Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life (Foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson) E-Book

Jason C. Meyer

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: Theologians on the Christian Life
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 481

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Called a "physician of the soul," Martyn Lloyd-Jones is widely regarded as one of the most powerful preachers of the twentieth century. Originally trained as a medical doctor, he changed careers after recognizing the depth of healing the gospel can bring to the soul of a sinner. With a unique ability to winsomely capture the minds and hearts of his listeners, Lloyd-Jones crafted sermons that continue to have a tremendous impact on the world today, almost forty years after his death. In this book, pastor Jason Meyer summarizes what Lloyd-Jones taught about the Christian life, what he saw as the dangers of separating doctrine from life, and how he modeled devotion to the knowledge of God. Lloyd-Jones's passion for the glory of God in his own life will encourage Christians to hunger to experience God in the same way.

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“Lloyd-Jones would surely have approved of the approach of this book: a whole Christian life requires an understanding and application of the whole Bible, the whole gospel, and the whole body of Christian doctrine. Meyer is to be congratulated on his remarkable achievement of giving us a clear and concise portrait of Lloyd-Jones and his ministry, wisely grounded in a splendid summary of his exposition of the gospel.”

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary

“My few personal meetings with ‘the Doctor’ before he entered what he called ‘the Glory’ in March 1981 were marked by personal encouragement. That spring, at a conference of several hundred pastors who were asked to bear witness to the life and ministry of the late Dr. Lloyd-Jones, a strong majority of those who spoke fastened onto the countless kindnesses the Doctor had displayed to them. Jason Meyer rightly and capably emphasizes the extraordinary unity of doctrine and experience in Lloyd-Jones’s life. This Christian vitality in his life was other-focused: the outworking of the gospel of the triune God in the life of the believer was not pursued in an individualist fashion, but sought the good of other believers, the benefit of the church, and the glory of God.”

D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; Cofounder, The Gospel Coalition

“Both for those already familiar with the published works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and for those taking them up for the first time, Meyer’s work will be prized. From a thorough knowledge of the sources, he highlights and clarifies the truths which Lloyd-Jones preached, and, most importantly, he does it with the same heartbeat. It has done me good to read this book.”

Iain H. Murray, author, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography and Evangelical Holiness; Founding Trustee, Banner of Truth Trust

“When I was a young boy, my father took me to hear Martyn Lloyd-Jones speak. I remember little of the occasion, except my father’s deep desire that I hear ‘the Doctor’ preach while he was still alive. My mother was a regular at his Friday night lectures on Ephesians. Lloyd-Jones was a major influence on my parents and, through them, on me. So it is a joy to welcome this book on his understanding of the Christian life. Read it to discover what drove this titan of the twentieth-century church. But better still, let the Doctor examine your Christian life, diagnose its ailments, and prescribe a God-centered remedy.”

Tim Chester, Pastor, Grace Church, Boroughbridge, United Kingdom; Faculty Member, Crosslands Training

“Martyn Lloyd-Jones stood out in two compelling ways: theological depth and spiritual power. ‘The Doctor’ therefore represents what we most need afresh in our generation, especially as we pastors long to preach the biblical gospel under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This wonderful new book by Jason Meyer meets our need, not by idealizing a man but by drawing us into deeper personal reality with the living God.”

Ray Ortlund, Lead Pastor, Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee

“In our day, popularity is easy to come by, but enduring significance is not. Many people who are liked and retweeted today will be forgotten tomorrow. However, there are some people who have been significant but are not well known. In this volume, Meyer introduces us to a man whose name may not be trending but whose effect on countless Christians and pastors is far more noteworthy than many realize. It is my hope that Meyer’s book will expand the influence of Martyn Lloyd-Jones to a new generation of Christians who are in desperate need of his voice.”

C. J. Mahaney, Senior Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville

“I wrote in the Director’s Statement for the documentary Logic on Fire that it is as important for our generation to understand why Martyn Lloyd-Jones made the choices he did in life and ministry as it is to understand him on Romans, Ephesians, the Sermon on the Mount, or spiritual depression—and that is saying quite a lot. Jason Meyer’s excellent book navigates the reader ad fontes, to the Doctor’s own understanding of the Scriptures, and proves that his unshakable confidence in them was the fuel to his fire. Lloyd-Jones’s life is still giving light and heat to the church today, and I pray this book will be a conduit that brings much illumination to our day and generation. I commend this book to you heartily and enthusiastically.”

Matthew Robinson, Director, Media Gratiae; Director, Logic on Fire: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Lloyd-Jones

on the Christian Life

Theologians on the Christian Life

Edited by Stephen J. Nichols and Justin Taylor

Augustine on the Christian Life:Transformed by the Power of God,Gerald Bray

Bavinck on the Christian Life:Following Jesus in Faithful Service,John Bolt

Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life:From the Cross, for the World,Stephen J. Nichols

Calvin on the Christian Life:Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever,Michael Horton

Edwards on the Christian Life:Alive to the Beauty of God,Dane C. Ortlund

Lewis on the Christian Life:Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God,Joe Rigney

Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life:Doctrine and Life as Fuel and Fire,Jason Meyer

Luther on the Christian Life:Cross and Freedom,Carl R. Trueman

Newton on the Christian Life:To Live Is Christ,Tony Reinke

Owen on the Christian Life:Living for the Glory of God in Christ,Matthew Barrett and Michael A. G. Haykin

Packer on the Christian Life:Knowing God in Christ, Walking by the Spirit,Sam Storms

Schaeffer on the Christian Life:Countercultural Spirituality,William Edgar

Spurgeon on the Christian Life:Alive in Christ,Michael Reeves

Warfield on the Christian Life:Living in Light of the Gospel,Fred G. Zaspel

Wesley on the Christian Life:The Heart Renewed in Love,Fred Sanders

Lloyd-Jones

on the Christian Life

Doctrine and Life as Fuel and Fire

Jason Meyer

Foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson

Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life: Doctrine and Life as Fuel and Fire

Copyright © 2018 by Jason C. Meyer

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

Cover image: Richard Solomon Artists, Mark Summers

First printing 2018

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, the author’s Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4527-6ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4530-6PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4528-3Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4529-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Meyer, Jason C. (Jason Curtis), 1976– author.

