RELIGIOUS FEELINGS versus
CHRISTIAN DUTY

“Idon’t feel like it is necessary for me to do so.…” “I can’t forgive himanymore, he has failed me too many times….” “I feel it is alright for me tocontinue where I am.…” “I feel that she was not telling me the whole truth.…”“I feel he may have some ulterior motives.…” “I feel that it’s not fair.…” “Ifeel like a hypocrite if I have to behave in any other way than what I am doingnow.…” “I feel the Holy Spirit leading me to do it.…” “I no longer feel for heras I did before….” “We feel that there are so much differences between us thatit is best we go our ways….”

Few of us would deny that these statements arecommonly heard from Christians today. In fact, it is likely that we may evenhave used them or the like ourselves, in our interaction with fellow believers.They are so common-place that we hardly raise an eyebrow when we hear thembeing used. Indeed, feelings are so much a part of our make-up that few of uswould question whether it is right for us to base our decisions and actions onhow we feel. Some may even ask: Christianity is about feelings, isn’t it? It isabout religious affections, isn’t it?

While we do not deny the importance of religiousaffections in the Christian life, we are concerned at how feelings are so oftenpitted against duty today. Is it not true that the average believer today willjudge another by how sincere he is rather than by how true he is to theScriptures or by his fruits (Mt 7:16)? Also, while we do not deny the place ofthe conscience in the Christian life, is it not true that the name ofconscience has often been used to justify sin? When this happens, feelings,which are the essential part of our being and have a right and proper place inour Christian life, are abused.

Inthis article, we shall look at three ways in which this frequently happens.

When Religious Feelings Lag Behind

Severalweeks ago, when Pastor Chris J. Connors was with us, he made an interestingillustration using Prof. Herman Hanko’s habit of walking his dachshund. Prof.Hanko, as you know, is quite a tall man, whereas a dachshund is a small dogwith short legs. Inevitably, the poor little dog would always be trailingbehind and trying to catch up with its master. This daily scene was not onlycomical for the students to behold, but soon became a subject of theologicaldiscussion by the theologues! They eventually named it “religious feelings”!

How apt an illustration. Is it not often the case thatreligious feelings often trail behind our knowledge and practice? And it isright and proper, for when God commands us to any duty in His Word, Hiscommands are never conditioned on how we feel. This is how the Apostle Paul,under inspiration, could command husbands to love their wives, even as Christalso loved the Church and gave Himself for her (Eph 5:25). Paul nowhere excuseshusbands from the duty of loving their wives if they do not have the necessaryaffections. In the same way, we are commanded to “rejoice in the Lord”! (Phil3:1; 4:10; cf. 4:4). How could Paul command us to rejoice if religious feelingsmust be present before the command is valid? No, it is precisely because we maynot have joy that Paul commands us to rejoice.

The same goes for our initial conversion. Thoughregeneration logically precedes faith and repentance, regeneration does notnecessarily manifest itself in feelings at its onset. To insist that it doeswould border on mysticism which cannot be supported by Scriptures. Did not theLord say: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the soundthereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:8). In other words, regeneration is notsomething that can be felt, nor is it always immediately evident. So then, anunbeliever needs not and must not wait until he experiences some religiousfeelings before embracing Christ as Saviour and as Lord. We are not saying thateveryone who professes to believe in Christ is regenerate, but simply thatinitial conversion is not necessarily accompanied by intense religiousfeelings.

Oncewe understand that it is normal for feelings to lag, it becomes clear: (1) Thatobedience is not conditioned on whether we feel like obeying. Thus a husbandmust love his wife even if he finds her no longer very lovely. (2) Fear ofhypocrisy is not a valid reason for failure at duty. A duty may be performedhypocritically but it is never hypocritical to perform duty. For example,someone may believe that he should attend the mid-week prayer meeting, but doesnot feel like attending because he feels like a hypocrite,—coming on account ofduty, but not a desire to pray with the church. Should he refrain from coming?No, he should still come because duty is not negated by feelings. However, heshould pray fervently that the Lord may grant him a real burden to pray withthe church. (3) We must not allow feelings to drag us down when it comes toreforming our life and worship to the Lord. When I first came to understandthat we should sing psalms,—whatever ‘hymns’ and ‘songs’ may mean,—I found itrather difficult. Uninspired hymns and songs seem so much easier to understand,and they stir emotions which the psalms did not appear to be able to. At thattime, the temptation to give in to feelings was very great. It took a whilebefore the littledachshund caught up.

