Confessing Evangelical

I've been involved in a couple of discussions/debates on sanctification in the past few days (including Twylah's blog and Luther Quest), particularly on Lutheran teachings relating to sanctification, and whether it is our work in response to God, or God's work in and through us (for a brief summary of my own views on this, see my comments on Twylah's blog).

But an interesting new angle on this occurred to me while reading an essay by GK Chesterton. (Yes, him again: I'm currently reading a book of his essays, and the problem with GKC is once you start quoting him, it's very hard to stop). In his essay, "The Wind and the Trees, Chesterton tells of a four-year old boy who, complaining of the wind in Battersea Park, said to his mother, "Well, why don't you take away the trees, and then it wouldn't wind."

Chesterton points out that this is a perfectly natural mistake to make: and he adds that the belief "is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age in which we live." He explains this "parable" as follows (emphasis added):

[T]he trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees are cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there is a real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole skyline of the city.

Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises under the wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No man has ever seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, but the results of revolution.

You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a revolution.

While Chesterton goes on to take this line of thought in a different direction, it occurs to me that this is an excellent image of sanctification. People tend to think of sanctification in terms of outward, observable phenomena: going to church, "personal discipleship" (especially Bible-reading and prayer), engaging in good works, overcoming sin in our lives, etc. This also includes phenomena we observe within ourselves, but which are still (in that sense) observable: a "purer" thought-life, a greater feeling of personal peace or joy, etc.

However, as with Chesterton's comments on revolution, these "external" phenomena are not sanctification. No man has ever seen sanctification: the things we see in our own lives and those of other Christians are not sanctification, but the results of sanctification.

A great deal of teaching about sanctification is equivalent to saying that the trees make the wind blow - "follow these principles for a more victorious, Spirit-filled life and a deeper relationship with God". But rather, the wind - the Holy Spirit, working in us through the means of grace - blows the trees.

That's why our focus should remain on Christ as he is presented and proclaimed to us in the Word and Sacraments: if we shift our focus to the "fruit" in our lives, to our "sanctification" - if we try to increase our sanctification by giving ourselves more fully to these outward (or even inward) efforts or "principles" - then this is like trying to stir up the wind by shaking a tree.