Robert Robinson (1735-1790) was an English minister. After the death of his father, a young Robinson lived a life of drunken recklessness and destructiveness. He changed his life course after hearing a sermon preached by George Whitefield, and at the age of 20, he reformed his ways and became a Methodist preacher, penning the well-known hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
Continued from Part 1.
Scripture gives scant insights into the early life of Mary. She grew up in Nazareth and was betrothed to be married to a carpenter named Joseph. During her engagement, the angel Gabriel appeared to her to declare that she would give birth to Jesus by a miracle of God the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). Following this announcement she traveled some one hundred miles to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was from the family line of Aaron (Luke 1:36). Upon entering Elizabeth’s home, she broke into a hymn of thanks to God (Luke 1:46–56), which has come to be known as the Magnificat. Mary later returned home and her fiancé, Joseph, was intending to end their relationship because he believed she had been sexually unfaithful to him. But God intervened and told Joseph in a dream all that He was doing (Matthew 1:18–25). Some months later the couple was required to travel about eighty or ninety miles to Bethlehem to register for a government census. Mary’s son was born there in humble circumstances (Luke 2:6–7), in fulfillment of Micah 5:2. He was named Jesus in accordance with an angel’s requirement (Matthew 1:21).
The family would later flee to Egypt to save the life of young Jesus and then they returned to Nazareth. Around perhaps the age of twelve, Jesus went to Jerusalem and was noted by the teachers for His theological insights (Luke 2:41–52). Jesus performed His first miracle at the request of Mary at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11). Mary is scarcely mentioned again in the Gospels until she appears at the crucifixion of Jesus, where He spoke to her lovingly just before His death (John 19:26–27). Following Jesus’ death, Mary then appears with the group of 120 early Christians who gathered in the Upper Room (Acts 1:12–26). She does not appear in Scripture again and her death is not mentioned in Scripture.
Mary was simply a very godly young woman who loved the Lord and trusted in Him despite great risk to her own reputation. She repeatedly appears as a devout woman who loved God and was a loving mother to Jesus. Contrary to some aberrant teaching, she did not remain a virgin, but mothered other sons such as James and Jude, who visited Jesus with Mary during His ministry (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31–35; Luke 8:19–21) and later became pastors who penned books of the New Testament bearing their names.
Therefore, the Mary of Scripture greatly differs from the Mary of myth, legend, and folklore. The real Mary is a wonderful example for young women to love God and retain their virginity until marriage as a demonstration of their love for God. The real Mary is a wonderful example for mothers of a godly woman who is best known for the sons she raised, whom God used to change the world, thereby elevating the ministry of Christian motherhood. The real Mary is a wonderful example for all women of what it truly means to trust God in all things, obey God even when His call is difficult, worship God in faith that He is good for His promises, fellowship with God’s people in the church, and love God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
– Mary worshipping God in Luke 1:46–47
Each May it seems curious to me that many Protestant Christians do not focus on Jesus’ mother, Mary, in conjunction with the celebration of Mother’s Day. This may be, in part, an overreaction to the improper emphasis upon and false teachings about Mary among many Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
In the second century, Irenaeus depicted Mary as a “second Eve,” laying a foundation upon which later theologians would build an unbiblical view of Mary, including Cardinal Newman who rediscovered the image in the nineteenth century. Also, in the second century, the baptismal creed began referring to Jesus as “Born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” By the fourth century, some churches were being dedicated to Mary. In the fifth century, the Council of Ephesus declared Mary the “mother of God,” which further encouraged devotion to Mary. In the eighth century, Germanus of Constantinople said that Mary dispenses grace to the church on earth, and also taught, along with others, that Mary was Mediatrix, meaning that she participated in saving people along with Jesus.
In the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux helped to popularize the idea that Mary dispenses grace to Christians, and the “Hail Mary” prayer was introduced and combined with the Rosary. In the fourteenth century, the title Coredemptrix first appeared in Catholic literature, speaking of Mary as participating with Jesus in our redemption (this concept continued gaining popularity, and in more recent times the late Pope John Paul II spoke of it on multiple occasions).
