God Without Religion

"God Without Religion" explores the idea of having a personal relationship with the divine outside of traditional religious structures. It encourages individuals to seek spirituality through personal experiences and self-discovery rather than adhering strictly to organized religion.

Understanding God Without Religion

The concept of connecting with God outside traditional religious frameworks emphasizes personal spirituality and self-discovery. This approach allows individuals to explore their beliefs and experiences without the constraints of organized religion.

Key Concepts

Personal Relationship: Individuals can develop a personal connection with the divine that is not tied to specific religious practices or institutions.

Spiritual Exploration: This journey encourages exploring spirituality through personal experiences, meditation, and self-reflection.

Value of Individual Experience: Emphasizes the importance of personal insights and feelings over dogmatic teachings.

Ways to Connect with God

Here are some methods to foster a spiritual connection without organized religion:

Method Description

Self-Love Recognizing your inherent value and worth as a person.

Meditation Practicing mindfulness to quiet the mind and listen to inner thoughts.

Nature Appreciation Finding awe and beauty in the natural world as a reflection of the divine.

Gratitude Cultivating thankfulness for life's blessings to enhance spiritual awareness.

Community Engaging with like-minded individuals for support and shared experiences.

Conclusion

The idea of "God Without Religion" invites individuals to seek a deeper understanding of spirituality that transcends traditional religious boundaries. This approach fosters a more personal and meaningful connection with the divine, allowing for a unique exploration of faith and existence.

"God Without Religion" explores the idea of having a personal relationship with the divine outside of traditional religious structures. It encourages individuals to seek spirituality through personal experiences and self-discovery rather than adhering strictly to organized religion.

Understanding God Without Religion

The concept of connecting with God outside traditional religious frameworks emphasizes personal spirituality and self-discovery. This approach allows individuals to explore their beliefs and experiences without the constraints of organized religion.

Key Concepts

Personal Relationship: Individuals can develop a personal connection with the divine that is not tied to specific religious practices or institutions.

Spiritual Exploration: This journey encourages exploring spirituality through personal experiences, meditation, and self-reflection.

Value of Individual Experience: Emphasizes the importance of personal insights and feelings over dogmatic teachings.

Ways to Connect with God

Here are some methods to foster a spiritual connection without organized religion:

Method Description

Self-Love Recognizing your inherent value and worth as a person.

Meditation nd and listen to inner thoughts.

Nature Appreciation Finding awe and beauty in the natural world as a reflection of the divine.

Gratitude Cultivating thankfulness for life's blessings to enhance spiritual awareness.

Community Engaging with like-minded individuals for support and shared experiences.

Conclusion

The idea of "God Without Religion" invites individuals to seek a deeper understanding of spirituality that transcends traditional religious boundaries. This approach fosters a more personal and meaningful connection with the divine, allowing for a unique exploration of faith and existence.

Religion Without God

Religion Without God

Ronald Dworkin, Religion Without God, Harvard University Press, 2013, 180pp., $17.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780674726826.

Reviewed by Howard Wettstein, University of California, Riverside

2014.12.14

Ronald Dworkin has left us a stimulating set of posthumously published reflections about religion. Such variations on religious themes have a long history. Something in Jewish-Christian-Islamic religiosity inspires generalization, or transplantation, or relocation to various metaphysical and even non-metaphysical locales. Dwelling in Psalms, one might experience a sense of depth, of contact with a profound human reality, one that need not be situated in the context of a god. God is -- the gods are -- powerful; metaphorically as well as, for the believer, in a more plain sense.

Dworkin speaks of religion without God. Spinoza, a somewhat kindred spirit, did it the other way around: God without religion. Religions are, after all, institutional arrangements; God might be appreciated, loved, or worshiped without such conformity. "God," though, suggests to Dworkin and many others (although not Spinoza) metaphysical commitment to a being, a supernatural person. Dworkin seeks not a god but spiritual seriousness, a commitment to core religious values including that of the moral life; and the appreciation for, gratefulness concerning, the awe-inspiring aspects of life. Dewey puts his similar project a bit differently: it is not religion we are after but rather the religious attitude.

"Religion," writes Dworkin, "holds that inherent, objective value permeates everything, that the universe and its creatures are awe-inspiring, that human life has purpose and the universe order." (p. 1) His emphasis on religious values seems right on point. If the religious attitude is to be transplanted to secular culture, the heart of it would seem to be attitudes/commitments to values: to love, to awe, to the ethical life. In a discussion of the problem of evil, Robert M. Adams once commented that evil presents an existential problem for any religious view. Adams, a committed theist, explained that by "religious view" he meant any view that makes awe and love central pillars of value.

Dworkin, however, goes further. It seems not enough to maintain such values, even as one's central commitments. The religious person takes such values to be "objective," "as real as trees or pain." (p. 10)

The religious attitude accepts the full, independent reality of value. It accepts the objective truth of two central judgments about value. The first holds that human life has objective meaning or importance. Each person has an innate and inescapable responsibility to try to make his life a successful one: that means living well, accepting ethical responsibilities to oneself as well as moral responsibilities to others . . . .The second holds that what we call 'nature' . . . is not just a matter of fact but is itself sublime: something of intrinsic value and wonder. (p. 10)

life's intrinsic meaning and nature's intrinsic beauty [are] paradigms of a fully religious attitude to life. (p. 11)

The enchantment [that William James attributes to religion] is the discovery of transcendental value in what otherwise seems transient and dead. (p. 12)

Trying to understand Dworkin's objectivity thesis makes the book intriguing and, for me, difficult. What is it to accept "the full independent reality of value"? Dworkin distinguishes two aspects of objective value: first, "to accept the objective truth . . . . that human life has objective meaning or importance." (p. 10) (forget/forgive the double "objective; the last one is enough for his purposes.) Another aspect of the reality of value for him is that nature is "not just a matter of fact but is itself sublime: . . . of intrinsic value and wonder." (p. 10) I will return to the two aspects of the objectivity of value.