Title: Lloyd-Jones on the Christian life: doctrine and life as fuel and fire / Jason Meyer; foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson.

Description: Wheaton: Crossway, 2018. | Series: Theologians on the Christian life | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017042373 (print) | LCCN 2018007066 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433545283 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433545290 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433545306 (epub) | ISBN 9781433545276 (tp)

Subjects: LCSH: Lloyd-Jones, David Martyn. | Reformed Church—Doctrines. | Christian life.

Classification: LCC BX4827.L68 (ebook) | LCC BX4827.L68 M49 2018 (print) | DDC 285.8092 [B] —dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042373

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-02-11 03:41:41 PM

To the elders

at Bethlehem Baptist Church:

One of the greatest joys of my life

is the partnership we share

in the greatest cause.

Contents

Series Preface

Foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson

Introduction: The Thesis

Part 1 “The Doctor”

 1  The Life and Times of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Part 2 The Doctor’s Doctrine

 2  God the Father Almighty: The Person and Work of the Father

 3  Christ and Him Crucified: The Person and Work of Christ

 4  Power from on High: The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

 5  Redemption Applied: Justification and Sanctification

 6  The Church: The Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ

 7  The Last Things: Death and “the Glory”

Part 3 The Christian Life

 8  The Word

 9  Prayer

10 Faith Working through Love

11 Life in the Spirit at Home and Work

12 Why Are You So Downcast? Spiritual Depression

13 The Acid Test: The Hope of Glory

Part 4 The Doctor’s Legacy

14 The Legacy of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Appendix 1: The Charismatic Controversy

Appendix 2: The Secession Controversy

Bibliography

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Some might call us spoiled. We live in an era of significant and substantial resources for Christians on living the Christian life. We have ready access to books, DVD series, online material, seminars—all in the interest of encouraging us in our daily walk with Christ. The laity, the people in the pew, have access to more information than scholars dreamed of having in previous centuries.

Yet, for all our abundance of resources, we also lack something. We tend to lack the perspectives from the past, perspectives from a different time and place than our own. To put the matter differently, we have so many riches in our current horizon that we tend not to look to the horizons of the past.

That is unfortunate, especially when it comes to learning about and practicing discipleship. It’s like owning a mansion and choosing to live in only one room. This series invites you to explore the other rooms.

As we go exploring, we will visit places and times different from our own. We will see different models, approaches, and emphases. This series does not intend for these models to be copied uncritically, and it certainly does not intend to put these figures from the past high upon a pedestal like some race of super-Christians. This series intends, however, to help us in the present listen to the past. We believe there is wisdom in the past twenty centuries of the church, wisdom for living the Christian life.

Stephen J. Nichols and Justin Taylor

Foreword

It is an honor and privilege to write a foreword for this carefully researched and well-crafted study of Lloyd-Jones on the Christian life. Most of what has been written about Dr. Lloyd-Jones has come from those who knew him or belonged to the generation he immediately influenced, to whom he was a living voice. Jason Meyer, however, belongs to the next again generation, born in the latter part of the twentieth century. Members of his generation were at most children when “the Doctor” (as he was universally known) went to be with the Lord. Inevitably, those who knew and heard him may think that they have the advantage, and in many ways this is true. But it is surely encouraging to find someone from the next generation again commending Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s life and work. And Dr. Meyer does this not in the interests of a regressive hagiography but to stress the perennial principles of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s life and ministry.

In this context, Meyer is particularly well suited. He is himself esteemed as a pastor and preacher with considerable intellectual gifts (more important even than academic credentials—which he also possesses in abundance). This well equips him to pinpoint what was so central to Lloyd-Jones’s life and ministry—doctrine on fire transforming lives—just as the Doctor believed that it is logic on fire that transforms preaching.

The story of Lloyd-Jones’s early life is a unique one. He was called to the ministry from his early career as a rising star in the British medical world. Then followed his first ministry in South Wales, marked by his fresh discoveries of the depth of the gospel and by great fruitfulness and the long ministry at Westminster Chapel in London, along with the wide reach of his preaching throughout the United Kingdom.

It was in this last connection that I first heard his name. Memory is an interesting phenomenon—how it is that we can recall the very place we were when we heard a significant piece of news (the death of President Kennedy or the attack on the Twin Towers). I was sixteen years old, going to the local dairy in the morning to collect milk and bread before school lessons began. I met a young lady from the church I attended whose soon-to-be fiancé had taken her (on a date!) to hear Dr. Lloyd-Jones preach the night before in my native city of Glasgow. She answered my question “What was it like?” with the never-to-be-forgotten answer: “He preached on the destruction of Dagon in 1 Samuel 5. I felt that the building was about to collapse.” I remember thinking, “I must hear this man for myself!” A year or so later I devoured his two-volume study The Sermon on the Mount. Occasionally, the opportunity arose to hear him preach. Another five years or so would pass before his multivolume expositions of Romans and Ephesians began to appear, and then Preaching and Preachers. By that time, I was a young minister and, like many others, eagerly devoured each volume as soon as it appeared. Here indeed was logic on fire.

