D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the key figures in the course of Evangelical history in the twentieth century, particularly in Great Britain but also worldwide. His legacy is primarily the restoration of Calvinistic preaching in a nation that had largely forgotten it since the voice of C.H. Spurgeon had been stilled late in the nineteenth century. His impact cannot really be overstated, and elsewhere historian Michael Haykin has stated that "if there was one man who, under God, spearheaded the renewal of an evangelical, Biblical Calvinisim in the last fifty years, it is this man." Though his influence was international, he is largely forgotten by many today, so that this book, the first of a two-volume biography by Iain Murray, does the church a service with his detailed, moving account. I see two ways in which it could be said of Martyn Lloyd-Jones that he was instrumental in the tearing down of strongholds, the destroying of arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). The first emerged from the unique perspective of his early career that allowed him to see things far differently from the prevailing thought of his day. As a young man, he distinguished himself as a brilliant rising star in the world of medicine and actually became the chief assistant to Lord Horder, who was the Royal Physician at St. Bartholomew's in London. But he was soon to become increasingly dissatisfied with his chosen profession. One of the things that struck him was the spiritual sickness of many of the aristocratic patients who came to see Horder. ML-J was raised on the tepid faith of a liberal Christianity that focussed on the betterment of society through social policies. The conventional wisdom was that the problems in society, particularly among the so-called "lower classes", could be solved by education and politics. But as he began to look at those who were considered to be the cream of English society, he was shocked to discover that their problems were identical to those in the "lower classes." He began to realize that the problem of many of these people was that they were sinners. As he began to realize this, he began to have the spotlight turned back on to his own heart, and he came to see his own deep-rooted sin. "I am a Christian," he could later say, "solely and entirely because of the grace of God, not because of anything I have thought, or said, or done. He brought me to know I was dead, 'dead in trespasses and sins,' a slave to the world, and the flesh, and the Devil, that in me 'dwelleth no good thing,' that I was under the wrath of God, heading for eternal punishment. He brought me to see that the real cause of all my troubles and ills, and that of all men, was an evil, fallen nature which hated God and loved sin. My trouble was not only that I did things that were wrong, I myself was wrong at the very center of my being" (p.64). So his realization and argumentation that the problems of society were not, at root, intellectual but moral, and further that the moral problem was not merely dealing with "sins" but was the problem of sin itself, challenged one modern myth that had been uncritically accepted for some time. The second instance where he turned on its head the accepted beliefs of his time would be his putting the lie to what was "virtually an axiom of modern thought, that no one could be a scientist and a believer in an authoritative Bible at one and the same time." Science was supposed to have rendered impossible the claim of Scripture to be the Word of God. This was what the liberal seminaries were teaching, and they were producing whole generations of preachers who preached without power because they did not have any confidence in the Scriptures and thus did not preach the gospel. "But here was a man coming from Barts, the citadel of science, and from the consulting rooms of Thomas Horder - one of the most brilliant rationalists of the age" - preaching with confidence and power the old traditional doctrines, including the authority of the Bible. To be sure, liberalism remained widespread, but ML-J gave intellectual respectibility to Biblical, Calvinistic Christianity. After his conversion, he felt a powerful call to preach the gospel, a call with which he struggled mightily, as all of his close Christian friends told him not to give up medicine because of the influence he could have in his current position. But the call to preach the gospel was something he could not refuse, so he gave up medicine. He went back to his native Wales with his new wife Bethan, to a very small town called Aberavon, where he began preaching in a place called the Bethlehem Forward Movement Mission, a Presbyterian church in a very poor, lower class area. He was there from 1927-1939. In those twelve years he saw God move in the hearts of people who had been hardened to the gospel. Most of the conversions were in people who were in their forties and older, which is very unusual. Though he never used the word "revival", his time there certainly had those features. As his reputation spread around Great Britain, he began to receive offers to go elsewhere. One of them was the one that led him out of Wales, to go to Westminster Chapel in London in 1939. His ministry from that point on is chronicled in the second volume. The opinion was common that ML-J made a great sacrifice by giving up medicine to enter into the ministry. His response was this: "I gave up nothing; I received everything. I count it the highest honour that God can confer on any man, to call him to be a herald of the Gospel" (p.150).

