A great deal of discussion in evangelical circles over the past decade has focussed on the authenticity of Christian experience. Charismatic and Pentecostal emphases in this connection have forced the Christian church to evaluate critically the claims of those who speak in tongues, experience the raptur­ous delights of the presence of the Spirit and receive prophecies. While viewing much of what is said and done in this connection with a large measure of scepticism, evangelicals have been compelled to look at the apparent deadness of their own orthodoxy, and their own lack of experiential power.

But it is not just the excesses of the modern Charismatic movement that have led to the subjectivising of the Christian religion. The same tendency has been forged by other aspects of Church life, such as our emphasis on social activity, our lack of conscious fellowship with other Christians, our increas­ing retreat into privatised Christianity. We have so much to do in our own small corner, and in our own busy world that we have little time left for sharpening the iron of our doctrine by studying and discussing our theology with others.

David Wells, in his analysis of contemporary evangelicalism, No Place for Truth, is well aware of the trends that have, in general, affected the Christian church, and which have led away from a traditional confessional orthodoxy.

He says As the nostrums of the therapeutic age supplant confession, and as preaching is psycholo­gized, the meaning of the Christian faith becomes privatized. At a single stroke, confession is eviscerated and reflection reduced mainly to thought about one's self... In eviscerating theology in this way, by substituting for its defining, confessional center a new set of principles (if they can appropriately be called that), evangelicals are moving ever closer to the point at which they will no longer meaningfully be able to speak of themselves as historic Protestants. No Place for Truth pp101-102

In a similar work, Mark Noll, who describes himself in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind as "a wounded lover", crying from the heart for the mind of (Ameri­can) evangelicals, says that "the question of Christian thinking is a deeply spiritual question" (p253). It is a scandal, he suggests, that Christians have downplayed the role and development of the mind: this, he suggests, was never the position of historic Reformed Protestantism. The Reformers, Noll says, "saw quickly that the cultivation of a more biblical spirituality required a more thorough attention to the mind" (p36). The Puritans, he suggests, were of the same stamp, and were "strenuous moral athletes because of their vision of God" (p41). Both in Protestantism and Puritanism, it was a great grasp of biblical doctrine, according to Noll, which led to a desire to live out a practical Christian life, to be of service to God in God's world.

Professor Noll's concern is to call evangelical Christians back to the use of their minds, and to undergird all activity and social action with theological and doctrinal certainties. If these foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? We are to love God, not simply with affection, in our heart, and spirituality in our soul, but intellectually, with the mind. That means learning, growing in the knowledge of God, feeding upon the truth, and learning the doctrine.

We are, to a large extent, guilty of being content with a basic, non-reducible core of Christian belief. Our concerns and our lifestyle generally mean that as Christians we are not theological students. Yet the Bible calls us back to the sheer importance of its doctrines. All Christians are theologians, even if not all theologians are Christians. Theology is not an option - it is the very fabric of Christian life, experience and duty. Wayne Grudem prefaces his Systematic Theology (IVP, 1994) with a reminder that Christians should study theology because "it enables us to teach ourselves and others what the whole Bible says" (pp28-29). And unless we emphasise continually the importance of the Bible's doctrine, and the need for Christians to wrestle with it, we will be in danger of sitting at the Gospel table and becoming malnourished because our diet is not as comprehensive as it ought to be. But as John Owen reminds us, "All truth is beautiful and desirable" (Works, Vol. VII, p28), and as such is the concern of the child of God.

The Power of Doctrine⤒🔗

The apostle Paul speaks of the Christians at Rome as having obeyed 'from the heart the form of doctrine delivered to them' (Romans 6:17). The transformation which occurred in their lives took place because of the delivery of propositional revelation — what had been committed to the apostles to preach had been communicated to Rome, with the result that the doctrine changed lives.

Time and again in the ministry of the Lord, attention is drawn to the uniqueness of Christ's doctrine. Following the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew records for us that "the people were astonished at his doctrine" (Matthew 7:28); and the same words are recorded in Matthew 22:33 regarding Christ's discourse concerning the last things. Mark 1:22-28 brings together the authority of Christ's doctrine and the power of Christ's miracles, both of which spread his fame throughout Galilee; or, in Luke's words at 4:32:

they were astonished at his doctrine; for his word was with power.

It was into the lips of Jesus that God poured grace (Psalm 45:2). This is reflected in our Lord's assertion that His doctrine was not original, but derived. "My doctrine is not mine," he says at John 7:16, "but his that sent me"; and the corollary is that "If any man will do his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God, or whether I speak from myself" (John 7:17). It was from the 'gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth' (Luke 4:22) that the common people received the grace of God, and 'heard him gladly' (Mark 12:37). His doctrine had a magnet­ism and an authority which superseded the power and effect of every other doctrine which they were accustomed to hear. And in the experience of those who loved Christ as His true disciples and followers in the world, the doctrine was the thing. His teaching won their hearts and absorbed their minds. "Make Christ your minister," wrote Rutherford to the parishioners at Kilmacolm, "He can woo a soul at a dyke-side in the field".

