the second stage, the person is annihilated through the power of overwhelming and abundant grace. Jesus Christ retraces the image of God within us and heals the wounds of the Fall. This is a stage of radical transformation. Guyon writes, “O souls who are happy to be the stigma of people, the abjection of all people, the subject of their contradiction, rejoice to be treated like your Master!” (155) We are happy to be treated like this because Jesus Christ lives in the depths of our souls. She describes this annihilation as the face of Jesus Christ within. “This face is no other than the Divinity of Jesus Christ, which is imprinted in all human beings. But they wiped away the face by their sins, and the image cannot be repaired except by Jesus Christ.” (151) In annihilation, the believer receives the abundant grace that retraces the image of God within our soul. Jesus Christ says, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials” (Luke 22:28). As believers stand by Jesus Christ in his trials, they are honored to be there with him, even though despised and rejected by others.
In the third stage, the annihilated soul no longer lives alone but Jesus Christ lives within us and works through us. As Paul proclaims, “It is no longer I who live, but Jesus Christ within me” (Galatians 2:20). Jesus Christ is then perfectly formed within us. Guyon declares that Jesus Christ infuses abundant grace within us and when we receive and treasure this, we have an interior home formed within. This place is a place of the holy resurrection of Jesus Christ. This grace makes us cry out that we have a powerful Savior who promises to be with us always. Guyon writes, “O secret of the interior! It is in weakness that we find your power. It is in captivity that we find your freedom. It is in the exterior of an infant that we find the hidden truth of God. There we may find the truth of the mystery and discover how Jesus Christ begins to be formed in the interior. We find an infant in simplicity and innocence where we may be formed in the will of God.” She writes, “O divine infant! You are born within hearts that do not oppose you.” (27) In the most profound center of our soul, our savior Jesus Christ is born. The believer dwells in the midst of the fiery love of the Trinity.
The Invitation to the Interior Banquet
Guyon invites everyone to this interior banquet in her symbolic interpretations of Luke. One example of this comes from the bent-over woman in Luke 13:13. She describe this healing operation of God in the following quote.
First, Jesus Christ calls her. Then he delivers the soul from the ties and ropes that attached her to things of the earth and to herself, that kept her bent over and turned away from God. Following this, he lays his hands on her that is an application of power and she turns toward him, taking a posture entirely different that the one she had. This great good only comes to this soul because she is exposed and open before God. (100)
As the soul finds love transporting her out of her propriety and self-ownership, she stands upright, and leaving behind the things of the earth, she finds her gaze staying on Jesus Christ. As her soul keeps him in sight, Jesus Christ works and operates in her life, removing self-destructions and addictions, adding strong passions and dreams, and finally uniting completely with her. She lives in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ lives within her. This tender union will carry her to fulfillment and consummation in God.
In her commentary on Luke, Guyon invites us to a place of blessing, wonder, and love. Jesus Christ creates the fountain of divine grace within our interior being of heart, mind, and soul. This fountain sweetly and gently caresses us with living water in our interior being where the Trinity of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwells and makes a home with us. In this place of interior faith, we see Jesus Christ within and then live his actions without. The Holy Spirit flows within and without us and makes us living apostles, even though separated in earthly time from him by many centuries. Still, through the interior fountain of living grace, we see, live, and know Jesus Christ and become united to him through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Guyon yearns to share her spiritual revelations with others, especially the afflicted and suffering. She describes how God operates on the human being and creates an interior life where Jesus Christ becomes our Savior. Our interior being seeks union with God, the greatest of all possible gifts.
Nancy Carol James
July 22, 2018
10. James, Pure Love, 27.
11. Guyon, Autobiography, Vol. 1, 96.
Jeanne Guyon’s Interior Faith
Her Biblical Commentaries on the Gospel of Luke with Explanations and Reflections on the Interior Life
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3 I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1–4)
This beginning of the Gospel appears but a prelude and an introduction, yet it shows us why this gospel was written. Both Luke and Mark have written their gospels based on the words of the apostles. Why wouldn’t we believe in these reports from the saints? We must be self-deceived if we reject these reports coming from the apostles that are written in the Gospels of Luke and Mark and that the church holds to be true. Luke and Mark have written these gospels for us to see what the apostles saw.
Luke assures us that there are several others who have written what happened from the beginning about the state and life of Jesus Christ. It is evident, therefore, that others also wrote scriptures about this, yet there are only four gospels recognized by the church. The church judged this gospel as accurate and if I reject this tradition that the church approves, than I have doubted the truth of this gospel. In the true church, as we look at scripture and its witness, we see rapport with truth in perpetuity, as it lives from century to century going back to Jesus Christ. But when we find a church following scripture, we know this church to be true. The nobility and truth of a church needs the tradition presented in scripture. We have this truth and justice in the church of God. The church must be the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) and also the perfect rule of our faith. In following the church whose foundation is truth, we cannot be mistaken.
The church interprets church laws with counsel and tolerance. There are people, though, who reverse the order of things and put tolerance in the place of Laws. Some now practice spiritual ceremonies not supported by scripture. The church as the body of Christ, though, is a good mother and has many children of all ages. The church gives the nourishment of bread and milk yet does not have to tolerate all the unwise practices. Instead, the church needs to follow laws and give gifts to everyone to fill her needs.
For example, as scripture tells us, the church wants us to be united and attached to God and this is the indispensable law. This is a positive commandment that all Christians are to be united to God and Jesus Christ, as members of their head. The church tenderly shows them the way to God, so when we arrive, we leave our sins with him. I need to use the ways the scriptures of the church teach to practice of holiness and salvation. But when I arrived in union with God and when I have been habitually united to God with a constant, durable, and permanent love, the intention of the church is that I rest in this union, so that nothing may turn me away from this, and I avoid what can pull me away from God. Therefore, I remain content in what the church wishes for me in this state. I am not attached to scrupulous practices that pull me away from my tender union with God. These practices do not help my union with God, and actually create distance between God and me. For example, I walk up the stairs to arrive at a room. I leave the stairs after I arrive at the room. I do not continue advancing on the stairs but it is necessary that I rest in the room so that I can find the rest I need. He who
