Prayer, Sanctification, Affections, and Emotions

Dear Church Family,

This coming Sunday, September 1^st, we will resume our sermon preaching series in the book of Philippians. Our text will be Philippians 1:3-11. The title of the sermon is “The Prayer of the Saints” because in these verses, the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Philippi about how he prays for them. In Paul’s description of his own personal prayer life, we find an example for us as to how we ought to pray, as well as the purpose and benefits of prayer.

I almost titled the sermon “The Affections of the Saints,” however, because as Paul describes his prayer life, he also describes his love and affection for the believers in Philippi, his brothers and sisters in Christ. One of things that we learn from this text is that, for believers, our affections are intertwined with our prayers and vice versa. As such, we get a biblical view of how sanctification works through the training of our affections.

We’ll talk more about that on Sunday, but for now I want to review a bit of biblical psychology, the proper relationship between our affections and our emotions. I’m reminded of a miscommunication problem that my wife and I had when we were first married (stick with me – there’s a point, I promise).

Window-units and Central Air Conditioning

When my wife and I were first married, like all couples, there were some adjustments. One of these adjustments was regarding how we spoke about the thermostat in our home. She would say, “Would you turn up the air conditioning, please?” To which I would respond, “Do you mean that you want it to be colder or warmer?” Then, she’d respond, “It’s too cold, I would like you to make it warmer, of course.”

The confusion in our conversations arose because I grew up in the north, in a home in which we didn’t have central air conditioning. Our house was heated by steam that ran through the pipes throughout the house. Everyone in the house knew when the heat came on because you could hear the hissing sound of the steam and the knocking of the pipes and the air in them expanding from the heat.

But in the summer, we had window-unit air-conditioning (if at all). This meant that when you asked someone to “turn the air conditioning up, please” you were asking them to increase the power on the air-conditioning window unit and thereby making it colder in the room. But, when you have central air conditioning (as I’ve come to learn), “turn the air conditioning up, please” usually means “make it warmer.” This seemed strange to me.

This confusion is the result of us speaking about two different instruments but thinking that we are speaking about the same thing. For those who grew up with window units, we are speaking about the power knob on the air-conditioning. For those who grew up with central air, we are speaking about the thermostat on the central air controller.

Affections Ought to Guide Emotions (or Passions)

A similar thing happens sometimes when we speak about affections and emotions. However, our confusion is not a result of being from different parts of the country. Our confusion is usually a result of using the world’s language and categories as opposed to the Bible’s language and categories. The problem is that most of the time, our language is deficient.

Unfortunately, the categories of affections and emotions are commingled in our thinking today. Our language and thinking is imprecise. So, before we go any further, perhaps we ought to have some definitions. I use the term emotions to refer to the desires or feelings or passions which are a response to some sort of stimulus. For the world, this is the only guide and rule for living— “You can’t help who you fall in love with,” “I’m just doing what feels right and natural, and that can’t be wrong.”

The problem with this way of thinking is that “man’s every intention of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Without Christ, men set their minds on the things of the flesh, set themselves in opposition to God and His law, and are unable to submit to His ways. Setting our minds on the flesh and following our misplaced emotions inevitably leads to death (Romans 8:6-8). For those who are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, these are sons of God. Those who have the Spirit of Christ belong to God and are able to deny the flesh and live by the Spirit. (Romans 8:9-14).

Most people know about and have a basic understanding of emotions. In fact, the world seems to have only one category for desires: emotions (the things which you cannot control). However, as I use the term affection, I am referring to desires which one may control. As in, “I have set my affections upon my wife, therefore I love her.” This is the Biblical understanding. In fact, it is what God does for His people: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples” (Deuteronomy 7:7). Does God feel love for His people, emotionally? Of course He does, but this is because He has first set His affection on them.

[By the way, in the Westminster Standards, these distinctions between affections and emotions are made by employing the terms ‘affections’ and ‘passions.’ For example, one of the duties of the sixth commandment is “subduing all passions…which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any” (WLC 135). “Affections” are listed as one of the “powers of the soul” along with “the understanding and will” (WLC 99). So, affections may be vile (WLC 28) or heavenly (WLC 189), and our affections influence our passions (or feelings).]

Ordering Our Affections

So, what’s a person to do? How does one order his affections and thereby begin to control his emotions? Well, Scripture is pretty clear: those who are in the flesh (without faith) cannot please God (Romans 8:8; Hebrews 11:6). By nature, mankind lives in the passions of their flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Properly ordering one’s affections, therefore, is impossible for those who are outside of Christ. But, for the Christian – the one who has been born again, who abides in Christ as He abides in the Father – the believer may order his affections according to the Word and Spirit of God: “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

Let’s think about that central air-conditioning again. In our home, we have a thermostat (it regulates the temperature in the house) and a thermometer (it measures the temperature in the house). Affections are the thermostat by which we set the temperature of our lives. We will feel, and people will see, the effects of our affections in the thermometer of our emotions or passions. We enter into trouble (death) when we begin letting our thermometer (emotions) set our thermostat (our affections). Rather, we ought to learn from the Scriptures how to rightly order our affections.

Head, Heart, Gut

In the passage of Scripture that we’ll be looking at this Sunday, Paul writes that the fruit of righteousness (good works) come through Jesus Christ (v 11). These good works come from approving what is excellent (v 10). Being able to approve the right things, however, comes from a love (affection) which grows and is ordered through knowledge and all discernment (v 9).

So, as we follow the logic of these verses, we pursue sanctification by ordering our love according to the knowledge and discernment which we learn in Scripture (v 9). In this way, we will begin to rightly order our affections (“approve the things which are excellent” – v 10). The result is: “being filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (v 11).

In his essay, “Men Without Chests,” C.S. Lewis speaks in a similar way as he describes the three aspects of man’s personality: the head (reason), the chest (the ‘spirited element’ – affections or sentiment), and the belly (the appetites):

“As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the ‘spirited element’. The head rules the belly through the chest— the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.” (C.S. Lewis, “Men Without Chests” in The Abolition of Man)

Conclusion

Indeed, our end goal is to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to the Lord (Romans 12:1). And that transformational process of sanctification begins with the renewing of our minds and learning to love that which God loves (Romans 12:2). This means that if we want to learn to be more like Christ, to love the things that He loves, then we need to study God’s Word, pray according to His Word, and thereby learn to order our affections in accordance with Christ’s affections.

The Lord be with you!
Pastor Peter M. Dietsch