The word that grips us
John H Sunday 19th August, AD 2007
I love this passage from Jacques Ellul’s What I Believe (out-of-print, PDF version here), in which he describes “the God … whom we know in the heart”, in addition to the intellectual knowledge we have about him.
Ellul argues that “this God is known in my concrete life and not in ecstasy”. He “does not make me take leave of myself”, but rather “he comes for a moment into the life that is mine and modifies and reorients it.” This experience is “strictly ineffable” with “no proof or demonstration” to back it up. “Yet we know also … that this God speaks and that we are gripped by a word of God”.
Ellul continues (and it is this with which I can particularly identify):
The revelation is not for me a matter of mystical contemplation. It is more like what many of us are familiar with; a word suddenly becomes so true to us that we can no longer doubt it.
We know well how astonishing this experience can be. I read in the Bible texts that I have read a hundred times, that I know by heart, that are part of my objective knowledge of the biblical God, and suddenly the word that I know so well intellectually takes on an unexpected significance, a blinding force that constrains me to accept it as truth, as a truth at once comprehensible, irrational, and rigorously certain.
At this moment I can do nothing to challenge or reject it. It is suddenly placed at the core of my life. But I cannot transmit this experience as such. I cannot tell how the biblical text has become truth for me. I cannot offer any proof or guarantee. I can bear witness only to what has happened. (What I Believe, p.175)
This reminded me of John Bunyan’s description (in his book Grace Abounding, on which I have blogged before) of his experience in reading the Bible over many years of Christian life:
I have sometimes seen more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under, and yet at another time the whole Bible hath been to me as dry as a stick; or rather, my heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceive the least drachm of refreshment, though I have looked it all over.
- Tags: Bible Reading
- Categories: Holy Spirit , Jacques Ellul
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[...] Talking of seeing “more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under” (see previous post), the gospel reading this morning was Luke 12:32-40, which includes the following: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:32-34) [...]
[...] I’ve been lightly skimming (no offense intended ) the Confessing Evangelical’s posts on Ellul’s What I Believe. But I went back and looked more carefully at The Word That Grips Us and then at the list of Ellul’s other publications on Jesus Radicals. I just want to say a huge “thank you” to John for leading me to Ellul. It looks like fascinating stuff that’s right up my alley and I’m definitely going to read him. Well, I’m definitely going to put him on my stack of books to read. But up near the top! (I’m finding less and less time to read these days.) [...]