It's been over four years since I updated this blog and I feel terrible about it. I've read some great Puritan books in the last four years but I still don't have time to type up all of my notes. All of that being said, posted below is a book review on John Bunyan's Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ that I recently wrote for a ThM class. One day I'll have time to post notes from the other books I've read.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Bunyan, John. Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. In The Works of John Bunyan, ed. George Offor, 1854; repr. Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth, 1991. 1:240.
John
Bunyan (1628–1688) has been a household name for fifteen generations of
Christians thanks to his timeless classic Pilgrim’s
Progress. The tale of Christian leaving the City of Destruction, wading
through the Slough of Despond, battling Apollyon, and ascending the steep slope
to the Celestial City is a pillar of Western literature. Bunyan’s great
allegory of Christian faith and life, however, is not his only literary legacy.
Many of his other works, both fictional and doctrinal, are rightly heralded as
classics as well. Principal among his doctrinal masterpieces is Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ; or, A
Plain and Profitable Discourse on John VI. 37.
Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ is
Bunyan’s exposition of John 6:37, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Bunyan’s subtitle
demonstrates that the work is meant to elaborate on the particularities of how
and why a sinner comes to Christ. He does this by thorough explication of the
biblical text in its Trinitarian context and observation of its doctrinal and
applicatory significance in the life of the believer. Bunyan’s nineteenth-century
editor, George Offor, wrote that:
It is
an enlightened display of the dealings of the Father in giving sinners to
Christ; the Son in saving them by his atonement, mediation, and intercession;
and the Holy Spirit in sanctifying and fitting them for glory. Here is no
Calvinism, Lutheranism, or Arminianism; no Episcopacy, Presbytery, or
Independency; nothing but Christism and Bibleism (240).
There is no question that
Bunyan’s approach is thoroughly biblical and his entire argument, like so many
great Puritan works, based on the text of Scripture. For Bunyan, the text of
John 6:37 stood in two parts. “The first
part of the text, as is evident, respecteth the Father and his gift; the other part the Son and his reception
of that gift” (241). The Father’s gift is a “gift of certain persons to the
Son” (241). Bunyan’s exposition emphasized that the Father’s gift of the elect
to Christ and Christ’s loving reception and determination to save the gift
given to him by the Father was the only avenue by which a sinner could come to
Jesus Christ (241). Bunyan’s exposition and application was no doubt steeped in
the biblicism Offer referenced but it also, by virtue of its biblicism, exuded
experiential Calvinism. An analysis of Come
and Welcome to Jesus Christ is best seen through Bunyan’s constant
interweaving of the doctrines of grace with the truth expressed in the sixth
chapter of the Gospel of John.
Coming to Christ is a spiritual act that begins as “a
moving of the mind towards him” (246). Many believed then, and now, that coming
to Christ manifested itself in some extraordinary act or some “strange and
wonderful thing” (247). As a result,
many of those coming to Christ were unable to ascertain their coming because
they expected an extravagant happenstance. Bunyan, however, believed that a
sinner’s mind moving to Christ was quite a remarkable thing, if not normally
exotic. “I say, to see this man moving with his mind after the Lord Jesus
Christ, is one of the highest wonders in the world” (247). It was a wonder
because of the natural state of man. Spiritual movement toward Christ, in a
human sense, is only possible when one understands the total depravity of man
and his utter inability to save himself. “Indeed,” writes Bunyan, “without this
sense of a lost condition without him, there will be no moving of the mind
towards him” (247).
Belief in the doctrine of total depravity is essential to
coming to Christ; those that come to Jesus Christ for life must believe that
the righteousness of the world offers only eternal death and damnation (249).
“For,” asks Bunyan, “will he that believeth not the testimony of Christ
concerning the baseness of sin, and the insufficiency of the righteousness of
the world, come to Christ for life?” (249). The biblical answer Bunyan gives is
a resounding no. A man does not come to Christ if he rejects the plain teaching
of Scripture with regards to sin, Christ’s power to save, and the exclusivity
of life found only in Christ (249).