When Feelings Run Ahead

Theillustration of Prof. Hanko and his dachshund reminds me of the time when I wasliving in the States. The family I stayed with had a Doberman pinscher, whichis a large dog. One day, I decided to bring her for a jog. I had seen mylandlady’s brother Chuck done that, so I thought I would do the same. Chuck wasa big man: about the height of Prof. Hanko, but bigger built. When he ran withthe Doberman, he had no problem catching up with her. But I tried the same, Iwas dragged most of the way by her as she dashed around the park. By the time Ireached home, I was utterly exhausted.

Well, “religious feelings” are not always dachshunds.For some of us, they are Dobermans. We think of those in the Charismaticmovement where feelings and exhilarating ‘worship’ mean everything. Ask themwhat the basis of their practices is and they would say, “They work! We aredrawn close to God!” Of course, what they mean is that they feel that they are close to God. Of courseDobermans are not only found in Charismatic churches. They are on the loose inevangelical and traditional churches too. Someone once explained to me why heliked a particular church: “When I step into the church [building], I have thisawesome sense of God’s presence.”  Askthis same person whether he had examined the doctrine of the church, and hewould say, “Well, I know it is not Roman Catholic… their cross does not haveChrist nailed to it.”

Dobermans are alive and thriving too in churches wheretheology is well-emphasised. Their existence are obliquely referred to in theScripture. I refer you to Matthew 18:15ff where the Lord taught His disciplesabout the necessity and nature of Church Discipline. He gave a three-step process,first a one-to-one private confrontation, then a personal confrontation with atleast one witness, and then officially with the elders representing the church.The Lord taught that only when the third step fails to win the erring brother,should he be excommunicated from the assembly (Mt 18:17–18). When Peter heardthat, he must have thought about the practical implementation of what the Lordhad taught. What if when we confront the offender, he expresses remorse andrepentance; but soon repeats the offence? Do we forgive him the same way? Whatif he defaults on his repentance and repeats his offence again andagain? When the person first commit the offence, it is relatively easier toforgive. But if he repeats his offence, then it gets harder and harder. Oncebitten, twice shy: the dog accompanying our judgement grows bigger each time!What do we do? Peter decided to ask the Lord: “Lord, how oft shall my brothersin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” (v. 21). The Lord’sanswer is striking: “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventytimes seven” (v. 22). In other words, we are to forgive an unlimited number oftimes. Thus, if someone, whooffends us over and over again, comes in contrition to seek our forgiveness, wemust forgive even if he had previously defaulted on his repentance on manyoccasions (Mt 18:21–22). We may not feel like forgiving because of oursuspicion that he may default again, but we have a duty towards Christ toforgive upon every repentance. Remember, however, that we are not talking aboutheretics: those who cause division in the church by unsound practices anddoctrines, for which Paul commands to reject after the first and second publiccensures (Tit 3:10).

The Doberman looms large and runs ahead also insituations of conflict. When the Apostle Paul beseeched Euodias and Syntyche tobe “of the same mind in the Lord” (Phil 4:2), he was essentially telling themto resolve their conflict rationally according to Christian principles. Theywere not to allow Satan to take advantage of their feelings and emotions totear them apart (cf. Eph 4:26–27). This is why Solomon extols the virtue ofbeing slow to anger (Prov 15:18; 16:32). As Christians, we must strive never toallow our emotions and feelings to dictate what we do towards others. We are todo good even to those who hate, as a duty towards God, for the Lord says:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do goodto them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, andpersecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain onthe just and on the unjust (Mt 5:44–45).

Under situations of conflict, we will always betempted to see the actions and words of our disputants in the worst light. Thiswill inevitably add fuel to the frustration and widen the fissure. To do goodto our neighbour in such a circumstance would be to judge our brethren in thebest possible light and with the greatest charity possible. As we should letour yea be yeas and nay be nays (Jas 5:12; Mt 5:37), we should assume the sameof our neighbours. How could our Lord’s injunction to forgive seventy timeseven times ever make sense unless this be our principle of dealing withothers? How could Paul’s instruction to empathise with others (Phil 2:3–4) becarried out unless we first adopt this principle?

