Christian's conversion (contd)

The Slough of Despond

Both Pliable and Christian fell into this slough. When Christian finally got out of it, he asked Help why this part of the road could not be mended. The answer he received was:

This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended. It is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin, doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together and settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of this ground (p17).

After sixteen years of the King's surveyors working on it, says Help, 'it is the Slough of Despond still' (p18).

This certainly reflects Bunyan's experience of battling against fears and doubts and anxieties over his own spiritual condition. And although the intensity of such experiences varies from person to person, I have no doubt but that few Christians have not at one time or another fallen on this bad ground. Apprehensions, fears and anxieties, are not peculiar to one or two believers, but are common to all.

Pliable overcame the Slough very quickly, and got out because he had no burden on his back. Christian who had the burden, found it difficult to get out, but was helped out. And I have no doubt but that, difficult and all as the Slough of Despond is, it is better to be in it with a burden than without it.

The Village of Morality

One of the ways in which Christian was misdirected was by Mr Worldly Wiseman sending him off to the village of Morality, in order to avoid going by the wicket-gate and the cross. A very interesting phenomenon occurred at that point: '[Christian's] burden now seemed heavier to him, than while he was in his way' (p21). Bunyan says at one point of himself that 'I thought no man in England could please God better than I. But, poor sinner that I was, I was all this time ignorant of Jesus Christ and trying to establish my own righteousness' (Grace Abounding, EP, 2000, p33).

To try to make ourselves good before God is only to increase the burden. Bunyan's point is a very important one. To find peace with God requires us to bypass the village of morality. It is not as reformed sinners, or upright people that we come to the cross, but as sinners, who have no hope but to cast themselves upon the mercy of God in Christ.

The House of the Interpreter

It is an interesting thing to note that Bunyan places the interpreter's house between the wicket-gate and the cross. It is a reminder to us that God ministers his grace to us through teaching, through exposure to the doctrines of the truth. Paul says in Romans 6:17 that the Roman believers 'obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine which was delivered to them': the affections, the will and the mind were all brought into subjection to God, and the teaching, the doctrine, was the means by which that occurred.

The work of the Spirit in our hearts will produce a love for the truth. "After a person has entered in at the Strait Gate -- come by true faith to the Saviour of sinners for salvation -- he has much, very much, still to learn, both of Christ and himself, and the ways of the Lord" (Lectures on 'The Pilgrim's Progress', p42). It is through the truth that God sanctifies (John 17:17), and it is by learning spiritual truth in the interpreter's house that Christian is set on his way towards the cross.

There are seven scenes in this section, all of which are worthy of comment.

First, Christian saw the picture of 'a very grave person' on the wall. The face had eyes lifted to Heaven, the best of books in his hands, truth on his lips, the world behind his back, he was pleading with men and a golden crown was hanging over his head. According to Interpreter, this was 'the only man whom the Lord of the place whither thou art going hath authorised to be thy guide in all difficult places thou mayest meet in the way' (pp30-1). In other words, it was a portrait of the Christian minister, and Bunyan is again pointing us to the central, indispensable role of the ministry of the Word in guiding Christians on their pilgrimage to Zion.

Second, Christian saw the image of a large room, full of dust. The room had never been swept. The Interpreter asked a man to sweep it, and when he did so the room filled with dust. Only when a damsel sprinkled water over the dust could the room be swept. Interpreter said that the dust was the original sin of a man's heart, which has defiled the whole man. When the Law tries to sweep the room clean, it chokes the heart by filling the room with the dust -- "instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, it doth revive, put strength into and increase it in the soul..." (p30) until the sweet and precious influences of the Gospel lay the dust, subduing sin and making the heart clean.

This image is extremely instructive, and echoes the experience of Paul in Romans 7:9 -- 'when the commandment came, sin revived and I died'. The law, which is in itself, holy and just and good, is wielded in the hands of sin as an instrument for further transgression. The perversity of sin is seen, says Murray, "because it turns that which is holy, and just and good, that which was ordained to life, into an instrument of death" (Romans, p253). But the gospel, with its declaration of justice satisfied and the law fulfilled, is able to subdue sin, and to cleanse the heart of man.

Third, Interpreter shows Christian two children, one named Passion and the other named Patience. Passion was discontented while Patience was quiet. While Passion represents worldly men, Patience represents Christian character. The world wants its treasures immediately, here and now; but God's people are content to endure life and all it has to offer, in order to reap a rich reward at the end of the world. Patience will have the last laugh.