Working through Dworkin's book has been a challenge, one that's not easy to explain. The book has the feel of a series of arguments that are only partly developed. Perhaps this is a matter of its being posthumous, based on his 2011 Einstein Lectures at the University of Bern.[1] Or perhaps these lectures were somewhat popular.

Here's an example of what I found so difficult. In a discussion of the autonomy of various disciplines Dworkin makes the point that "there is no finally noncircular way to certify our capacity to find truth of any kind in any intellectual domain." (p. 16) This is reasonable enough, but notice what he takes it to imply:

We find it impossible not to believe the elementary truths of mathematics and, when we understand them, the astonishingly complex truths that mathematicians have proved. But we cannot demonstrate either the elementary truths or the methods of mathematical demonstration from outside mathematics. We feel that we do not need any independent certification: we know we have an innate capacity for logic and mathematical truth. But how do we know we have that capacity? Only because we form beliefs in these domains that we simply cannot, however we try, disown. So we must have such a capacity. (pp. 16-17; italics added)

Dworkin is certainly right: we feel that we do not need independent certification of the methods of logic and mathematics. But once we ask how we know that we have the innate capacities in question, we raise the sort of fundamental question that requires real work. It's related to the work Wittgenstein displays in On Certainty. One cannot then simply say, as Dworkin does (or appears to), that we have such innate capacities follows from our inability to disown certain mathematical and logical beliefs. Perhaps I don't have Dworkin right here, but surely more needs to be said.

Understanding Dworkin's thought about religion is made difficult by his caricatured characterization of various opponent views. Here's what he says about naturalism:

The religious attitude rejects all forms of naturalism. . . . Some naturalists are nihilists: they say that values are only illusions. Other naturalists accept that in some sense values exist, but they define them so as to deny them any independent existence: they make them depend entirely on people's thoughts or reactions. (pp. 12-13)[2]

In "Chapter 2: The Universe,"[3] Dworkin turns from the religious values that "fill the lives of ordinary people" to "the religious value of celestial beauty that intoxicated Einstein" (p. 47). He makes the point that evolution and the

grand universe it has created is itself a source of beauty. This thought is not available to a naturalist. Only those parts of the universe that produce pleasure in our sight can be, for him, beautiful. He finds the universe as a whole an incalculably vast accident of gas and energy. Religion finds it, on the contrary, a deep complex order shining with beauty . . . . Theists find it obvious why the universe is sublime: it was created to be sublime. (p. 48)

Dworkin's naturalist denies -- why need she deny this? -- the existence of "a complex order shining with beauty," and his theist seems strangely logically inept.

In what follows I explore what I take to be at the heart of Dworkin's view of religion ( traditional and his own preferred religion without God):the objectivity thesis. Dworkin takes the objectivity of morality to be uncontroversially the view of the religious traditionalist. Is that so? I'll return below to the objective sublime, perhaps a more confusing business.

Once one has God as lawgiver, or so it might be thought, the objectivity of morality is guaranteed. I'm not sure this is so, nor sure that the objective-subjective distinction is the right tool, so to speak, for the job of getting at the heart of a religious position.

Consider the naturalistically-spirited idea that morality has evolved, developed over the course of pre-human and human history; and further that it is neither true nor false but rather more effective or less at securing human dignity, social coherence and perhaps other ends. Such a view might be accepted by a religious traditionalist; God's commands sanction and perhaps improve upon the evolved moral standards.

The evolved morality view seems a far cry from Dworkin's objective morality. At the same time, it's not an approach that renders morality subjective. Nor does the fact that it's evolved suggest that somehow the felt imperatives are less than categorical. The teleology of evolution aside, the agent's moral commitments are not conditional. One is committed.

Surely there is something objective about moral norms, even evolved ones. Their virtually universal intersubjectivity is more than impressive. And the old examples of Nazis and the like hardly show much of importance, other than human ugliness, frailty, and the inability to see ourselves, as it were, from the outside. And somewhat similarly -- to return briefly to the sublime -- there is enormous intersubjectivity about say, artistic excellence/beauty. I don't of course mean that everyone agrees about music. But we do give a great deal of weight to expert evaluation of music or visual art. This alone should give pause to any extreme subjectivity thesis. Which is not to say that experts, as all of us, don't vary in their tastes.

Still intersubjectivity is not, or not quite, objectivity. The undergraduate who still lurks somewhere in me wants to ask: Granted that we all agree (or even if we all agree), how does that make it objectively right?

The problem remains: how are we to understand Dworkin's objectivity, to be clear about what sort of out-there rightness is in question? One way, compatible with a great deal of what Dworkin says, is Moore's: in terms of non-natural moral properties. Moral judgments, then, become matters of (exotic) fact. But that seems a caricature of the real way in which morality is objective. And, such moves have well explored problems of their own.

If one reads Dworkin's book in isolation from the rest of his works, one will likely suppose, as I did early on, that he is endorsing some perhaps Moore-like metaphysical realism about morality and even aesthetics. However, this sort of metaphysical realism would represent a radical departure from his explicit positions elsewhere.[4]

Dworkin argues that ethics, along with domains like mathematics and physics, are autonomous; that one cannot ground our knowledge of such domains from outside the respective domains. Such disciplines, he sometimes says, rest on a kind of faith in our innate capacity to attain truth. (As we have seen, sometimes he relies on an argument for our innate capacity.) Beyond this, Dworkin does not pursue the nature of the truths affirmed, the nature of the objectivity that characterizes the truths of the domain.

Dworkin is surely right to see a religious person's commitment to ethics/morality as binding, and as central to religious life. I've often thought that part of the meaning of belief in God (the preposition matters, the topic is belief in and not belief that) is the idea that it really matters how I pursue my life. But why tie this to objectivity, to some sort of analogy with factual truths?