Total
depravity is not just found in Bunyan’s expository section of the text. It is
also clearly seen in his doctrinal and applicatory observations. Bunyan states
that man’s inability to come to Christ by his own power is evident in his
spiritual deadness. “What power has he that is dead, as every natural man
spiritually is, even dead in trespasses and sins? Dead, even as dead to God’s
New Testament things as he that is in his grave is dead to the things of this
world” (275). The doctrinal significance of total depravity is more than just a
lack of power to come to Christ; it is an utter lack of will to come and live. Bunyan
employs John 6:44 to drive home this point.[1]
“By this text,” he declares, “there is not only insinuated that in man is want
of power, but also of will, to come to Jesus Christ” (276).
Coming
to Christ in faith is a “heavenly gift” that man must be given by the Father
(276). As such, those that reject the doctrine of total depravity do so at
great risk. Here we see Bunyan in his historical context. The Church of England
after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 was far less Calvinistic than its
predecessor. Most of the prominent non-conformist ministers were Calvinists,
like Bunyan, and they were routinely jailed for their beliefs and teachings. For
Bunyan, this theological persecution is, in part, due to a rejection of the
doctrine of total depravity. Bunyan, speaking within this historical context,
writes:
Sinners,
did you but know what a blessed thing it is to come to Jesus Christ, and that
by the help and drawing of the Father, they do indeed come to him; you would
hang and burn in hell a thousand years, before you would turn your spirits as
you do, against him that God is drawing to Jesus Christ, and also against the
God that draws him (277).
Bunyan is clear that the
predominately Arminian camp in the Church of England that persecuted Calvinist
non-conformists risked being judged as haters of Jesus, the Father, and the
Spirit because they hated those coming to the Son by the power of the Father
and the help of the Spirit (277).
Bunyan’s application of total depravity consists in
describing where a man is that comes not to Christ, what he is that comes not
to Christ, and where he is going that comes not to Christ. The man that comes
not to Christ is positionally: (1) far from God the Father; (2) far from Jesus
Christ; (3) far from the Holy Spirit; (4) far from the righteousness that
saves; (5) under the dominion of sin; (6) in the “pest-house with Uzziah”; (7) his
life is among the unclean; (8) he is in sin; (9) under the curse of the law; (10)
in darkness; and (11) in the broad way of destruction (291). That man that comes not to Christ is: (1)
counted as an enemy of God; (2) a child of the devil; (3) a child of wrath; (4)
a “self-murderer”; and (5) a “companion for devils and damned men” (291). The man
not coming to Christ is: (1) likely to go further from Christ; (2) continue to
go on in darkness; and (3) is “like to be removed at last as far from God, and
Christ, and heaven, and all felicity, as an infinite God can remove him” (291).
A man left to his own depravity will never come to Christ because “men by
nature are far from Christ” (291).
Men come to Christ, not of their own power, but only if
the Father has unconditionally elected them. “For the gift of the Father there
is this to be considered, to wit, the gift itself; and that is the gift of
certain persons to the Son” (241). Bunyan’s explication of John 6:37 begins
with an explanation of the extent of the gift given to Christ, the person
giving that gift, and the intent on giving. The extent of the gift that the
Father gives the Son is the elect. God the Father did not give all men to Jesus
Christ for salvation. If so, then all men would be saved. The extent of the
gift, “are those that are given by covenant to the Son; those that in other
places are called ‘the elect,’ ‘the chosen,’ ‘the sheep,’ and ‘the children of
the promise,’ &c” (243). The Father, as the giver of the elect to Jesus
Christ, is to be “remembered and adored, as one having a chief hand in the
salvation of sinners” (243). God the Father gave the elect to Christ Jesus in
the covenant of redemption before the world began and gives them temporally in
the covenant of grace (244).[2]
The Father’s intent in giving the elect to the Son emphasizes Christ’s fitness,
patience, and power to save. Unlike those that believe salvation is in the power
of man, Bunyan sees in John 6:37 that the unconditional election of particular
sinners in eternity past is the only foundation for the elects’ salvation.
