Faithful

With Christian's emergence from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, he meets with another pilgrim, called Faithful, and the position of Faithful in the Pilgrim's Progress is an interesting study, and raises several question. Not least among these is the issue of Faithful's pilgrimage. Bunyan has been describing in this allegory things that Christian experienced, because he wants to teach us what is the lot of those who are true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet Faithful seems to have come by a slightly different route, avoiding some of the very things that were necessary for Christian to experience.

A legitimate question at this point is who did Bunyan have in mind as he penned the picture of Faithful? Several commentators on Bunyan allude to this fact and seem to derive a large part of their answer to the question from the fact that when Faithful passed the lions in the way, they were asleep, whereas they had troubled Christian greatly. I suggested that these lions represent anything that might hinder us from joining a Christian church; but some take the lions to represent the twin powers of church and state, which roared against the nonconformist Puritan who wished to be part of an independent fellowship and congregation. So some argue that the reason the lions slept when Faithful appeared was because Bunyan was representing some Christian or other from within the Established Church of England with whom Bunyan enjoyed a large share of fellowship. To quote Barry Horner, 'There can only be one possibility, and that is that [Faithful] represents a Puritan who remained in the established church, an Anglican Puritan after the likes of the more moderate Richard Baxter and William Gurnall" (Themes and Issues, p295).

So on this line of reasoning, the Fellowship between Faithful and Christian is taken to be an allegory for cross-denominational fellowship between a non-separatist Anglican Puritan, and a non-conformist independent Puritan. If you accept that thesis, then you find Faithful's identity within the Church of England at the time.

On this, one or two points are worth emphasising. It was true that Puritanism as a movement was not denominational. There was no such thing as a Puritan church. Puritanism was a movement at the heart of which was a desire to reform the Church of England. Some Puritans believed in doing that by remaining in the Church; others believed that the church was unbiblical, so they had to separate from it, with a desire to influence it from the outside, and perhaps return to it later. These same questions are still being raised, with arguments on both sides of the discussions. Horner seems to be happy to identify Faithful with William Dell, who received episcopal ordination (pp297-8); I am not sufficiently familiar with Bunyan's personal history to be able to make an identification. But if the thesis is correct, that the fellowship between Christian and Faithful represents the fellowship in the Gospel that Bunyan, a non-conformist, enjoyed with someone who remained within the Church of England, then it does raise an interesting issue of just how much fellowship we can enjoy across denominational boundaries, while still remaining true to our principles.

In the initial conversation between Faithful and Christian, Faithful tells a little about his experience. He tells of the effect that Christian's leaving the City of Destruction had on those he left behind. Many talked for days about the fact that Christian had set on pilgrimage. Bunyan uses the conversation as a device for letting us know about characters we met with earlier on, such as Pliable, who turned back though he walked a little way with Christian. Faithful is able to tell us that 'he is now seven times worse than if he had never gone out of the city' (65), which is a very poignant statement. But the effect of this conversation is to remind us of the powerful influence that one conversion can have. It can set people talking, and even be a means of converting others.

Christian asks Faithful: "Tell me now, what you have met with in the way as you came" (65). That is always a good place in which to initiate Christian fellowship. The things Faithful met with in the way are very instructive. For example, he tells us that he avoided the Slough of Despond, and reached the gate without danger. But he also tells us of difficulties that he met with which were different to the experience of Christian. So although there is one character in this book called 'Christian', there is actually more than one pilgrim, and Bunyan is reminding us that our experiences of God and his grace are exceedingly personal.

So, what did Faithful meet with in the way? He talks of several encounters and assaults which he had since following the Christian way.

First, he was assaulted by a lady called Wanton. [This section is missing from some editions of the Pilgrim's Progress]. Faithful says:

I escaped the Slough that I perceived you fell into, and got up to the gate without that danger; only I met with one whose name was Wanton, who had like to have done me a mischief.

Christian: It was well you escaped her net; Joseph was hard put to it by her, and he escaped her as you did; but it had like to have cost him his life. But what did she do to you?

Faithful: You cannot think, but that you know something, what a flattering tongue she had; she lay at me hard to turn aside with her, promising me all manner of content.

Christian: Nay, she did not promise you the content of a good conscience.