Fourth, Christian sees the image of a fire burning against a wall.. While one man tries to extinguish it with water, the fire burns higher and higher. But on the other side of the wall is a man with a vessel of oil, constantly replenishing the fire so that the water cannot put it out. This, says Interpreter, is Christ, "who continually with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart, by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still" (pp32-3).

This particular illustration is a beautiful picture of Christ's undertaking to continue the work begun in the souls of his people. There is no attempt to quench the fire that is not resisted by the work of the Saviour in maintaining his own life in the souls of his people. That is their great confidence, in every spiritual battle with sin and temptation, that where God has begun a good work, he will continue it until the day of Christ.

Fifth, Christian sees a great company of men at the door of a beautiful palace. The men wanted to go in, but dared not to. A man sat by the door, to write down the names of those who would enter, while armed guards prevented those who wished to enter. Most lingered, but one came up boldly, demanded that his name be written down, charged on those who guarded the door, and, having received many wounds, made it into the palace.

In Pilgrim's Progess, Christian simply says "I think verily I know the meaning of this" (p34). The illustration seems to correspond to the Lord's statement that it is violent men who take the kingdom of heaven by violence (Matthew 11:12). Salvation is presented in Scripture as a taking of Heaven's citadel by those who are determined with all their might to endure whatever may befall them, in order that they may obtain Heaven's prize.

Sixth, Christian sees a man in an iron cage. This is at once the most solemn and yet the most difficult passage in the Pilgrim's Progress. The man is shut up in the iron cage of despair, without hope. When Christian asks him the reason for his lack of hope, he answers:

I have crucified [Christ] to myself afresh; I have despised his person; I have despised his righteousness; I have counted his blood an unholy thing; I have done despite to the Spirit of grace. Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary ...

..God hath denied me repentance. His Word gives me no encouragement to believe; yea, himself hath shut me up in this iron cage; nor can all the men in the world let me out. O eternity! Eternity! How shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity! (pp34-35)

The presentation of this man who finds himself beyond hope, consciously without any opportunity or possibility for repentance, is obviously Bunyan's understanding of the kind of person described in Hebrews 6:4-6, or the person who has committed the unpardonable sin. Bunyan's reprobate stands as a warning to us that if we do not make use of the privileges and opportunities that are ours in the Gospel, and if we despise what God has done in Jesus Christ, then it is possible that we too may find ourselves in an iron cage of despair. This is very different to the Slough of Despond, into which Christian tumbled. It is one thing to be despondent; it is quite another to be in despair and to be without any hope whatsoever.

Historians of Bunyan and readers of the Pilgrim's Progess have suggested that Bunyan had a particular historical figure in view when he penned the picture of the reprobate in the cage. Two individuals have been suggested as fitting the profile. One was a man by the name of John Child, a Baptist minister born in 1638, and was an acquaintance of Bunyan himself. He conformed to the Church of England in 1657 through fear of persecution, for which his conscience troubled him greatly. He took his own life in 1684.

A more widely accepted identification is with Francis Spira, an Italian lawyer who professed conversion to Protestant gospel truth in 1548, but later relapsed into Roman Catholicism and despair. Widely regarded as apostate, it is reckoned that Bunyan refers to him either directly or indirectly in five references throughout his works. In Grace Abounding, Bunyan often refers to Esau, who sold his birthright and could not reclaim it, nor could he find a place for repentance. Bunyan says he was often tempted the thought that he himself was like Esau, and that he read "that dreadful story of that miserable mortal, Francis Spira, a book that was to my troubled spirit as salt, when rubbed into a fresh wound" (quoted Horner, p228).

So here is a man, portrayed as being in a condition where he knows that he has committed unpardonable offences against God, and finds himself now shut out of the promises. There is no doubt that the Bible portrays such a condition, but does it teach that it is possible for someone to know that he is past grace and beyond repentance? This man says that he was once 'a fair and flourishing professor' (p34), that is, one who professed faith, and he lists his sins as follows:

I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word, and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me; I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent. (p34)

When Interpreter asks, 'is there no hope but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair?', the man replies, 'no, none at all'.

