not a new spiritual understanding or sweet sense of the truths in those texts that serves as the foundation for any subsequent affections, but only the sudden and direct way in which the texts came to mind, the affections are not of a spiritual nature. “For, as has been shown, the sudden coming of the words to their minds, is no evidence that the bringing ’em to their minds in that manner, was from God. And if it was true that God brought the words to their minds, and they certainly knew it, that would not be spiritual knowledge; it may be without any spiritual sense.” So “these affections which are built on that notion, that texts of Scripture are sent immediately from God, are built on no spiritual foundation, and are vain and delusive.”

Let’s suppose a person “hears” in his mind the words of Luke 12:32, that it is the Father’s good pleasure to grant the kingdom to the followers of his Son. He rejoices and finds such words sweet and wonderful and excellent. “But the reason why the promise seems excel lent to ’em, is only because they think it is made to them immediately. All the sense they have of any glory in them is only from self-love and from their own imagined interest in the words. [It isn’t] that they had any view or sense of the holy and glorious nature of the kingdom of heaven, and the spiritual glory of that God who gives it, and of his excellent grace to sinful men in offering and giving them this kingdom, of his own good pleasure, preceding their imagined interest in these things, and their being affected by them, and being the foundation of their affection, and hope of an interest in them. On the contrary, they first imagine they are interested, and then are highly affected with that, and then can own these things to be excellent. So that the sudden and extraordinary way of the Scriptures coming to their mind, is plain[ly] the first foundation of the whole; which is a clear evidence of the wretched delusion they are under.”

Far too many people find their comfort and assurance not in the beauty of the truth of Scripture but in what they perceive to be the immediate and sudden way in which the Spirit supposedly brings such truths to their minds. It is the experience of the revelation and not its essence in which they put their trust. Subsequently, their joy and confidence in life “is not anything contained in, or taught by these Scriptures, as they lie in the Bible, but the manner of their coming to them; which is a certain evidence of their delusion.”

Is all this to say that the Spirit cannot or does not apply the promises of Scripture to our minds and hearts? Of course not. But we must note what that application is. “A spiritual application of the Word of God consists in applying it to the heart, in spiritually enlightening, sanctifying influences. A spiritual application of an invitation or offer of the gospel consists in giving the soul a spiritual sense or relish of the holy and divine blessings offered, and also the sweet and wonderful grace of the offerer, in making so gracious an offer, and of his holy excellency and faithfulness to fulfill what he offers, and his glorious sufficiency for it.”

Thus a “spiritual application of the promises of Scripture, for the comfort of the saints, consists in enlightening their minds to see the holy excellency and sweetness of the blessings promised, and also the holy excellency of the promiser, and his faithfulness and sufficiency, thus drawing forth their hearts to embrace the promiser, and [the] thing promised.”

An alleged application “not consisting in this divine sense and enlightening of the mind, but consisting only in the words being borne into the thoughts, as if immediately then spoken, so making persons believe, on no other foundation, that the promise is theirs, is a blind application, and belongs to the spirit of darkness, and not of light.”

Many have claimed that they are the recipients of God’s saving grace because “secret facts” have been immediately suggested to their minds. By “secret facts” we mean information that does not come from argumentation or reason or from any of the five senses. It is information that could not be gained by any means other than extraordinary suggestion. But this is no proof of God’s saving presence, for there is nothing in the nature of these perceptions that is divinely excellent and beyond what people might know or learn eventually through the exercise of their normal faculties of sense and reason. If it were the Spirit producing these ideas in the minds of those who are truly saved “not only the manner of producing the effect, but the effect” itself would be “vastly above all that can be in an unsanctified [i.e., unsaved] mind.”

There is nothing to prevent God from putting such “secret facts” in a person’s mind by the exertion of his immediate power. But this does not mean the recipient of such facts is thereby saved. Indeed, “God can if he pleases, extraordinarily and immediately suggest this to, and impress it upon an unsanctified mind now.”

Even the so-called “witness of the Spirit” that many claim to have experienced is not necessarily a sign of a supernatural and gracious activity of God. Being inwardly and immediately convinced that one is a child of God does not in itself prove that it is true. When the Spirit “bears witness with our spirit” that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16), he opens our eyes to see what has already been revealed in the Word and he enables us to conclude, based on evidence, that we are the children of God. This is not a reference to some immediate voice spoken directly to the mind of a person communicating the assurance that one is saved.

What I am objecting to here is the idea that one can gain full assurance of salvation based solely on the manner in which the assurance is allegedly imparted to the mind. If such assurance is impressed on the mind by some immediate disclosure and does not also entail evidence or signs of a transformed heart, the former is weak grounds for concluding that one is saved.

The witness or seal of the Spirit is the actual work of grace in the soul that changes it to live in conformity with the commands of Scripture. Or again, “this earnest of the Spirit, and first fruits of the Spirit, which has been shown to be the same with the seal of the Spirit, is the vital, gracious, sanctifying communication and influence of the Spirit, and not any immediate suggestion or revelation of facts by the Spirit.”

The Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God is seen from the immediately preceding context to refer to his indwelling of us and leading us, as a spirit of adoption, to obey the Father’s will. “So that it appears that the witness of the Spirit the Apostle speaks of is far from being any whisper or immediate suggestion or revelation; [rather, it is] that gracious holy effect of the Spirit of God in the hearts of the saints, the disposition and temper of children, appearing in sweet childlike love to God, which casts out fear, or a spirit of a slave.”