The Meaning of Spiritual Maturity
What does spiritual maturity mean?
A common view in modern Christianity says to be spiritually mature is to be childlike.
But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Luke 18:16–17
To become more childlike is to become more aware of God in every area of life and defer to God's decisions in everyday things.
Lately, I have been really asking the Lord about where to go and what to do. "Do you want me to go here or there?" I have also been noticing the times I "decide" to go places and the people I pass along the way. Everything has started to be weighty with meaning. Instead of a trip to the grocery store, it's now an opportunity for God to show up, for Him to use me for His purposes.
In this view, individual Christians need to get out of the way, intentionally making themselves smaller so God can be larger.
If more of You
Means less of me
Take everythingPray that God moves me out of the way while I teach so you can hear what he says. Pray for me to be transparent.
I call this the self-negation view of spiritual maturity—as we become more mature, we become less independent. We remove the "I" from the "I-thou relationship with God," so the relationship becomes "thou-thou."
In a sense, this is a very state-driven view of spiritual maturity. Gaining spiritual maturity means gaining a deeper understanding of my lowly state before God.
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Aaron Wren points out this is a very Buddhist view of spirituality (and here). Aaron has done good work in understanding the cultural impact of our passive view of the Christian life. I want to consider two other questions:
Do the Scriptures support this view?
Is there an alternative that might match what the Scriptures describe more closely?
Let's begin by looking at a few Scriptures used to support this view of spiritual maturity.
Self-negation
But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." Luke 18:16–17
The plain words of this passage, often used to argue the primary job of a Christian is to self-negate, do not support increasing childlikeness as a mark of mature belief. The passage makes it clear that Jesus is talking about the condition of a person's heart that is required to accept Christ is childlike faith.
But [Jesus] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:7–8
Since Jesus emptied himself, shouldn't we also empty ourselves? We do not have space to plumb the depths of this passage in this dispatch, but we can observe three points:
Paul's context here is pride against being a servant—if Jesus can become a servant, then we can surely serve
Paul's does not say Jesus didn't make any decisions on his own, nor even that Jesus somehow stopped being God
We cannot emulate Jesus in "emptying ourselves" of our godhood because we are not God
Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:24–25
If you mean "denying my fleshly desires" when you say "empty yourself," I strongly agree! Does denying my fleshly desires, however, mean turning all my decisions over to God? Does self-denial mean the denial of my very self or the denial of those evil desires I find within myself?
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20
The source of our life is Christ. Is the nature of that life mere existence or something beyond mere existence?
The passages used to support the view that spiritual maturity is all about an increasing understanding of our state before God seem unconvincing on that score. We should certainly start our journey with God with a deep understanding of our state before God, but is this also where spiritual maturity ends?
Self-Forgetfulness
Is there an alternative to self-negation as spiritual maturity? Yes—it's a view I describe as self-forgetful. This view can be described something like this:
The goal of Christian life is to be shaped in the image of God so that when we make decisions—even in places where God allows us to freely decide—the result of our decision will be within God's will, and we will honor God.
This definition is much more complex and nuanced. It entails what Robert Dean calls the faith-rest drill:
I learn about God through the Scriptures, observation, and experience
I do the things that make sense to me, given what I know about the character and desires of God
I rest in the faith that God will either teach me, correct my path, or bless me; these things will be good because his nature is good
There are times, of course, when I do not know what to do or there is no obvious path that seems to fall within the will of God. In these times, I need to seek the will of God directly.
There are other times, however, when what I should do is plain. I should rebuild the city walls, stand against evil, etc. In those times I should do those things. If I am doing the wrong thing, God's desire will overcome mine, and my desires will be shaped so they are closer to his.
We can call this a task-oriented view of spiritual maturity. I begin my journey with an understanding of my status and state before God; I mature by stepping out in faith, grounded in the character of God. I never lose sight of my position in humility, but I also never lose sight of my goal of fulfilling God's plan for my life.
To put this another way, I develop virtue over time by doing what God has given me to do.
Many people will object to this view because they believe that humans can never develop any virtue.
