After spending his 83 years of life as an Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, attacking the Catholic Church, and advocating freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state, Voltaire (1694-1778) does not die well.

LAST HOURS ON EARTH OF

THE NOTED FRENCH INFIDEL, VOLTAIRE

Candide, ou l'Optimisme Candide, ou l'Optimisme As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory. As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté.

When Voltaire felt the stroke that he realized must terminate in death, he was overpowered with remorse. He at once sent for the priest, and wanted to be "reconciled with the church." His infidel flatterers hastened to his chamber to prevent his recantation; but it was only to witness his ignominy and their own. He cursed them to their faces; and, as his distress was increased by their presence, he repeatedly and loudly exclaimed:

In the frontispiece to Voltaire's book on Newton's philosophy, Émilie du Châtelet appears as Voltaire's muse, reflecting Newton's heavenly insights down to Voltaire.

"Begone! It is you that have brought me to my present condition. Leave me, I say; begone! What a wretched glory is this which you have produced to me!"

Voltaire, by Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1778. National Gallery of Art

Hoping to allay his anguish by a written recantation, he had it prepared, signed it, and saw it witnessed. But it was all unavailing. For two months he was tortured with such an agony as led him at times to gnash his teeth in impotent rage against God and man. At other times, in plaintive accents, he would plead, "O Christ! O Lord Jesus!" Then, turning his face, he would cry out, "I must die -- abandoned of God and of men!"


Voltaire's tomb in the Paris Panthéon.

As his end drew near, his condition became so frightful that his infidel associates were afraid to approach his bedside. Still they guarded the door, that others may not know how awfully an infidel was compelled to die. Even his nurse repeatedly said, "For all the wealth of Europe she would never see another infidel die." It was a scene of horror that lies beyond all exaggeration. Such is the well-attested end of the one who had a natural sovereignty of intellect, excellent education, great wealth, and much earthly honor. We may all well exclaim with Balsam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. -- The Contrast Between Infidelity and Christianity.

Source: Shaw, Solomon B. The Dying Testimonies of Saved and Unsaved Gathered from Authentic Sources by Rev S. B. Shaw.  Originally published 1898.  Entry number 17.

How should we regard ourselves? Is self-esteem a good thing?

SELF-UNDERSTANDING AND SELF-GIVING
Who are we, then? How should we think of ourselves? What attitude should we adopt towards ourselves? These are questions to which a satisfactory answer cannot be given without reference to the cross.

A low self-image is common today

The Honest Body Project photographs a woman hugging her son and proudly showing her postpartum body.

A low self-image is comparatively common today. Many people have crippling inferiority feelings. Sometimes their origin is in a deprived childhood, sometimes in a more recent tragedy of being unwanted and unloved. The pressures of a competitive society make matters worse. And other modern influences make them worse still. Wherever people are politically or economically oppressed, they feel demeaned. Racial and sexual prejudice, and the trauma of being declared 'redundant', can undermine anybody's self-confidence. Technology demotes persons, as Arnold Toynbee once put it, 'into serial numbers punched on a card, designed to travel through the entrails of a computer'. Meanwhile, ethologists such as Desmond Morris tell us that we are nothing but animals, and behaviourists such as B. F. Skinner that we are nothing but machines, programmed to make automatic responses to external stimuli. No wonder many people today feel worthless nonentities.

"I love me. I am not conceited. I'm just a good friend to myself."

Apotheose of Venezia (1585) by Paolo Veronese.  Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level.

In over-reaction to this set of influences is the popular 'human potential' movement in the opposite direction.  'Be yourself, express yourself, fulfill yourself!" it cries.  It emphasizes the 'power of positive thinking', together with the need for 'possibility thinking' and 'positive mental attitudes'. With the laudable desire to build self-esteem, it gives the impression that our potentiality for development is virtually limitless. A whole literature has grown up around this concept, which has been well described and documented by Dr Paul Vitz in his book Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship. 'Psychology has become a religion', he writes, 'in particular a form of secular humanism based on worship of the self' (p. 9). He begins by analysing 'the four most Important self-theorists' namely Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May, all of whom, with different twists and turns, teach the intrinsic goodness of human nature, and the consequent need for unconditional self-regard, self-awareness and self-actualIzatlon. These self-theories have been popularized by 'transactional analysis' ('I'm OK; you're OK') and EST (Erhard Seminar Training) which Dr Vitz rightly calls, 'an amazingly literal self-deification' (pp. 31 ff.). He also cites an advertisement in Psychology Today as an illustration of 'selfist jargon': 'I love me. I am not conceited. I'm just a good friend to myself. And I like to do whatever makes me feel good ...' (p. 62). This self-absorption has been well captured in a limerick:

Narcissus

Narcissus by Caravaggio depicts Narcissus gazing at his own reflection.

There once was a nymph named Narcissus,

Who thought himself very delicious;

So he stared like a fool

At his face in a pool,

And his folly today is still with us.

