Peter Witkowski Church History, Discipleship

From Sermon to Life: The Powerful Story of Lloyd-Jones and Stott’s Reconciliaiton

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who led Westminster Chapel through World War II and a large part of the Cold War, was the epitome of biblical faithfulness in the pulpit. When a V-2 rocket exploded next to his church and anointed him and his congregation with a fine coat of ceiling dust, he brushed off the dust, took a quick break, and then continued with his sermon. Nothing could deter Lloyd-Jones from preaching the gospel of his Lord and Savior. As the Welsh pastor noted during a Cold War era sermon, “The greatest trouble in the world is not the nuclear bomb but humanity’s rejection of the Gospel.” As he said in another sermon, the gospel is “the one and only remedy that can cure the disease which is the cause of all our local and particular problems.” And so, he preached that truth in both the best and worst of times.

A Man of Integrity

What was true of the Doctor in his famous pulpit was also true of him in the quiet recesses of his home. As his reconciliation with the Anglican pastor John Stott would make clear, Lloyd-Jones lived out gospel convictions just as faithfully in private as he did in public.

In a sermon preached during his rise to fame in 1949, Lloyd-Jones warned his audience against the bitterness of unforgiveness. To illustrate his point, Lloyd-Jones recounted a story about two men who sought to be reconciled with one of their former pastors who was on his deathbed. Lloyd-Jones recalled:

So they took the journey, and they arrived at his house. His wife went up into the bedroom and told him they were there, but he refused to see them. I could not do that! How could I go out and face God in eternity and my whole eternal destiny and refuse to forgive a man who came to me with an outstretched hand?

In contrast to the man in the story, Lloyd-Jones understood that those who had been forgiven had to forgive.

When Lloyd-Jones preached this on 1 John 4, he was still more than thirty years away from his death and was enjoying a budding relationship with Stott, a minister who shared the Doctor’s passion for expository preaching, evangelism, and discipling the next generation. Lloyd-Jones so valued Stott’s friendship and insights into the Scriptures that the Doctor asked Stott to take over Westminster Chapel upon his retirement.

A Conflict

But then on October 18, 1966, their relationship unexpectedly soured. That night at the Second National Assembly of Evangelicals (NAE), Lloyd-Jones delivered a powerful address, calling for British evangelicals to exit liberal denominations that allowed for the denial of essential doctrines, such as justification by faith alone. As Lloyd-Jones noted, “To leave a church which has become apostate is not schism. That’s one’s Christian duty and nothing else.” Lloyd-Jones hoped his call for gospel unity built upon gospel purity would spark an evangelical revival. The Welsh pastor said, “If those of us who believe it [the Word of God] only come together … I believe we would then have the right to expect the Spirit of God to come upon us in mighty revival and re-awakening.”

Stott who shared the stage with Lloyd-Jones held the opposite view. The Anglican pastor believed that evangelicals should stay in their liberalizing denominations for the purpose of winning them back to truth.

When the Doctor’s address concluded, Stott rose to speak. But before turning to his official duties as chairman of the NAE, Stott broke professional protocol. He criticized the Doctor’s appeal, fearing that those pastors attending the NAE would, in Stott’s words, “go home and write their letter of resignation that very night.”

Stott offered the following critique of his friend:

I believe history is against what Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said…Scripture is against him, the remnant was within the church not outside it. I hope no one will act precipitately…We are all concerned with the same ultimate issues and with the glory of God.

With his words, Stott prevented the resignations he so feared, muted his friend’s influence in the British Evangelical movement, and shattered his close ties with Lloyd-Jones.

A few weeks later, Stott apologized to Lloyd-Jones for his lack of decorum. Though Stott claimed that he and the doctor maintained “a warm personal relationship,” in the years after 1966, the events of October 18 continued to nag at Stott. According to Lloyd-Jones’ wife, Bethan, Stott arrived at Lloyd-Jones’ hospital room two years later in tears. The Anglican pastor feared that his rebuke had contributed to Lloyd-Jones’ cancer diagnosis. Bethan quickly brushed off Stott’s fears as silly and guided Stott into the Doctor’s hospital room. Still, the events of that night and their subsequent fallout had in the words of one historian resulted in the marginalization of Lloyd-Jones’ voice within the evangelical movement. And they continued to occupy space in Stott’s mind.

From Illustration to Life

In 1978, Stott sensed that the window to restore his friendship with the Doctor was closing and once again sought out his old friend. In the words of Stott’s biographer, the Anglican pastor traveled to Lloyd-Jones’ home hoping to “build bridges and to repair a friendship.”

