JOHN BUNYAN AND HIS RELEVANCE FOR TODAY

Introduction

John Bunyan is one of the most important persons out of the history of the church. His work The Pilgrim’s Progress is read all over the world. It is read in all circles, Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran and so on.

Who was John Bunyan? In Dutch we have a proverb: “He curses as a tin­ker”. That proverb goes back to John Bunyan who became, after he had left school, a tinker just as a father. That is the one side. At the other side John Bunyan is the author of the most widely read Christian book after the Bible: The Pilgrim’s Progress. How is this possible? I can give the answer with the title of his autobiography: Grace Aboun­ding to the Chief of Sinners. John Bunyan was a sinner saved by grace. In his life he has severely struggled with the heart-burning: How can I get peace with God? By God grace he found the answer. He became for others a guide to Christ. He speaks still to us after he has died through his many writings, especially through The Pilgrim’s Prog­ress.

John Bunyan was in more than one respect a child of his time. He was a seven­teenth-century Englishman. But we must also say that in what he has written he crosses the bounds of the century in which he lived. He brought a message that is still relevant for today. The most important question which we can ever ask is: How can I find peace with God? There is only one answer.

The answer Bunyan found by the grace of God. The answer God thought him and that is: That we are right in the sight of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God imputes the righte­ousness of Jesus Christs to the sinner who puts his trust in Christ as his Saviour. Also in our time the law must be preached that sinners began to realize that God is angry with them every day. The gospel must be proclaimed in all its freeness and its fullness that woun­ded consciences might be healed.

The Spirit God teaches sinners the same lessons in every age. Buny­an experi­enced that in a very remarkable way. It was in the period that he was in a state of deep concern about his soul. While he was going through such a dark valley, spiri­tually, he laid hands on an old volume of Luther’s commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. It ama­zed him that a man who had lived about a century before him could ful­ly enter his condition and had a similar experience. He came to appreciate Luther greatly. As it says in Grace Abounding:

       I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians, excepting the Holy Bible, before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience.

He was amazed that Luther, who had lived a century earlier, knew exactly of his trials and his burden. I quote again Grace Abounding:

     I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled as if his book had been written of my heart. This made me marvel; for thus thought I, this man could not know anything of the state of Christians now, but must needs write and speak the experience of former days.

What Bunyan said of the commentary of Luther on the Galatians can be said of his own works: The speak of the state of Christians of all places and all ages. In his writings the question is answered how a sinner can find peace with God. God’s way of salvation that never changes proclaimed in them. Bunyan’s is known all over the world by his work The Pilgrim’s Progress. That work is also when we view in form the viewpoint of literature of a very high quality. One of the rea­sons of its popularity is that the reader can identify himself with the main-person out of that book. He can identify himself with Chris­tian and his struggles, sorrows and joys. Besides The Pilgrim’s Pro­gress Bunyan wrote quite a lot of other books. I quoted Grace Abounding. I mention Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ, The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, The Doctrine of Law and Gospel Unfolded.

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A short sketch of Bunyan’s life

After this introduction I first want to give you a short sketch of Bunyan’s life. Perhaps you know already something about it. But ne­ver­theless I want to pay some attention to it, because there is a close relationship with the message of Bunyan and his life. He learned his theology by his struggles and trials. This unites him to Luther. Lu­ther said: you can never become a real theologian when you have no trials and do not know of the assaults of the satan. He said; I have discussed my theology with the devil (meaning the devil accusing him and pointing him to his sins) and I know it holds good (meaning the righteousness of Christ is a sufficient answer against all the accusations of the devil.)

Bunyan was born in 1628 in Elstow, a little village not far from Bedford. His parents belonged to the Church of England. They did not pay much attention to the eternal welfare of their son. Nevertheless Bunyan as a young boy had deep impres­sions of the coming judgment and of the everlasting punishment. In the seventeenth century among all people, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, there was still a strong sense of eternity. What divided Protestants and Roman Catholics was not the sense of eternity, but the answer on the ques­tion: How a man can be right in the sight of God?

When Bunyan grew older the deep impressions disappeared. He became a ring­leader in doing evil. He especially committed the sin of cursing and desecrating the name of the Lord. The middle of the seventeenth century has been very exciting for England. There was a civil war be­tween king Charles I and his parliament. Bunyan served in the parlia­mentary army. His life was on several occasions spared in a won­derful way. Only after his conversion he fully realized that.

Not lang after he left the army Bunyan married. Just as he his wife come out a very poor and simple family. She was an orphan. Her farther left her among a few other things two books, namely The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven by Arthur Dent and The Practice of Piety by Lewis Bayly. Sometimes she read out of the books for her husband. His wife urged him to go to church and he started doing it. He had already sto­pped with his habit to swear and to curse. Although he went to church on the Lord’s Day at the same time he played sports after the service was over on the meadow on the village. He was especially fond on bell-ringing.