There is also the question of why make religious commitment -- traditional or Dworkin's -- dependent on the acceptance of a philosophical thesis, the objectivity of ethics/morality, the sense that our ethical values are as real as trees. Perhaps, despite the way he puts the matter again and again, he means to advance a more modest thesis, that "objectivity" best makes sense of the religious person's conviction that it really matters how one runs one's life. But for the reasons just given, it's hard to see why "objectivity" is the master key to such a philosophical explication.

Let's turn to the objective sublime. Awe and wonder are pillars of traditional religious life. When the Bible speaks of "fear of the Lord" as in the remark that it is "the beginning of wisdom," it's not mere fright that is envisaged. Indeed it's difficult to see how fright can be a central religious virtue. The Hebrew word, yirah, means both fear and awe and in many biblical contexts it's awe that's in question. (Of course, awe, in its more intense incarnations, can involve an admixture of fright.)

Turning from the Bible to religious life, awe is indeed near the heart of it. In my own Jewish religious tradition, one central practice is the making of blessings. Many occasions, many times a day, are occasions for blessings. There are different blessings for different foods, blessings upon seeing the ocean or a rainbow, upon study of the Torah, upon seeing a beautiful human being, or a scholar, even upon emerging from the bathroom. A. J. Heschel, a 20th century Jewish religious thinker, sees the blessing as both training in and expressions of awe. Before one sips water, or looks to the ocean or mountains, one takes a moment to reflect on the wonder. "The heavens declare the majesty of God," as the 19th Psalm has it. In the spirit of Heschel, one might see the saintly person as one who has internalized the habits of awe-appreciation, a person for whom the wonder constitutes a background condition for life, one that is often brought into the foreground.

If one envisages the possibility of religion without God, awe would naturally be central. But as with ethics, Dworkin insists on more than centrality.

To a naturalist [the beauty that we find in nature] is just a matter of our reactions to these sights: the pleasure we take in them. To the religious attitude they are discoveries of innate beauty: they are wonderful in themselves, not in virtue of how they strike us. (p. 45)

Wonder, like morality, surely has an objective aspect. There is, as mentioned above, the impressive intersubjectivity. There is also a worldly correlate to our judgments of beauty and awesomeness. Consider all the paintings a particular art connoisseur considers beautiful. It would no doubt be very interesting to see what objective features of things elicit from her such judgments of beauty. It is not a matter of what all these things have in common; no doubt the relations between the things have something more like a family resemblance. But still, there are objective features of things to which she is responding.

We could go further in the direction that I just set out, tracing the connoisseur's other judgments of beauty across the various art forms and eventually including natural objects. But however one does this and whatever the results, it's difficult to get a grip on Dworkin's idea that we are discussing things that are "wonderful in themselves, not in virtue of how they strike us." And again, Dworkin does not help with this question.

Dworkin is worried about subjectivism about morality, beauty, and the wondrous; he rejects various kinds of reductionism, for example one that sees moral and aesthetic judgments as reports of, or mere expressions of, our reactions. He insists that we are not thinking or talking about how things strike us, but about the ways that they are. And surely that's right. But there is still a difference between saying that something is, say, metallic and saying that it's wondrous, or for that matter, tasty. These concepts allude, so to speak, to human sensibility.

Stephen Mitchell, in his Introduction to his translation of the Book of Job (HarperCollins, 1987), writes, "When I was a very young Zen student, caught up in the problem of evil, I once asked my teacher, 'Why does shit smell so bad?' He said, 'If you were a fly, it would taste like candy.'" When we imagine, perhaps fantastically, other creatures' aesthetic judgments, is our view that they either agree with us or are just wrong about it? And when there is disagreement among art connoisseurs, is it the case that one and only one can be correct?

In this review I have focused upon what I take to be most striking and controversial in Dworkin's thought about religion. The questions raised do not suggest a problem with the idea of religion without God, an idea that I find of great interest. Considering religion without God may also direct attention to the roles that God plays in religious thought and religious life, roles that deserve more attention than they often get.

[1] A "Publisher’s Note" includes this remark: "[Dworkin] planned to greatly extend his treatment of the subject . . . but he became ill . . . and had time only to complete some revisions."

[2] Dworkin takes naturalism to be the view that "nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences, including psychology." (p. 12)

[3] There are two additional chapters. Chapter 3 is concerned with the special rights people have to religious freedom. And the fourth and concluding chapter is a ten-page reflection on death and immortality.

[4] See, for example, Justice for Hedgehogs. This point was forcefully made to me by several friends much more familiar with Dworkin’s work than I am. Thanks especially to Melis Erdur and Jeff Helmreich, not only for this, but more generally for discussion of Dworkin’s views and remarks on an earlier draft.

To the Praise of His Glory ( Ephesians 1:14 )

 Sermon on Ephesians 1.14

"We tend to think of sin in terms of "sins" - actions, things we do, and things from which we suffer consequences. 

In other words, our tendency is to think of sin entirely in terms of ourselves, our own actions, and our own reactions. 

But that's not the biblical view of sin. 

What is sin? 

Well, sin is this. The essence of sin is not to give unto God the glory that is due unto His holy name." - (Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones )

What should be the starting point of all a Christian's thought? 

How ought their thinking about any particular doctrine be finally assessed? 

The answer is simple: the glory of God. 

In this sermon on Ephesians 1:14 titled "To the Praise of His Glory," Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that the apostle Paul in Ephesians is primarily concerned with the praise of His glory. 

Many religious people miss this crucial point. 

Their thinking upon any particular religious topic - whether sin or salvation - begins first with themselves. 

Dr. Lloyd-Jones warns this is a grave mistake. 

Any Christian doctrine that begins with something other than the glory of God wil negatively be affected. 

If one's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, how often do they ask God to forgive them for not glorifying Him? 

How often do they consider salvation as what only benefits or brings happiness to themselves and not as a right relationship to God? 