Fewof us would realise, that what we are contrasting is the difference between theprinciple of Christian life and that of liberalism. The famous liberaltheologian, Schleiermacher, held that our feeling or religious intuition, andnot reason or truth, is the seat and source of our religious life. What thismeans is that we must give priority to our subjective feelings rather than toobjective truths whether from the Scriptures or from reason. I doubt if anyoneof us reading this article would agree with Schleiermacher’s principle of theChristian life as a matter of philosophy. However, I have no doubt that many ofus, who hold to sola scriptura as a principle of life, all toooften allow our feelings to eclipse what duty is required in the Word of God.Indeed, sometimes, our feelings so overwhelm us that we fail to take intoconsideration the objective requirements of the Word of God in particularsituations. May the Lord help us that we may be renewed in our mind and thustransformed in our lives.

When Conscience is Used to Justify Sin

Wehave seen the dachshund and the Doberman, let me introduce you to another dog.This is a Labrador Retriever trained as a guide for the blind or visuallyimpaired. I had the opportunity to be acquainted with one such dog when Iattended a Bible Study meeting in Santa Clara. It was a very beautiful dog with long floppyears. When I saw it, I immediately reach forward to touch it. But my landlady,noticing what I was about to do, ‘rebuked’ me. She informed me that since itsharness was not off, the Labrador was notoff-duty and therefore not allowed to play. The guide dog, unlike the Doberman,does not dash ahead, nor trail behind like the dachshund. It walks either bythe side of, or just ahead of its master who had to rely on it to lead himsafely. Now, the guide dog is specially trained to read traffic signals, towalk only when the green man comes on, etc. It is also trained to warn itsmaster of any danger that may be ahead, or any step or ledge, etc. Essentially,it serves as the eyes of its master.

Well, the guide dog is like our conscience. Theconscience is the faculty of our soul, by which we distinguish between rightand wrong, or if a particular deed we are about to undertake would be pleasingto God. It has a very small vocabulary: “Right,” “Wrong,” “Good,” “Bad,” etc.Like the blind man, we must rely on our conscience to lead us in our Christianlife; and like the blind man, we can choose to ignore our conscience to ourdetriment. The Apostle Paul, alluding to the fact that the conscience is like arudder of a ship, warns that if we ignore the voice of our conscience, we couldeasily make shipwreck of our faith (1 Tim 1:19). Also, like the guide dog, ourconscience must be trained. The guide dog gets its training in the dog school.Our conscience must be trained through the reading of Scriptures and thehearing of biblical sermons. A guide dog that is not trained to obeyjay-walking laws will lead its master to break the laws. A conscience that isnot held captive to the Word of God will likewise lead its owner in rebellionagainst God.

We are discussing conscience here because ourconscience determines, to a large extent, how we feel about our lives and about the way weconduct ourselves. Our conscience should guide us in such a way that we areassured that our lives are pleasing to God. The problem is that in ourgeneration of pragmatism and easy-believism, few believers are keen to spendtime to instruct their conscience. For a great majority of believers today,therefore, the conscience is no longer as reliable as it ought to be. Moreoften than not, decisions are made using worldly wisdom or pragmatism. Sadly,when the validity of such decisions or deeds is challenged, a common responsewould be: “My conscience is clear!” In the same way, Christian duties are oftenneglected because the fallen conscience refuses to acknowledge sin as sin. Sothe Lord’s Day is desecrated by partying, shopping and movie-going, without anythought of God’s displeasure. So fathers may neglect to instruct the familywithout feeling shame. So, mothers may relegate all responsibilities ofbringing up their children to nannies and maids, without much of a flutter ofthe conscience.

Wewill take a closer look at conscience in another article. But for now, realisethat it does not mean you are living aright just because you feel comfortableand your conscience do not trouble you. You may be feeling comfortable simplybecause you have been starving your conscience. Similarly, an action ordecision is not necessarily right just because our conscience seems silentabout it. Bear in mind that to do what conscience forbids is always sin (cf.Rom 14:23), but to do what conscience allows is not always righteous. Thisprinciple is true however sharp or seared your conscience may be. But settlenot on your lees (Zep 1:12). Put in every effort, take every opportunity toinstruct your conscience. Surely you will not want to be sinning against thealmighty God, whether ignorantly or otherwise.

Conclusion

Godhas created us as beings with emotions so that we may know grief, gratitude,love and joy. But emotion is a wild dog difficult to tame. It so often throwsus off-focus in our Christian walk without our conscious awareness of what itis doing. May the Lord grant us that, as we are made aware of what feelings maydo, we will be more careful to strive towards following the Word of God asobjectively as possible, and to nourish our intellect so that a weak consciencemay not fool us into feeling that we have no further need to reform ourlives.         

—JJ Lim