I suspect I was not the only young minister who could write about his first more personal encounter with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and of his encouragement. But I had a special reason to be taken aback by it. In 1975 I was living on the most northerly inhabited island in the United Kingdom, in the Shetland Islands far off the north coast of the Scottish mainland. The mail that arrived one Friday at lunchtime included a letter in a none-too-legible hand (medical doctors in the UK have a reputation for bad handwriting, but that connection was very far from my mind as I opened the envelope and began to read). Having the habit of trying to take in the contents of a letter at a glance, I could not make sense of the words that seemed to leap off the page. And then came the stunning realization: this was a personal letter from the Doctor. How could he know who I was, far less where I was? Later, of course, it would dawn on me that this—the encouragement of young ministers—was part and parcel of his model of biblical ministry. Even so, his reach had extended to ultima Thule!

The correspondence that ensued was marked by grace and encouragement on his part (not least since I was a comparative child in the ministry), especially his emphasis on both heat and light in the preaching of the Word—the great combination, as he regarded it. Looking back now, I suspect that he engineered little ways of testing my mettle, none more so than in 1978 when an invitation came to give two addresses at a ministers’ conference in Wales. As it turned out, the other speaker (for “other” read “main”!) was, yes, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He gave one of the most remarkable addresses I have ever heard, entitled “Extraordinary Phenomena in Revivals of Religion.” It was thrilling and an extraordinary phenomenon in its own right! Being of a shy disposition I found the whole experience somewhat daunting—more so, because, when I stood up to preach, Dr. Lloyd-Jones was sitting in the center of the front row! It was an occasion to remember that no matter who is in the congregation, we always preach before the face of God. But here again, the connectedness between what Lloyd-Jones urged on Christians and his own practice was evident. As I made my way from the meeting, a strong hand gripped my arm from behind, and turning around I found myself looking into his face and hearing him say, “My dear brother . . .” What struck me then—I can still feel the sense of it—was how whole-souled his encouragement was.

All this is said by way of introducing Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life, to underline that it was what the Lord made Dr. Lloyd-Jones as a man and as a Christian that shaped his ministry. He did not live to preach; he lived for Christ. All preachers are differently wired; there is a wide variety in gifts and temperaments, in experience and understanding. But when a man is given over to the love of Christ in his living, it cannot be hidden in his preaching; just as sadly, if he is given over to love of self, it will also eventually show. Lloyd-Jones was an exemplar of the gospel, not only a preacher of it.

There is, therefore, a fittingness to Jason Meyer’s approach in these pages. The Doctor would have approved of his emphasis on understanding Christian doctrine being a major key to living the Christian life. Not light without heat, however; but burning light that enflames.

Lloyd-Jones’s grasp of Christian doctrine was surely a key to his skill as a spiritual diagnostician and physician of the soul, whether in public or in private. Only the person who understands the whole body of divinity can hope to be able to deal with the many dysfunctions in the body of Christ and its members. Dr. Meyer aptly alludes in these pages to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (who first met his associate Dr. Watson in a lab at London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where the young Martyn was a medical student). A pedant might complain that any analogy between an opium-taking detective and a great pastor-preacher breaks down at too many points. But Meyer puts his finger on a key similarity—the use of reason, logic, and analysis to understand the significance of evidence, be it the evidence of a crime or the presenting symptoms of spiritual sickness and death. It was—at least in my own view—not his medical training alone that shaped Lloyd-Jones’s preaching style (illustrated by the way he often analyzes the human condition, moves through false explanations of the symptoms to the true cause, and then continues from spiritual diagnosis to gospel remedies and prognosis). Rather, it was what was enshrined in this logical, stage-by-stage examination of the presenting symptoms in the human condition and rich understanding of anatomy—whether physical or spiritual. This is not gained merely by the study of medical facts, any more than the mere study of theology makes a student a great preacher and a superb pastor. Here is where an acute logical mind, biblical understanding, and spiritual giftedness were combined in Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

In one of his adventures, Sherlock Holmes comments on the fact that many detectives can engage in synthetic thinking. (The rarely succeeding detectives of Scotland Yard belong to this category in the world of the amateur detective!) They can follow the trail sometimes. What is much rarer—and, of course, the ability Holmes possesses in superabundance—is the ability to think analytically and to reason backward from the crime to the cause, the motive, the means, the opportunity, and therefore to the culprit. “There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds,” asserts Holmes, “and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first.”1

Here there is more than an echo spiritually in Lloyd-Jones, whose ability to analyze the human condition was exceptional. In his case he had at his “finger ends” such a knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures and what they say about the human condition that he could give unusual help to people. His analysis led him back from the symptom to the cause, and his knowledge of the gospel enabled him to prescribe the antidote, the gospel pharmaceuticals to be found in the riches of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. To use a different detective analogy, G. K. Chesterton’s priest-sleuth, Father Brown solved crimes because of his knowledge of the sinfulness of the human heart, not least his own. Lloyd-Jones’s skill in spiritual diagnosis and cure were no doubt learned at the cost of the discovery of his own need of Christ and the wonder of Christ’s all-sufficiency for him.