These are all hard questions which Dr. Lloyd-Jones provokes in this sermon on one of the highest thoughts human beings can ever contemplate. 

Sermon Breakdown 

¶ The glory of God must be the starting point of all our thought and the test of all our thinking. 

¶ Our view of sin is inadequate if it does not recognize that the essence of sin is not giving God the glory due to His name. 

¶ Our view of salvation is inadequate if it does not recognize that the supreme object of salvation is to glorify God. 

¶ A true view of salvation ascribes the entirety of salvation to God. It recognizes salvation is something huge, not small or easy. 

¶ We glorify God by seeing how His plan of salvation perfectly meets our every need. 

¶ We glorify God by recognizing the certainty of salvation - that God will complete the work He began. 

¶ We are meant to glorify God not just in our thinking but in everything we do and say. Our lives should point others to God. 

¶ Our experiences as Christians should glorify God - we should have joy, assurance and delight in God. 

¶ We glorify God by living lives that match and adorn the gospel. Our conduct should fit with the doctrine. 

¶ Everything in the Christian life is meant to glorify One Almighty God , through the name of LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I should like to call your attention this morning to the last phrase in the 14th verse of the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

The Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 1, and the last phrase in the 14th verse.

Unto the praise of His glory.

Now, obviously, that connects with what has been going before. 

So, I will start reading at the beginning of verse 13.

¹³ In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory. 

(NIV; ¹³ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory.)

Now, we consider this morning that final phrase.

We must stop at this and consider it.

I'm almost tempted to ask a question.

There are many present, most indeed present probably, have been attending regularly as we have thus been working our way through this tremendous introduction to this Epistle to the Ephesians.

And many were present last Sunday morning when we looked at that statement about the Holy Spirit  being the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. 

The question I'm tempted to ask is, how many expected that this morning we would be going on to verse 15?

And that we'd finished with verse 14. That we had indeed finished with this entire great introductory statement. But, we haven't.

The apostle Paul doesn't stop at the words purchased possession. He adds this, "unto the praise of His glory."

And this is no mere addition.

This is no mere idle addition. Apostle Paul does not throw in these words, as it were, just to make  a statement appear to be complete from the literary standpoint. 

This phrase is an essential part of the apostle's teaching. 

It is as much a part of his teaching as all that we've been considering about the sealing of the Spirit and about earnest of the Spirit.

Indeed, you notice that the apostle Paul has already used this selfsame phase. He has used this phrase before in verse six, where he says, "to the praise of the glory of His grace." 

He's done it again in verse 12, "that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ." And here it is once more, in verse 14.

You can, if you like, divide up this great statement into three sections.

The section ending at verse six, the section ending at verse 12, and the ends here at verse 14. And the important thing for us to observe is that the apostle Paul ends each one of the sections on precisely the same note.

He is not content merely with making his statements. He must add this to it. It is all to the praise of the glory of God's grace.

And therefore, we cannot pass on verse 15. Indeed, it would be very wrong of us to do so without giving the due weight and importance to this statement which the apostle obviously intended.

Because here in this last phrase, he reaches again one of his climaxes. He brings us up to the point which he regards as being most important.

Now, who first trusted in Christ." And here it is once more. it wouldn't be a bad thing therefore for us this morning just to look in general once more at this tremendous statement which we've been considering after our lecture beginning at verse three and going on to the end of this verse 14. 

Those who are interested in statistics, this is incidentally the 27th Sunday morning that we've been looking at these first 14 verses of this epistle.

Now, you notice that certain things stand out very prominently.

One of them is the way in which the Apostle Paul ends each section with this phrase about the praise of His glory or the glory of His grace. 

And the other striking thing is, of course, the constant reference to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In these 14 verses, the apostle Paul makes 15 references to the Lord. 

Or if you like to consider it in terms of the 12 verses from verse three to end of verse 14, he refers to to the Lord, 12 times. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in  heavenly places in Christ. 

And on he goes, repeating the  the name, bringing  us back to it.

You remember how in the 10th verse we emphasized that. 

That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which in us even in him. 