Bunyan writes that, “Herein, indeed, perceive we the love of God. Huram
gathered, that God loved Israel because he had given them such a king as
Solomon. But how much more may we behold the love that God hat bestowed upon
us, in that he hath given us to his Son, and also given his Son for us?” (246).
The coming
of the elect to Christ is rooted in God’s unconditionally free gift of the
elect to Christ. Bunyan makes this point clearly in the explicatory section of
his treatise. “That coming to Jesus Christ aright is an effect of their being,
of God, given to Christ before. Mark, They
shall come. Who? Those that are
given. They come, then, because they
were given” (254). The elect come
because they were elected to come; their coming is an effect of being chosen. Bunyan
argues that Christ knows those given to him by the Father “not by their coming
to him, but by their being given to him” (261). There are no surprises in the
economy of salvation. This is essential because the “him that cometh to me”
referenced by Jesus in John 6:37 is predicated on truthfulness of the former
promise “all that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” Bunyan uses Acts
18:9-10 as a key passage to demonstrate that election, and not effort, is the
foundation of the gift.[3]
The Corinthians belonging to God referenced in Paul’s dream were not yet
converted but were still accounted as the Lord’s, not by conversion but rather,
“by virtue of the gift of the Father; for he had given them unto him” (261). Bunyan,
like the Apostle John, is quite clear that every sinner given unconditionally
by the Father will come to the Son and not a person more (262).
The effectual
coming of the elect to Christ is accomplished by irresistible grace. In his
expository section on what force there is to make a person come to Christ,
Bunyan states “‘They shall come;’ that is, not if they will, but if grace, all
grace, if power, wisdom, a new heart, and the Holy Spirit, and all joining
together, can make them come” (254). Christ’s declaration that all given to him
will come to him is based on an absolute promise of God and, as such, God
effects the means of its accomplishment. The promise of God to save the elect
not only guarantees the end result but also the means by which it is
accomplished. Christ’s promise of Shall-come
means that even those dead in trespasses and sins will be spiritually raised if
the absolute promise pertains to them (256). A sinner’s lack of desire to come
to Christ is no impediment to God’s accomplishment of His absolute promise to
save them. Bunyan writes, “You shall come, says God; I will not come, saith the
sinner. Now, as sure as he is concerned in this Shall-come, God will make that man eat his own words; for I will
not is the unadvised conclusion of a crazy-headed sinner; but Shall-come was spoken by him that is of
power to perform his word” (256).
Sinners, without the intervening work of the Holy Spirit, are blind and
can only be given sight if they fall within the Shall-come promise of God (257). Faith and repentance are not works
that a man does of his own free will but rather something given to them as a
condition of their inclusion in the promise of Shall-come (257).
The
doctrine of irresistible grace is further seen in the expository section on the
import of the words “to me.” In one of the most beautiful passages in the book,
Bunyan states that there is a heart-attracting glory in the Lord Jesus Christ
that renders a man completely willing to come and be saved. “There is therefore
heart-pulling glory in Jesus Christ, which, when discovered, draws the man to
him; wherefore by shall come to me
Christ may mean, when his glory is discovered, they must come, then they shall
come to me” (260). As we sinners awake to the “heart-attracting glory” in the
person of Jesus Christ, this glory “makes us come to him” (260). The elect,
under the promise of shall come to me,
will undoubtedly come to Christ for life because the promise guarantees their
discovery of the glory of His grace and that glory renders them willing, able,
and desirous to come (261). In Bunyan’s words, “They see glory in his person,
glory in his undertakings, glory in the merit of his blood, and glory in the
perfection of his righteousness; yea, heart-affecting, heart-sweetening, and
heart-changing glory” (260).