The temptations of the flesh are admitted here by Faithful, and they have been strong in the experience of many Christians. The reference to Genesis 39 is to the temptation placed before Joseph to sleep with Potiphar's wife. His integrity and purity ("How can I do this great thing and sin against God?") is contrasted in the context with the shameful behaviour of Judah, who ends up sleeping with a prostitute who is actually his daughter-in-law.

Of this temptation, Spurgeon says

It is, indeed, almost a shame to speak of it; yet the purest and most heavenly-minded, being still in the body, have to confess that this temptation has crossed their path

(Pictures from Pilgrim's Progress, p146).

And if that was true in Spurgeon's day, how much more is it true in our day, when all around us are images and media of all kinds which pander to man's basic lusts and sell us the lie that we can sin freely, and it will not harm us. That is the atmosphere in which we are called to live, work and witness.

Douglas Kelly, in his recent book, New Life in the Wasteland: 2 Corinthians on the Cost and Glory of Christian Ministry, analyses our modern culture in this way:

Essentially, this is the disaster of our culture, that instead of knowing God, our people know idols. We are called to minister in a time that is characterised by idolatry more than anything else, and this was the problem at Corinth too. What is idolatry? It is a vicious, heartless rejection of the noble, generous and tender Lover to whose infinite mercy and affection the otherwise helpless beloved owes absolutely everything (p12).

And the result, he says is this:

A crucial principle about the nature of idol worship is that persistent spiritual idolatry leads to intellectual and physical adultery, then on to other kinds of mental and sexual perversion ... The Bible, history and contemporary life all illustrate that spiritual idolatry and intellectual treason inevitably lead to widespread sexual degeneracy (p14).

Christians are not immune from these temptations either. Faithful had to shut his eyes and ignore the temptation to sin, because he knew what the consequences would be -- "I remembered an old writing that I had seen, which said, 'Her steps take hold on hell'". If we are to avoid sinning against God in this way, we must always think of consequences. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

The second assault was by an old man, who promised him good wages if he would work for him, keeping house and serving him. His name was Adam the First, and he had three daughters, the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life. Faithful is inclined to listen to him, and goes with him a bit of the way. When he turns back, he cries, 'O wretched man that I am'. But he is then met by another man, Moses, who knocks him and beats him for having gone so far with Adam the First. As he was suffering these blows, another one came by and drove Moses away; Faithful says, "I perceived the holes in his hands and in his side; then I concluded that he was our Lord. So I went up the hill" (67). In commenting on this struggle between sin and grace, Spurgeon says:

I thought that this was the experience of all God's people. I can only say that, if it could be dispensed with, I should be glad to get rid of it; but I believe that, up to the very gates of Heaven, there will be this daily conflict, this hourly struggle between the house of David and the house of Saul, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, between the old Adam and the New Adam, between the natural and the spiritual (Pictures, p157).

The point here is that the law is merciless in its condemnation of our fleshliness and our inclination to sin. In the Puritan theology, the law functions to awaken a sense of our sin, and also to berate us for our continued failings. Yet Christ drives Moses away. Perhaps it would be better to say that Christ satisfies all that Moses demands; he gives us peace not by sending the law away, but by exalting it and making it honourable.

Thirdly, Faithful was assaulted by Discontent, who urged him to go back, with the argument that there was no honour in the valley. 'Pride, Arrogancy, Self-conceit, Worldly Glory' and others would be very offended if he went on pilgrimage through the valley. But Faithful's answer was that although these were his kinsmen, they had disowned him since he had taken on pilgrimage.

Finally, he met with Shame, who argued with Faithful about religion, that it was a pitiful and low business, that it meant a loss of freedom, that it meant being in a minority which few of the mighty, rich or wise men of the world chose. He said other things to Faithful too, such as, "that it was a shame to sit whining and groaning under a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home; that it was a shame to ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitution where I have taken from any" (69). The assault here was that it was simply shameful to be a pilgrim. Faithful's retort is classic:

Therefore, thought I, what God says is best, indeed is best, though all the men in the world are against it. Seeing then that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest; and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates him; Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation (69).

These encounters are rich illustrations of temptations which face the Lord's people still. Only with the shield of faith can we meet the tempter when he faces us with these assaults. We need to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

ŠIain D. Campbell 2004