 both which are in heaven and which are in Earth even in him it's all always everywhere in him in other words the apostle Paul can't deal with these matters without always being conscious of two things one is the Lord Jesus Christ and the the other is the glory of God the Father. Now it may be an idle thing to do to compare these things and to ask which of these two should come first. Which of them should have priority, there is a sense in which that is a foolish question, there is another sense in which it's a very important question. And if one is to come before the other, the one that comes first is this the praise of His glory, the glory of God, the glory of the Father. Now we read together just now that great 17th chapter of The Gospel. According to St John in order that we might remind ourselves of that fact and how that was the Supreme thing in the mind and the consciousness and all the life and ministry of our blessed Lord and Savior Himself. It was the thing about which he was always concerned. It was the dominating motive of his life. He had come to glorify God, to glorify his Father and nothing he desired more than to be glorified himself in turn by the Father and that he might go back to share the glory which he had shared and enjoyed with HIM before the foundation of the world. Very well then I say all this by way of   introduction, a kind of apologia if you like, not apology. But for asking you to pause with me for a moment and not to rush on to verse 15. Every single statement in this tremendous assertion of the apostle Paul is of supreme significance and indeed we cannot have enjoyed truly all that he's been stating in this massive asseveration (Asseveration is a formal noun that means a solemn, earnest, or emphatic declaration or affirmation. ) unless we see it all in the light of this final phrase, to the praise of His glory. Very well then, let us pause and look at this, and let me try to help our thinking by putting it in the form of some two or three   propositions. The first is this, the glory of God, must be the starting point of all our thought and it must always be the test of all our thinking. Here, I say, is the place that we must begin the entire realm of our thought, must always start from this and our particular thinking about any particular doctrine must always be estimated and assessed finally in terms of its relationship to this controlling, covering, conception of the glory of God. Now, I don't know what you feel, my good friends, but more and more I have a feeling that this is perhaps the point of all points, at which we tend to fail most lamentably at this present hour. And here obviously I'm not speaking of the world. I'm speaking of the church. I'm speaking of Christian people. There is nothing perhaps of which we are more guilty than this. I think I've told you before of the shock I received some 25 years ago when I picked up a book which had rather a striking and a resting title. The title was Religion Without God. And I said to myself what does this mean. You can't have religion without God but of course the man was able to prove very easily and very clearly in his book not only that you can have religion without God but that indeed much religion if not most, most religion is often entirely without God. In other words, people tend to assume God, they take God for granted. They're so busy with their religion often that God is quite forgotten and really doesn't enter into their thought and into their conceptions. And I think we, many of us would be rather amazed and surprised if we stop to analyze ourselves in the light of this. And if we asked ourselves strange and alarming though it may sound where does God come into our life and into our thinking, obviously if we're wrong at this point, we're going to be wrong everywhere else. Now let me give you some   illustrations to show you this terrible danger, the point I'm trying to make is that all our thinking must be governed by our conception of the glory of of God and that if the glory of God does not enter into our every particular doctrine, every idea and every thought that we have, well then, that thought and that doctrine is quite defective. Now let me take an illustration at random. Let's imagine for instance that we began to have a discussion about the   doctrine of sin. Let's imagine that somebody prepared this question for discussion. What is sin? There's a lot of talk about Sin but what do we mean exactly by sin? Now I imagine that large numbers of people who are Christians would say and would confine themselves entirely to this: they would say that um well, sin , of course uh, means certain actions, certain sins of which we are guilty, certain things which we do which are wrong, certain things which we feel condemned for after we have done them. There certain things which get us down and certain things which make us miserable afterwards and about which we feel that we wished we hadn't done them. Now am I being unfair when I suggest that speaking generally? That would probably be the answer that we should get, if we asked what you mean by sin. We tend to think of sin in terms of sins actions, things we and things from which we suffer consequences. In other words, our tendency is to think of sin entirely in terms of ourselves, our own actions and our own reactions. But that's not the biblical view of sin. What is sin? Well, sin is this, the essence of sin is not to give unto God the glory that is due unto His holy name. That's sin. And if that does not come into our conception and our definition of sin, well, then I suggest our whole view of sin is entirely inadequate, is indeed even dangerous. Because you see there are men and women, out in the world who don't believe in God at all. Who in a sense can have said everything that we tend to say. They know that they do things they shouldn't do. They've got their moral course and their moral standards. They know what it is to suffer from remorse and to suffer the consequences of certain actions, the world in a sense, is of that kind of thing. So that is not what makes sin, sin. The essence of sin is a wrong relationship to God. Now we are reminded of that in that first question of the Shorter Catechism drawn up by the Westminster assembly 300 years ago. It tells us that the chief end of men is to glorify God and to enjoy HIM , forever. So you see sin essentially is not to glorify God. Now, I'm simply  asking an obvious question and yet I think you'll agree with me that it needs to be asked. How often do we remind ourselves that that is the meaning of sin and how often when we're on our knees even in the presence of God do we remind ourselves that  the real trouble about our lives is not so that we haven't lived the life we should have lived or kept up to the standard or that we've broken our pledges and vows. But that we've been failing to glorify HIM.  How often do we ask HIM in words to forgive us for that? No. I think we must all plead guilty. We forget the glory of God, we are so self-centered and  self-concerned that the most vital thing of all is entirely left out. So our thinking at that point is not controlled by this fundamental conception. And that is why you see so many of us perhaps thought that we finished with verse 14. We need to stop with , to the praise of His glory. The great thing is the redemption of the purchased possession and so on. No . No. We must never stop without arriving back at that point. You start with God, you come down into the world and all its problems and you go back into God, and you're not complete until you've arrived there. Well, now, there's one illustration but take another. What is our idea of Salvation? How do we define Christian salvation? How do we give an account of it? How do we give our testimony? I think again, you will find that very generally people talk of Salvation once more in terms of themselves and of certain benefits that they've derived certain experiences, they've had certain happiness that has come into their life, how everything is now different with them and they stop at that. Thank God that all those things are   perfectly true and our essential parts of salvation. But surely if we stop at that, we are missing the greatest and the most wonderful thing of all in Salvation itself. The great thing about salvation is that it restores men to a right relationship to God. You go back and read even in the gospels, the preaching, the early preaching. John the Baptist calls people to repentance. Why? Well, because they're in a wrong relationship to God. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ does exactly the same   thing. The thing they urge people to do is to escape from the wrath to come. It isn't to get put right in this respect or that or to feel happier or better. The wrath of God is upon them. Escape! they say. In other words, you see the whole preaching here is in terms of the glory of God. And the apostle Paul in bidding farewell to the elders of the church at   Ephesus, you remember he sums up his whole ministry to them he says, let me remind you that I was with you, he is, preaching to you day and night and going about from house to house with weeping and tears. And he says, you remember my message, it was this repentance toward God and Faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the message of Salvation?  It is this: that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. You see, it is always in terms of God and so I could take you through every single Christian doctrine we might consider the doctrine of men this morning and we'd have to come to the same point. No definition of   men, no idea of men is correct and edict unless it's in terms of the glory of God and so on. We could go through the entire gut of Christian doctrine and I could show you in each particular case that unless it always comes back to this, it is somewhere or another defective and it will eventually lead to confusion and to error and the last state will be worse than the first. So you see the importance of pausing at this phrase, unto the praise of His glory. 