The
elect are enabled to come to Christ by virtue of being given to the Son by the
Father (261). Here unconditional election and irresistible grace meet. The
first major argument in Bunyan’s observational section of John 6:37 pertains to
irresistible grace. The biblical text is clear that “coming to Christ is not by the will, wisdom, or power of man, but by
the gift, promise, and drawing of the Father” (275). The Scripture denies
both a sinner’s will to come to Christ and his wisdom to come (275). Man does
not have the wisdom to come because the cross is foolishness to the world and
“God counted the wisdom of this world one of his greatest enemies; therefore,
by that wisdom no man can come to Jesus Christ” (275). Man does not have the
will to come to Christ because sinners are dead in sin (275). “Hence,” writes
Bunyan, “we are said to be made willing to come by the power of God; to be
raised from a state of sin to a state of grace, by the power of God; and to
believe, that is to come, through the exceeding working of his mighty power”
(275). Bunyan references John 6:44-45 as proof that sinful men only come to
Christ if drawn by the Father and taught by God (276).[4]
This doctrine has the practical effect of saints glorifying God all the more
because they rightly ascribe their election and coming to God alone (276). The
advantage the believer has in Jesus Christ is a full and free savior, as
demonstrated in Christ’s power to call and save those that come to Him (297). Bunyan
actually concludes his work with a pronounced emphasis on God’s work alone in
drawing the sinner to Christ.
Art
thou coming? This is because God hath inclined thine heart to come…It is God
that worketh in thee to will, and to
come to Jesus Christ. Coming sinner, bless God for that he hath given thee a will to come to Jesus Christ. It is a
sign that thou belongest to Jesus Christ, because God has made thee willing to
come to him. Bless God for slaying
the enmity of thy mind; had he not done it, thou wouldst as yet have hated thine own salvation (299).
John
Bunyan’s treatment of the doctrines of total depravity, unconditional election,
and irresistible grace are noteworthy and impressive despite being less than
systematic. These doctrines, clearly seen in John 6:37, form the structural
framework for his understanding of the entire economy of salvation. All of that beings said, the real strength of
Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ lies
in Bunyan’s treatment of the perseverance of the saints. The absolute promise
that all given shall-come is the
foundation and precondition of the conditional promise to come to Christ for
life. Sinners can be certain that if they come to Christ then He will
accomplish His work by virtue of the absolute promise to save the elect; this
promise precludes doubting (264). Bunyan makes a key distinction between the
doubting of the sinner that is coming to Christ and the assurance of the sinner
that is already come to Christ. The one that is come to Christ is knowledgeable
of the Lord’s pardon and Christ’s power to persevere in his life. He that is
come, as opposed to he that is coming, has the advantage of assurance. “In a
word, he that is come to Christ, his groans and tears, his doubts and fears,
are turned into songs and praises” whereas he that is coming but not yet come
“hath not those praises nor songs of deliverance…which is, the sealing
testimony of the Holy Ghost, through the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon
his conscience, for he is not come” (265).
Bunyan rightly saw Christ’s promise in John 6:37 as an
unassailable fortress of assurance despite the continuing presence of sin in
the life of believers. Bunyan argues that the text here refers to two types of
coming sinners, principally, the newly awakened sinner and the returning
backslider (266). The majority of ink spilled in this section concerns not the
new believer but rather the returning backslider. The backslider can still come
to Christ because the Scripture says that Jesus will not cast out any that come
to him. There are no prohibitions provided they come. This, Bunyan insists, is
because perseverance in the faith is based on God’s power and not man’s ability
to keep himself. Bunyan believes all the promises of Scripture amount to this
one promise of Christ, “‘I will in no wise cast out;’ I will for nothing, by no
means, upon no account, however they have sinned, however they have backsliden,
however they have provoked, cast out the coming sinner” (267). Bunyan uses the
Apostle Peter, the disciples, the man that lay with his father’s wife in 1
Corinthians, and the thief in Ephesians 4:28 as biblical examples of grace
being offered for the benefit and return of backsliders (267).
Bunyan argues that Christ’s promise to “in no wise cast
out” carries an explicit and implied idea. The expressed idea is that Jesus
Christ has an “unchangeable resolution to save the coming sinner” (268). He
that comes to Christ has no basis to fear God’s judgment because his salvation
rests on the “absolute determination” of God (269). The implied idea is that
there are many forces that seek to hinder a sinner’s coming to Jesus Christ.