Throughout his long pulpit ministry, which this volume documents beginning with his move to Westminster Chapel in London, Martyn Lloyd-Jones moved against the currents of his times. What makes his story not just one of historical interest but of acute application to our day is the fact that the currents of his time (essentially the middle of the twentieth century) are those also of our time. Christianity in Great Britain, whether liberal or evangelical, had become essentially man-centered. The liberals had "de-mythologized" the Bible and changed the Gospel into a social gospel. Evangelicals, while still preaching the gospel, were largely Arminian and were beginning with man, his needs, and his decision. Lloyd-Jones, by contrast, began not with man but with God. He stressed that the sovereignty of God in salvation was absolutely essential for the church. "All other doctrines derive from this... If this is not understood then neither will the doctrines of justification, sanctification, and glorification be understood" (p.240). Beginning with God and His holiness led to teachings that ML-J regarded as essential, but which were not popularly heard from the pulpit. The first was the certainty of divine wrath and the reality of Hell. The second was total depravity, that by nature we are dead in sin, enemies of God, and unable and unwilling to convert ourselves. Although regeneration (the new birth) was a concept which all Evangelicals held to, it was nevertheless distorted by a theology that began with man, his abilities and his needs, such that it was widely thought to be under man's control and to be the result of a simple decision. ML-J warned that this resulted in conversions that were not real, or even if they were real, tended to be superficial. The difference in emphasis was immediately evident in the weightiness that characterized worship services at Westminster Chapel. There was a stillness, a gravity, a reverence that descended upon the congregation during the service. One regular worshipper wrote that "It was as if I lost all count of time and space. The eternal truth that I hungered for so deeply was being revealed, and I was caught up body, mind, and spirit in the sublime experience of receiving, finding, understanding, knowing...ML-J was only an instrument. What I experienced was the power of the Word and a deep, intensive, quickening work of the Holy Spirit" (p.266). Author Iain Murray reminds us that it would be a mistake to suppose that this description of worship at Westminster Chapel was typical of churches in the 1950's. In fact the opposite was true: the prevailing attitude among churches was to be "light and breezy", to be entertaining, and to be sure to give far shorter sermons than the forty minutes that ML-J usually preached. Lloyd-Jones did not subscribe to the use of "techniques" or practiced mannerisms in order to produce an effect in the congregation. Murray ponders the question after having observed ML-J preach powerfully later in his life, when his physical presence in the pulpit was diminished by age: "How was it that preaching as simple as this should be so rare? And why did the pulpit not more commonly bring the consciousness of eternity to those who hear? " (p.699). Having known the man very well over many years, Murray is in the unique position to offer the following answer: "His life was of a nature which quietly and spontaneously impressed a sense of God upon us... It was not because he always talked 'religiously' but because there was the evidence in him of things which lay deeper than words and without which his words would have had no force" (p.763). "His jealousy for God's glory, his faith in God's promises and reverence for His Word, his sense of what sin deserves, his thankfulness, his hatred for all that is casual and flippant in holy things, his seriousness, boldness in opposing promoters of error - all these features, and more, flowed from his knowing something of being in the presence of God" (p.764). It is important to keep this in mind when evaluating ML-J's role in the controversy of the 1960's, the decade which he considered the most difficult of his life. The controversy was that of ecumenism, the dialogue and building of bridges between evangelicals and non-evangelicals, including theological liberals and Roman Catholics. Some might have thought that ML-J was responsible for dividing evangelicals during this time by an overstressing of doctrine at the expense of Christian experience. This was not so. In fact he taught that Christian experience was vital. "More spirituality was required, more attention to the New Testament's call to dependence on God and, particularly, more of the joy and praise which should belong to those who are the heirs of glory" (p.458). By the same token, he observed that among some of the younger men who had shared in the doctrinal recovery of the 1950's, there was, in the 1960's, now a dangerous tendency to trust in orthodoxy. He was concerned that "sound theology can be taken up as a great system in the same way that some people take up crossword puzzles" (p.545). The issue was one of priority. ML-J stressed that doctrine must come before experience, that it must guide and set the boundaries around legitimate Christian experience. Ecumenically-minded evangelicals were basing fellowship on a common experience of Christ, rather than on a common profession of Biblical truths. A commonly repeated slogan was that "the one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy but love" (p.305). What complicated the matter was that the ecumenically-minded evangelicals were not repudiating the gospel; they could still maintain that they believed all the essential doctrines of the Bible. The problem was that what they affirmed with their mouths they denied with their actions because the rules of ecumenical discussion required all participants to be regarded as fellow Christians. As this stretched the definition of Christian further than the New Testament allowed, ML-J regarded this as a compromise of the gospel. To put this another way, ecumenical evangelicals did not change the content of their doctrine, but the way in which the doctrine was held. It was now said to be no longer held "narrowly" and "exclusively" (p.655). ML-J rightly regarded such a position, the allowing of evangelicalism to regard itself as one possible interpretation of Christianity, with those of opposing views being equally entitled to the same claim, as essentially emptying the word "evangelical" of any content. "If an evangelical, who is defined as one who believes the New Testament gospel (euangelion) is to regard as Christians those denying that gospel, then the whole point of the word is bound to be lost" (p.655). "Here is the great divide," ML-J declared. "The ecumenical people put fellowship before doctrine. We, as evangelicals, put doctrine before fellowship" (p.523). He saw the issue boiling down to the following question: "In spiritual affairs, does theology really matter at all? Does it, in the last analysis, matter what a man ultimately believes?" An avoidance of that question, he believed, lay at the heart of the ecumenical movement (p.300). "I am a believer in ecumenicity, evangelical ecumenicity" he affirmed (p.524), maintaining that Scripture, and not a mere claim to the term, was to define what the meaning of the word "Christian" was to be. Despite his opposition to ecumenism, which cost him much and distressed him personally, he believed that "the negative should never be allowed to displace the positive." "We are not here to defend Him but to praise Him, and His high praises should be on our lips because of what He has done in His Son" (p.685). Though he had long prayed fervently that revival would descend upon Britain, he had peace with the realization that he would not live to see it, because he rested in the sovereignty of God. It was enough for him to be faithful to his calling, the rest was up to God. In the last year of his life, in failing health, he could say (citing a line from Toplady), "I have nothing but praise in my heart. I am more aware of the goodness of God than ever before and that I am a debtor to mercy alone" (p.737).

Delightful, informative book. Would definitely recommend.

Excellent read. A wonderful account giving insight into the man himself and the spiritual condition of the Christian church in Wales in the early 1900's.

Once again, an excellent volume.

this book is easy to read and factual.It is very beneficial both for spiritual and physical needs. It is in excellent condition both inside and out.

A replacement copy.