For the month of May we will be looking at the humble Calvinism of John Newton. I’ve structured our month around the TULIP, but truthfully that is a bit unhelpful. Newton seldom thought in terms of the TULIP. Listen to how he describes his Calvinism:
“I am more of a Calvinist than anything else; but I use my Calvinism in my writings and my preaching as I use this sugar’—taking a lump, and putting it into his tea-cup, and stirring it, adding, ‘I do not give it alone and whole; but mixed and diluted.”
Piper’s assessment is correct, Newton’s “Calvinism permeated all that he wrote and taught and served to sweeten everything.”
You can see this in the way this in Newton’s two letters on man in his fallen estate. He is thoroughly Calvinistic in his understanding of the depravity of man. Newton believed that in the same way that we cannot plumb the depths of God’s goodness we cannot rightly comprehend man’s wickedness. “To give an exact copy of him, to charge every feature with its full aggravation and horror, and to paint him as he is, would be impossible”. (368)
What I really love about Newton’s application of this doctrine is the way that he applies it to church folk. Some have used this to have such a negative view of fallen man that they are not engaging. In that same vein it is tempting to view those in the church as not being impacted by this doctrine. But Newton, preaching in an age when many unbelievers were practically forced into churches, realizes that the depraved aren’t just “out there”.
The Road to Sermon-Proofing Your Soul
We can see the depravity of man best when we consider how we respond to the word of God. Newton laments the fact that
“though the Bible is to be found in almost every house; yet we see, in fact, it is a sealed book; little read, little understood, and therefore but little regarded…”
Yet living in a place like 18th century England man cannot help but be confronted by God’s Word at least on occasion. Undoubtedly there are those who are struck in their consciences. But not wanting to submit to the word, “they run to company, to drink, to any thing, for relief against the unwelcome intrusion of serious thoughts”.
While they get away with dulling their consciences for a season the more frequent they hear the gospel the more light they receive. They pretend at happiness for a season but inwardly they are in misery. But they still will not repent, “for they are determined to go on and perish with their eyes open, rather than submit to the gospel”.
Some even pervert the doctrine of grace and try to appease their conscience with a false type of grace, yet still never turning to Christ. More still, “after they have been more or less shaken by the word, settle in formality”. When they do this they “by degrees become sermon proof”.
You know those people in your congregation, don’t you? Those people who have sat under the word for so long—and have dulled their conscience so many times—that they are now sermon proof. It seems as if you’d have more success in preaching the gospel to a barnyard animal.
So what do you do? Do you just give up preaching to the sermon-proof? Do you hide behind some sort of doctrine of election and say, “well they’ll come to Christ whenever God decides to save them”? Or worse yet, do you just assume that they are reprobates without hope of salvation—and so just let them sit in their rebellion and hard-heartedness? Or do you plead with them—confident that God can change even those most sermon-proofed heart?
Consider Newton’s pleading:
Your case is dangerous but I would hope not utterly desperate. Jesus is mighty to save. His grace can pardon the most aggravated offences, and subdue the most inveterate habits of sin. The Gospel you have hitherto slighted, resisted, or opposed, is still the power of God unto salvation. The blood of Jesus, upon which you have hitherto trampled…is of virtue to cleanse those whose sins are scarlet and crimson, and to make them white as snow.
As yet you are spared; but it is high time to stop, to throw down your arms of rebellion, and humble yourselves at his feet. If you do, you may yet escape; but if not, know assuredly that wrath is coming upon you to the uttermost; and you will shortly find, to your unspeakable dismay, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Brothers and sisters, let us continue pleading even with those who are sermon proof. Yes, man is depraved by nature…but Jesus is mighty to save.
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