1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian City - The World That Is | Page 9

The below is an extract from the works of Jonathan Edwards and edited
by Timothy Keller:
There are two kinds of moral behaviour: “common virtue” and “true
virtue.”Let’s take one virtue: honesty. The vast majority of people are honest
out of fear (“Be honest; it pays!” or “If you are not honest, God will punish
you!”) or out of pride (“Don’t be like those terrible, dishonest people”).
Edwards is by no means scornful of this, which he calls “common virtue.”
Indeed, he believes this is the main way God restrains evil in the world.
Nevertheless, there is a profound tension at the heart of common virtue.
If the main reason people are honest is due to fear and pride—what is the
main reason people are dishonest? Almost always it is out of fear or pride. In
common virtue, you have not done anything to root out the fundamental cause
of evil—the radical self-centeredness of the heart. You have restrained the
heart’s self-centeredness, but not changed it.
Ultimately, moral people who are being moral out of fear and pride are being
moral for themselves. They may be kind to others and helpful to the poor at
one level, but at the deeper level they are doing it so God will bless them
(religious version), or so they can think of themselves as virtuous, charitable
persons (irreligious version). They don’t do good for God’s sake, or for
goodness’ sake, but for their own sake. Their fundamental self-centeredness is
not only intact but nurtured by common virtue. This can erupt in shocking
ways and is why so many apparently moral people can fall into great sins.
Underneath the seeming unselfishness is great self-centeredness. Edwards
then asks, “What is ‘true virtue’?” It is when you are honest not because it
profits you or makes you feel better, but because you are smitten with the
beauty of the God who is all truth and sincerity and faithfulness. It is when you
come to love truth-telling not for your sake, but for God’s sake and its own
sake. That kind of motivation can only grow in someone deeply touched by
God’s grace.
True virtue comes when you see Christ dying for you, keeping a promise he
made despite the infinite suffering it brought him. On the one hand that
destroys pride: he had to do this for us, because we were so lost. On the other
hand it also destroys fear: because if he’d do this for us while we were his
enemies, then he values us infinitely, and nothing we can do will wear out his