Wherefore Art Thou, Jesus? Part II.

“Whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.” John 6:37

On February 12, 1717, in the small Scottish town of Auchterarder, an event of great significance for the English speaking church took place. A young prospective minister of the Scottish Presbyterian Church was being denied a ministerial licence for refusing to agree to one of the required statements of the then Scottish Presbyterian Church orthodoxy. This was an act that triggered a response that the church universal is still benefiting from, even today - even if we don’t know it!

The issue at stake was that of the gospel call (or gospel appeal). Because the Scottish Church had rightly understood that repentance was a necessary part of true conversion a teaching had gradually crept into the church’s theology that Jesus Christ could only be offered through the gospel to those who were already showing some definite signs of repentance. This was an understanding that was dreadfully wrong. It was not only putting the cart before the horse but was doing so with the most dreadful of consequences:

Repentance rightfully comes to an individual as a direct result of having come to Jesus, so when the Scottish church was teaching (and preaching) that repentance must come before the individual can come to Jesus then the result was that the gospel being proclaimed completely closes off everyone from ever being able to come to Christ - because we can’t truly have the repentance we need to come to Christ without first having already come to Christ!

And so the Scottish Presbyterian Church stood at that time.

But thankfully God was at work...

Thomas Boston, a young Scottish Presbyterian minister, a man shy and timid by nature, was on a pastoral visit to one of his fellowship when he happened to notice a couple of books hidden above a window in a large crack in the wall. With books being particularly hard to come by for poor ministers in those days Thomas Boston asked if he could borrow the books to read. One of those books was called “The Marrow of Modern Divinity” and was a book that opened up the glory of the gospel in the fullness of its grace to the young minister for the first real time.

This providential find would lead to Thomas Boston, together with 11 other “Marrow Men” (as they were unaffectionately called), standing up against the whole of the Scottish Presbyterian Church to fight for this one key point of the gospel:

“That Christ is to be offered to all men everywhere without exception or qualification.”

And why must this be the case?

“Because Jesus Christ is the gospel.”[1]

When the gospel is offered to all people it is Jesus Christ who is offered to all people. “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you” (Acts 13:38).

Thomas Boston’s understanding of our coming to Christ preceding our repentance allows for Jesus to be offered in the gospel in all of His glorious fullness. As Sinclair Ferguson explains: “The implications of this for preaching the gospel had liberated Boston: Christ should be presented in all the fullness of His person and work; faith then directly grasps the mercy of God in Him, and as it does so the life of repentance is inaugurated as its fruit.”[2]

Incredibly, the Marrow Men’s stance was rejected by the Scottish Presbyterian Church at the time, and they would go on to be persecuted by the Church thereafter for it. Thankfully, however, the wonderful truth that the Marrow Men so bravely stood for would come to be understood, accepted and appreciated by much of the universal church for many generations to come - praise be to God - including our own.

But why is this so important in our searching for Jesus?

The reason is this: it is my firm belief that even as Christians our greatest need is to hear the gospel again and again, receiving and accepting that same gospel that first saved us again and again - and this is the only thing that can lead us from a state of feeling distant and separated from our beloved Lord all the way back to Him, in a way very similar to our conversion experience (not our conversion experience itself repeated, but where the same wonderful joys of salvation are renewed over again).

The current restrictions that we are currently under due to the Coronavirus pandemic have reminded us of how awful it is to be separated from our loved ones. How wonderful, then, it is to know that we have a freedom to come to Jesus without restriction, without restraint and without qualification.

It may not be enough just to know that we have this freedom to come to Jesus always, but knowing this glorious truth must be the foundation upon which we must build our search to be restored to the closeness of our Lord Jesus Christ once again.

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

Come to the waters,

And you who have no money,

Come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without cost.”

Isaiah 55:1

[1] Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance - Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters, (Illinois: Crossway, 2016), p.39. [2] Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance - Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters, (Illinois: Crossway, 2016), p.101.