 That's the prime object of Salvation, my dear friends. Whatever may happen to you and to me, whatever our moods and states and feelings, the supreme object of Christian salvation is to glorify God. But the particular thing that the apostle Paul is emphasizing here and to which I call your attention is this that you and I are to live to the glory of God and that all that happens to us as Christians is designed to promote and to proclaim the glory of God. And that is why you see at every single pause, he comes to at every single section, he's bound to say it. He's been describing in the first section, the predestination and calling of God and it all, he says to the praise of the glory of His grace. In the second section his emphasis has been especially upon the work of the Son and that God's Great purpose in this dispensation is to bring together, to reunite in one all things, both which are in heaven and on Earth, even in HIM and then apostle Paul comes to this particular theme that we've been looking at the last few weeks how the Jew and the Gentile are being brought together. We first,  says apostle Paul, that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ. It first came to us who are Jew, says the apostle Paul . The gospel first came to us and some of us have believed it and we are to the praise of the glory of His grace. But you (Gentiles) also in whom (Christ) you also trusted. And what's the object of it all? Well, it's still the same, to the praise of His glory. Christian Jews are to the praise of His glory. Gentile Christians are to the praise of His glory. All together are to the praise of His glory. Well, now then, let's try and see exactly what this means. You remember that astounding phrase that we read together in the 10th verse of the 17th chapter of John's gospel at the  beginning where our blessed Lord praying to His Father says, and I am glorified in them he says that he had glorified the Father and now these people whom he leaves behind in the world when he goes back to the Father. How to glorify HIM, that's our calling. That's a description of us as Christian people, we are to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we do so we are to be the praise, to the praise of His glory. Well , I suggest in two main ways. The first is the one I've already been mentioning of which now I want to deal with in detail that our view of Salvation should always be such that it is to the praise of His glory. Now I ask again and therefore what is our view of Salvation. Is it something small? Is it something easy or is it something that produces in us a sense of wonder love and of prayer as we think of Salvation this morning. Our own Salvation . Christian salvation. Is it such that immediately and of necessity it ministers to the glory of God? Have we, I say a large view of it or is it a small view. Well , let us divide it up and put it like this. A true view of Salvation is to the praise of God's glory, for this reason that we see at once that it is something which is entirely and all together of God, to the praise of His glory. So the way you measure your view of Salvation is the amount of glory that is ascribed to God in your view. How much of it you claim is due to yourself. How much of it do you think you are responsible for. Now the extent to which you come in and what you do and what you think and your effort and you are striving and your activity to that extent you are detracting from the glory of God, the view of Salvation which is to the praise of the glory of God is a view that ascribes the entirety of Salvation to HIM. And the apostle Paul of course has been doing that in this very section. He starts off by saying blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Heavenly places in Christ, then he starts off, according as He has chosen us in HIM and so on and so forth. Do we realize that we are what we are this morning Christian people solely and entirely and exclusively because of the grace of God. I repeat my question. Where do you come in? Do you insist upon a kind of partnership? Is it a kind of synergism or is it only the action of God? You cannot avoid this inevitable position to give God the glory. You must give HIM all the glory His is the glory alone and there is none in men. Now that's the great theme of all these New Testament epistles. Remember how the apostle Paul puts it in a very striking phrase at the end of that first chapter of the epistle to the Corinthians. He says, but of him are he in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that in order that according as it is written he that glory let him glory in the Lord. Why is salvation such, as it is? Well, he answers the question. He says that no man should  boast and any vestige of boasting or taking credit to ourselves is a detracting from the glory of God. It is God. God and God Alone. He's the beginning and the end of Salvation. The author and the finisher in Christ. It is entirely His. But not only that, let us go on to a second thought. Our idea of Salvation is to the  praise of God's glory. If we have a large view of the whole idea of salvation. Oh how clear we are to think of it, I say in subjective terms and to forget that the whole conception of Salvation is the biggest and the greatest thing that the world has ever known there it was in the 10th verse which we've already dealt with, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times; He might gather together in one, alI things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in HIM. What a gigantic thing it is formed fashioned thought out planned in that Eternal Creator Almighty planned perfectly being put into operation and going on to that ultimate climax the redemption of the purchased possession how often do we think of it like that how often do we stand back and look at it how often do we take a glimpse of the panor of Salvation oh my dear friends it's 26:32 because we forget to do this that we don't live to the praise of his glory oh our ideas are so small they're so self-centered they're so subjective let's get out of them I say let's go up into the hills of God and view the landscape or this Mighty plan this glorious scheme of Salvation as originally thought in the mind of God and as it's being put into execution the greatness of it merely in idea but think for a moment of its greatness in execution we are taking a general view of all this morning as we end this great section think of the greatness of Salvation I say in its execution is there anything that so reveals the glory of God as this how often do we stop to remind ourselves that man's sin that the fall created a problem even in the Eternal mind that sin is not something small that can easily be covered over and dealt with there are so many people who think of it like that don't they oh this is sin well yes of course we admit it but the love of God it's all right but it isn't all right and if you dismiss it like that you haven't seen the greatness of Christian salvation you know nothing about the glory of God this is where l see the glory of God that though men in his folly rebelled against HIM and brought catastrophe upon himself God instead of turning His back upon him, looked upon him with a pous eye and the problem was discussed and the sun stepped forward if I may use an anthropomorphism  (Anthropomorphism is the practice of giving human traits, emotions, behaviors, or physical forms to non-human things like animals, gods, and inanimate objects. ) the sun stepped forward and said here am I send me where into that land of sin and woe into that rebellious Humanity into that  world defaced and spoiled and marred and ruined by iniquity here am I send me and the Father sent him. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son you see when you begin to think of these things you are ministering to the praise of His glory yes it involved that the second iice of the son The Father's Heart The Father's Love allowing him to come sending him indeed and who can conceive what happened in the Incarnation he made himself of no reputation he left behind himself the signs of his eternal glory he did not consider his equality of God something to be clutched at and to be held on to he laid it aside and he was born as a babe oh you know the story but my friends we don't remember it often we don't look at it again we don't consider it with Isaac wats we don't survey it we are so   concerned about ourselves our view of Salvation is so small stand back and say look at it the praise of His glory down he came in the likeness of sinful flesh in the form of a servant yeah he humbled himself even to the death of the cross the shame of it all but he did it I say and God laid on him the iniquity of us all we're going to remind ourselves of that that's what happened there it isn't that Christ on the cross just forgives the people who condemned him to death no no it's I the father making him to be sin for us punishing sin striking him wounding him by killing him that you and I might be forgiven that's the glory of God yes he died he was buried in a grave but thank God he arose delivered for our offenses raised again for our justification ascended unto God and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit sent down in order to apply all these benefits to us that's the view of Salvation that glorifies God and you see what happens it's happened here in this section salvation is as great as this that the Blessed Holy Father God  Himself have taken an active part in it it isn't merely the love of God. No. No. It is the love of God. But it's the love of God sending the Son and the Incarnation and all that followed the Son has been active. And the Holy Spirit is active. You'll find it in this section verses 3 to 6 mainly the Father, verses 7 to the end of 12 mainly the Son , verses 13 and 14 the Holy Spirit. Your salvation and mine involves the whole Godhead and it's only as we remember that we are living to the praise of His glory. But let me hasten on to something else I am still dealing with this subject of our views of Salvation. The next way in which we glorify God by our view of Salvation is this is that we see the Perfection of God's Plan of Salvation in meeting our exact condition and our every need just as it is   choosing, electing, predestinate when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Quicken, you see. It's always God and whatever our condition, He meets us exactly where we were as the result of the fall of Adam, as the result of original sin. We are all dead in trespasses and sins. We have no spiritual life. The things of God are foolishness unto us. The natural men receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. The natural mind is enmity against God. How can such a being be saved? There's only one answer. He must be quickened. He must be given new life. He  must be given new understanding. He must be given the gift of faith and his every need is supplied exactly where he is. It's all in this great epistle and on it goes every state and condition we enter into is dealt with, we are given not only this gift of belief and of faith. We are then given assurance, the sealing of the Spirit and then the earnest. The thought is, the thought, that first fruits, it's all here. The comfort we need, the help and the strength, the power, everything provided. What a perfect Plan of Salvation. It is God stooping to our weakness. Mighty as He is and giving us precisely what we need at every stage, at every step and at every point, it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. I know of nothing more glorious this morning than to know whatever may be true of me that I'm in the hands of the great Potter and that He is fashioning me and molding me, yes, he reprimands me. Things come across my path I don't like and I'm humbled. But thank God. I know that it's a part of the process. I know I needed it. There are angles that need to be rubbed off and to be removed. He is fashioning me according to the image of His Son. It is a glorious thing. Is there anything more glorious than to know and to feel that you're in the hands of God? And that we are His workmanship, that's it's all to the praise of His glory. And then lastly, think of its certainty if you're not certain about it all, while you're detracting 