Love your neighbor not yourself

Outside the box sermon illustration: Love Your Neighbour as Yourself by Eric Dye

Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have allowed themselves to be sucked into this movement, under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Jesus, that we love our neighbour as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbour. But it really is not. Three arguments may be adduced.


We know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others

Moses Receives the Tablets of the Law (painting by João Zeferino da Costa, 1868)

First, and grammatically, Jesus did not say 'the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second to love your neighbour, and the third to love yourself'. He spoke only of the first great commandment and of the second which was like it. The addition of 'as yourself' supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbour-love, because 'no-one ever hated his own body (Eph. 5:29). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to 'do to others what you would have them do to you' (Mt. 7:12). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commended.

The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is a nonsense

Artwork depicting the Sacrifice of Jesus: Christ on the Cross by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Secondly, and linguistically, the verb is agapao, and agape love means self-sacrifice in the service of others. It cannot therefore be self-directed. The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is a nonsense.

People's love will be misdirected from God and neighbour to self

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887, Art Institute of Chicago

Thirdly, and theologically, self-love is the biblical understanding of sin. Sin is being curved in on oneself (as Luther put it). One of the marks of 'the last days' is that people will be 'lovers of self' instead of 'lovers of God' (2 Tim. 3:1-5). Their love will be misdirected from God and neighbour to self.

Renounce the two extremes of self-hatred and self-love, and neither despise nor flatter yourself

Religion Overthrowing Heresy and Hatred, by Pierre Legros the Younger (1695–1699). Marble, H. 3 m (9 ft. 10 in.). Church of the Gesù, Rome, Italy.

How then should we regard ourselves? How can we renounce the two extremes of self-hatred and self-love, and neither despise nor flatter ourselves? How can we avoid a self-evaluation which is either too low or too high, and instead obey Paul's admonition, 'think of yourself with sober judgment' (Rom. 12:3)? The cross of Christ supplies the answer, for it calls us both to self-denial and to self-affirmation. But before we are in a position to consider these complementary exhortations, it tells us that we are already new people because we have died and risen with Christ.

Source:  Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986; reprint, 2006, pages 267-269.

Why was Jesus so sorrowful before He was going to die even though He knew He would rise from the dead?

HUMAN EMOTIONS

Christ's mind was seized with a terror to which he had not been accustomed

Jesus praying to God the Father in Gethsemane, Heinrich Hofmann, 1890.

"It belongs to the truth of our Lord's humanity," wrote B. B. Warfield, "that he was subject to all sinless human emotions."  This has been strongly emphasized in Protestant theology, particularly by John Calvin.  "Christ," he wrote, has put on our feelings along with our flesh."  He develops this theme more fully in his exposition of Christ's agony in the garden, where, he says, Christ's mind was seized with a terror to which he had not been accustomed.  This should cause us no embarrassment: "those who imagine that the Son of God was exempt form human passions do not truly and sincerely acknowledge him to be a man".  Certainly we must distinguish his weakness from ours.  His passions were sinless and regulated by moderation.  Nevertheless, says Calvin, "the dreadful abyss of destruction tormented him grievously with fear and anguish," even to the extent that "amidst the violent shock of temptation, he vacillated -- as it were -- from one wish to another."

Christ, being truly a man, trembles at death

Agony in the Garden by El Greco

Besides joy and anger, Jesus, equally clearly, experienced grief.  He was not simply Man, but Sin-bearer, and as such liable to emotions "which never would have invaded his soul in the purity of his humanity save as he stood under the curse incurred for his people's sins."  Such grief is clearly implied in Jesus' weeping at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35) and in his lament over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41).  But it becomes particularly clear in the account of Gethsemane where, as Calvin says, Christ "allows the flesh to feel what belongs to it, and, therefore, being truly a man, he trembles at death".  As Lohmeyer points out, "The Greek words depict the utmost degree of unbounded horror and suffering."  Ekthambeisthai (Mark 14:33) describes someone in the grip of a shuddering horror or a terrified surpise.  Ademonein (also verse 33) occurs again in Philippians 2:26, referring to the distress of Epaphroditus.  "It describes", writes Lightfood, "the confused, restless, half-distracted state, which is produced by physical derangement, or by mental distress, as grief, shame, disappointment, etc."  Perilypos (verse 34) indicates deep grief, intensified in this particular instance by the addition of the words "unto death".  His distress is so acute as to threaten life itself (or, possibly, so acute that death itself would be preferable).