But after severe struggles he abandoned it completely. He went to church two times on the Lord’s Day and started reading the Bible daily. The epistles of Paul were too difficult for him, but he enjoyed the stories of the four gospels and also the other historical books of the Scripture. In Grace Abounding Bunyan says of this period of his life:

       I thought no man in England could please God better than I.

Bunyan was trying to please the Lord by the works of the law. he did not realize that we can never please the Lord in that way. But then there happened something that brought a complete change in his life and his views. Doing his works as a tinker in one of the streets of Bedford (I suppose it was a nice day in spring or in summer), he he­ard three or four women speaking about the dealing of the Lord to their souls. He immediately realized that this women possessed somet­hing , he did not have. They had peace with God. He realized he did not have it, although outwardly so many things had changed in his li­fe.

The women belong to the congregation of a certain John Gifford. Gifford had been an officer in the army of the king. After his conver­sion he had become a minster of a so-called Open Communion Baptist Church in Bedford (The congregation in Bedford was actually registered by the magistrate as a Congregational Church). The baptism on profession of faith was preferred about the baptism of infants, but also people professing infant baptism were allowed to come to the Lord’s Supper.

Bunyan went to worship in the congregation of Gifford. He told the children of the Lord about the struggle of his soul to find peace with God. They pointed him to the promises of God, but he could not see how to apply them to his soul. In Grace Abounding it says:

       But they had as good have told me that I must reach the sun with my finger as have bidden me to receiver and rely upon the promi­se; and as soon as I should have done it, all sense and fee­ling was against me, and I saw I had a he­art that would sin, and that lay under a law that would condemn.

Bunyan could not see what was the relation between law and gospel. He could not understand the unconditional nature of the gospel. Through many struggles and trials he was brought to the freedom of the children of God. The preaching of Gifford meant much for him. Bunyan learned the meaning of the words: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Romans 4:5). In his book The Doctrine of Law and Go­spel Unfolded he has written:

Around 1653 had joined the congregation of Gifford. According to an old tradition he was baptized in the river Ouse in that year. In 1655 he became a deacon. As was usual in baptists circles he spoke as a deacon an edifying word. In 1660 the mon­archy was restored in England. The ecclesi­astical end political situation changed. Bunyan was one of the first who felt it. Because of lay-prea­ching he was arrested. He was in prison for twelve years. But there he wrote several books. At the end of this period he started writing The Pilgr­im’s Progress.

This is a legal and old covenant spirit that secretly persuades the soul that if ever it will be saved by Christ, it must be fitted for Christ by its get­ting a good heart and good intentions to do this and that for Christ…. Friend if thou canst fit thyself what need hast thou of Christ? If thou canst get qualifications to carry to Christ that thou mightst be accepted, thou dost not look to be accepted in the Beloved.

In 1672 Bunyan was released from prison. In that year Charles II proclaimed his Declaration of Indulgence that gave more freedom for dissenters who would not worship in the Church of England. In 1676 Bunyan was arrested again. Now he was in prison for only half a year. During his second imprisonment he finished The Pilgrim’s Progress. He asked the great theologian John Owen, who was one of his close friends, advice before publishing it. The advice of Owen was positive.

The Pilgrim’s Progress immediately proved to be a great success. During Bunyan’s lifetime more than 100.000 copies were sold in Britain. It was translated into Dutch in 1685. Nowadays it has been translated into more than 200 languages. I just want to make a remark on the friendship between Owen and Bunyan. After 1672 Bunyan quite often pre­ached in London. More than one Owen came to the services in which Bun­yan preached. He invited him to his own church. Owen was one of the greatest Eng­lish theologians of his day. He was highly educated. Once Charles II asked how it was possible that he went out to hear the pre­aching of such an uneducated tinker. The answer of Owen was:

       May it please your majesty, if I would possess that tinkers abi­lity for prea­ching, I would gladly relinquish all my learning.

Bunyan died on the 31th of august in the year 1688 just a few months before the so-called Glorious Revolution in which William III of Orange played such an important role. Nearly at the end of The Pilgrim’s Progress Bunyan writes about the glory of heaven and then he says:

There were also of them that had wings and they answered one another wit­hout intermission saying: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord. And after that they shut up the gates; which when I had seen it, I wished myself among them.

When Bunyan died this desire came into fulfilment into his own life.

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A few themes out of the works of Bunyan

The first thing I would mention in this connection is the strong sense of eternity. When Christian left the City of Destruction he put­ted his fingers in his ears and cried: “Life, life, eternal life”. Speaking about the message of the Bible Bunyan writes in one of his books:

       All its doctrines, counsels, encouragements, threatenings and judgements have a look one way or other upon with respect to the next world.

       Bunyan spoke clear about the reality of everlasting punishment. He said to them that came to hear him:

       Be willing to see the worst of thy condition. It is better to see it here than in hell, for thou must see thy misery here or the­re.

