“Christians” without Christ
By Matthew Barrett–
For professors and pastors alike, one of the most troubling and disturbing realities today is that many of those whom we teach and preach to have little understanding of the person of Christ. It can be quite shocking to discover that those who claim the label “Christian” know not the Christ they follow.
For a young pastor or professor this can be very discouraging. However, if you find that I am describing you and those under your care, it will do us good to take a lesson from the past. If we take a trip back in time to the seventeenth century, what we find is that many Puritan pastors encountered the same phenomenon.
First, consider John Owen, whom many have called the greatest of all Puritans. Owen, at the young age of 26, took a pastorate in Fordham in Essex. To his surprise, he discovered that his congregation was “grossly ignorant” of the person of Christ and the gospel. Owen, however, did not despair. Instead, he put his hands to work, writing two catechisms that focused attention on the person of Christ, the gospel, and the Trinity. The first catechism was short, designed for children. The second was much longer, meant to be studied by the adults. Here in the simple form of a catechism, Owen began to teach children and adults alike who Christ is, what he has done, and why all of this matters for our salvation and the Christian life. Certainly Christology would not be something Owen left behind. These early days would be followed by years to come in which Owen took on the great threat of Socinianism, which in his day led so many astray in rejecting the deity of Christ, as well as his substitutionary work on the cross.
Second, consider Richard Baxter, who likewise encountered the same type of ignorance when it came to Christ and his gospel. In his famous book, The Reformed Pastor, Baxter explains the situation:
For my part, I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can, (and next to my study to speak truly, these are my chief studies,) and yet I frequently meet with those that have been my hearers eight or ten years, who know not whether Christ be God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death, as if they had never heard it before. And of those who know the history of the gospel, how few are there who know the nature of that faith, repentance, and holiness, which it requireth, or, at least, who know their own hearts? … I have found by experience, that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half and hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years’ public preaching.
Like Owen, Baxter knows that something must be done to help his people come to a basic understanding of Christ and the gospel. As Sinclair Ferguson observes, this is what led Baxter to engage in his “catechetical labours at Kidderminster.”
What we learn from the experiences of these two Puritans is that even in the seventeenth-century many congregations simply did not know or understand who Christ is nor the gospel he proclaimed. It is no wonder then that Socinianism so easily crept into the church. Certainly this is a warning for us today: if our people do not know Christ and his gospel, they will feed on that which falsely resembles it.
Those we teach today are no different. Many lack a clear understanding of Jesus. Our job is to bring them to the feet of Christ, so that in discovering his person they are brought to their knees in worship of him as their Savior.
Matthew Barrett (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of California Baptist University (OPS), as well as the founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine. He is the author of The Grace of Godliness: An Introduction to Doctrine and Piety in the Canons of Dort
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