Research on the reasons why people leave the church shows that it is often the result of a superficial Christianity. If the relationship with God, at home and in church, becomes a formality, then faith dies a silent death. In that situation there is always again a call for renewed piety. It is to be noted that mysticism often comes along as a hidden enemy and robs faith of its clarity. This will no doubt be the same in the future.

Living in a Personal Relationship⤒🔗

A pious person lives in a personal relationship with his God, through his Mediator. In the mystical experience the soul fuses for a time with the divine—and this happens through meditation.

Between these two there is a world of difference. In mystical religions God is not a Person but an eternal world-soul from which everything arises and to which everything returns. It is clear that here we come to the area of the Eastern religions. Mysticism is altogether different from the Christian faith, because without the Mediator it seeks a way to an impersonal divine world.

The Bible teaches us to honour God in the Person of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is why a Christian does not live by mystical experiences. His faith is formed in communion with God from Person to person, whereby justice is done to what belongs to both Creator and creature.

Let us look at some examples in the Bible. God himself called Abraham the father of believers. What do we notice about Abraham’s piety? He is far from erasing the boundary between himself and the Almighty One. Abraham says, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.” This deep reverence does not imply fusion but leads to such a personal connection that he is called the friend of God.

Moses takes his sandals off his feet and covers his face when he meets God in the burning bush. This awe for the Almighty leads to much more than “fusion with the Eternal.” God himself speaks of the personal relation he has with Moses. With him, we read in Exodus 33, “The Lord used to speak…face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”

How personal is the Lord Jesus when he calls the disciples his friends, touches the sick, and embraces children. When with the Emmaus travellers he walks through the silent country and explains the Bible to them. When in the garden he looks for Mary, calls her so friendly by her name and at the same time preserves the distance. When at night he suddenly stands with Paul in his prison cell and encourages him. What else do we have to mention to show that God wishes to have a personal relationship with us, and that he wishes to have nothing to do with any attempts to erase the boundary between Creator and creature?

Piety objects to popular and emotional talk that presents God as your mate. Piety knows of holy reverence, also in the manner wherein one speaks to God. “You call me Master and Lord,” the Saviour says, “and rightly so, for that is what I am.” Through the prophet Malachi God shows how offended he is when there is no respect for him: “If then I am a Father, where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is my fear?”

Someone Who Comes into Your Life←⤒🔗

Maintaining a personal relationship with God applies not only to the Father and the Son. We honour the Holy Spirit in the same manner. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force that fuses with the human spirit, so that we enter a stage of holiness. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the eternal God. He is not a comfort, but the Comforter. That is his special name and it points also to the specialty of his work. He makes us aware of our misery, convinces us of the redeeming offer of Christ, and so gives us rest.

The Holy Spirit is not Something, he is Someone. I once heard a mother say about her unmarried daughter, “I hope that someone comes into her life some day.” She is speaking about “someone”—a person. And so the Holy Spirit also is Someone who comes into your life. To share it with you. To be there always for you and to remain with you forever, says the Lord Jesus. You see how rich the personal element is, also in the relation with the Holy Spirit.

There are Christians who always speak about “Jesus.” Others speak constantly about “the Spirit.” But let us realize that the Lord Jesus strongly emphasizes the unity in the work of Father, Son, and Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. In the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son come to dwell with us. Read attentively about this in John 14 and 16, and you will see how tremendous is the Trinity of God. The Holy Spirit imparts to us what the Lord Jesus earned for us, and the Lord Jesus is the way by which we again have access to the Father. So our relation with him, who is the origin, the meaning, and the goal of our existence, is restored.

It is not only in the past that in mystical piety the boundary between Creator and creature was blurred. You can notice it also in your own times. How much mysticism don’t you still encounter in “testimonies,” articles, books, and meditations.

Maintaining a personal relation with God is infinitely richer than any mystical communion you can think of. Mysticism is about experiences, but a personal bond is carried by trust and confidentiality. In the Bible God describes the relationship with him in images that show this: it is as the relation between a father and his child, a mother and her little baby, a bridegroom and his bride, brothers and sisters, and intimate friends.

Who can deny that these images suggest heartfelt connection, warmth and depth? A personal relation with the eternal God is not mystical, although it is a mystery. Not floating and misty, but a “mystery.” A “mystery” too big for words.

A Foot Too High←⤒🔗

Like a handbreadth and an ell, the foot also is an old measuring unit. Its value can easily be guessed: about 30 cm. That is also more or less the distance between your head and your heart. And so the expression was born: it’s a foot too high. This is what our pious ancestors said about people with a faith based primarily on the intellect. You can imagine that the expression is used frequently in an age that tends to overestimate the intellect, rationalism.

But be again aware of the danger of one-sidedness. It is not so that a Christian is not allowed to use his reasoning powers. Someone who simply follows his emotions is just as wrong as the one who depends primarily on his intellect. The question is always: do I subject my understanding and feelings to the Word of God? Over the centuries people have by various means attempted to make the Bible say what they wanted to hear. In the one century the intellect is supreme and in the next one the feelings—and that back-and-forth movement will no doubt continue. Moreover, it is not always the one or the other. Under the rule of humanism both occur together. We see that also in our own times.

