“He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light.” Jn. 5:35
This was our Lord’s assessment of John the Baptist’s life. John’s spirituality was summed up in two words – burning and shining. He was a man of light (“shining”); and equally, a man of heat (“burning”). And ultimately, this kind of radical spirituality would cost him his life.
What about us? Are our lives the intersection of both light and heat? You see, in the spiritual life it is all too easy to have heat without light or light without heat. Much of the evangelical church today falls into one or the other of these two categories. There are those churches which specialize in the heat of passionate, fervent worship and singing; but are woefully lacking in the light of God’s word being systematically and powerfully taught. On the other hand, there are just as many congregations whose specialty is biblical knowledge and rightly dividing the word of truth; but whose fervency and passion for our Lord has all but evaporated. But then, this situation is not really unique to our day. Not by a long shot.
In 1746 Jonathan Edwards wrote a vital book on this exact issue entitled “Religious Affections”. In my mind this is a book every believer should read at least once. Among the many gems you will find in this work, are these relating to light and heat:
“As there is no true religion where there is nothing else but affection, so there is no true religion where there is no religious affection. As on the one hand, there must be light in the understanding, as well as an affected fervent heart; where there is heat without light, there can be nothing divine or heavenly in that heart; so on the other hand, where there is a kind of light without heat, a head stored with notions and speculations, with a cold and unaffected heart, there can be nothing divine in that light, that knowledge is no true spiritual knowledge of divine things. If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart.”
I love his sentence, “If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart.” Amen. And they will also affect the mind. In true spirituality, light and heat were never meant to be at odds. Rather, they were created to be the best of friends. Both mind and heart are inseparably united as one at the altar of dynamic godliness. This is exactly what the disciples on the Emmaus road discovered, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Lk. 24:32) A burning heart and a scripture-emblazoned mind were the result of their walk with Jesus. And may it be so with us. May God grant that we become ever-increasing extremists. In both heart and mind, heat and light.