In the fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV spoke of the spiritual motherhood of Mary over all Christians and the “Hail Mary” prayer was changed to its current form. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, shrines dedicated to Mary appeared in places such as Lourdes, France, and Fatima, Portugal. In the twentieth century, Pope Pius XII declared that Mary ascended into heaven like Jesus, called for the memorial of Mary’s role as queen dispensing grace to Christians, and said that she was so united with Jesus that she was involved in His suffering and our salvation. The Catholic Church also held a congress on Mary and sponsored pilgrimages to some of the shrines dedicated to Mary.
Having been raised as a Catholic, I did pray to Mary as a young boy. Once I met Jesus at the age of nineteen, though, I was convicted that I had sinned against God by praying to anyone but Him. In some ways I then overreacted for a few years and did not esteem Mary as I should have. Sadly, it seems that many Christians are also prone to the extremes of either esteeming Mary too much or esteeming her too little.
The key to undoing all of the false teaching surrounding Mary is, of course, to simply look at what Scripture does say about her and add nothing to that. Mary appears by name in three of the four gospels (the Gospel of John refers to “Jesus’ mother”) and the book of Acts. She was a young virgin girl, perhaps even a young teenager, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14.
Continue to Part 2.
At the age of twenty-seven Calvin settled in the city of Geneva. There he sought to fulfill his missiological church planting vision—to build a city that operated according to the principles of the Bible as an outpost for the kingdom of God on earth. Through his preaching and teaching Calvin became the most famous citizen in Geneva, refashioning every aspect of society from, law to theology, seeking to bring it under the lordship of Jesus and authority of his Word. Many years later, Marxist genius Leon Trotsky, who helped Lenin create the Soviet Union out of the Russian Revolution of 1917, said that Karl Marx and John Calvin were the two greatest revolutionaries in all of Western history.
In the 1550s John Calvin saw the population of his city of Geneva double as Christians fled there from persecution. One of those refugees who came to Geneva was the Englishman John Bale, who wrote, “Geneva seems to me to be the wonderful miracle of the whole world. For so many from all countries come here, as it were, to a sanctuary. Is it not wonderful that Spaniards, Italians, Scots, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, disagreeing in manners, speech, and apparel, should live so lovingly and friendly, and dwell together like a . . . Christian congregation?”
God in his loving providence forced Geneva to become a short-term training ground in missions, where Christians from varying cultures lived together under the teaching of John Calvin and had to determine for themselves what to receive, reject, and redeem from their culture so as to effectively contextualize the gospel and do evangelism.
After they had such wonderful theological training and missiological experience, many of the Christians returned to their cultures once persecution subsided. The result was an explosion of contending, contextualizing, and church planting, which is the logical result of the first two works. In fact, in France there were only five underground Protestant Churches in 1555, but by 1562, 2,150 churches were planted, with some three million people in them. Furthermore, some of the churches were megachurches, with anywhere from four to nine thousand people in attendance.
Additionally, Calvin sent church planting missionaries to Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and the free imperial city-states in the Rhineland. The Atlantic Ocean was even crossed by church planting missionaries Calvin sent to South America and what is today Brazil.
Along with Martin Luther, Calvin is regarded as the most towering figure of the Protestant Reformation, although the two men never met. Calvin is credited with helping to bring about the rise of capitalism and democracy, which emerged from his theological teaching and helped to shape the entire Western world. Movements such as Puritanism, as well as the modern-day Presbyterian and Reformed churches, follow in his legacy.
Today, men such as Lesslie Newbigin, Tim Keller, and Ed Stetzer carry forward the legacy and influence of Calvin on missiology and church planting. These three men, one deceased and two living, are faithfully and fruitfully taking the same ideas that drove Calvin and applying them to our own age with keen insight.
In our own day there are many faithful Reformed Bible teachers carrying on in the legacy of Charles Spurgeon. Among the best known is John MacArthur, a fifth-generation pastor. Like Spurgeon, he has committed his life to Bible preaching and teaching. This commitment extends, as Spurgeon’s did, to leading a school to train people for gospel ministry (The Master's College and The Master’s Seminary, which we have benefited from directly since one of our Mars Hill elders is a graduate), publishing many Bible commentaries, and launching publications. He has also published a long list of books. Among those I found most helpful to me as a newer Christian is The Gospel According to Jesus, which was a seminal book in what has been called the “Lordship Salvation Controversy.” When planting Mars Hill Church, I also gleaned a lot from his books Shepherdology and The Master’s Plan for the Church.