Postmodern humanity wants to have good feelings about faith and church, otherwise they are not interested. And at the same time there is liberalism or latitudinarianism, which places the intellect above the Bible. If there is something we cannot understand, we start reasoning about it until we have it under control. Open liberalism is still popular today. For example: the Lord Jesus did not really rise from the grave. He arose in the experience of his disciples. Theologians explain it cleverly in this way: the story of the Bible is true (for it agrees with your experience), but it is not real (not based on facts).

Furthermore, the intellect can rule over God’s revelation in a subtle way. It is then not a matter of people who deny the deity of Christ or the resurrection, but it is about Christians who believe, for example, that the story of creation is meant figuratively or poetically, because it does not agree with the theory of evolution. Or who in the book of Jonah don’t see actual facts but read it as poetic presentation of a prophetic lesson.

Rationalism has already attacked the authority of the Bible for more than two centuries. Besides that—and this is especially strong in our days—one can subject biblical truth to what we feel. Less attractive biblical statements are then ignored or even denied. Or they are changed. For the message of the gospel must make us feel good. The judgment of God, his authority over us, the reality of the hell, election, and so on—with such messages you don’t draw people to the church. And yet they are aspects of the one, indivisible gospel. For where there is no judgment there is also no grace.

And whether the intellect or the feelings rule does not really make much of a difference. What you get is “a gospel according to human preferences.”

Biblical Humanism←⤒🔗

Soon after the Reformation we hear about “moderates” and “hardliners.” These names do not point to a distinction between Christians and unbelievers, but to two “streams” in the same faith. Moderates want room and freedom not only with respect to their lifestyle, but especially with respect to the interpretation of the Bible. The hardliners, on the other hand, take great care that both their lifestyle and their interpretation are in conformity with the Word of God.

The great Reformation under the guidance of Luther and Calvin experienced this struggle between moderates and hardliners from the very beginning. It starts already with an important disagreement between Luther and the famous Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus.

Erasmus finds much to criticize in the Roman church, but he does not join the Reformation. He assumes that human beings have a “free will” to choose to believe, so that they ultimately owe their salvation to their own proper attitude. The Lord Jesus is for him especially important as the heavenly teacher and the great example, and not as the one who saves us from our sins. Erasmus is therefore often called a “biblical humanist.”

Luther wants to have nothing to do with Erasmus’ idea. He calls the will of man a “will under bondage.” For the will also, by the fall into sin, has come so deeply under the power of the evil one that man can never turn to God by his own power. He is unable to make himself acceptable to God on his own initiative and on his own strength. For that’s what is at stake in the question of the “freedom of the will”: either you are saved by grace only, or you have to add something of your own.

Luther writes to Erasmus: this is now the heart of the matter! Compared to this, the papacy and purgatory are only minor matters. God has made it so that my salvation depends on his will and not on my own. It’s only because of this that I am safe and assured, and nothing can snatch me from him.

It seems that Erasmus tried to move somewhat closer to Luther’s view. He is willing to admit that the very first promptings of the soul are God’s work. But once that has been admitted, he says, it must be clear that God and man work together to accomplish man’s salvation. But Luther rejects that compromise. I am no psychologist, he writes, and we are not dealing here with a psychological issue. Neither are we dealing with the question whether a person can choose freely in all sorts of everyday matters such as eating and drinking, working and resting, although God is involved in these matters as well. But the question of the free will is about faith and unbelief. It is about the teaching of the Bible: the human being is saved by grace, and by grace alone.

That confession was a final truth for Luther, which he would never give up. “I wish,” he called out, “that the word free will had never been invented. And you don’t find it anywhere in the Bible!”

Erasmus had many followers in the centuries after the Reformation. The Remonstrants, for example, follow in his footsteps and also confess free will. The well-known Synod of Dordrecht (1618/1619) rejected the doctrine of the Remonstrants, but it still exists. The humanistic Christendom of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries still works with the ideas of Erasmus. At the times of the Reveil [a Dutch revival movement in the nineteenth century] and the Secession of 1834 [when many left the liberal Dutch state church], the struggle was still against the concept of “the good human being,” “free will,” and salvation by means of adherence to “Christian virtues.” But we can stay closer to home. Today you can meet Erasmus everywhere: a gospel “according to man” can still be heard everywhere.

And You Will Eat Spinach…←⤒🔗

I had a childless uncle and aunt who always occupied an important place in my life, beginning with my years at school. I was always welcome with them, and in return they assumed certain rights. For example, when I came home with my report card, they also had to judge my performance. My uncle was quite humorous, and he had for everything his own special sayings: expressions from Tijl Uilenspiegel [a mischievous figure from Dutch and German folklore], Father Cats [a famous Dutch poet, known among other things for his moral emblems and aphorisms], and other figures. When he had carefully studied my report card he said solemnly, “Keep going like this, my son, and you will eat spinach.”

