Be Thou My Vision

I have a kids Hymnal the church bought for use in the children's program. In it are many of the old hymns and Christian songs. For many of them there is an explanation of the song and a challenge on the opposite page. The one's I have read are pretty good. There is also a picture illustration of the truth of the song. Very nice for kids, even some of us older kids.

Like everything else, man from time to time misreads what is there. In the case of the explanation of the hymn Be Thou My Vision this is exactly what happened. Though the explanation is a truth one ought to heed, it is not the expression of the hymn itself. It does, in fact, completely miss it. The words of the hymn are:

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art—
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;

I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

The children's hymnal gives the explanation that this song is a prayer asking the Lord to help us see the right way to go. I find that quite weak. The hymn is not about gaining the wisdom from God that will help us down the right path, though that would be a natural result. It is about Him being one's all in all, the singular focus of one's life. It is not about living life but having a thoroughgoing relationship with Him. It is the expression of several of the Psalms of Scripture where the psalmist expresses his longing for God's presence, to be in an indissoluble union with Him. For instance,

Psalms 42:1 ¶ As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. (NASB), and,

Psalms 27:4 ¶ One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple. (NASB)

John 17:21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. (NASB)

I am in desperate need of the heart of this hymn. I need Him to be my vision, my sole desire and focal point. Dear Lord, BE THOU MY VISION today and always. Amen.

A Concern With Lewis on the Suffering of Christ

There is a concern I have with what C. S. Lewis says in an analogy of the passion of Christ and common human suffering in chapter 8 of Letters to Malcolm. Much of the analogy (pp. 43-44) is quite good. But he tends to go too far in his query of God's forsaking the Son on the cross. Lewis questions why the Father would forsake the Son in His greatest need. This is what I believe he is pondering, at least. It seems clear to me after three readings of it. Lewis doesn't even hint at the fact the Father's forsaking the Son was an essential part of the vicarious atonement for man's sin. Man's sin separated him from God and must have separated him from God forever should Christ not have paid our penalty in our place. The essential meaning of death is separation. Physical death means separation from this life and the things of this life. Spiritual death means, in the end, separation from God, since He is life and the giver of it, and, by default, the things of God which give life meaning and pleasure. The penalty of sin is not said to be being beaten or even to die physically, though the latter is at least a part of it. The penalty for sin was to be and is death, and that to the uttermost. Were physical death the full extent it would hardly be a penalty at all. To die in this life and yet live in the next is hardly a matter to fear. The Christian will, excepting those raptured while living--should the interpretation be accurate--do this very thing. The only fear in it all is the fact we have not yet experienced it or something much like it, and it is something unknown to us. Those who will fear death most are those who are weak in faith and have doubts regarding their salvation, or those who have good reason to doubt their salvation by reason of a continuity in sin or some compromise of purity and godly behavior. Most Christians, I conjecture, are not so much terrified of death, yet somewhat anxious. The fear, if one might actually call it fear, is by reason of not knowing for sure what it will be like, especially the meeting of Christ face to face. One's own sinful disposition--the awareness of indwelling sin--is enough to unsettle the stoutest soul in light of having to meet face to face the Perfect One who knows every man, and that thoroughly. Hardly does a sinner want another sinner to know his innermost sinfulness, let alone Him!

So, physical death itself is not the extent of the promised result of sin, only a part of it. The final and full result, the penalty to its full, is separation from God for eternity. Inherent in this separation from God is separation from all things good. This was hinted at above in the mention of separation from the things of God which give life meaning and pleasure. God is perfectly good and all good things emanate from Him. One separated from God is not only separated from His person but from His blessings of gifts of pleasure as well. Those things which give us pleasure will cease immediately when this final separation is made. If one does not want God, he by default does not want what He provides. And by His provisions only does life have meaning and pleasure.

Consider what it is that gives pleasure. Existence itself does not necessarily do so. But light does. Air does. Water and food do. Comfort and good health do. Good friends do, and in the absence of good friends, acquaintances do to a real degree. Just to be in the company of others, even if not directly interacting with them, does. Beautiful scenery does. Good music does. Animals do. Moderate temperature and weather do. Could one not go on for quite some time naming things, both generally and specifically--like chocolate ice-cream--which give pleasure, both physically and aesthetically?

Having listed several things that might have relieved Christ from the difficulty of the cross, as He prayed--all to no avail-- Lewis finalizes the list with,

"There is, then, nothing left but God. And to God, God's last words are 'Why hast thou forsaken me?'

"You see how characteristic, how representative, it all is. The human situation writ large. These are among the things it means to be a man. Every rope breaks when you seize it. Every door is slammed shut as you reach it. To be like that fox at the end of her run; the earths all staked. [I don't understand this last sentence.]

"As for the last dereliction of all [referring to the last thing in the listing--God's forsaking Christ on the cross], how can we either understand or endure it? Is it that God Himself cannot be Man unless God seems to vanish at His greatest need? And if so, why?" (pp, 43-44).

Lewis does not mention here, or even to the end of the chapter, that the forsaking of the Son by the Father was necessitated by His dying for sin. He did not only receive the penalty for sin, He became sin, the very object of God's wrath.

2Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (NASB)

He was made a curse.

