Approaching death...

‘Now I saw in my dream that by this time the Pilgrims were got over the Enchanted Ground, and entering into the country of Beulah…’

With these words, Bunyan signals that we are entering the last chapter of their Pilgrimage. Within sight of death, they are beyond the reach, and even the remembrance, of many of the trials and temptations they have endured. They are ‘on the borders of heaven’. The country is well-named. Taken from Isaiah 62:4-5, it speaks of the loving Lordship of Christ, and of His great rejoicing over His bride. It’s an amazing image, and one that we should probably think on more often: ‘as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you’. For the Pilgrims to know this must be so encouraging as they draw near to the end. Their death is precious in the eyes of the Lord (Ps.116:15).

Christian and Hopeful are by this stage seasoned believers whose mortal days are drawing to an end. They no longer care about this world, but are homesick for the world to come. Wearied of this life, their focus is turned exclusively to the City, of which ‘they have yet a more perfect view’. Their anticipation of being welcomed by the King overwhelms them, as their longing to be with Him blinds them to all else. This is a season of rest and refreshment, preparing them for the last great battle that lies ahead.

The company the Pilgrims enjoy in this land takes on the dimensions of heaven. No more are they troubled by Turn-backs, Ignorances, Atheists or By-ends, or any others of that ilk. Here their companions are Shining Ones who ‘commonly walk’ in Beulah. Bunyan anticipates that as the veil between this world and the next becomes thin, we encounter such ministering spirits who prepare us for our final passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

And the Gardener who encourages them to eat and to be strengthened, to rest and be refreshed. What Bunyan intends to convey here is disputed. Some understand him to be teaching us that Christ Himself, the Gardener draws near the Pilgrims and ministers to the in some direct way (Gen.2:8-9; Dt.11:8-12). Others - and I would put myself among them - feel that like Watchful, and the Shepherds before him, the Gardener represents the pastoral ministry of the Church, caring for the aged in their midst. Christ ministers by His Spirit through the structures of the Church’s ministry. Teaching about our future hope, the joy we anticipate in seeing Christ, our expectation of our experience of righteousness in His presence, strengthening the soul through Communion, prayer and fellowship... All this and more refreshes the aged saints and prepares them for death.

They are joined by ‘two men in raiment that shone like gold; also their faces shone as the light’. These two in particular have been sent to escort the Pilgrims to the River. Walking by faith is giving way to walking by sight. The profound, hitherto unseen spiritual realities surrounding us are coming into focus. It’s not that such beings haven’t been with the Pilgrims before, but to this point, their support has gone unnoticed (Heb.1:14). But now, as the things of earth grow strangely dim, the things of heaven grow mysteriously brighter. Christian and Hopeful are increasingly impatient to cross the River. They have got to the point that many Christians get to in the autumn of life, where they simply want to be through death, and with Jesus. But in those very waters remain the last two difficulties they must face: the experience of dying, and the temptation to unbelief. All their trials to this point have been but preparation for this final battle with their last great enemy, death itself (I Cor.15:26).

Questions to ponder:

What are you doing now to prepare spiritually for your death, and for the temptations you will face as you approach it?

For those closest to death, how much of Bunyan’s vision for the dying saint resonates with your own experience?

Catharsis or Salvation?

With only a couple of miles of Pilgrimage to go, Christian and Hopeful find themselves reminiscing on the journey, and those they have met on the way, including one Temporary. His is a sorry tale, but one that sounds all too familiar. He lived in a town called Graceless, next door to Turnback. It already doesn’t sound good.

He had sought out Christian and Hopeful for counsel after being troubled by sin, or more likely by the consequences of sin, which isn’t quite the same thing. When those consequences faded, so did his faith. He is an example of the seed that landed in the shallow soil and the rocky ground (Matt.13:20-21). For the short time he joined them on Pilgrimage he had been vociferous, full of good intentions, resolutions and promises. But ‘all of a sudden he grew acquainted with one Save-self, and then he became a stranger…’. I’ve known so many like this over the years, that I find this part of Pilgrim’s Progress quite poignant.

Christian and Hopeful’s conversation helps us to understand what is going on in such troubled souls. Their first insight is that they don’t allow their conviction of sin to lead them to Christ. They look to Him for catharsis, but not salvation. And so ‘when the power of guilt weareth away, that which provoked them to be religious ceaseth, wherefore they naturally turn to their own course again’. Being sorry for sin will not keep us from returning to it. Only Christ, and a love for Him will do that!