The question is not whether it is possible for a person to be in this situation, but whether it is possible for him to be in it and be conscious of it. On the one hand, Bunyan himself was plagued with the thought that he had committed the unpardonable sin, by which he says that 'the word of the gospel was forced from my soul, so that no promise or encouragement was to be found in the Bible for me ... I saw there was cause for rejoicing for those who held on to Jesus; but as for me, I had cut myself off by my transgressions and left myself no place where either my foot or my hand could lay a firm hold among all the support and props in the precious Word of life' (Grace Abounding, p102).

But these were the fears of someone struggling to find hope; and I have always taken it as a rule of thumb that if anyone is afraid that they have committed the unpardonable sin, that is a sure sign that they haven't. It seems that part of the hardness of those who have committed it is not to be concerned about it one way or the other. This is how the upardonable sin is dealt with in most evangelical theologies:

The fact that the upardonable sin involves such extreme hardness of heart and lack of repentance indicates that those who fear they committed it, yet still have sorrow for sin in their heart and desire to seek after God certainly do not fall in the category of those who are guilty of it. Berkhof says that 'we may be reasonably sure that those who fear that they have committed it and worry about this, and desire the prayers of others for them, have not committed it'

(Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p509, quoting Berkhof, p253)

Yet Bunyan's man in the iron cage is closed in to a condition where he knows what he has done, and he is only full of remorse for it, beyond the possibility of hope. It is a fearful condition, and a healthy fear is precisely what the image is designed to produce. In his work The Barren Fig-tree, Bunyan says that

To some men that have grievously sinned under a profession of the gospel, God giveth this token of his displeasure: they are denied the power of repentance, their heart is bound, they cannot repent; it is impossible that they should ever repent should they live a thousand years ... This man sees what he hath done, what should help him, and what will become of him, yet he cannot repent; he pulled away his shoulder before, he shut up his eyes before, and in that very posture God left him, and so he stands to this very day. I have had a fancy that Lots's wife, when she was turned into a pillar of salt, stood yet looking over her shoulder, or else with her face towards Sodom; as the judgement caught her, so it bound her, and left her a monument of God's anger to after generations (quoted Horner p235).

Seventh, Christian sees a man trembling as he gets out of bed, because he sees the storm-clouds gathering. The man's fear is on account of the judgement to come, and this, says Interpreter, is the spirit which must always characterise us in our pilgrimage.

The Definitive Meeting With the Cross

It is at the cross that Christian finally loses his burden. As I said earlier, he is still conscious of his sin after this, and has occasion to grieve over it. But he is no longer under the curse, or in danger of eternal loss. Right up to the cross his way is hedged with difficulties, but it is worth it for the joy of witnessing the loss of his burden, which rolls into a sepulchre and is seen no more. One of the effects of the scene was this:

Then [Christian] stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks (p37).

Bunyan does not explain why the loss of the burden at the cross should cause Christian such amazement; but perhaps the answer is found in his own experience, where it was with much doubt and uncertainty and struggling that Bunyan himself came into Gospel peace and liberty. But there is an important passage in Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners where Bunyan explains what it was that gave him peace of heart and conscience:

Having reached this point, I rested very comfortably here, for some time, at peace with God through Christ. 'Oh', I thought, 'Christ, Christ'. There was nothing but Christ before my eyes. I was now not only looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ, such as his blood, burial or resurrection separately but considering him as a whole Christ, as the one in whom all these and all other things, his virtues, relations, offices and operations, met together and that he sat on the right hand of God in heaven too. It was glorious to me to see his exaltation and the value and prevalence of all his benefits, and because now I could look from myself to him, and could consider that all those graces of God which, being new to me now, were still like those cracked silver coins and the small change that rich men carry in their purses when their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh, I saw that my gold was in my trunk at home, in Christ, my Lord and Saviour. Now Christ was my all ---all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption. (p114).

This is, I think, an important passage for explaining to us what it means to glory in the cross. Paul tells us that he determined to know nothing in Corinth but 'Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Corinthians 2:2), and told the Galatians that he wished to glory in nothing 'except the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world' (Galatians 6:14). But I think some people have a genuine difficulty with this. If we absolutise the crucifixion, are we relativising the other elements of the Gospel story, such as the incarnation, the resurrection, the ascension, the continual intercession? If we focus particularly and primarily on the cross, are we in danger of overlooking other aspects of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done?