There is so much more to say (especially to preachers) by way of encouragement to read every page Meyer has written, but two observations must suffice. The first is the challenge represented by a comment made by Mrs. Lloyd-Jones (herself a medical doctor): no one would ever be able to understand her husband without first knowing he was “an evangelist and a man of prayer.” The second is this: Lloyd-Jones’s preaching took three forms essentially—Friday night instruction, Sunday morning preaching to believers, and Sunday evening evangelistic sermons. When some of his sermons in this third category were published, I remembered how older Christians had spoken about how they looked forward to “the deep teaching Dr. Lloyd-Jones gives us when he comes north to Scotland.” In fact, however, he was preaching reworked versions of his Sunday night evangelistic sermons! The lesson? The same preaching that God uses to convert sinners he is well able to use to build up saints. The reason? The exaltation of God in Christ. Everything we need for salvation, from its beginning in our lives to its consummation in glory, is to be found in Jesus Christ. In this respect too, Lloyd-Jones modeled what it means to be determined to preach Christ crucified, to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified, to publicly portray him as crucified, and to boast in nothing except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2; Gal. 3:1; 6:14).

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was sometimes seen as a controversial figure. In some quarters he still is. That would not have troubled him, even if snide criticism can be very sore. For error calls for opposition, and he was not slow to expose it. Like the early fathers of the church (themselves no strangers to controversy), he well knew that not even physical persecution can destroy the church of Jesus Christ, but false doctrine always will. It is striking now, decades after his death, to hear well-known Christian leaders reflect on ways in which some of his views have been substantiated by later history.

A late colleague, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1969 when Dr. Lloyd-Jones delivered the lectures later published as Preaching and Preachers, once told me how much his family had enjoyed hosting the Doctor for a meal. His comment was revealing: “He was a big man; he filled the room.” But the Doctor was not in fact a big man. His filling of the room was not so much physical as metaphysical! My colleague’s words were reminiscent of J. I. Packer’s comment that he had never heard a preacher with “so much of God” about him. Size is spiritual as well as physical, as the example of our Lord suggests (Luke 2:52).

But it would be a mistake for us to compare ourselves with Lloyd-Jones, and a misstep to berate others because they cannot do what he did. Hagiography can very easily turn into an instrument to demean and to be blind to the gifts and graces Christ distributes to his people in different places and times. Jason Meyer avoids this error. But by the same token, we ought to learn as much as we can from the gift that Dr. Lloyd-Jones was to the whole Christian church—and here Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life is a wonderful help.

Surely no twentieth-century preacher more deserves to share the testimony that David Clarkson gave to another “Doctor”—John Owen:

I need not tell you of this who knew him, that it was his great Design to promote Holiness in the Life and Exercise of it among you. . . . It was his Care and Endeavour to prevent or cure spiritual Decays in his own Flock: He was a burning and a shining Light, and you for a while rejoyced in his Light. . . . It was but for a while; and we may Rejoyce in it still.2

Thankfully, through the recommendation of his ministry by well-respected contemporary preachers, because of the recordings of his preaching made freely available by the MLJ Trust, and by the widespread availability of his books, we can continue to benefit from Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s ministry.

My own favorite photograph in Iain H. Murray’s thrilling biography of Lloyd-Jones is of the Doctor being introduced to Queen Elizabeth II by Marjorie Blackie, a member of his congregation and herself a physician to the Queen. The expression on his face one can only describe as modesty and pleasure combined. Perhaps he would feel the same about being mentioned in the same breath as the great Puritan divine. Those who knew or heard Lloyd-Jones rejoiced in his light. It was but for a while—but we may rejoice in it still.

So I for one warmly welcome this study and pray that these pages will not only introduce new readers to Martyn Lloyd-Jones—as well as encourage Jason Meyer’s own generation to grow as preachers in accordance with the apostolic exhortation—but also challenge the new and rising generation of preachers to aspire to be God-exalting, Christ-glorifying, Spirit-filled ministers of the Word of God. And may it also inspire those who are not preachers to live Christ-filled Christian lives and to pray that God will raise up a new army of men to preach the Word with grace and power, light and heat, and to live Christian lives which manifest the fruit of doctrine on fire.

Sinclair B. Ferguson

1 Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (London: Penguin, 2001), 21.

2 David Clarkson, A Funeral Sermon on the Much Lamented Death of the Late Reverend and Learned Divine John Owen, D.D., in The Life of the Late Reverend and Learned John Owen, D.D. (London: Marshall, 1720), lxxi.

Introduction

The Thesis

The Thesis Stated

Doctrine and life are fuel and fire, not oil and water. The combustible combination of doctrinal precision and experiential power creates an explosion called the Christian life. No theologian explains the explosion better than Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The thesis of this book is that according to Lloyd-Jones, the Christian life is doctrine on fire.1

The Thesis Clarified

This thesis requires three further points of clarification: (1) doctrine and life should be inseparable; (2) the right order is essential; and (3) criticism is inevitable.

Doctrine and Life Should Be Inseparable

First, Lloyd-Jones stresses that doctrine and life belong together. What are biblical doctrines according to Lloyd-Jones? Biblical doctrines are “particular truths” that the Bible “wants to emphasize and to impress upon the minds of us all.”2 He holds that knowing biblical doctrines should not be isolated from experiencing these truths in everyday life. As a specific example, the resurrection of Jesus is a core biblical doctrine not only to be understood, embraced, and defended, but also to be experienced. Paul declares and defends the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, but he goes even further in Philippians 3:10. The apostle has an experiential ambition to “know him and the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10). In other words, Paul is interested not merely in the truth of the resurrection but also in the power of the resurrection. Why stop short at doctrinal knowledge of the resurrection? Scripture reveals the resurrection of the Lord so that we will encounter and experience the resurrected Lord himself.3

Therefore, Lloyd-Jones often makes the case that doctrine and life belong together. He says he is concerned with doctrine because “it helps me most in the living of the Christian life.”4 “I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine, and the other half telling them that doctrine is not enough.”5The tendency to divorce doctrine and life is a perennial problem because people are “creatures of extremes.” It is always easier to take the extreme position, and it is “most difficult to avoid going either to one extreme or the other.”6

“Either–or” positions on doctrine and life are a recipe for half-baked Christian living. Why stress head orheart, light or heat, doctrine or life? All head and no heart would make someone a stoic egghead. All heart and no head would make someone a squishy, shallow sentimentalist. The abundant life comes only from a fully baked “both–and” combination of head and heart, light and heat, doctrine and life.

