Skyfall?

What’s James Bond got to do with evangelicalism?

Well, it concerns what Spurgeon had to say about the dynamics of theological and church compromise.

God’s truth is forever under attack.

Towards the end of Spurgeon’s life, it was the advent of liberal theology and the critical approach to Scripture that emerged in the so-called Downgrade Controversy. Today the attack comes from a different quarter. The whole ‘inclusive-ist’ agenda inevitably expects compromise with its demands. If all are to be included then no boundary lines can be drawn. Recently spiritual abuse has, sadly, been in the news. But while such terrible things do go on when church leaders misuse their authority, surely we are only a step away from those influenced by the liberal outlook calling ‘abuse’ any drawing of ethical or theological lines, any church discipline no matter how lovingly meant, and indeed any powerful preaching which warns hearers to ‘flee from the wrath to come’!

With rainbow zebra crossings in London for this year’s Gay Pride month, the LGBT lobby especially demands that Christians abandon biblical sexual ethics as historically understood. Both from outside and inside the church, just like Spurgeon in his day, prominent evangelical leaders face the call to concede ground.

The devil’s logic

Spurgeon decided before God that he could not. God’s ground is not ours to concede. He took his stand. He withdrew from his own denominational union – the Baptist Union – as he saw the Scriptures being undermined there. He understood the tensions and temptations that church leaders experienced.

Iain Murray’s book The Forgotten Spurgeon delineates the relevant events thoroughly, and it is instructive to read some of Spurgeon’s explanation for his actions. Although his heart ached for unity among evangelical Christians, he saw that for some leaders it was the temptation to compromise in order to maintain their position of prominence which they could not resist. They would rather hold on to influence, despite the Scriptures being against the fashionable view.

This was the dynamic he saw at work. Skyfall? Listen to his words: ‘I count my own character, popularity, and usefulness to be as the small dust of the balance compared with fidelity to the Lord Jesus. It is the devil’s logic which says, “You see I cannot come out and avow the truth because I have a sphere of usefulness which I hold by temporizing with what I fear may be false.” O sirs, what have we to do with consequences? Let the heavens fall, but let the good man be obedient to his Master, and loyal to his truth.’

Come what may, though the sky falls upon us, Christ’s truth must be paramount. Spurgeon rightly questioned what purpose the preserving of influence or unity without God’s truth could possibly fulfill. By contrast he wrote: ‘Nothing has ever more largely promoted the union of the true than the break with the false.’ He knew his reputation would be shot in the eyes of many.

Christology for the ambitious

The helpful book Embracing Obscurity (by an anonymous author) sets out a challenging Christology for those concerned about position. It compares the outlook of the Lord Jesus from Philippians 2 with that of the devil, the genius behind the kings of Babylon and Tyre we find in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.

Satan, who is a mere creature, aspired to be God. Jesus, in very nature God, made himself nothing. Satan, an angel given beauty, position and privilege, found that these were not enough for him, whereas Christ was obedient to the will of God even though that path meant obscurity and a despised death. It is a Christology which is meant to sober us all, especially the ambitious and those who see themselves as ‘statesmen’ of the church. Church leaders set an example whether they like it or not and they, especially, must ask ‘which path am I really following – that of Christ or of Satan?’ Does being respected, famous, influential, leading an influential congregation, perhaps being a conference speaker, mean more to us when it comes to the crunch, than Christ and his truth? Philippians 2 asks us: ‘If God has been humble, who on earth do we think we are to be proud?’