Secondly, he was too concerned about what other people thought. Temporary was never willing to pay the price of Pilgrimage; he wasn’t prepared to run ‘the hazard of losing all, or at least, of bringing themselves into unavoidable and unnecessary trouble, and so they fall in with the world again’. If friendship with God means enmity with the world (Jas.4:4), then Temporary chooses the world, even though it means enmity with God. In the final analysis he sees religion as a crutch for the weak. When he needs something to lean on, he’ll pick it up, but when he is feeling strong and self-sufficient he lays it down again. Pride and self-reliance prevent a genuine Pilgrimage. That was the third reason for Temporary’s relapse.

Finally - and most complex - is Temporary’s relationship with guilt. It was a sense of guilt that caused him to turn to Christ in the first place. The ‘Gospel’ he heard and responded to was incomplete, containing little of the cost of following Jesus, and much of the benefits. That too has a contemporary ring. Such irresponsible ‘evangelism’ might win quick converts, but it does not forge disciples, and as such, it stores up problems for Churches for years to come, filled as they are with people who think they are Christians. It stores up problems for the people who believe it too. Having come to Jesus to have his guilt taken way, Temporary was confused to find that his sense of guilt actually deepened! The more he tried to follow Christ, the more he stumbled and more intense his sense of failure and guilt. Because he knows nothing of genuine grace, and even less of the transforming power of the Spirit, Temporary is left with only despair and hopelessness. Slowly he begins to drift, quietly dropping his commitments. He becomes less vocal, less frequent at Church (for a while it seemed like he was at everything, and complaining that there wasn’t more!), less zealous.

Then in order to justify his decision to step away from Christ, he begins to marshal his excuses. He covers his own sense of hypocrisy by complaining about the hypocrisy of others. He begins picking holes in the discipleship of others, using their struggles and inconsistencies as a foil for his own. He complains that he no longer feels welcomed by the Church, although all the while it is Temporary who doesn’t welcome them. But the rhetoric allows him to feel comfortable finding friendship and companionship elsewhere.

The final nail in the proverbial coffin is Temporary’s attitude to sin. To begin with, he fought it - albeit in confusion and self-reliance. But now there is less pretence. He slowly reconciles himself to that which he had previously hated. He grows complacent and accepting, justifying his behaviour to himself, rather than seeking to be justified from it. Sin once again takes root, Temporary’s heart is hardened, but at least he feels he is being honest with himself. He accepts who he is, and takes renewed pride in it.

Unlike others who have fallen by the wayside, the Pilgrims entertain some hope. But it will take a ‘miracle of grace’.

Doesn’t it always?

Questions to ponder:

To what extent have you come to Christ for catharsis, rather than salvation, and the holiness to which it leads?

Can you think of any Temporary’s you have known over the years? Does this section of Pilgrim’s Progress help you to understand them any better? Does Bunyan’s analysis ring true?

Don't follow what deceives you...

You may be forgiven for having forgotten about Ignorance, but as Christian and Hopeful begin their final approach to the Gate they catch sight of him ‘loitering’, and taking pleasure in his own company. They wait for him, hoping that even at this late stage in the Pilgrimage they can impart some wisdom, and lead him to a knowledgeable faith in Christ.

But their counsel is drowned out by ‘good motions that come into my mind and comfort me as I walk’. This is a telling turn of phrase, and one that we hear often today. In modern parlance it sounds like this: ‘I know that’s what the Bible says, but I think…’. Ignorance has never reconciled himself to the ‘narrowness’ of the Path. He dismisses their concerns as ‘just their opinion’, or their ‘interpretation’. The God he believes in would never be so mean-spirited and begrudging as to reject one such as himself, who has been so full of spiritual sensitivity and so sincere in seeking to live his life well. Christian shows that such hopes and dreams don’t come anywhere near the reality of saving faith. But Ignorance is just glad that the God he worships is so much more open-minded than the Christian who thinks he knows Him so well. He is of course a paragon of tolerance, compared to the narrow-mindedness of Christian: ‘That is your faith, but not mine; yet mine I doubt not is as good as yours, though I have not in my head so many whimsies as you’.

Ignorance personifies the ‘follow your heart’ idea that has plagued Christianity for centuries. Never mind that the heart is decietful above all things (Jer.17:9-10). He feels he will be accepted by God and he resents any suggestion to the contrary. His motto, and his answer to every questions is: My heart tells me so. How can it be wrong when it feels so right?