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE." (NASB)

God is too holy to look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13). The Father forsook the Son when the Son was made sin for us. Such was necessary. It was not something that did not have to take place for Him to be more human or enter full into the common human suffering. The wages of sin is death, and Christ had to receive the penalty in full, both the physical and spiritual sides. For a time, maybe three hours, considering the time of the darkness and His death, God turned away from God. And in this was fulfilled the threat, "You shall surely die." I wish I could tell this to Lewis, though, if he didn't know it in this life (he could have even if he doesn't reflect it in this portion of his writings) he certainly does know it now. One look at the Lord Jesus would, I'm sure, have dispelled any fogginess or doubts about the matter.

Truth: Realized--Spirit and Emotion

We have taken the reality of God's presence and made it an emotional experience. We think if we can get our emotions worked up we can enter the presence of God. Or we think emotional feeling is the presence of God. God is not there. He is in the man. Such is not emotion. The spirit is not emotion. It is the man himself. When the spirit gets connected with God there is very little emotion involved. It is just a reality. In our spirits we realize God and truth. We don't feel it. Feelings may emit because of the realization, but it is not a part of that realization. Neither does it give credence to that realization. There is nothing of truth value in feelings. They are simply there as a result of realizing truth, or what we think is true, and they help move us into action. Otherwise, feelings have nothing to do with truth. One may feel a certain way about something and the opposite be true. One simply cannot base truth evaluations on feelings.

Truth is only and absolutely objective. Even metaphysical truth. Metaphysical truth is that truth which cannot be evaluated by the senses. It is not tangible. It belongs to the non-physical world. To know such truth is not an emotional determination. Metaphysical truth is known in the spirit of a man. He hears truth and there is an agreement in his spirit without the necessity of physical examination. For one to say this is not credible is to debunk his own words. What he just said, then, is not credible, for his speech, the meaning of the words he just spoke, cannot be tested by the senses. As Bahnsen says, the laws of logic are true, yet they are untestable by the senses. Still, we realize and experience their worth by everyday living. One cannot live in an illogical, irrational manner and get on very well for any length of time. The laws of nature, as we may call them, those laws that are simply there and govern all we do, whether we will be successful or fail in the end, cannot be ignored and the one ignoring them get on well. He will run into invisible walls that refuse to move. The result of his running into them will be his fall. One, or a nation, cannot forge ahead in violation of reality--the laws of nature or the laws of logic and reason--without finding defeat at last. One may not admit to defeat or that any laws had anything to do with it. But his denial does not change a thing. They are still there and he cannot get by with violating them. No one ever has or will.

Truth: What Is--Windows and Birds

Why does truth matter? Because truth is what is. To deny truth, itself or any particular element of truth, is to set oneself up to run into barriers, unseen barriers that one will not be able to comprehend. The picture is of a bird trying to move past a window. Why is it not able to do so? It doesn't know, for it can't see it. Yea, it can see past the glass, or at least the reflection of the sky in the glass, but not the glass. So confusion ensues, and it continues to try to get past the glass without accomplishment, but doing harm to itself. If only it knew the glass was there! It is to the bird an unseen hindrance, a force outside of itself it cannot overcome. So the denier of truth finds himself bumping into unseen barriers, barriers he denies exists. Why will his ideas and agendas not work? Why the constant confusion of his attempts? He seems to see his way clear enough, but he is blind to the laws of truth he is violating. These laws are the unseen and denied barriers he cannot get past. They are barriers that will never move or change, even in the slightest way. And they govern the lives of all men, be they aware of it or not. There are no exceptions. To follow the laws of truth is to find the pleasure and fulfillment one is trying to find by violating them, and to find truth itself.

Truth: Ignored--Denial and Apathy

I am quite alarmed by society's response to truth, the notion of it. That truth exists, especially as an authority, is either dismissed or lackadaisically ignored by many, if not most. I listened to an apologetics lecture with a Q&A section on this concern. It made me realize again how people are taught that truth either does not exist or is not important. The second proposition is the most divisive. When one concludes truth is not important there is no standard for moral or logical/rational decision making and acting. Once apathy sets in it is nearly impossible to awaken the sleeper. Of course both propositions are false and easily disproved, but those who wish to contend for them have come to a place that tends to dowse any interest or enthusiasm of rethinking their position.

The real problem is that when truth does not matter anything can happen. Our world is living that out in our time. But such was lived out to a greater degree long before now. The Bible records such an attitude in Rom. 1:18ff. Mankind grew tired of God and suppressed His truth, Himself being in reality the whole of it. The result of suppressing the truth was the world wide flood which covered the entire earth, without geographical exception. When God gives one up for refusing truth and demanding falsehood (done always for convenience's sake) there is no more hope. Though He may give one many years, even a lifetime to repent, His judgment will certainly come. And when judgment comes the irony of it all is realized--the very thing the suppressor aspired to, namely pleasure in whatever form it comes, is lost, and the realization of its futility is gained in full. I wouldn't wonder if the greatest torment for the eternally damned shall be the realization of their folly and hypocrisy against themselves. Such an example is Bertrand Russell. It is reported that when asked what he will say when he stands before God, and God asks him why he did not believe in Him, he will respond that He did not give him enough evidence to believe in Him. But in eternity, when all foolishness is put aside and reality in its fullness descends upon such a one, there will be no more ability to play games, for one will be known to himself as he is known to God. All, in that day, will be naked and void of any possible duplicity. Self-deception will be ended forever. Reality alone will stand. And the greatest reality is that it will be too late to make any changes.