The whole account resonates the acute torment and anguish

Jesus praying in the garden after the Last Supper, while the disciples sleep, by Andrea Mantegna c. 1460

But the narrative does not owe its force to the adjectives alone.  The whole account resonates the acute torment and anguish.  This appears, for example, in the fact that he took Peter, James and John with him, not merely for companionship but so that they might watch and pray with him.  It was of paramount importance for himself, for the universe and for mankind that he should not fail in his task, and the tempations that beset him on the eve of his agony represented a real threat to the completion of his obedience.  Hell would do  -- was doing -- all in its power to divert him from the Father's will.  Hence the supreme urgency of watching and praying; and hence the need for the prayers of others.  Could there be a more impressive witness to the felt weakness of Jesus than his turning to those frail human beings and saying to them, "I need your prayers!"?  In the event they failed him.  He had to watch and pray alone.  Had the redemption of the world depended on the diligence of the disciples (or even on their staying awake) it would never have been accomplished.

There is no one to bear the burden with Him.  There is none to help.

Giovanni Di Pietro Painting - Christ At Gethsemane by Lo Spagna

As Barth puts it in his probing exposition of Gethsemane:
"There is no one to bear the burden with Him.  There is none to help.  No Christian individual had the insight, and no Christian group put it into effect, that this was a matter for Christians and Christianity itself, that for their own sake Christians and Christianity had good reason to have a part in this prayer, to join with Jesus in crying to God." But the impressive thing is that he turned to them at all.  How deep must have been his need and his fear!

There was nowhere else to go.  He throws himself prostrate on the ground.

William Blake's The Agony in the Garden completed in 1799–1800.

It is impressive, too, that immediately after telling his disciples that his soul was filled with mortal fear he turned away from them and set his face towards God: "He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed" (Luke 22:41).  There was nowhere else to go.  Even the physical circumstances of his prayer make plain that it came out of a soul near the end of its resources.  He throws himself prostrate on the ground.  He is so exhausted by the first phase of his prayer that "an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him" (Luke 22:43).  And when he resumes his prayer, it is in anguish (en agonia), praying so earnestly that his sweat falls like drops of blood to the ground (Luke 22:44).  This is in line with the allusion to Gethsemane in Hebrews 5:7, where the writer tells us that Jesus offered up supplications and entreaties to God "with loud cries and tears".  Here is a man pouring his whole strength, physical and spiritual, into a plea that God would "save" him.

Jesus came within a hairsbreadth of break-down

Gethsemane by Wassilij Grigorjewitsch Perow

It is clear from all the accounts that Jesus' experience of turmoil and anguish was both real and profound.  His sorrow was as great as a man could bear, his fear convulsive, his astonishment well-nigh paralysing.  He came within a hairsbreadth of break-down.  He faced the will of God as raw holiness, the mysterium tremendum in its most acute form: and it terrified him.  Long ago, at his baptism, he had publicly embraced the Messianic role, identifying himself totally with his people.  In the temptations in the desert he had already faced some of the implications of his position, as the Enemy quickly unleashed three massive assaults.  But the full implications of being the Servant and the Ransom (Mark 10:45) dawned on him only gradually, as he reflected on the Scriptures, observed sin at work and communed with his Father.  In Gethsemane the whole, terrible truth strikes home.  The hour of reckoning has come.  Now is the last moment to escape.  Beyond it there can be no turning back.

Jesus became the greatest sinner that ever was.  No one ever feared death so much as Jesus.

The Capture of Christ by Fra Angelico, c. 1440

When Moses saw the glory of God on Mount Sinai so terrifying was the sight that he trembled with fear (Hebrews 12:21).  But that was God in covenant: God in grace.  What Christ saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised (Zechariah 13:7; Matthew 26:31).  The sight was unbearable.  In a few short hours, he, the Last Adam, would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world (2 Corinthians 5:21).  He became, as Luther said, "the greatest sinner that ever was" (cf. Galatians 3:13).  Consequently, to quote Luther again, "No one ever feared death so much as this man."  He feared it because for him it was no sleep (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but the wages of sin: death with the sting; death unmodified and unmitigated; death as involving all that sin deserved.  He, alone, would face it without a hilasmos, or "covering", providing by his very dying the only covering for the world, but doing so as a holocaust, totally exposed to God's abhorrence of sin.  And he would face death without God, choris theou, deprived of the one solace and the one resource which had always been there.


The wonder of the love of Christ for his people is not that for their sake he faced death without fear, but that for their sake he faced it, terrified.  Terrified by what he knew, and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly.

The agony in the garden is where Jesus plumbed the depths of our emotional weakness

Dieric Bouts, c. 1450-1460

At one level, there is obvious discontinuity between the emotional state of Jesus in Gethsemane and the emotional crises faced by his people.  The agony in the garden is indeed on the of the great foundations of his compassion because there he plumbed the depths of our emotional weakness, but nowhere is it more important than here to distinguish between the Lord suffering with us and the Lord suffering for us.  What he faced in Gethsemane (the cost of antonement and redemption) we shall never face; and we shall never face it precisely because he faced it, offering his body as the place where God should effect the condemnation of sin (Rom ans 8:3).  Gethsemane is as unique as Calvary exactly because, as much as the cross, it belongs not to church history but to salvation history.

Source:  Macleod, Donald. The Person of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998, pages 170-175.