It is important to note that Lloyd-Jones uses the terms doctrine and life to refer to three-dimensional living. He does not reduce the Christian life to head and heart (two dimensions) but speaks about the mind, heart, and will (three dimensions). Doctrine should start in the head, catch fire in the heart, and create a life aflame with true obedience in the will. The Christian life as doctrine on fire must have all three realities.

The gospel captivates and satisfies the whole person (mind, heart, and will). Lloyd-Jones calls this complete capture “one of the greatest glories of the gospel.”7 The following paragraph easily ranks somewhere in my top ten favorite Lloyd-Jones quotations:

The Christian position is three-fold; it is the three together, and the three at the same time, and the three always. A great gospel like this takes up the whole man, and if the whole man is not taken up, think again as to where you stand. “You have obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine delivered unto you.” What a gospel! What a glorious message! It can satisfy man’s mind completely, it can move his heart entirely, and it can lead to wholehearted obedience in the realm of the will. That is the gospel. Christ has died that we might be complete men, not merely that parts of us may be saved; not that we might be lop-sided Christians, but that there may be a balanced finality about us.8

The Doctor stresses more than the mere inseparability of doctrine and life; he also emphasizes the order of them. When it comes to doctrine and life, he constantly states that doctrine must come first.

The Right Order Is Essential

Second, Lloyd-Jones never tires of saying one must begin with doctrine (the mind):

In New Testament teaching we are first of all given the doctrine, the teaching; then we are told that we have to apply that to our personal circumstances. Obviously, if we do not know the doctrine we cannot apply it; if we lack an understanding of the teaching we cannot put it into operation. First of all we have the instruction; we must receive it and understand it; then we say, “Now in the light of this, this is what I have to do.” That is the New Testament doctrine of sanctification.9

This is a divinely inspired order because it stands as the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture. “The New Testament always lays down its doctrine first, and then, having done so, says, ‘If you believe that, cannot you see that this is inevitable?’”10

Given Lloyd-Jones’s three-dimensional view, the order also matters with the three parts of the Christian life. He maintains that (1) doctrine comes to the mind, and then (2) the truth captures the heart, which then (3) moves the will to act. The Doctor argues that this order mirrors the authoritative order established by the apostle Paul (cf. Rom. 6:17).

Is there a way to tell if we are holding these things together in proper balance? There is a test of balance, but it is a surprising one. Other people can unwittingly help us maintain our balance through their criticism.

Criticism Is Inevitable (and Even Helpful!)

Third, criticism should not be shunned or unexpected, but should be expected and welcomed! The reason is obvious upon reflection. Extreme “either–or” people will by definition criticize attempts to be “both–and.” Lloyd-Jones actually regards criticism as a reassuring sign when it comes from people on opposite poles.

It seems to me that we have a right to be fairly happy about ourselves as long as we have criticism from both sides. . . . For myself, as long as I am charged by certain people with being nothing but a Pentecostalist and on the other hand charged by others with being an intellectual, a man who is always preaching doctrine, as long as the two criticisms come, I am very happy. But if one or the other of the two criticisms should ever cease, then, I say, is the time to be careful and to begin to examine the very foundations.11

Having stated and clarified the thesis of this work, I need to intensify it by showing its importance. How does Lloyd-Jones himself regard this issue? Is it a high priority or simply one problem among many that the church faced in his day?

The Thesis Intensified

Two years before his death, the Doctor diagnosed the “greatest trouble” in the church of his day: “If I were asked to name the greatest trouble among Christians today, including those who are evangelical, I would say that it is our lack of spirituality and of a true knowledge of God.”12 This deficit was the direct result of divorcing doctrine and life. An example of the exact opposite was Paul, whose very life modeled the marriage of doctrine and life. “No man had a greater theological and intellectual understanding than the Apostle Paul, but, at the same time, no man had a deeper, personal and experimental knowledge.”13

Lloyd-Jones therefore put his finger on the pulse of the problem—either–or thinking: “To put our entire emphasis on the one or the other, or to over-emphasize either is the prevailing danger today.”14 But how dangerous is this problem? What is the aftermath of this great divorce of doctrine and life? Divorcing doctrine and life is not a minor misstep but a deadly departure from the Bible.

There is nothing which I know of which is more unscriptural, and which is more dangerous to the soul, than to divide doctrine from life. There are certain superficial people who say, “Ah, I cannot be bothered with doctrine; I haven’t the time. I am a busy man, and I have not the time to read books, and have not, perhaps, the aptitude. I am a practical man. I believe in living the Christian life. Let others who are interested in doctrine be interested!” Now there is nothing that every New Testament epistle condemns more than just that very attitude.15

The stakes are high at this point because right doctrine is the prerequisite for right living. Lloyd-Jones sees this as a systemic problem that impacts every area of life.

