A Confession on Spiritual Doubt

Posted on by

Even as a Christian, nearly 30yrs ago, I went through a season of extreme spiritual and intellectual doubt. It was as if the heavens were bronze, as if closed. That in my attempt to think and talk with God, it felt as if my words and thoughts would only make it as high as this bronze ceiling; as if the God I was ostensibly worshipping was merely a projection of my own wants and wishes. But I came to realize—through God’s grace and persistence—that in fact the Heavens are always open; indeed, that the veil of the flesh of Christ’s body had been torn open. And in this great tearing, through the mediatorial vicarious and priestly humanity of Christ, the heavens were continuously open into the very throne room of God. Indeed, the heavens were (and are) full of God’s pleroma (fullness) for the world in Jesus Christ. I came to realize that the Greek word ἀνοίγω (open) used at the baptism of Christ, ‘as the heavens were opened’ meant that the heavens are continuously and presently open for all who will. I learned that God is truly and concretely for this world in Christ. I knew this as a child and my whole life leading to this season. But the Lord used the agony of spiritual attack and a feeling of a lack of confidence, to throw myself further upon His mercy as the One who raises the dead.

11 thoughts on “A Confession on Spiritual Doubt”

  2. Amen… and emet.

    My own experience, now nearly 55 years past, is similar. It was understanding that reality of “God come down” from heaven in the personal mediatorial presentation of himself in the agency of Christ’s human flesh whereby I learned that God is not only truly and concretely for the world in Christ; he ‘came to the world’— and to me in my own corrupt understanding and experience— to rescue me and give me new life. And it is by that new life I came to understand the experience of “the veil” not as separation from the life I desperately desired and sought to experience, but as protection from his righteous and holy judgement, as I thought to be able to gain entrance through that bronze ceiling apart from his own way of coming to me. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

  3. One of the principle misunderstandings I was taught and held for far too long is that God’s ‘righteousness is given,’ or “imputed” to us, which is in fact the traditional evangelical view. This view of “imputed righteousness” is in contradistinction to the view (presented in the Scriptures): that God’s righteousness includes (but is not limited to) his covenant faithfulness (by which also, explicit manifestation and explanation of his faithfulness to his own nature is made known).

    The person of faith in Christ is not given God’s righteousness, as though it were a commodity that could be bestowed or given; rather, by faith in Jesus Christ, one is given God’s spirit whereby a person is both quickened and empowered to conformity with and faithfulness to God’s nature, which is the standard by which righteousness is marked out.

    It was Jesus’ own identical conformity with and faithfulness to the Father’s nature— set against the nature of sin and death— to which the life of this promised Messiah, God’s annointed savior and deliverer, was bound. It is our conformity, by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, whereby we are quicken and empowered through faith/faithfulness to conformity with and faithfulness to God’s nature, which is the standard by which righteousness ‘is’ and is also “reckoned” or “accounted” to us.

    A proper understanding, enlightened by the indwelling Spirit’s quickening and renewal in his empowerment, effectively works in us ‘enroute’ and ‘ongoing’ “in the way” of conformity with and faithfulness to God’s nature, (even so long as we remain in this earthen vessel, beset and affected though we are, through the deceptive nature of sin).

  5. @Richard, God is ready to be found by those who persistently seek Him. He wants to lead them in more perfect way in regard to knowing just who He is in fact. So many Christians live lazy lives, and as such miss out deeply on what God has for them; that is, as far as knowledge and experience of Him goes. People are looking for the microwave Jesus experience, and not willing to become a fine wine with aging.

    And amen. When we see Jesus we see the Father. People need to understand that God is a triune personal/relational God. As such, His relation to the world is an overabundance of His type of life. It isn’t a decretal forensic life, but a love life Self-revealed by Himself, in Himself, in the Son by the Spirit. Here’s a post I just posted on my Facebook timeline, it corresponds well with the sentiments you have written about:

    Grace is not a *thing* it is not a *substance* it is not a *quality*. God’s grace is in fact Godself enfleshed in the humanity of Jesus Christ; the humanity of the eternal Logos, the Word of God. God’s grace is a person, and thus by characteristic, is personal. God’s grace isn’t something that can be handled or manipulated by people, it isn’t something that can be “appropriated” or *habituated* in; God’s grace speaks, He moves and breathes among us by the power and presencing of the Holy Spirit. Until this shoe drops for folks it will remain impossible for them to critically disentangle themselves from the thinking they have received in the the Western churches; as far as thinking grace and salvation goes. This shoe needs to drop for the masses in the churches. Without people coming to this realization I can only see them laboring away, living with a sense of performativity as the way of the Christian existence.

  6. Thanks for your post, Bobby. I’ve been following your blog since 2017 and have found it very helpful.
    You refer to Grace being the godself and not something that can be habituated or appropriated. Have you much of a perspective on the works of Palamas and the energies/essence debate?
    I loved your reference to “the veil of the flesh of Christ’s body had been torn open”. Some of the fathers make a parallel between the veil of the temple being torn open and Christ’s side being torn open (“I beheld water issuing from the right side of the temple” being a reference to the blood and water coming from Jesus’ side). John Calvin actually agrees with Augustine in seeing the blood and water coming from Jesus’ side as indicative of communion and baptism. What do you think is the relationship between grace and “our sacraments”, as Calvin calls them?

  7. Anon, my only real interaction with Palamas has only been indirect through my study of Patristic theology, and also through TFT’s engagement, at points, with the Palamites (insofar that his work might offer a critique of Palamas’ theology). My understanding of Palamas is that he is somewhat of an Eastern version of Aquinas, with reference to the latter’s Aristotelian deployment of essence/accidents. While not a one for one, there does seem to be some real overlap between the two.

    The veil of the flesh is a direct quote, essentially, of the Hebrews text; which I also love. As far as “our sacraments,” I am a Free church type of guy (low even, in a qualified sense); which is why at the end I end up being more Barthian than Torrancean on this front. I see Jesus as our sacrament, as our decree. I have a post on this somewhere with reference to TFT. I quote at length Paul Molnar and how he develops a “sacramental” theology from Torrance’s theology. Even for Torrance the sacrament is Christ; he’s just more church-centric than my approach as a Baptistic-like thinker (so Barth). What is your background, and name?

  8. Thanks for your reply, Bobby. I haven’t read Palamas but have seen his quotes through about a fair bit in debates on grace, so that is helpful to have some background.
    Ok, that’s interesting about the sacraments. I was Anglican background (having heard Baxter Kruger speak when he came out to Australia in 2007) but am now (relatively recently) Catholic, although definitively closer to the thinking of Bonaventure and Scotus (whom Torrence also had some closeness to) than that of Aquinas. I agree with your view that Jesus is our sacrament and would personally also say that His Body in the world (both the church and the Eucharist) is a sacrament.

    Sam

  10. Thanks Bobby.

    That’s a terrific article and I can’t fault Torrance’s statements mentioned by Molnar. The giver and the gift are not to be separated, and it is only in Christ that we have life and redemption (I am the true vine, you are the branches; without me you can do nothing).

    Sam

  11. Sam, it’s not separation, it’s participation versus prolongation of the incarnation. The difference between a Protestant and Catholic/Orthodox ecclesiology. Well, that is if someone is radically Protestant unlike the Westminster types.

Comments are closed.