All Things that Move Between the Quiet Poles

For my Spiritual and Ministry Formation class, each student has to post a response to the week's reading on a class forum. I thought I might repost some of my entries here (prewritten blog material, woo-hoo!). The following one is responding to a section from the first half of Sinclair Ferguson's Children of the Living God.

Ferguson relates problems coming after adoption by God to a battle where biological parents try to gain back the child they gave up to be adopted (37). Just as the natural parents attempt to argue why it is much better for the child to be returned to them, so too Satan tries to persuade us that we would be better off returning to the kingdom of the world. The deceiver tries to persuade us, Ferguson explains, by attempting to show us “how much […we…] have lost by” accepting Christ and convincing us that even attempting to live up to God’s standards will accomplish nothing other than to make us hypocrites (38). Ferguson reminds us that Satan does these things out of futile desperation and to remember that this is normal.

Human nature has always strived to go beyond what God has intended for us, thinking we are missing out on things if we do not. From the fall, after the temptation of the serpent (Gen. 3.6), onward, one of the Devil’s best tactics has been to suggest that humans are missing out on something good and worthwhile by listening to God.

I think perhaps one of the most poignant, powerful portrayals of this comes from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, the story – surprisingly enough – of Dr. John Faustus. Faustus yearns for knowledge, and after becoming bored with philosophy, medicine and theology, is drawn to the occult. The books that grant him knowledge of how to control the spirit world are “heavenly,” and Faustus says of his new pursuit, “Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires” (1.49). To gain the ultimate in power, he strikes a deal with Mephistophilis to sell his soul for a limited time of gaining power over “all things that move between the quiet poles.” He has fallen to the temptation that Ferguson points to in our book, and he believes the testimony of the “evil angel” that tells him he is missing out on “all Nature’s treasure.” And so, he sets out on his deal; but he comes to realize it was a trick and by the end of his deal, he remarks, “For vain pleasure of twenty-four years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity” (14.16).

Too often in today’s world we take the attacks of our adversary to be purely metaphorical, the stuff of morality plays (a tradition Marlowe draws on for Faustus) and other more “primitive” modes of expression. We must keep this in mind and, as Paul tells us, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Eph. 6.11 ESV). Ultimately, the devil cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8.35-38); as Ferguson notes, “we need not fear” (38). Nevertheless, it is still good to recall that we are in the midst of battle, for that helps make sense of the problems we face and the temptations that come our way.

To use the cliché, the grass always does seem greener on the other side. How is it that temptations about how much better it would be to commit this or that sin can seem so true at first? Perhaps, as Ferguson notes, I have “an ingrained sense that it is the old family, not the new, to which [I] belong naturally” (37). Though I am adopted by God, the affects of my sinful nature are still “biologically there.” And then there is the second salvo after one succumbs to temptation, which Ferguson puts aptly to words as, “you simply can’t keep up these standards … and you would be a hypocrite if you gave the impression you were really wanting to” (38). Despite being called on to fall on the love of Christ by those around him, Faustus listened to the devil’s lie (16.11). At the times I should run back to God in repentance it is often that second temptation to think that I simply cannot repent and turn back to God that is worse than the first! Again, the only thing that can help is to turn to Grace and be cleaned by it. Like Peter, I may fall many times and appear very hypocritical, but the amazing, awe-filling message of the Gospel is that Satan is wrong when he tries to suggest my inability to become perfect means I should give up!