Bunyan’s point is not that Christian pilgrimage doesn’t affect the heart, but rather that the heart must be measured by Scripture, must be ‘such as agrees with the Word of God’. In other words: The Bible tells me so. We must pass the same judgement on ourselves as the Word passes. How do I know my life is good? …that my thoughts are good? Ask what the Scripture says about your life… your thoughts. Are you passing the same judgement as Scripture does? Ignorance flatly doesn’t. Even when confronted with the Bible’s teaching about the state of the human heart, he states: ‘I will never believe that my heart is thus bad’.

He vastly underestimates the reality of his sin, and in that moment, Ignorance’s fate is sealed. He cannot see the truth about Christ because he cannot see the truth about himself. Thus his thoughts about God (about which he is so confident) will prove to have been only his own imagination, his own desire. He has made ‘god’ in his own image, and such an idol cannot save him. Indeed, such an idol doesn’t need to - for Ignorance can save himself.

Ignorance’s problem is not that he isn’t willing to walk the Path. He does, after a fashion. It is that he believes what he wants to believe, irrespective of whether that tallies with Scripture or not. Where Scripture can be made to re-iterate what he wants to believe he heartily accepts it, but where it doesn’t he is even quicker to reject it…

And herein lies the seed of his own rejection.

Questions to ponder:

How can you know whether what you believe is what the Bible teaches… or what you want the Bible to teach?

How consistent are you in the way you interpret the Bible?

When you need a spiritual Red Bull...

Since forging fellowship in Vanity Fair, Christian and Hopeful have faced many challenges and trials together. But as they near the end of their journey, they face one of the most sinister and insidious perils of all. ‘They came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy’. With deft narrative, Bunyan is alerting us to the peculiar temptations and dangers that come about as one grows older, and with it, weary of the race and tired in the fight. After years of Pilgrimage, there is a lethargy that comes with sheer spiritual fatigue.

Ironically, it may be brought on by a constructive turn of events. In Bunyan’s day there were periodic seasons when persecution was relaxed. It is a much-observed phenomenon in such times that those who were diligent in the storm become careless during the calm. But it also be triggered by less dramatic circumstances. In our own context, it’s onset can be triggered by a key change or life event, such as retirement. Old habits are broken and new ones can leave little room for the things of God. We take a ‘well-earned rest’, even from the ministry and mission of the Church; ‘sleep is sweet to the labouring man’. We might have come to the end of a particularly intense period of life, or maybe we just quietly begin to feel that being part of the 20% who do 80% of the work has begun to feel too costly. Or maybe it’s simply that we are tired, feel like we’ve ‘done our bit’, or find ourselves unconsciously slipping into a less challenging way of being a Christian. In one sense the context and contributing factors aren’t the issue. The issue is the effect, which is - in Bunyan’s terms - ‘sinful sleep’. We’d need to distinguish this from legitimate and godly rest, but once that is done, spiritual slumber remains both dangerous and disobedient (Prov.6:9-11; Rom.13:11).

Rising to fight the same battles day after day; facing sin, the world and the devil in their relentless assault; habitually attending to the means of grace; continuing faithful in the Path when so many others seem to find an easier way. It all takes its toll, and one of the last weapons in the arsenal of the enemy of our souls is the temptation to simply ‘take it easy a while’. But we must not ‘grow weary in doing good’ (Gal.6:9). ‘We must not ‘grow weary and lose heart’ (Heb.12:3). Jesus commends those who ‘have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary’ (Rev.2:3). The Bible’s vision is for us to finish our race strong.

Christian and Hopeful are alert to the dangers, having been warned by the Shepherds, and through having learnt from their own previous mistakes, and the mistakes of others. Remember Simple, Sloth and Presumption who slept near the cross, and Christian’s own sleep on the Hill Difficulty during which he lost his scroll? In order to resist the temptation to ‘take one nap’, the two fall into ‘good discourse’. This time they keep the warnings of Scripture in mind, and in so doing, avoid spiritual catastrophe.

We see Bunyan again underlining the importance of fellowship: ‘I acknowledge myself to be at fault’ confesses Hopeful, ‘if I had been here alone I had by sleeping run into the danger of death’. They share testimony, stories of spiritual struggle, failure and victories they have known along the Path. It is worth noting that this is fellowship. We can easily mistake friendship, or even socialising as fellowship, but Scripture has something far more profound, and frankly Christ-focussed, in mind when it talks of fellowship. I think of it a ‘friendship with an agenda’. That agenda is the spiritual strengthening and championing of each other. We encourage and challenge, inspire and motivate each other in our pursuit of Christ and Christlikeness.

In the company of such fellowship we can make it across the Enchanted Ground, and run the race to the end.

Questions to ponder:

As we approach the end of our Pilgrimage, where do we feel we can justify ‘taking the foot off the accelerator’?