I gave another quotation:

    For when men come to see the things of another world, what a God, what a Christ and a heaven is to be enjoyed, and when they see it is possible for them to have a share in it, I tell you it will make the run through thick and thin to enjoy it.

As I already noted the strong sense of eternity was not specific Reformed or Prot­estant, but the answer Bunyan gave one the question how a man can find peace with God was the biblical and reformed ans­wer. Bunyan preached Christ and his righteous­ness as the only ground of salvation and justification. Christ is, to use the expression of Bunyan a public of common person.

As the surety and representative of his church he bore the sins of his people. He died and rose again for them. We get a share in Christ and his work, when we lay hold on him. We must receiver Christ on his own terms. That means we have to recei­ve him freely. God justifies persons who are in themselves ungodly. Bunyan stressed that Christ is not a second Moses. The gospel is not a new law but it is the fulfilment of the law.

What the view of Bunyan on the relation of justification and faith? Bunyan saw faith as the instrumental cause of justification. That is good Reformed theology. For Bunyan as for the reformers and the puri­tans there is no distance in time justification and faith. An unjusti­fied believer is an impossibility and the same can be said of an jus­ti­fied unbeliever. But what is the logical connection between faith and justifica­tion?

In his early works Bunyan let faith preceded justi­fi­cati­on. The sinner flees to Christ in order to be justified. In his later works Bunyan reverses the logical order of faith and justifica­tion. Now justification precedes faith. What was his intention? He wanted to stress in this way that faith in no way can be called the condition of justifi­cation. There is a complete righteousness to be found in Christ. First God imputes that righteousness to the sinner and second­ly the sinner receives it by faith. Bunyan was afraid that faith would take in some measure the place of Christ. Therefore he preferred the presentation that justification logically speaking pre­cedes faith. Perhaps this is somewhat difficult to understand. In one of his works he states this point as follows and I hope it will become clear to you what he meant:

       Again, I, in the first acts of my faith, when I am come to Christ, do not accept of him, because I know I am righteous, either with imputed right­eous­ness, or with that which is inherent: both these, as to my present privilege in them, may be hidden from mine eyes, and I only put upon taking of encoura­gement to close with Christ for life and righteousness, as he is set forth to be a propiti­ation before mine eyes, in the word of the truth of the gospel; to which word I adhere as, or because I find, I want peace with God in my soul, and because I am convinced, that the means of peace is not to be found anywhere but in Jesus Christ.

Bunyan wanted to preach the free offer of Christ as powerful as pos­sible. he denied that a man must be assured of the sincerity of his faith or his intentions before coming to Christ. Especially his works Come and Welcome to Christ and The Jerusalem Sinner Saved show us the moving and compassionate way in which Bunyan preached the gospel.

Bunyan did not preach the free offer at the expense of the prea­ching of the law. According to his opinion the preaching of the go­spel has no content without the preaching of the law. In Grace Aboun­ding he tells us about his way of preaching:

       In my preaching of the Word I took special notice of this one thing that the Lord did lead me to begin where his Word begins with sinners; that is to con­demn all flesh and to open and alle­ge that the curse of God by the law doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world because of sin.

The reason why the law must be preached he stated once as follows:

       So long as sinners can make a life out of anything below Christ, so long they will not close with Christ.

I also want to make some remarks on Bunyan’s view on the relation between faith and assurance. In The Pilgrim’s Progress the cross is not place directly alongside the wicket gate. Why not? Because closing with Christ for life and salvation is not the same as having the full assurance of faith. In the life of most Christians there is a distance in time between coming to Christ and coming to full assurance. When you are under a sound gospel preaching normally the distance will not be all the long.

Intentionally Bunyan has placed the house of Inter­pre­ter between the wicket gate and the cross. In The Pilgrim’s Prog­ress the Wicket Gate is a symbol for Christ. The first part of The Pilgrim’s Pro­gress is a symbolical expression of the puritan view of effec­tual calling. Convinced of his misery Christian leaves the city of Destruc­tion and flees to the wicket gate. He was pointed to the wicket gate by Evangelist.

Bunyan did not only speak about faith and justification, but also about sanctifica­tion. True gospel-holiness flows form justifying and saving faith. Bunyan also stressed self-examination. He called people to self-examination when they professed they belonged to Christs. he did not call men to self-examination before coming to Christ.

Much more could be said about Bunyan. Bunyan was a preaching with a burning compassion to win souls for the Saviour and edify the saints. In Grace Abounding it says:

       It pleased me nothing to see people drink in opinions if they seemed ignorant of Christ, and the worth of their own salvation, sound con­viction of sin, especially for unbelief, and a heart set on fire to be saved by Christ with a strong breathing after a truly sanctified soul, that was it what delighted me.

I hope you are convince by what I brought forward about Buynan, has convinced of the relevance of Bunyan for today. May God give the church preachers with the same spirit Bunyan had and this preaching may be blessed and that souls are set on fire to be save by Christ and Christ alone.