Also admirable are his bold stands for the gospel, including appearances on major networks such as CNN, and actually being sued as a church for practicing church discipline because the Bible commands it. MacArthur has always been a strong proponent of expositional Bible teaching through books of the Bible. That idea has definitely caught on among New Calvinists, and it is now the predominant form of preaching in that tribe.
If memory serves me correctly, I was first introduced to MacArthur’s teaching ministry when I heard him on the radio as a new Christian. I went on to listen to literally hundreds of his sermons on cassette (yes, I am old enough to remember cassettes). His radio program recently includes what I believe is a new twist—answering questions from the people in his church. In my opinion, this is some of his richest teaching because he blends his knowledge of the Bible with affection for his people and the occasional insight from his own life and childhood, all of which is quite compelling.
For many years, MacArthur was not noted as a Calvinist, but rather better known for being a Bible preacher and teacher. In a conversation I had with our mutual friend, John Piper, he said that about fifteen years ago MacArthur started putting Puritan sermons in the back of his books. This prompted Piper to invite MacArthur to the Desiring God Pastors Conference and ask him publicly if he is a five-point Calvinist, to which MacArthur replied, “Yes.” Since that time we have also seen MacArthur mellow out a bit on the cessationist position that some spiritual gifts in the Bible are not for today, which he argued for in Charismatic Chaos. He has gone so far as to welcome C. J. Mahaney—who is both a devoted Calvinist and charismatic—to preach at Grace Community Church and other events. For these and many more reasons, I want to honor MacArthur in our tributes this week.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) is my favorite mentor outside of Scripture. Visiting his college and the private collection of his library and memoirs was a highlight of my visit to London.
Spurgeon was the oldest of seventeen children, though nine died in infancy. Due to financial hardship, at the age of eighteen months he was sent to live with his grandfather, who, like Charles’ father, was a strong-willed Calvinistic preacher. At a young age he began reading his father's and grandfather’s theological books and listening in on their theological conversations with other men. On one occasion the visiting preacher Richard Knill prophesied over Charles, “This child will one day preach the gospel, and he will preach it to great multitudes.”
Free public education was not available in his day and so his father paid for a private education for Charles. By the age of ten, Charles was reading the Puritans with great delight.
Spurgeon began preaching shortly after his conversion to Jesus Christ at the age of sixteen. He soon became the best-known Bible preacher in the world in his day, and perhaps the best preacher in the history of the church outside of Scripture, along with John Chrysostom (347–407). Spurgeon preached up to ten times a week and was heard by twenty million people from his pulpit over the course of his lifetime.
Four years after his conversion, at the age of twenty, he was appointed the pastor of London’s famous New Park Street Chapel, which was previously led by the distinguished Reformed Baptist theologian John Gill. Spurgeon was such a magnetic draw that the previously struggling church, which had dwindled to a few hundred people, soon outgrew their building and had to move to Exeter Hall, and then to Surrey Music Hall. Spurgeon often preached to crowds of more than ten thousand without any amplification. His church became the world’s largest by the time of his death, meeting in the Metropolitan Tabernacle that they had eventually built.
Spurgeon was a committed lifelong student. He had a large library built in his home so that he could study continually and still be near his sick wife. He had a large, round desk with a hinge that permitted him to sit in the middle of it with his beloved books surrounding him.
Spurgeon was blessed by a rigorous mind and powerful voice but also suffered from poor health. He suffered continually from a variety of ailments, ranging from kidney disease to gout, which occasionally prevented him from preaching and ultimately took his life at age fifty-seven. Additionally, his beloved wife Susannah struggled mightily with poor health. In his seasons of tremendous pain he was forced to pray and trust the goodness of God. Nonetheless, his suffering greatly clarified his understanding of Jesus’ painful atonement and great love for his people.
His prayers also sustained him when he was forced to miss up to seven weeks at a time and lie bedridden in pain rather than preach to his congregation. Spurgeon struggled with depression prompted by his poor health and the painful burden he carried for the many pastors who came to him for counsel. Perhaps the darkest period of Spurgeon’s ministry came when troublemakers began falsely crying “Fire!” to a packed congregation that had come to hear him preach, causing a stampede that killed some people who were trampled underfoot.
Spurgeon was known to have a robust sense of humor that spilled out into his preaching, much to the consternation of his many critics. Still, Spurgeon shared the Bible’s love of irony and sarcasm, and his great wit endeared him to people who appreciated the fullness of his emotional life. This made him a real human being from whom people enjoyed learning the Bible. Among my favorite Spurgeon quips is his statement that he loved church committees and believed the ideal committee consisted of three people, two of whom stayed home.