Do the Scriptures support the view that humans can never develop any virtue? That our primary job, as Christians, is to learn to defer to God's choices over our own, ultimately reaching a point where we do not have preferences and do not make choices?
Let's look at a few passages to see what we can learn.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2:15
To work and keep the Garden is to take responsibility for it. Adam's work included things like naming the animals:
Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. Genesis 2:19
It also included filling the earth and taking care of every living thing God had placed there:
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1:28
Humans were created to bring order to God's creation—to be a subcreator (if you will). To create, to have children, is to grow in responsibility.
But what about the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Don't the consequences of eating that tree indicate God considers increasing knowledge, or even desiring knowledge, is sinful? No. There is not enough space in this dispatch to counter this line of thinking, but God does not condemn increasing knowledge—even in the Garden.
Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Exodus 18:19–22
Whose voice is Moses obeying? The voice of Jethro, his father-in-law. Do we have any record of Moses asking God about this arrangement? No. Moses implements Jethro's plan, and God blesses it.
But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do." And she replied, "All that you say I will do." Ruth 3:4–5
Do we have any record of Naomi seeking the guidance of God in this situation? No. In fact, there is no record of God intervening in the Ruth at all. We know God is intervening providentially, but no one asks for his guidance. Each of these people—Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz—do what is before them, having faith that God will bless them through their decisions. God does bless their decisions.
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14
Throughout Esther's story, does either Mordecai or Esther pray something like: "God, show me your will in this moment?" If they did, there is no record of it. Instead, Mordecai looks at the situation and advises Esther based on what he knows of the laws of Persia. He urges Esther to use her place in the kingdom to save her people.
Esther did not pray for a plan, either—she devised a way to gain deeper favor from the King, building an emotional attachment that she eventually turned against Haman.
Was God providentially involved? Certainly so! The King walked in just as Haman begged Esther for mercy. Haman just happens to interact with Mordecai in a way that raises his anger to foolishness.
God acts through human decisions rather than through direct action in history. Perhaps there was some other the Jews could have been saved from the hand of Haman—we will never know. What we do know is that Mordecai and Esther made decisions, laid out plans, and acted on those plans—and God blessed the plans.
The Scriptures are full of such stories.
Of course, there are also stories where people make poor decisions, and the consequences are negative. But this is the point of spiritual maturity—to gain an understanding of God's goals and characters so our decisions and characters align with his.
The people with the greatest faith and the people God most honors in the Scriptures argue with God based on God's character. Moses, the most humble man in the Scriptures, argues with God about his destruction of Israel in the wilderness. Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith, argues with God about the destruction of the Cities on the Plain based on God's own character.
The Scriptures show we should consult God and accept God's guidance in our lives through circumstances. The Scriptures do not show, however, that God expects us to be passive bystanders in our own lives.
Why do We Think This?
If the Scriptures do not support this idea of "self-emptying" as "self-negation," why do we think like this?
I think the first answer is we are too much like the man who hid the mina in a cloth (or buried the talent). We don't want to risk making God angry.
We are also like this because we don't want to take the time to learn about God intellectually. We somehow think that if we experience God, we know all there is to know about God. We've been taught, and we believe, that thinking about God is cold and dead while experiencing God is warm and alive.
Again, I say—this is not either-or. Instead, it is both-and. We must know about God and his character to believe God instead of our immediate experience and, hence, to step forward in faith. The faith-rest drill begins with knowledge. The foundation of faith is knowledge.
Second, because we have created a false dichotomy. Anything that gives any human, anywhere, in any circumstance, any possibility of glory takes away from God's glory. There is a fixed amount of "glory" in the universe, and God must have all of it.
This view of glory is an outgrowth of Calvinistic theology about salvation—a person cannot even desire to be removed from their slavery to sin without robbing glory from God.
Does God gain more glory by creating a being that cannot think for themselves and reaches maturity in realizing they must self-negate? Or does God gain more glory by creating a creature that can think for themselves and act based on their thoughts and virtues to glorify God?
You don't need to guess—you can read Job to find out.