Bunyan says that Satan, our own sin, and the law of Moses raise their voices
against us and cause us to fear being cast off by Christ. “These things,” says
Bunyan, “do accuse us before Christ Jesus; yea, and also to our own faces, if
perhaps they might prevail against us. But these words, ‘I will in no wise cast
out,’ secureth the coming sinner from them all” (270). Christ’s righteous
promise to save is stronger than our unrighteousness.
The Puritans
often struggled with assurance of salvation because of their own piercing introspection
and understanding of their own unrighteousness. Bunyan argues that the coming
sinner, despite all their sin, has no ground for doubting the Lord’s power or
willingness to save them so long as “I will in no wise cast out” remains a part
of Scripture. Bunyan’s belief in the connection between assurance and
perseverance is so strong that to not forsake the doubts raised by Satan, sin,
and the law is to transgress the command of Christ (290). The extent of the
promise means that Christ will not cast out a great sinner, an old sinner, a
hard-hearted sinner, or a backsliding sinner provided they are coming to Christ
(280). Satan’s attempt to convince the coming sinner that he is not elect
should be met with, “I am coming; and that I could not be, but that the Father
draws me; and I am coming to such a Lord Jesus, as will in no wise cast me out”
(284). Here in Bunyan one can see how the doctrine of irresistible grace serves
an aid to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The coming sinner can
be assured of his salvation and perseverance in the faith because God the
Father draws him, and all that are drawn by the Father are given to the Son,
and all that are given to the Son will never be cast out.
Bunyan’s recognition of assurance as the
fuel for perseverance leads him to call unbelief “the white devil.” The sin of
unbelief causes the sinner to doubt their coming to Christ because of their
unfitness, their tender conscience, and their knowledge of their own corruption
(293). This white devil uses, “so many sweet pretences to safety and security,
that it is, as it were, counsel sent from heaven” (293). The power of these
insidious arguments is hard for even the wisest Christians to shake off because
they appear to be biblical arguments (293). The coming sinner should take
encouragement, however, from the promise that Christ will never cast him out.
Christ is full of grace, full of truth, full of wisdom, full of the Spirit to
communicate to the coming sinner, a full storehouse of graces, full of
compassion, full of might, and lowly in heart to save the coming sinner (297).
John Bunyan’s Come
and Welcome to Jesus Christ is a tour de force of experiential Calvinism. It
is an exemplary demonstration of how sound doctrine should drive Christian
life. The doctrine of total depravity teaches the coming sinner that he has
nothing to offer God in exchange for his soul. Unconditional election and
irresistible grace teach the coming sinner to see God as the author of
salvation and the effectual means of accomplishing it in time. Finally, the
perseverance of the saints undergirds the assurance that rightfully belongs to
the coming sinner. God’s absolute promise to save the coming sinner means that his
salvation and perseverance is assured. Ultimately, all of these doctrinal
truths seek to aid the sinner in answering the eternally significant question
“Am I come to Jesus Christ?” (296).
For
upon this one question, Am I come, or, am I not? hangs heaven and hell as to
thee. If thou canst say, I am come, and God shall approve that saying, happy,
happy, happy man art thou! But if thou art not come, what can make thee happy?
yea, what can make that man happy that, for his not coming to Jesus Christ for
life, must be damned to hell? (296)
[1] In
John 6:44 Jesus states, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me
draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
[2]
The use of covenant of redemption and covenant of grace is mine and not
Bunyan’s. While it is clear that Bunyan sees eternal and temporal aspects of
God’s giving the elect to Christ as mediator, it is unclear from this work
whether Bunyan saw both covenants separately or if he saw the eternal covenant
between the Father and the Son as a subset of the covenant of grace.
[3]
Acts 18:9-10 (KJV) “Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night
by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I
have much people in this city.”
[4]
John 6:44-45 (KJV) “No man can come to me, except the Father
which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is
written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”