Spurgeon was committed to activism and social justice, going so far as to preach against slavery, which made him very unpopular in America, where his printed sermons were banned and burned. Spurgeon was also a very merciful man who opened and oversaw an orphanage for needy children. Many called the orphanage the greatest sermon he ever preached. His wife, Susannah, had a particular burden for poor pastors who could not afford books to assist their studies of Scripture. She raised money for a pastors’ book fund that gave away thousands of books to needy pastors.
Throughout his ministry, Spurgeon came under continual attack because of both his conservative theology and successful ministry. What has come to be known as the “Downgrade Controversy” ultimately led to Spurgeon being kicked out of his own Baptist denomination for his unwillingness to stop teaching such things as eternal torment in a literal hell, the literal truthfulness of Scripture, a literal creation by God, and the perfection and divine inspiration of Scripture. In his final days, Spurgeon was attacked by hyper-Calvinistic legalists and universalistic liberals alike, the former because he freely preached the gospel to all people, and the latter because he did not believe that everyone would be saved.
The hyper-Calvinists in his day disdained Spurgeon for his passion for lost people to meet Jesus and his continual offering of the gospel of grace to the masses, which led to the baptism of 14,692 converts during his ministry. Despite much mean-spirited opposition, Spurgeon never shied away from calling all men to repentance. He used unconventional means, such as meeting in a public theater (not a church) and preaching from a stage (not a raised pulpit), in an effort to be more culturally relevant in his ministry style. Curiously, however, he forbade the use of choirs, organs, and other musical instruments in his church services.
Upon his death, sixty thousand people passed before his open coffin in one day, with a similar crowd the ensuing day. Four memorial services were held in one day for the members of the church, ministers and students, members of other denominations, and the general public, respectively. The road to the cemetery from his church was lined with hundreds of thousands of people whose lives had been touched by the power of the gospel through Jesus’ servant, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
For those wanting to study Spurgeon more in depth, I have particularly enjoyed the following resources and recommend them to you for consideration:
My wife, Grace, has also enjoyed studying the life of Charles’ bride and recommends the book Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon by Charles Ray.
David Brainerd (1718–1747) is one of the greatest missionaries America has ever had. Brainerd began his life of ministry at the young age of twenty-four. His passion was to convert the Native Americans scattered throughout New York and Pennsylvania. He traveled more than three thousand miles on horseback, preaching the gospel faithfully until he died at the age of twenty-nine after a lengthy sickness brought on by his constant exposure to harsh winter conditions. Jonathan Edwards published An Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd, chiefly taken from Brainerd’s own Diary and Other Private Writings, which has become a missionary classic.
George Whitefield (1714–1770) began preaching at the age of twenty-four and is the greatest preacher America has ever seen. He preached eighteen thousand sermons to over ten million people during the Great Awakening. He planted 150 churches in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. He preached in open air with crowds as large as thirty thousand people at a time. Amazingly, he preached to such crowds without a microphone and would cough up blood from the strain on his throat. It is estimated that most Americans heard him preach at least once. His farewell sermon on Boston Commons drew more people than Boston’s entire population and was the largest crowd ever gathered in America up to that time.
For those wanting to learn more about Whitefield, John Armstrong’s Five Great Evangelists and Arnold Dallimore’s George Whitefield are good places to start.
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) began ministry at the age of nineteen and went on to be the greatest theologian America has ever produced. Additionally, the Great Awakening began in 1734 in his Northampton, Massachusetts congregation with the young people who had drifted away from the church, but suddenly wanted to begin meeting with him about his sermons. In light of the great interest and controversy surrounding the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Edwards wrote the classic book Religious Affections to speak of the works of regeneration wrought by the Holy Spirit. To explain the Holy Spirit's work in revival he also wrote The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, and the follow-up book, Thoughts on the Revival in New England. For those who want to learn more about the teachings and experiences of Jonathan Edwards, there is now an amazing Web site from Yale that you would be well served to spend hours and hours of your time exploring: The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.
Today, my dear friend, John Piper, who is mentioned in the Time article, carries on the teachings and passion of Edwards. Anyone who has read Piper's classic book Desiring God or any of his other books, especially his most recent book Finally Alive on the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, are immediately aware of his affection for and learning from Edwards.
