Donald Macleod’s Tribute

Rev. Donald Macleod, gifted editor of the MonthLy Record of the Free Church of Scotland pays high but discriminating tribute to Dr. D.M. Lloyd-Jones in the October 1983 issue of that publication. “It is curious that in a day of small things God gave the church a preacher such as Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones. It was not simply that in an age of pygmies he towered above the others. He would have towered in any age. Indeed he was arguably the greatest British preacher since the Reformation, rivaled only by Whitefield, Spurgeon and Chalmers.” “He used no tricks. He was content to build up the message, unhurriedly adding truth to truth, happy to watt for the emotion and the rhetoric to come—if they would. There were few illustrations, even fewer personal anecdotes and no humor. He did not study brevity. Nor did he avoid technical biblical vocabulary. His one concern was to declare: This is what the Bible says and this is what it means for you today. He excelled in the preacher’s main task-transporting the word of God across the barriers of time, language and culture into the personal existence of modern men and women.”

Call to the Ministry

Recalling the way in which Dr. Lloyd-Jones turned from a medical career which early promised to take him to the top of that profession, the editor devotes some attention to his call to the gospel ministry. He noted that his responding to that call involved turning away from professional ambition and a growing concern for his fellow men, patients and colleagues. It involved overcoming the efforts of friends and colleagues to dissuade him and overcoming self-doubt and a sense of his own unworthiness. But the writer observes that all these mortifying personal ambition, caring for the lost, and feeling the constraint of the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5: 14) do not yet constitute a call to the ministry. “. . . For far too long Evangelicals have been hopelessly subjective in their view of what constitutes a call to preach.” “Where does the church enter into it?” It was the Doctor’s personal decision to enter the ministry . . . not to train according to the normal course prescribed ?This denomination and not to enter its regular ministry. Finally, it was his personal decision to begin his work at Sandfields. In all this individualism he was typical of generations of evangelicals, including ourself . But contrast it with the New Testament where everything is much less subjective. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in Galatia (Acts 14:23). They themselves were appointed to their ministry work through the church at Antioch (Acts 13:2). Timothy appointed elders in the church at Ephesus (I Tim. 3:1ff). Titus did the same in Crete (Titus 1:5). “The inward call . . . creates candidates, not ministers. Only the external call of an authentic church creates a minister.” He observes that before calling a church must “ascertain whether the individual has a divine call,” but that “is not the same as a man saying he ‘feels called.’ It is something much more objective”—the possession of the God-given “gifts” for the work. “Not everyone who possesses such gifts will voluntarily offer himself as a candidate. John Knox never did so and John Calvin certainly did not volunteer for the work in Geneva. We should leave less to individual decision–making in such matters and place more stress on ministers and sessions identifying suitable men and urging them to train for the work of the gospel.”

Ministerial Training

Dr. Lloyd-Jones decided against taking a regular seminary course, and many have argued from his example “against the need for ministers to be trained.” The editor points out, however, that the doctor had had university and professional training as a doctor. “He knew the biblical languages and was widely read in church history and systematic theology.” Furthermore, he “was a life-long student . . . he read incessantly . . . he was a man of books, papers and journals perhaps even excessively so. The last thing that he was was an argument for an illiterate or philistine ministry.”

As a self-taught preacher, the writer observes that “not surprisingly, there were defects in his early preaching.” “The most important was probably the absence of a Christ-centered emphasis .” ” It took him some time to realize that he was not giving enough prominence to Christ, and especially to the cross.” The writer observes that he might have avoided such pit-falls “if he had entered the ministry with a proper grounding in the biblical doctrine of the person and work of Christ,” and more study of “the principles of biblical interpretation.”

Godly, But Imperfect Leadership

The writer remarks about what an enormous loss Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ death was to British and Welsh evangelicalism. Perhaps this was accentuated by the development of what he calls “a Doctor-cult.” “Our personal debt to the Doctor is immeasurable. But not even John Calvin was infallible and we must keep a sense of proportion. We can follow no man implicitly; and we certainly cannot stand idly by while blind loyalty to one man’s vision becomes a barrier to further evangelical progress.” The writer believes that despite all of the Doctor’s insight, “in some matters-notably his view of the sealing of the Spirit, his concept of Christian unity and his attitude to evangelical Anglicanism—the Doctor was quite simply wrong.” The writer notes a shift in the Doctor’s emphasis from earlier stress on the “biblical, objective and doctrinal” to a late stress on “the subjective, experiential and even the mystical.” Though never a Pentecostal certainly not in liturgy, which in Westminster Chapel was “most inflexible”—“his views on the Christian experience of the Holy Spirit were latterly closely akin to those of Pentecostalism.” “By the standards of historic orthodoxy, Pentecostalism is not simply an error. It is heresy . . . . “The writer observes that the tendency to regard the Doctor as “the Cardinal Archbishop of evangelism” tended to stifle the development of other leaders. Although he did not seek “prime time and special deference,” this was “thrust upon him.” The writer believes that “he should have borne testimony by his example to the parity of ministers” and sought to develop leadership in others. Finally, the writer cautions against too slavishly following the Doctor’s method of preaching. “. . . Many a young man has begun his ministry with Eph. 1:1 and lost most of his congregation by the time he got to verse 14.” “The doctor’s method had enormous advantages and in his hands the result was often superb. But it is virtually impossible to apply to the Old Testament, it was often more topical than expository and . . . must be seen as only one method among many. Men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards . . . used very different approaches; and who is to say that they were wrong?”

In conclusion , the article stresses the doctor’s legacy as (1) emphasis on the “primacy of preaching” by ministers as “heralds of God,” (2) the dependence of that preaching on the power of the Holy Spirit, and (3) God’s blessing on the Doctor’s faithful use of outstanding gifts and humble diligence.

Aftermath at Westminster Chapel

In the May–June 1982 issue of Reformation Today, Kingsley Coomber writes on what has happened in Dr . Lloyd-Jones’ old church, scene of over 40 years of his labors. He spoke of a (guest?) minister, “platform artist, master gimmick maker , manipulator of assemblies, archdeacon of the frivolous and trite, man-centered in the extreme-the opposite of everything exemplified in Dr. Marty n Lloyd-Jones” preaching in his old pulpit, and of the disappearance of the substantial materials that used to fill the bookroom. The writer quoted Spurgeon who in 1888 said, “Jesus said, ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature.’ But men are getting tired of the divine plan, they are going to be saved by the priest, going to be saved by the music, going to be saved by the theatricals, and nobody knows what! Well they may try these things as long as ever they like; but nothing can ever come of the whole thing but utter disappointment and confusion, God dishonored, the gospel travestied, hypocrites manufactured by thousands and the church dragged down to the level of the world.”

The history of the New Testament Church, like that of God’s Old Testament people, underscores the repeated warning found throughout God‘s Word against ever-threatening apostasy. A long evangelical history is no guarantee against a quick falling away. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid , which is Jesus Christ.” “But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon” (I Cor. 3:10,11; 10:12). 

P.D.J.