Impure living flows downstream from polluted doctrine. “It is no use your saying, ‘We are not interested in doctrine; we are concerned about life’; if your doctrine is wrong, your life will be wrong.”16 Our conduct heralds the content of our doctrine.

All of us by our conduct and behavior are proclaiming our views, our philosophy of life. It is inevitable. Our behavior is determined by our thinking; even if it is lack of thinking it comes out in our conduct. “As a man thinks, so he is.” Very well, as a Christian thinks, and he thinks in terms of his doctrines, so he behaves. Inevitably our conduct is determined by our doctrine.17

Therefore, Lloyd-Jones often warns about the disaster that awaits someone who divorces doctrine and life. Here are five things that happen when this great divorce takes place.

1. We dishonor God. The great divorce of doctrine and life means we deny him with our lives and insult the living God. “There is nothing which is more insulting to the holy Name of God than to profess Him with your lips and deny Him in your life.”18

2. We quench the Spirit and hinder the work of God. The great divorce of doctrine and life leads to a situation in which “the Spirit is always quenched” and the work of God “is always hindered.”19

3. We destroy holiness and joy. The great divorce of doctrine and life not only dishonors God; it also destroys holiness and joy. It destroys holiness because it removes the direct association of doctrine to life. Holiness is like a cut flower apart from the soil of doctrine. Lloyd-Jones says that there “is no holiness teaching in the New Testament apart from this direct association with doctrine; it is a deduction from the doctrine.”20

In the same way, Paul fought hard against false doctrine because joy was at stake. He called Christians to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). Paul made it clear to the Philippians that “false doctrine makes joy in the Lord impossible.”21 Great doctrines should lead to deep experiences of great joy. Those who neglect doctrine relegate themselves to a shallow and miserable life.

The way to a rich subjective experience is, in the first instance, a clearer objective understanding of truth. People who neglect doctrine rarely have great experiences. The high road to experience is truth, and to concentrate on experience alone is generally to live a Christian life which is “bound in shallows and in miseries.”22

The divorce of doctrine and life weakens the entire foundation of the Christian life, which makes the whole structure susceptible to shaking and swaying.

4. We become flimsy and shaky. If only those who endure to the end are saved (Matt. 24:13), then Christians will put a premium on a pattern of life that will last and stand the test of time. The whole purpose of doctrine is to help us endure by making us unmovable and unshakable; “not merely to give us intellectual understanding or satisfaction, but to establish us, to make us firm, to make us solid Christians, to make us unmovable, to give us such a foundation that nothing can shake us.”23

A weak doctrinal foundation will cause the entire building of the Christian life to shake. “The man whose doctrine is shaky will be shaky in his whole life. One almost invariably finds that if a man is wrong on the great central truths of the faith, he is wrong at every other point.”24 A weak Christian life built on a minimal and fragile foundation is in constant danger of crashing to the ground.

5. We are highly susceptible to disaster. A shaky Christian life is susceptible to disaster because of the high winds of false teaching and temptation.

If we go astray in our doctrine, eventually our life will go astray as well. You cannot separate what a man believes from what he is. For this reason doctrine is vitally important. Certain people say ignorantly, “I do not believe in doctrine; I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; I am saved, I am a Christian, and nothing else matters.” To speak in that way is to court disaster, and for this reason, the New Testament itself warns us against this very danger. We are to guard ourselves against being “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” [Eph. 4:14], for if your doctrine goes astray your life will soon suffer as well.25

The great divorce of doctrine and life will destroy the Christian life. Imagine that the Christian life is like a plane that must fly between two massive mountains. This plane needs both wings (doctrine and life) to avoid a fatal crash. We could label these two mountains as two dangerous isms. Doctrine by itself is not enough because the plane will veer off and crash into the mountain of intellectualism. Experience by itself is not enough because it causes the plane to crash into the mountain of emotionalism. Therefore, Lloyd-Jones wisely sees that it is foolish to have an either–or debate about which wing of the plane we need. We must have both.

The Rest of This Book

Part 1 of this book introduces the life and times of Lloyd-Jones. There I succinctly tell his story and paint a brief backdrop of the times in which the Doctor lived and the false doctrine that he faced.

Parts 2 and 3 form the heart of this volume. The flow of the book follows Lloyd-Jones’s conviction that doctrine is the direct key to holiness. Doctrine (part 2) must come before life (part 3).26 Therefore, part 2 explores the doctrinal framework of the Christian life first. It also stresses the organic connection between knowing the doctrines and the application that should naturally follow.

Part 3 looks at the Christian life in greater detail, especially the difficulty of applying the doctrines. Each chapter follows the same format. The Doctor defines a constituent part of the Christian life, diagnoses the difficulty of application, and then prescribes a way to overcome the difficulty.

Part 4 closes the book with a brief look at the legacy of Lloyd-Jones. I consider his place in the history of the church and examine why his life and ministry continue to speak to us today.

I have labored to give readers ample opportunity to hear the voice of Lloyd-Jones himself in the pages that follow. His writings have a distinctive style, and it may help at the outset to point out a couple of patterns that characterize his writings. First, Martyn Lloyd-Jones never technically “wrote” a book. All his books began as sermons or addresses that were later put into print. This fact gives his writings a distinctive tone of exhortation. The heraldic quality of his writing means that one will often feel directly addressed when reading Lloyd-Jones.

Second, Lloyd-Jones often says things like “this is the most important” point or text or thing to remember. These comments reflect the passion of a preacher who was so gripped by the truth he was preaching that it really was the most important point, text, or thing to him in that moment.