(Detracting means taking away or reducing the value, importance, beauty, or quality of something.) from the glory of God but the apostle Paul has just been emphasizing this. He says that God has sealed us for Himself.  He's put His mark on us. No man shall be able to pluck them out of my hands. The seal is on us. It's in our foreheads. And Heaven and Hell cannot rob us out of the hands of God. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh yes, we are sealed until the redemption of the purchased possession. It is absolutely certain. He which has begun a good work in you; will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. You know, my friends, a view of Salvation which implies that man's failure can spoil God's scheme does not glorify God. An idea of Salvation which glorifies God is one which says it's absolutely certain because it's God's and that nothing and no one can ever upset it or frustrate it. And that is the Biblical teaching. It is all to the glory of God. He starts it, He ends it. The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal,  the Lord knoweth them that are His. Does our view of Salvation minister to the praise of His glory? Oh my friends, let us test our views by this, unless all our thinking is to the praise of His glory, it's wrong. We're detracting from it. It is sin. All the glory must be His and none ours. And then the second thing, I merely give you my Hiding we are meant to be to the praise of His glory not in our not only in our thinking about salvation, but we ourselves in everything are to be the praise of His glory. I say in everything. You and I should be such people that in all we do and say and all our thinking and all our activities, we  should be ministering to the glory of God. And when people meet us, they should be made to think of God and His glory. You and I are meant to be such people that the only explanation of us is God. That is what it means to glorify God. Oh our Lord has said it once and forever hasn't he said let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works but glorify your Father which is in heaven.  So much of our activity as Christians today does not do that people see us and they stop by looking at us. It is not to be like that. Let them see your good works but glorify your Father which is in heaven which means this that they look at us and they say no that's extraordinary, that's marvelous, that's wonderful. what is it and they say it isn't man no man no no that's God they glorify God. and as they see us that is the result that should eventuated but I rather want to close by putting it like this our experience even should be to the praise of His glory I mean something like this. You and I can be Christians and yet we may not minister much to the glory of God. There are some Christians who seem to spend the whole of their lives in this world bound in shallows and in miseries. They're always in trouble. They've always got problems. They're always unhappy and if they sin, the whole question of whether they're saved or not, seems to rise always and there they are miserable and unhappy. Yes, there is such a thing as a miserable Christian    oress but that isn't to the praise of God's glory is it what is to the praise of God's glory while l'II tell you it is to be assured of your salvation it is to be rejoicing in Christ with a joy unspeakable and full of Glory it is to have great joy it is to enjoy the Christian Life it is to enjoy the practice of Holiness it is to enjoy reading the Scripture it is to enjoy prayer nothing glorifies God more than that because Men by Nature he cannot do that and he doesn't do that but when you see a Christian who is independent of circumstance and God who with the apostle Paul can say I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me I know both how to be abased and how to abound, I am full such a man is to the praise of God. God's glory. Yes in experience oh let me ask my question before we leave this glorious section have you been sealed by the Holy Spirit does the Holy Spirit testify with your spirit that you are child of God are you rejoicing in it do you love God are you enjoying the life of God these are the Christians that's the way to glorify God that's what all the saints have always done nothing glorifies him more than that and then the other thing is obvious isn't it in our lives in our conduct and in our behavior. I rather like the way the apostle Paul puts it in writing to Titus. He says there that the business of Christians is to adorn the doctrine, what a statement the doctrine as it were is the suit and then what do I do well I adore it I just add certain attractive pieces the final bit of sinker of color adorning the doctrine that's how I am to live the doctrine is there we've been going through it in detail now my life is to be an adornment to that doctrine or take the way in which he puts it in writing to the Philippians only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ . It must become it. In other words, it must match it. You know how often people are defective in that respect. There may be a clash of colors, the hat may not match the costume or whatever it is. There's a clash. It isn't becoming. And it doesn't suit the person. An old person dressing like a young person or vice versa. It isn't becoming. Now says the apostle Paul, that's how you are to live. Us Christians, only let your conversation, your conduct be as becometh the gospel of Christ. In other words, you and I are to live in a manner that is becoming of a doctrine that tells us that God sent forth His own Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that the Son of God, left him and was born as a babe and died for me and for my sins. I'm to live in a manner becoming of that. That's the New Testament way of preaching Holiness. You see, not a gift to be received but a conduct a life that is becoming and in accord with such a glorious doctrine. Well, my friends, we must leave it, it's an endless theme, it should be with us Sunday by Sunday, it should be with us day by day. Whatever branch we're considering, whatever aspect, practical, doctrinal, it doesn't matter. All, everything is to the praise of His glory. Glory be to God the Father.  Glory while Eternal ages run .

