During my trip with Bobby McCreery to London this summer, Bobby and I had just enough free time to visit a few Christian book stores (actual Christian book stores–not of the Lifeway or Family Christian variety). In one such authentic books store, Bobby pointed out the book pictured to the left–Augustus Toplady, by Douglas Bond. While Bond’s offering is by no means an exhaustive work, nor is intended to be, it most certainly serves as an excellent primer about this 18th century British defender of the Doctrines of Grace.
Up to that moment in the book store, all I knew about Toplady was that he wrote one of the Church’s most beloved hymns, Rock of Ages. I am thankful to my friend, Bobby, for suggesting the book. I am thankful to Bond for writing it. And I am thankful to my Lord for so greatly encouraging me through it.
Not wanting to spoil the book for those who will heed my recommendation, pick it up, and read it, I do want to share a couple excerpts: one from the Introduction, and one from Chapter 8–A Contending Life. I will share the excerpts in succession, and then close with a brief commentary of my own.
First, from the Introduction:
Why Toplady is for today
Toplady lived out his nearly thirty-eight years short years in Enlightenment England, the so-called Age of Reason. Rationalism had made its way into theology, worship, and preaching of the church to produce deism and a resurgent semi-Pelagianism. And although the eighteenth century also saw the Great Awakening, when the Spirit of God was moving mightily in Britain and throughout the American colonies, often what it is remembered for is a moralistic deism that denied the sovereign power of God alone to transform sinners into saints by grace alone. Unflinching, Toplady took his stand against such preachers and such preaching. Just as Paul got worked up when men distorted the gospel in his day (Galatians 1:6-9), so did Toplady.
But that is in the past. Distorting the gospel is all behind the church today, right? Sadly, it is not. Not when we have men in confessional pulpits telling their congregations that they are tired of propaganda buzz words like ‘gospel’ and ‘grace’ — Toplady would never have said this. Not when we have ministers who claim to be preaching in the historic tradition of the Reformation but who declare that ‘we determine our destiny by our faith and our obedience’ — nor would he preach this. Not when we have men preaching justification by faithfulness and calling Christ-centered preaching a fad — nor would he do this. Not when we have learned preachers who make sanctification a condition of justification, who declare that the elect can forfeit their salvation by unfaithfulness — Toplady would rather have been accursed than preach anything like this.
Make no mistake, the gospel is in the crosshairs of the Enemy in every generation, and that is why it is imperative that we rise up in our day and contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).
Since the church is never far from abandoning the good news for the bad news, never far from becoming suspicious of free grace and returning to a syncretistic [synergistic] grace-and-obedience distortion of the gospel, we need to drink deeply of the life and ministry of a man like Augustus Montague Toplady, a ‘debtor to mercy alone’ (pp. 15-16).
And from Chapter 8–A Contending Life:
Who was right?
Few men are at their best in controversy, and Toplady was no exception. After lamenting Toplady’s vitriol and harshness in his condemnation of Wesley’s underhanded and unethical methods, Ryle wrote without equivocation that Toplady’s theology was ‘scriptural, sound, and true.’ We may rightly cringe at the tone of some of his verbal salvos, but when the dust settles and the shouting has died down, we must get down to the serious business of deciding whether Toplady got things right or not. Ryle was convinced that he did:
I will never shrink from saying that the cause for which Toplady contended all his life was decidedly the cause of God’s truth. He was a bold defender of Calvinistic views about election, predestination, perseverance, human impotency, and irresistible grace. On all these subjects I hold firmly that Calvin’s theology is much more scriptural than the theology of Arminius. In a word, I believe that Calvinistic divinity is the divinity of the Bible, Augustine, and of the Thirty-Nine Articles of my own Church, and of the Scots Confession of Faith.
Toplady came down on the side of the free grace of God and soundly against the perfectionism and man-centered theology that was eroding and replacing the good news in his day. ‘Well would it be for the Churches’, wrote Ryle, ‘if we had a good deal more men of clear, distinct, sharply-cut doctrine in the present day! Vagueness and indistinctness are marks of our degenerate condition.’ Toplady bent every theological nerve to stand fast against the doctrinal degeneracy of his day and to proclaim with clarity unwavering doctrinal truth (pp. 91-92).
In a book filled with theological and practical nuggets of encouragement, these two stood out to me. In all likelihood, the reasons these two excerpts caught my attention is the battle in which I presently find myself–a battle in which I am bending theological nerves.
Bending Theological Nerves
As I’ve already discussed in detail, I made some mistakes when I recently thought aloud, using my keyboard as an amplifier, on the subject of Arminianism. Some folks on the Internet immediately engaged in fist bumps thinking that my apology for miscues in communication was a retraction from my position, which, admittedly, needed some clarification. It was not a retraction. On the contrary: I will continue to bend theological nerves. I will do so because I love Jesus, because I love His Word, because I love the gospel, because I love my brothers and sisters in Christ who are either being led astray or willfully subscribing to errant doctrines, because I love my family and I am obligated to rightly teach them, and because I love the lost.