Martin Luther towers over Western history as one of the most important people who has ever lived. He lived from 1483 to 1546 during the amazing period of history that included the revolution wrought by the printing press and men such as Copernicus, Henry VIII, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, John Knox, Christopher Columbus, and John Calvin.
The copper miner's son was born in Eisleben, Germany, which is about 120 miles outside of Berlin. Luther's keen intellect was apparent from a young age. He began studying law at the university when he was only thirteen; he finished both his bachelor's and master's degrees in the shortest time period allowed by the university.
At the age of twenty-one, while traveling home during a severe thunderstorm, Luther was nearly struck by lightning. Fearful, he interpreted it as a sign from God and cried out, "I will become a monk."
As a Catholic monk Luther lived in terror of the wrath of God and sought by every means available to make himself righteous in God's sight. This included a life of prayer, severe fasting that caused him intestinal problems later in life, sleepless nights, freezing cold, and even beating his own body to the point of considerable pain-all in an effort to pay God back for his sin.
All of Luther's self-denial and pain were the result of poor theological instruction. Simply, he had been told that the world is filled with good people and bad people and that God lovingly saves the good people and angrily damns the bad people. Therefore, the only hope a person has is to essentially save themselves by doing righteous things to make themselves holy.
While pursuing a doctorate in Bible, Luther began to see the gospel rightly through devoted studies of the Psalms and book of Romans. Speaking of that time, Luther said, "At last meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I . . . began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith. . . . Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open."
By God's grace through the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit, Luther rightly came to see that righteousness is not a state that a sinner merits for himself or herself. Instead, righteousness is a gift that God gives to the sinner who simply trusts in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. The great biblical truth of justification by faith alone through grace alone by Jesus Christ alone was liberated and the power of the gospel was unleashed to reform the church.
The conflict over the nature of the gospel started with Luther studying Scripture and gained momentum on All Saints' Eve in 1517, when Luther publicly denounced the sale of indulgences. Indulgences were sold by the Catholic Church for the living to purchase-for themselves or their dead relatives suffering in the mythical purgatory-relief from the punishment for sin. Luther called for a public debate on this and other theological matters that he rightly saw as incongruent with the teachings of Scripture, outlining his complaints in the now-legendary Ninety-Five Theses.
Luther's criticisms of the church gathered enough support that in 1521 he was required to stand before the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, at Worms, Germany. Great pressure was exerted on Luther to recant of his teachings, which caused him much anguish. In the end, Luther boldly said, "Unless I can be instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds of reasoning . . . then I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience." Then he added, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen." Luther was subsequently denounced as a heretic, declared as a "demon in the appearance of a man," and forced into hiding for ten months. The remainder of his life was essentially lived as an outlaw on the run.
Nonetheless, Luther translated the entire Bible into German, wrote the great hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," published many books and pamphlets totaling some sixty thousand pages, and published both the Larger and Smaller Catechisms, which have been loved by Lutherans as well as other Christians ever since for their clear teaching of essential biblical doctrines, despite his own wishes that "all my books would disappear and the Holy Scriptures alone be read."
By the end of his life, Luther knew most of the New Testament and large sections of the Old Testament by heart as he clung to the Scriptures for guidance in tumultuous times. Eventually, Luther simply burned out after years of exhausting work that included extensive preaching; he died in 1546 at the age of sixty-three.
For those wanting to benefit more from Luther's amazing insights on the cross of Jesus Christ, Alister McGrath's work Luther's Theology of the Cross is very helpful. Furthermore, his insights on a theology of the cross as contrasted with a theology of glory are timeless. Also, everyone who preaches and teaches should read Luther's Lectures on Galatians. Whereas his Commentary on Galatians can be polemical about the papacy as it was for more of a public audience, his lectures on Galatians were for his congregation and hold some unparalleled gospel insights.
Today the influence of Luther's theology of the cross is often echoed in the teachings of Tim Keller and can be read in the amazing book The Cross of Christ by John Stott, in which he explores the many rich sides of the cross from a classic Reformed perspective. Everyone who wants to more fully appreciate the cross should take the time to carefully and prayerfully read this book.
The Resurgence is a movement that resources multiple generations to live for Jesus so that they can effectively reach their cities with the Gospel by staying culturally accessible and Biblically faithful.