What is the difference between legitimately slowing down as we get older because we have less energy, and the spiritual slumber Bunyan is warning us against?

For those who aren’t quite there yet: What can you put in place now that will equip to finish strongly as you draw nearer the end?

Losing faith in atheism

Atheist is introduced as a ‘man with his back toward Zion’. For twenty years he has allegedly searched for Zion, and now ‘I am going back again and will seek to refresh myself with the things that I then cast away, for hopes of that which, I now see, is not’.

As a wise man once said, ‘There is nothing new under the sun…’ (Eccl.1:9). Not even Atheism has managed to re-invent itself in the last 400 years. It still carries its blend of contemptuous mockery (‘Atheist fell into a very great laughter’) and smug intellectual superiority (‘I have gone to seek it further than you’). It’s strange how something that looks so sophisticated from one side can look so tiresome from the other.

Nevertheless, Atheist can present a compelling picture of intellectual integrity, open mindedness and spiritual searching. These may all seem laudable characteristics, but it turns out that they aren’t ones that necessarily lead us into truth. God will not deign to become a plaything for our philosophical curiosity. He will not be patronised by those too arrogant to confess their need of Him, or too self-righteous to feel their sinfulness (Ps.36:2). It is little wonder that he has not discovered God even while on the path to Zion (Dt.32:20). God hides Himself from such as these, and their confidence in what they haven’t found is part of His judgement. Atheist cuts a sorry figure, no longer willing to recognise the realities of heaven and hell, the truth of Scripture, or even of the Living God Himself. What presents as wisdom is in fact tragic folly (Ps.53:1). As Paul puts it so powerfully: ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? … Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe’ (I Cor.1:18-21).

There will always be atheists. But the idea that atheism is a force to be reckoned with is hardly one we can take seriously any more (if we ever could after what we saw atheism achieve throughout the 20th Century). The vaunted claims of the most recent batch of atheists (Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins et al) seem almost absurd in the light of the last few years. If we ever needed proof that atheism (or by its new trendy name: secular humanism) lacked the resources to sustain a coherent world view, or a stable, tolerant society, we now have it in abundance. But that won’t stop us feeling challenged by atheists at a personal level; by those who paint religion as a product of a by-gone, pre-scientific era, when people didn’t know any better. Or as a tried-and-found-wanting experience on a personal pilgrimage (as Atheist whom Christian and Hopeful meet: I tried religion, but it didn’t work!) How should we respond? In part, it is simply knowing our history well enough to debunk Atheism’s errant claims. But Hopeful helps us think our response through more carefully. He is alert after his experience with Flatterer, and feels strident in facing Christian’s questioning. But there is wisdom in his sermon, both in what is not said and in what is:

First, ‘take heed’. No discussion is ever a purely intellectual thing. Behind every intellectual position held is a spiritual dynamic that is rarely acknowledged (e.g. Job 4). We are far too holistic to ever be ‘purely spiritual’, or ‘purely intellectual’. It puzzles me how reluctant Christians can be to engage in evangelism when they are constantly being evangelised by others.

Hopeful remembers what happened last time he failed to ‘take heed’ and doesn’t wish to endure the Lord’s discipline again.

Second, remember not only the truth we have believed, but also the truth we have experienced. The life of a Christian is supposed to be one of rich experience of the things of which we speak and sing. The paucity of our devotional life, and our general lack of spiritual vision for life means that we exist as Christians rather than live. But Hopeful is able to draw on his having 'seen‘ from the Delectable Mountains, the gate of the city’. Fortified with such vision, we would be much less susceptible to intimidation by those who scoff at our faith.

Third, remember that spirituality is also intellectual. There is a dangerous idea abroad in the Church that we somehow have to by-pass the mind if we are to really encounter God. Let’s be clear that this method, and any experience that comes by way of it, is not and never has been genuine Christianity. The mind is a crucial part of being an authentic Pilgrim. Hopeful counsels Christian to guard his mind and to remember what he was taught by the Shepherds. If we stop listening to instruction, we will stray from the words of knowledge (Prov.19:27). There is a kind of spiritual entropy at work in us.

There is a time to be silent (Eccl.3:7). There are those who will not listen, who will not see. Tragic though it is, the wisdom of God is to not get caught up with such. We can spend a lot of time debating, discussing, engaging in polemic and apologetics, and we will make no progress.

‘So they turned away from the man, and he, laughing at them, went on his way’.

Questions to ponder:

Who do you know who claims to be an atheist? What are their main arguments and complaints about religion? What have you done to develop ways of responding to their concerns?