Man’s Nothing-Perfect and God’s All-Complete
July 8, 2010
[Robert Browning was a great 19th century British poet. His religious beliefs are not clear – in many of his poems, the voice belongs to someone other than the poet. The following is an excerpt from “Saul” (1845 and 1855). Browning imagines David playing the lyre and singing when “a harmful spirit from God was upon Saul” (1 Samuel 16:23). The voice throughout is David’s. In the first section, David, echoing Isaiah 6, is overwhelmed by seeing the majesty, wisdom and love of God laid bare, and submits himself willingly, lovingly to God. In the second section, David first addresses God, then, in the last four lines, Saul. He expresses confidence that God’s love is greater than his own, and that God will become incarnate in David’s own descendant for the salvation of the ungodly. While Scripture does not give us warrant for thinking that Saul is saved in the end, these lines beautifully express deep biblical truths. You can read the entire poem (more than 4000 words) at this link and a number of others. Thanks to Carla Stout for pointing me to this poem – Coty]
I spoke as I saw:
I report, as a man may of God`s work – all`s love, yet all`s law.
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.
Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?
I but open my eyes, – and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
The submission of man`s nothing-perfect to God`s all-complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. . . .
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou – so wilt thou!
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown -
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.
`Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!
Comments
4 Responses to “Man’s Nothing-Perfect and God’s All-Complete”
Got something to say?
Either you or I is insane. How do we determine which one?
The other logical possibilities are neither of us or both of us!
Actually the Bible says something not dissimilar to your comment: Paul writes that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, if there is no life with Him after death, those who hope in Him are “of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19). On the other hand, he says in the same letter that “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
More in my response to your letter – hopefully to be written Monday.
Quite true- one of us, both of us, or neither of us; and to reprise my question, how do we determine that?
First, I don’t think “insane” is a helpful or accurate term to use when people differ on what is ultimately true, since we tend to think that discussing issues with someone who is insane is pointless. Yet I frequently have discussions with people who differ markedly from me on what is ultimately true that are profitable to me and, I hope, to the other person.
But if we phrase the question not as determining who is sane but as determining which worldview to hold, here are three resources that could be helpful:
Tim Keller’s book, The Reason for God
D.A. Carson’s new book, The God Who is There
My sermon on Acts 17:1-3, “Jesus Must Rise from the Dead”