In so doing, he transformed Lloyd-Jones’ illustration into the Doctor’s reality.  Would he forgive?

When Stott arrived at Lloyd-Jones’ house, Bethan in concert with Lloyd-Jones’ wishes, escorted Stott into the Doctor’s study.

There, Stott encountered not coldness and anger but kindness and forgiveness. Stott said of his friend’s reception of him, “[Lloyd-Jones] could not have been more affable and welcoming.” After talking about their shared passion for the book of Ephesians (both preached through the book and would publish volumes on it), the two men waded into the old wounds of 1966. As they did so, Lloyd-Jones extended love and reconciliation to Stott. Lloyd-Jones told his old friend, “If God spares me, and we could be together, I’d say like Simeon, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’” By God’s mercy, Lloyd-Jones proved himself to be the same man in his study at the end of his life as he was in the pulpit as he rose to popularity. As the Doctor said back in 1949: “This truth is given to me that I may live by it and that I may experience in my life in all the power and grace and glory.” And so by God’s grace, Lloyd-Jones lived what he preached in some of his most public of moments in some of his most intimate ones.

A Genuine Act

Though I have been able to pull out this thread of gospel faithfulness from Lloyd-Jones’ life, I doubt that the Welsh pastor was ever so self-aware. Lloyd-Jones preached thousands of sermons. Admittedly, he edited many of them for publication in his final years. But, he never turned his attention to his sermons on 1 John. His family would compile, edit, and publish those volumes after the Doctor’s death. I have no reason to think that Lloyd-Jones was especially aware of the contents of his 1 John sermons when he met with Stott for the last time. After all, the two friends talked about the book of Ephesians and not John’s epistle. Moreover, the accounts of Lloyd-Jones’ last visit with Stott originate from Stott and others and not with Lloyd-Jones. I believe, Lloyd-Jones saw his meeting with Stott as nothing more than a meeting between old friends.

Rather, I suspect Lloyd-Jones’ actions arose not from self-awareness but from his ever-deepening experience of God’s mercy and grace. As Lloyd-Jones told his friend and first biographer, Iain Murray, during the last weeks of his life:

When you come to where I am, there is only one thing that matters, that is your relationship to Him and your knowledge of him. Nothing else matters…Our best works are tainted. We are sinners saved by grace. We are debtors to mercy alone…God is very patient with us and very kind and He suffers our evil manners like He did with the children of Israel…The Love of God!

In other words, the man who had “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified” written on his tombstone could not help but love others as he had been loved. In short, he was a man of the gospel.

Conclusion

May God grant us all such consistency. May we live out the gospel of forgiveness in private with the same fervency we speak of it in public. May all who pull the threads of our life find such faithfulness.

Peter Witkowski Church History

Finding Clarity in Confusion: Understanding Lloyd-Jones’s 1966 Address

The following was published at Credo Magazine which is an excellent theological resource for scholar, pastors, and lay readers! I highly encourage you to visit their sight.

Confusion hung over the crowd of the Second National Assembly of Evangelicals like a cloud of secondhand smoke. Moments earlier, the famed pastor D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had appealed for the creation of a new evangelical association. He believed an evangelical exodus from mainline denominations would facilitate “a mighty revival and re-awakening.” As he brought his appeal to an end, everyone seemed to know what was expected of him or her. The evangelical leader John Stott shared this impression believing his audience would “go home and write their letter of resignation that very night.” Fearing that this assembly which had been formed to further ecumenicism was about to condemn ecumenicism, Stott broke professional protocol and proclaimed, “I believe history is against what Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said…Scripture is against him, the remnant was within the church not outside of it. I hope no one will act precipitately.”

The battle had been engaged. Yet few in attendance could clearly articulate why these two leaders of British evangelicalism had exchanged blows. Both seemingly advocated for the gospel, the supremacy of the Scriptures, and unity. Yet they had both just thrown verbal punches at one another. The crowd was confused. Historians and theologians are still confused about what happened.

Much of the confusion over what had transpired on October 18, 1966 centered upon the content of Lloyd-Jones’s now famous speech “Evangelical Unity: An Appeal.” Stott and the evangelical press of the day believed that the Doctor’s speech “should be interpreted as calling for evangelicals to leave mixed denominations.” They believed Lloyd-Jones was schismatic, working against the unifying influences that had risen to prominence in British evangelicalism during the 1960s.