We begin by getting to know Lloyd-Jones a little better and discovering why he was affectionately called “the Doctor.”

1 Discerning readers may notice the similarity between what I am calling “doctrine on fire” and the familiar expression “logic on fire,” which is how Lloyd-Jones himself defined preaching. “What is preaching? It is theology on fire. And a theology which does not take fire, I maintain, is a defective theology; or at least the man’s understanding of it is defective. Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971], 97). This similarity is intentional. I am proposing that his theology of preaching is seamlessly interwoven within his approach to all of the Christian life. He sought to practice the blessed union of doctrine and life in all realms—the pulpit included. In both preaching and living, doctrine must always be served hot!

2 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Great Doctrines of the Bible: God the Father, God the Son (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1996), 2.

3 “Paul does not say that he is anxious to have a greater knowledge about Christ. . . . He tells us that he longs for a greater and more intimate personal knowledge of the Lord himself” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life of Peace: An Exposition of Philippians 3 and 4 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993], 69).

4 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Great Doctrines of the Bible: God the Holy Spirit (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1997), 95.

5 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, quoted in Dick Alderson, compiler, “The Wisdom of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Selections of Sayings,” Banner of Truth, no. 275 (August/September 1986): 7–12.

6Lloyd-Jones, God the Holy Spirit, 244.

7 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 56.

8 Ibid.,60.

9 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home and Work: An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18–6:9 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), 308. Here and throughout this book, the placement and form of quotation marks within Lloyd-Jones quotations have been Americanized for consistency of appearance.

10 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Life of Joy: An Exposition of Philippians 1 and 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 174.

11 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Love of God: Studies in 1 John (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), 18.

12 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ: An Exposition of Ephesians 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 6. The sermons on Ephesians 3 were preached in 1956. These quotes concerning the greatest danger in the church come from the Doctor’s preface to the sermons. The Doctor wrote this preface in 1979.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985), 169.

16Lloyd-Jones, The Love of God, 23; my emphasis.

17 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Darkness and Light: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:17–5:17 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 302.

18 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1983), 145.

19 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1987), 61.

20 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The New Man: An Exposition of Romans 6 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1972), 271.

21Lloyd-Jones, The Life of Joy, 19.

22 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 436. The final part of Lloyd-Jones’s quote is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, act 4, scene 3.

23Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose, 302.

24Lloyd-Jones, “The Wisdom of Martyn Lloyd-Jones,” 7–12.

25Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose, 118.

26 “We must always put these things in the right order, and it is Truth first. It is doctrine first, it is the standard of teaching first, it is the message of the gospel first” (Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression,61).

Part 1

“The Doctor”

Chapter 1

The Life and Times of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Lloyd-Jones asked a friend to preach at his funeral on the themes of the loveliness of Christ and obtaining an abundant entrance into the eternal kingdom. As the minister was getting ready to leave, Lloyd-Jones called him back and said, “Come here, my boy. I want you to remember one thing. I am only a forgiven sinner—there is nothing more to me than that. Don’t forget it.”

Vernon Higham1

Introduction

If Sherlock Holmes had been a pastor instead of a private investigator, he would have looked a lot like Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Dr. Lloyd-Jones was trained in medicine at St Bartholomew (“Barts”) Hospital in London. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle patterned the fictional Sherlock Holmes after a medical doctor who was Doyle’s teacher in the Edinburgh Infirmary (Dr. Joseph Bell). Holmes’s assistant, Dr. Watson, was a student at Bart’s, and the two first met in the lab there.

Both Sherlock Holmes and Martyn Lloyd-Jones exhibit fine-tuned diagnostic acumen. In fact, the preaching ministry of the one affectionately known as the Doctor reflected all the marks of a medical cast of mind. His preaching would start with symptoms in society and then diagnose the root disease (i.e., the sin) and prescribe a gospel cure. The third section of this book will use the Doctor’s diagnostic method as a format for diagnosing and overcoming the difficulties of the Christian life (define the doctrine, diagnose the difficulty, and prescribe the cure).

The story of Martyn Lloyd-Jones sounds like something from a Hollywood script. He gave up fame and a lucrative medical profession in London in exchange for a pulpit in a poor area of Wales. Why? Lloyd-Jones’s life served as a canvas upon which God painted a bright and bold portrayal of the surpassing power of the gospel. God put this power on display in the Doctor’s conversion, and then many times over in the Doctor’s ministry.

Think of Lloyd-Jones’s conversion and his call to ministry. Why did God save him and call him to ministry in the most unlikely place? God loves to choose the most unlikely people from the most unlikely places so that “no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:29). No one would expect that Bart’s would be a fertile field for growing ministers of the gospel. Iain Murray calls it the “last place imaginable” as a training ground for gospel ministry because it was like a temple to scientific rationalism.2 Murray sees the same historical pattern of poetic providence at work with Lloyd-Jones as with other gospel ministers: “When the true idea of the minister is lost, God has often restored it by calling individuals to the office in unlikely ways. Amos was called from being a farmer; John Knox from his post as a church lawyer; and Lloyd-Jones from the hospital and the consulting room.”3

The rest of his life and ministry put God’s glorious grace on display in amazing ways. In what follows, I offer a thumbnail sketch that structures the Doctor’s life around five distinct movements.4 The first three movements follow a journey from Wales to London (from birth to Barts), London to Wales (conversion, call, and ministry in Wales), then Wales back to London (ministry at Westminster Chapel). The fourth journey is a broader move, from London to the wider world (retirement). The last trip is a higher move, from London to heaven (final days and “the glory”).