My detractors and revilers won’t believe a word of what I just said. There’s nothing I can do about that.
One of the reasons J.C. Ryle is one of my favorite writers is that his observations of the degrading visible Christian church of his day seem almost prophetic when read today–prophetic about today’s American Evangelicalism. What both Ryle saw and Bond sees in Toplady, is the kind of man of which we need more today. Again, Ryle’s words: “Well would it be for the Churches if we had a good deal more men of clear, distinct, sharply-cut doctrine in the present day! Vagueness and indistinctness are marks of our degenerate condition.”
Today, the Church needs more men willing to bend theological nerves–not for the purpose of simply stirring up trouble or giving Christians one more reason to fight among ourselves, but because the fight for the souls of people is a fight worth fighting. The fight for truth, gospel truth, is a fight worth fighting. With the plague of effeminacy spreading throughout American Evangelicalism (let’s talk about this downgrade), now is not the time for professed reformed men to sit around measuring each other’s beards, while telling each other how reformed they are and how important the Doctrines of Grace are to them and how important they are to the proclamation of the gospel. Rather, now is the time for professed reformed men–men who like to think they can trace their personal theological heritage back to actual reformers and nonconformists–to follow the counsel of the apostle Paul:
“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:13, emphasis mine).
That’s right. Now’s the time for men who adhere to the Doctrines of Grace to act like men and not simply be theoretical theologians, but practical theologians–men who are willing to count the cost the way their reformed predecessors did. Unless, of course, they only imagine men like Whitefield, Toplady, Spurgeon, and Ryle are their predecessors.
Why Do I Keep Beating This Drum?
So, why do I keep beating this drum? People close to me have warned me that writing about these things is going to cost me. They’re right. In the last couple weeks it has cost me friendships (at least what I thought were friendships), personal endorsements, ministerial associations, and financial support for my family.
Some will ask, “Is/was it worth it?” My response: “You’re asking the wrong question. What you should be asking me is this: ‘Is it the right thing to do?'”
I find it ironic that when a Christian decides to count the cost and makes an unpopular decision or takes an unpopular position (even among those holding similar doctrinal positions, but think it’s going too far to say so publicly), the first question he’s often asked is, “Did you count the cost?” It’s as if Christians assume that when a Christian pays a price for a decision made or a position held he must not have counted the cost. While that’s certainly possible, such presumptuous thinking seems backwards to me. However, such thinking does seem to be in keeping with the mindset of American Evangelicalism–a mindset that says, “If you count the cost, you should be able to get out of ever paying a price.”
I guess the reason I keep beating this drum is because I spend so much time on the streets. I have so much contact with “churched” people–men and women, young and old, who have been taught that they’re good and God loves them just the way they are. I regularly meet professing Christians who have been taught that God has a wonderful plan for their life and that they simply have a hole in their heart–a hole only God can fill. In fact, God sits in yonder heaven with a whole in His heart that only they can fill. So often, I am contacted by professing Christians who have been taught that God has done His part, now they have to do their part to receive the gift of salvation. You know: the theologically errant “life preserver” analogy that states the lost person is drowning in the ocean and Jesus is the life preserver. The lost person simply has to grab the life preserver to be saved.
As I preach in the open-air, it is not uncommon for me to be contacted by (or should I say “accosted”) professing Christians who have been taught the heresy of the sovereignty of man, under the guise of the love and grace of God. “My God’s not like that! My God’s a loving God! Jesus is a gentleman! He would never force Himself upon people like you are trying to force Him upon people! Everyone has free will to choose Jesus, so stop shoving your beliefs down people’s throats!”
If I’m able to get a word in, I will ask the professing Christian what it is that makes them a Christian. The answer I’m given is an expression of the Gospel of the First Person Singular Pronoun, not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“I grew up in the church. I was involved in youth ministry. I went to camp during Junior High. I prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into my heart. He’s been with me ever since. I have served as a youth leader and a deacon. I’m involved in my church’s homeless ministry. I’ve been to Mexico and built houses with Habitat for Humanity. Twice I’ve gone to Africa. Once I worked in an orphanage; the other time I helped to build water purification systems. What have you done? You should be feeding the poor instead of standing on the wall yelling at people!”
No mention of sin, repentance, the cross, or the resurrection. No humility. Just self-righteousness. And Jesus? Well, Jesus is a mere footnote to the story of how the person acquired and now maintains his salvation.
This is why I keep beating this drum. This is why I have to keep beating this drum.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'” (Matthew 7:21-23).
Souls are on the line.
So, long as souls are on the line, so long as the character of God and the fidelity of the gospel are under attack by the weapons of errant theology, I will keep bending theological nerves.
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