Unto the praise of His glory.

What should be the starting point of all a Christian’s thought? How ought their thinking about any particular doctrine be finally assessed? The answer is simple: the glory of God. In this sermon on Ephesians 1:14 titled “To the Praise of His Glory,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that the apostle Paul in Ephesians is primarily concerned with the praise of His glory. Many religious people miss this crucial point. Their thinking upon any particular religious topic – whether sin or salvation – begins first with themselves. Dr. Lloyd-Jones warns this is a grave mistake. Any Christian doctrine that begins with something other than the glory of God will negatively be affected. If one’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, how often do they ask God to forgive them for not glorifying Him? How often do they consider salvation as what only benefits or brings happiness to themselves and not as a right relationship to God? These are all hard questions which Dr. Lloyd-Jones provokes in this sermon on one of the highest thoughts human beings can ever contemplate.

Ephesians 1:14

who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. 

Sermon Breakdown

1. The glory of God must be the starting point of all our thought and the test of all our thinking.
2. Our view of sin is inadequate if it does not recognize that the essence of sin is not giving God the glory due to His name.
3. Our view of salvation is inadequate if it does not recognize that the supreme object of salvation is to glorify God.
4. A true view of salvation ascribes the entirety of salvation to God. It recognizes salvation is something huge, not small or easy.
5. We glorify God by seeing how His plan of salvation perfectly meets our every need.
6. We glorify God by recognizing the certainty of salvation - that God will complete the work He began.
7. We are meant to glorify God not just in our thinking but in everything we do and say. Our lives should point others to God.
8. Our experiences as Christians should glorify God - we should have joy, assurance and delight in God.
9. We glorify God by living lives that match and adorn the gospel. Our conduct should fit with the doctrine.
10. Everything in the Christian life is meant to glorify God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Sermon Q&A

What Does "Unto the Praise of His Glory" Mean According to Martyn Lloyd-Jones?

What is the significance of the phrase "unto the praise of his glory" in Ephesians 1:14?

According to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, this phrase is not a mere addition but an essential part of Paul's teaching. He points out that Paul repeats this phrase three times in the introduction to Ephesians, concluding each of the three sections (verses 3-6, 7-12, and 13-14) with this same emphasis. This repetition shows that the glory of God is the ultimate goal of salvation and the culmination of all Christian doctrine. As Lloyd-Jones states, "He brings us up to the point which he regards as being most important."

How should the glory of God affect our understanding of Christian doctrine?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that "the glory of God must be the starting point of all our thought, and it must always be the test of all our thinking." He warns that Christians often fail at this point by taking God for granted. He illustrates this by explaining how we can misunderstand doctrines like sin and salvation when we don't view them in relation to God's glory. For example, sin is not merely doing wrong things, but failing "to give unto God the glory that is due unto his holy name." Any doctrine that doesn't ultimately lead back to God's glory is defective and will "eventually lead to confusion and to error."

How does Lloyd-Jones define true salvation in relation to God's glory?

According to Lloyd-Jones, a true view of salvation is one that gives all glory to God. He asks, "How much of it you claim is due to yourself? How much of it do you think you are responsible for?" He insists that "to give God the glory, you must give him all the glory. His is the glory alone and there is none in men." This means recognizing that salvation is "solely and entirely and exclusively because of the grace of God" and not a partnership between God and man.

What makes salvation such a glorious concept according to the sermon?

Lloyd-Jones describes salvation as "the biggest and the greatest thing that the world has ever known." Its glory is seen in:

1. Its conception - "formed, fashioned, thought out, planned in that eternal council between Father, Son and Holy Spirit"
2. Its execution - involving the entire Trinity in addressing the problem of sin
3. Its perfection - meeting our "exact condition and our every need"
4. Its certainty - being absolutely secure because "nothing and no one can ever upset it or frustrate it"

He urges Christians to "get out from the nicer" perspective and "go up onto the hills of God and view the landscape or this mighty plan."

How should Christians live "unto the praise of his glory"?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that Christians should live in a way that makes people think of God when they encounter us. He says, "You and I are meant to be such people that the only explanation of us is God." This happens when:

1. We are assured of our salvation and rejoice in Christ
2. We enjoy the Christian life, holiness, Scripture reading, and prayer
3. We live independently of circumstances like Paul who could say, "I can do all things through Christ"
4. Our conduct "adorns the doctrine" and is "becoming of the gospel"

Lloyd-Jones quotes Jesus' words: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works but glorify your father, which is in heaven," explaining that people should look at Christians and say, "That's extraordinary... What is it? It isn't man... that's God."