Bunyan's answer is that faith rests in a whole Christ, and that our righteousness consists in what Jesus has done for us. The cross accomplishes our redemption in its objective aspects: it satisfies God's justice, vindicates God's righteousness, magnifies God's glory and exhausts the curse which the law pronounces over covenant-breakers. All that Christ was and did as Mediator up until that point was with the cross in view as the accomplishment of redemption. All that Christ does as Mediator after that point is in order to apply to us the redemption he has purchased. So when we talk about the centrality of the cross we are not absolutising it to the exclusion of other aspects of Christ's Mediatorial work, but we are recognising the indispensable, objective achievement of Calvary's great transaction. To use Bunyan's great illustration, our treasure, our gold, is in our trunk at home (or in our account in the bank); what we carry with us is some loose change!

But clearly the meeting at the cross becomes definitive: it is a defining moment. That is brought out particularly in what Christian is given at the cross by the three Shining Ones: they pronounced peace over him, the first saying that his sins were forgiven, the second clothing him with a change of raiment, and the third setting a mark in his forehead and giving him a sealed scroll which he should look at on his way, and give it in at the gate of the Celestial City.

I keep saying that Bunyan paints his pictures with strokes of genius, and this description is one such painting. The Shining Ones send Christian on his way, but he is an altogether different man. When we meet with Jesus at the cross, our lives cannot be the same again. We are defined differently; our lives are not our own, because we have been bought with a price.

We stand, first, in a new relationship to God. There is peace because of forgiveness. We are justified by faith -- that is forensic language, language of the law-court, in which we have been acquitted on the basis of Christ's having endured our penalty for us. Paul says of the man who tries to establish his own righteousness that he has not known the way of peace (Romans 3:17); but peace has now been secured for us, and given to us.

In his sermon on 'The True Foundation', Martyn Lloyd-Jones tackles the root cause of spiritual depression: our ignorance of the basic doctrines of salvation. His argument is that many people are in a depressive condition simply because they have not grasped the foundational doctrines which Paul sets before us in the epistle to the Romans. So he says:

Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression? The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and for ever to your past. Realise that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ. Never look back at your sins again. Say: 'It is finished, it is covered by the blood of Christ'. That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you. (Spiritual Depression, p35).

Once we have reckoned with this great fact of justification by faith, we can begin to enjoy God's peace in our life and experience. And although the sins and faults of our youth may continue to be a concern to us, a source of shame and of embarrassment, we must listen to the voice of God saying : 'your sins are forgiven you'.

Secondly, we are given a new dress, a change of raiment. There are echoes here of the provision made for the returning prodigal, who was given a ring for his finger, shoes for his feet and a new cloak to wear. There are perhaps also echoes of the description of salvation in Ezekiel 16:9-13:

Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. 10I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. 11I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. 12And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. 13Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.

Our appearance is changed. We have put off the old man in order to put on the new (Colossians 3:9-10); Paul uses this metaphor of undressing and redressing, of divestiture and investiture to explain what we are as Christians.

Bunyan is reminding us that the new relationship we have with God becomes for us a very public and a very clearly displayed lifestyle. The work God does in our hearts manifests itself in the change that takes place in our lives. It is a secret work, but does not long remain a hidden one. We are dressed in the uniform of the King, hand-woven garments of needlework which are embroidered with the gold of Ophir.

Our Christian calling is to live in this world in a way that will not stain these tailor-made robes. True religion, according to James, means visiting the fatherless and the widow, and keeping ourselves unspotted from the world (James 1:27). To the church at Sardis John was commissioned to write: 'Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy' (Revelation 3:4). Christ also says in Revelation 16:15, 'Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame'. Or, to return to the charge in Ezekiel 16:16, 'And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.' This has many implications for our daily lives. Do we live in the way that befits the sons and daughters of the king? Are our lives and our profession in harmony?

Thirdly, Christian is given a sealed scroll. This will aid him in his journey and give him access to the Celestial City. The provision of the king is quite wonderful: he gives evidence of ownership in a roll that signifies who Christian is, and how Christian ought to live. He provides for his needs in the scroll which will be his admission into Heaven.

This scroll is not simply the possession of a Bible. It represents the personal appropriation of the promises of the covenant to our own lives. These promises are what gives us strength, encouragement and assurance along the way. They are sealed in the blood of Christ and are ours without any doubt. We need to live by them and put all our confidence in them.

© Iain D. Campbell 2003