I knew that he meant this as a compliment, but it did not sound all that stimulating, for I hated spinach. So I couldn’t understand why my uncle connected it with my school performance. Only later did I learn that the statement was more to the point than he knew himself. Originally the expression was, “Go on like this, my son, and you will be called Spinoza.” But Spinoza apparently did not belong to the circle of my uncle’s acquaintances.

The full name of the Spinoza in question is Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677). His Christian name is actually Baruch, and that betrays his Jewish descent. He is considered one of the greatest philosophers Holland has produced. In 1977, three hundred years after his death, a special postage stamp was dedicated to him. What is so special about this man, who is often quite heavily criticized in church history books?

The Intellect as King←⤒🔗

Spinoza is an early representative of rationalism. Rationalism means: the intellect sits on the throne. Ratio means reason, intellect. We recognize it also in the expression: be reasonable. In other words: use your brain. Rationalists find that the human intellect has the highest authority. It leads human beings to absolute truths, to high moral behaviour, and also to a natural knowledge of God.

God and reality are the same thing, Spinoza says, and all reality can be mathematically reasoned out. This is true also of the God of the Bible. Spinoza goes so far that he no longer sees God as a “he,” a person. For him God is an “it,”: the divine element that you can meet in all things. With Spinoza nothing much remains of the Bible. He finds the larger part of the books of the Old Testament historically unreliable. He also denies the miracles in the Bible, or explains them as normal events according to natural laws that we do not (yet) fully understand.

In the eighteenth century this rationalism becomes quite influential. The existence of God and the authority of the Bible are acceptable as long as you can understand it with your brain. You will be aware of the enormous consequences rationalism has had with respect to faith. If God is to be identified with his creation, then faith has become totally horizontal. God is then no longer the Holy One who is above all things. He is “something” you encounter in yourself, in your neighbour and in creation.

In the centuries after Spinoza, rationalists have in various ways enlarged upon these thoughts. You will no doubt recognize it: each reasonable person must admit that there is “something”: a supreme being, a providence. Religion is a general human need. But that it should have authority over my understanding is unacceptable. Whatever a person can’t understand about the Bible is myth and invention.

Liberal Christianity enters the stage: human beings are good by nature. They live their virtuous life in all integrity. They say, “I have never hurt anybody, why should I then not be saved?” Obviously, redemption is again out of the picture.

Up to today this rationalism is very much alive. As a wolf in sheep’s clothing it moves through the churches and leaves a trail of destruction. It plays a role not only in the origin of the Reveil and the Secession; it has begun a war in the church that has not nearly been ended. There are still thousands of Christians who accept in the Bible only what they can understand.

I Can’t Understand It…←⤒🔗

God is so great that I can never explain him with my puny human reasoning powers. Certainly not now, since my intellectual powers have been darkened by sin. Every Christian will sooner or later learn this: that he can no longer follow God in his government of this world, that he can’t reconcile the revelation of the Bible with scientific theories, and so on.

In all sorts of ways you can try to resolve the problem. Spinoza went so far as to unite the reality of God and the reality of creation. The reality of God, he taught, is there simply in every flower, every animal, each human being—you simply meet God in all things around you and in yourself. This is called pantheism. God does not stand apart from this creation, nor is he above it, but he is united with it. For that reason miracles could not exist for Spinoza. According to him a miracle is, as we already saw, just something that happens according to a law of nature that we do not (yet) understand.

You want some examples of how by “eating spinach” you overcome faith in miracles? Formerly, receiving a baby was a miracle of God. Today we “make” babies ourselves, not only in our speech, but we also completely understand the process of reproduction. Formerly the starry sky was a miracle in our eyes, and above it lived God. “Higher than the blue skies, and the little stars of gold, dwells the Father in heaven.” Blessed childhood! Today we look with our telescopes billions of light years into the cosmos and decide that everything is the result of a Big Bang.

There are also rationalists who look at things differently than Spinoza. They don’t fuse God with his creation, but “deliver” him from his omnipotence. God is a powerless God, they say, and has no influence on evil. He cries with us in our misery, and so he is our Comforter. Still others distance God from his creation. He is the Supreme Being, or Providence, or the Eternal One. But Mother Earth and the universe are run by humankind—by means of science and technology.

And so we could continue mentioning attempts that are being made to explain and understand God. If the mind has the last word, true piety will soon disappear. For my brain will never be able to answer my questions. However much I may discover and explain, I stand speechless by the cradle of my newborn child. And I am altogether quiet when on a clear winter night I look at the starry sky. I am full of questions about God’s care and mercy, his love, his compassion, his righteousness—and besides all those horrors in the world: the ethnic cleansings, the disasters, the sicknesses, the human trafficking, the suffering of those who are helpless. I see the injustice suffered by God’s children, the prayers that seem to remain unanswered, sincere believers who experience calamity upon calamity.

If with all my reasoning I do not humbly submit to God and trust him unconditionally, then I lose my faith. I adore God’s omnipotence, which I cannot explain with my limited understanding.