By contrast, the supporters of the Doctor believed Lloyd-Jones had offered a positive appeal that had little to do with the creation of a new denomination. His grandson and historian, Christopher Catherwood, concluded, “The doctor was arguing for unity, not for division or schism.” The debate over whether or not Lloyd-Jones was a unifier or schismatic still smolders in more than one evangelical fire pit and will not be put out anytime soon.

Though many scholars huddle about the fires that seek to illuminate the Doctor’s intentions, little effort has been devoted to understanding why Lloyd-Jones’s speech proved confusing. While scholars have credited Stott, the evangelical press, and Lloyd-Jones with igniting the fire of controversy, they have not examined why Lloyd-Jones’s 1966 address was so ready for the kindling.

Why the Confusion?

Lloyd-Jones’s address lacked clarity in part because it lacked Scripture. Though Lloyd-Jones believed evangelicalism had reached a “most critical moment” in 1966, he approached this monumental time with only a partially open Bible. He referenced the Word of God twice during his speech, mentioning Acts 2:42 and the “First Epistle to the Corinthians.” He spent more time discussing the Reformation than exegeting the Word of God. Consequently, J.I. Packer would conclude the Doctor had contended for a kind of Puritanism. Other listeners believed the Doctor had been consumed with denominational concerns. Catherwood wrote his grandfather had placed “his emphasis on structure rather than doctrine.” The Doctor had been misunderstood because he stood upon logic and church history instead of the Scriptures. Because of this mistake, he suffered the loss of both friends and influence.

The Lessons of Failure

Pastors, theologians, and lay leaders should take note of Lloyd-Jones’s failure. The man who had devoted his life to glorifying God through sermons designed “to make doctrine real to the heart and therefore permanently life-changing” had stepped out from underneath the shadow of the Scriptures. Without the Word of God, the Doctor’s logic and knowledge of church history proved to be as vibrant as a water-soaked piece of charcoal.

If Christians wonder into ecclesial, social, or political spheres without the Scriptures, they too risk being misunderstood by their listeners. Such presentations may win some adherents in the moment, but they will not advance the gospel, strengthen the Church, or edify local congregations. Lloyd-Jones correctly noted, “You cannot build up a church on apologetics, still less on polemics. The preacher is called primarily to preach the positive Truth.” The Christian’s ability to influence others rests upon his or her ability to exegete and teach the gospel. The Christian has no other power. The people of God must ground their arguments in the Word if they hope to influence hearts.

Lloyd-Jones: A Man of the Scriptures

In many respects, Lloyd-Jones would recover from the wounds of the 1966 controversy because he never wandered far from the Scriptures. Over the course of his life, he lived by the maxim, “Any doctrine that we claim to believe from the Bible must always clearly be found in the Bible.” Three years after the controversy of 1966, the Welsh pastor delivered perhaps his most famous lectures in Philadelphia. These addresses would later be edited and published under the title, Preaching and Preachers. His influence did not stop with this volume. Crossway and Banner of Truth continue to release new editions of his sermons and lectures which cover everything from Romans to the Psalms to the theology of parenting. He was a profoundly biblical man. As his daughter Elizabeth Catherwood noted, “He read his Bible regularly. He knew it and loved it. At the very end, when he couldn’t speak, he would point to verses out of it.” The Doctor remains a fixture upon the evangelical mantel because he loved the Word.

Lloyd-Jones, the Scriptures and 1966

Even his 1966 address had been sparked by his earlier exegetical work. Many of the arguments the Doctor put forward in 1966 had appeared in a booklet he wrote in 1962. In those pages, Lloyd-Jones built his understanding of ecumenicism upon his exegesis of John 17 and Ephesians 4. The booklet restated the conclusions of numerous exegetical sermons he had preached at Westminster Chapel in the 1940s and 1950s. Though Lloyd-Jones shared only his logical conclusions in 1966, they were conclusions that had been extracted from the Scriptures. He had not abandoned his principles. Rather, he had forgotten to fully share them. This oversight doomed the Doctor’s address.

The Scriptures clarify and empower our thoughts; our thoughts do not clarify and empower the Scriptures. Regardless of the Christian’s training, intellect, and persuasiveness, nothing can compensate for the absence of the plain and powerful words of the Scriptures. As Lloyd-Jones said in 1969, “What matters is not the man or his ideas: it should always be this Word, for it alone is the sources of the preacher’s authority.” May God keep us grounded in this Word.