Trip 1: Wales to London—from Birth to Barts (1899–1925)

The story of Martyn Lloyd-Jones begins in South Wales, where he was born on December 20, 1899. His parents, Henry and Margaret, had three boys: Harold, David Martyn, and Vincent. Harold was two years older than Martyn, and Vincent was two years younger. Harold died an untimely death at the age of twenty with the outbreak of Spanish influenza in 1918 (twenty million people died worldwide). Vincent grew up to be a highly respected high court judge and lived to be eighty-six (five years longer than Martyn).

Henry Martyn owned a grocery shop at 106 Donald Street in Cardiff, a cosmopolitan, English-speaking town in South Wales. Six years later, Henry sold the business and headed back to the heart of southwest Wales to the smaller, Welsh-speaking village of Llangeitho.

Martyn grew up with a fondness for horses. He loved to spend summer holidays with his grandfather Evans, who had horses. “He enjoyed carrying buckets of water and horsemeal and leading some of the quieter horses to the railway station and helping to put them into horseboxes for their journey to some large show in the West of Carmarthen, the West of England or London.”5

His carefree life would go up in flames at the age of ten. Philip Eveson describes the experience:

Farmers had come to his father’s shop to pay their outstanding bills with gold sovereigns [coins] on Wednesday evening, January 19, 1910. They had stood talking and smoking in the clothing section of the store and some tobacco ash had obviously fallen on fabric and lay smouldering; it ignited in the early hours of Thursday morning when everyone was asleep. Martyn was rescued by his father who threw him from an upstairs window into the arms of three men standing below. The whole house and shop went up in flames. One of the few items retrieved from the fire were the sovereigns, which were now reduced to a solid mass of gold.6

The fire was a crushing blow. The financial losses would plague the Lloyd-Jones family for a long time, even though they tried to hide it from their children. These financial troubles, however, did have one positive outcome in that they provided the impetus for Martyn to take his studies more seriously.7 Martyn was playing football (i.e., soccer) in the village square one day, and a student assistant named Edmund Jones (who later joined the school as a teacher) saw him. He decided to pull young Martyn aside and offer him some straightforward guidance for the future. “He warned him that unless he put his mind to his work he would not gain a scholarship to the County Secondary School like his brother.” These words hit home, because Martyn knew that the family’s financial situation precluded further schooling without a scholarship. He heeded the warning and devoted himself to his studies, earning second place in the scholarship exams of 1911 (scoring even higher than his brother Harold had done two years earlier).8

Perhaps even more devastating than the fire of 1910 was the day Henry Lloyd-Jones had to declare bankruptcy in 1914. His real financial position was exposed and put on public display when all that the family owned was auctioned off to the highest bidder over the course of two days at Jubilee Hall.9 Martyn’s father left to look for work in Canada for a few months, but nothing materialized. In July 1914, Henry boarded a ship to look for work in London, and Martyn joined his father when the ship reached London on August 3. It was a stirring and tumultuous time to be in London, because the next day the British declared war on Germany.

Henry bought a dairy business, and the family was reunited in London in October 1914. The dairy business was so successful that all of Henry’s debts were eventually repaid. Martyn and Vincent were then able to go to St Marylebone Grammar school (January 1915), where Martyn excelled. In his senior examination in the summer of 1916, he passed all seven subjects and gained distinction in five.10 He applied to the medical school of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and was accepted at the “unusually young age of sixteen.”11

Martyn was a standout student at “Barts.” In particular, his diagnostic ability attracted the attention of one of the most distinguished teachers there, Sir Thomas Horder (the king’s physician). On one occasion, Lloyd-Jones made a diagnosis based on his claim that he could feel an enlarged spleen in the abdomen of the patient. This was something that even Horder’s own examination had missed. Horder was so impressed that he chose Martyn to be his junior house physician (even before the results of the qualifying exam were announced). Martyn later became Horder’s chief clinical assistant.12

One of Martyn’s most important tasks was to go through the case notes of Horder’s patients in order to catalog and index all the diseases Horder had treated. Lloyd-Jones was shocked to see “the kinds of conditions suffered by some of the dignitaries of the land, including members of the royal family and cabinet ministers.”13 The Doctor began to note that the problems were deeper than medical or intellectual. He diagnosed that the real problem was “moral emptiness and spiritual hollowness.”14Murray comments perceptively, “Horder’s card index was to him almost what the vision of a valley of dry bones was to the prophet Ezekiel.”15

At age twenty-three (1923), Martyn received a London University MD (doctor of medicine degree). He then was awarded research scholarships in 1923–1924 to study a form of Hodgkin’s disease called Pell Epstein disease, as well as a heart disease known as infective endocarditis. At the young age of twenty-five (1925), he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP). Lloyd-Jones had a private practice at 141 Harley Street, the same place where Horder had his offices. Only the “cream of society” could afford the services of a Harley Street doctor.16 Sir Thomas Horder introduced Martyn to a whole new social stratosphere. And it was an eye-opening experience for the young doctor to witness the wickedness, excess, and jealousy that characterized the elites of London.17

Trip 2: London to Wales—Conversion, Call, and Ministry in Wales (1925–1938)

During this climb to the top of his profession, something else began to stir within Martyn’s soul. In 1923 he began to listen to the preaching of Dr. John Hutton, the minister at Westminster Chapel. A spiritual power in this man’s preaching arrested Martyn’s soul and made him aware of the amazing power of God to save and change lives.18 He had never experienced this power at any other church he attended (despite having attended church his whole life).

Lloyd-Jones later described his conversion this way: