Faith verses Mysticism

[WordSword]

Desire and love are two very distinct things. Desire supposes the capacity of enjoying the thing which one desires, namely, the spiritual affections which as to the root of their nature, have God for their Object. Love, on the contrary, is in full possession of the object of desire. It is no longer just a want, but the enjoyment, the appreciation of the object itself, which is our delight.

Now mysticism, while it greatly exalts the feelings, yet never goes beyond desire (desire alone doesn’t possess, only wants—NC); whereas simple Christianity, at the same time that it gives the knowledge of salvation, puts us in full possession of the love of God—it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. I know that my Father love me, even as He loves His beloved Son. That love has saved me. It is He who desired me! His love had need of me, and that love has shone forth in the Lord Jesus in all its perfection. I contemplate that love in peace; I love and worship the Lord Jesus. I abide in Him and Him in me—I know Him as my very Christian Life. 

The mystic’s idea of love is erroneous in its very nature. It is something of man which craves satisfaction, instead of being something of God which satisfies the heart perfectly, deeply and infinitely. Hence those extraordinary efforts to abase and blacken oneself, and that habit of speaking ill of oneself, as if a saved soul could be something before a Savior, instead of being overpowered and forgetting oneself in the presence of such great love, and of enjoying it.

Is it when we are truly transported in the presence of our Father, and when we contemplate His glorious beauty in His Son, that we can be occupied with the hideous images which hide themselves in the heart of man? Never! We think of our Father. He has given us the right and the affection to do so by that grace which has really abolished and condemned all that we were, at Calvary (He knew all who would be receiving grace at Christ’s expiation for their sin nature—NC), when we were living outside of the Lord Jesus, when we were in the fallen Adam.

My Father has satisfied the claims of His holiness, His majesty, His righteousness and His love in the work and presence in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has found His rest there, and I have also found mine. The mystic never has it, because he vainly seeks for in man that which he ought only to seek for in God, who had accomplished all, before he ever thought of it. Therefore the mystic seeks for a disinterested love; but where does he seek it? In himself, in man.

Is it that the deep affections, which the Cross awakened in one, have ceased, because it is no longer a need that overwhelms us? No; conscious interfered, and put me in my right place; that which my Father has done, what He has given me, peace, is now established in my soul and can no longer be disturbed. I have divine leisure, because nothing is uncertain in my relationship with my Father; nothing hinders me from contemplating all that is perfect in the Object of my affections, without being occupied with myself.

The mystic humbles himself, because he still hopes to find good in himself; he is occupied with this, as if there could be any, and alas, he finds nothing but evil. The believer is humble, which is a very different things, because he has given up the thought of any discovery of good in himself (as to producing anything salvific, even in new self, which is only a product of redemption, and that, forever—NC), in order to love and worship the One in whom there is only that which is good. He understands and accepts that love toward himself, namely, the Lord Jesus has died, and that he has died and risen with Him.

—J N Darby (1800-1882)

 

 

 

MJS devotional excerpt for Feb 11

“It is not the design of God to deprive His children of happiness, but only to pour the cup of bitterness into that happiness which the believer has in anything outside of Christ.” -F.F.

“Everything that tries us, which is a check upon us that causes exercise of heart, and makes us sensible of weakness in ourselves, is of the nature of chastisement (child-training). It may come in the way of difficulties in the path of faith; or in the shape of such trials and sorrows as are common to all men—loss of property, loss of health, or bereavement; or it may be as the governmental consequences of sin; but in one way or other all have it. It is ‘for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness’ (Heb. 12:10). That is, it serves to break down that which is not of God in us, that the life of the Lord Jesus might be made manifest.” -C.A.C.
http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/