The Importance of Doctrine←⤒🔗

Martyn Lloyd-Jones draws a distinction between preaching doctrines and preaching Christ doctrinally. It is, he says in a sermon on Revival, a defective orthodoxy which is content to stop with the doctrine and falls short of engaging with the person of Christ and His power to save. It is easy to be absorbed with the scientific study of theology and yet have little experience of the person and power of the Saviour. Rabbi Duncan spoke of philosophy as "born a pagan, but she may become Christian, and should be christened 'Mary'. She may be proud to sit at Jesus' feet" (Colloquia Peripatetica, p20). Indeed, all our intellectual enquiry must bring us to Jesus feet. As his infant body was wrapped in swaddling clothes and held in his mother's arms, so the Person and Work of Christ are wrapped in the doctrines of the Word, that we might embrace them and fill our hearts with love for Christ. Mrs. Catherine Macrae, writing of her husband in the journal she kept during his last illness, quotes him as saying, "Some think that doctrine is dry, but I love it, I love chunks of doctrine, chunks of it. It is so full of Christ, full of Christ" (Diary of Kenneth Macrae, p509)

It is this doctrine that identifies the people of God. In the New Testa­ment, as Wells puts it, "to be a believer meant believing what the apostles taught" (No Place for Truth, p102). The idea that the early apostolic church was non-confessional is belied by the New Testament itself in its disclosure that the souls converted to Christ on the Day of Pentecost 'continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine' (Acts 2:42). This is true apostolic succession — "not of ecclesiastical power ... but of doctrine" (Wells, p103). This is highlighted in the pastoral epistles, where Paul encourages Timothy and Titus to pay close attention to the doctrine (1 Timothy 1:3,10; 4:6, 13, 16; 5:17; 6:1, 3; 2 Timothy 3:10, 16; 4:2, 3; Titus 1:9, 2:1, 7, 10), to preach nothing other than "that which bore on it the sanction of apostolic authority" (Fairbairn, The Pastoral Epistles, p77). In their Introduction to the New Testament, Carson, Moo and Morris, describe this as a "'given' in the Christian message. There are great truths that are to be embraced in every age…" (p.377). The doctrine is not subject to change, alteration or modification. It retains its power to save, and those who embrace it are identified as the true church of Christ.

The doctrine of the Word also encourages the people of God. Paul directed the grieving Thessalonian Christians to the words of Christian doctrine in 1 Thessalonians 4:18. Simi­larly, in chapter 5:11, Paul brings together the concepts of comfort and edification, the one the handmaid of the other. There can be no comfort, no encouragement, no strengthening for the people of God in the world apart from the teaching of the Word of God, and the apostolic doctrine. In his treatment of the Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance, John Owen deals with this aspect of Christian living under the title The Improvement of the Doctrine. He imagines Christians assailed by trouble­some fears which Owen calls "impairers of their faith", and asks — how can a Christian safeguard his peace with God and his awareness of God's presence in his life? Says Owen:

Let a man be exercised with such thoughts as these, and then try if anything under heaven can bring his soul to any possible compo­sure until it be 'cast into the mould of that doctrine which hath been delivered'.Works Vol. XI, p390

The nature of grace is such that it can only be strength­ened by grace, and can only look to more grace for its nurturing and its life. The grace of faith can only be strengthened and comforted as it continues looking to Jesus, its author and finisher, whose teaching and doctrine can alone comfort.

The doctrine of the Word moulds the people of God. Christ prayed for the sanctification of His people by the truth (John 17:17), and the New Testament declares that the truth of the Gospel is according to godliness (Titus 1:1). To be sure, it is perfectly possible to be expert in propositional orthodoxy and be godless; but it is not possible to be godly apart from the knowledge of the truth. So Owen: "there is, by all that walk with God, great weight to be laid on those doctrines of truth which directly and effectually tend to the promotion of faith, love, fear, reverence of God, with univer­sal holiness in their hearts and ways; this being that whereunto they are called, and whereby God is glorified..." (Works, XI, p382).

Conversely, a holy life is to "adorn the doctrine", according to Titus 2:10. If the doctrine is the cake, the holy lifestyle is the icing on the cake. It is what commends the substance of the Gospel to all who look on, and what demonstrates the richness and the fulness of the Gospel to those who do not know it in a personal way. Nothing, indeed, commends the doctrine of the gospel to the world like a holy life; and nothing belies the beauty and grandeur of that gospel like a worldly Christian.

A Call to Engagement←⤒🔗

There is a danger that Christians can become too cerebral, too intellectual in their faith, so that orthodoxy becomes an end in itself and religion becomes heartless. But that is hardly our present danger, but rather that we have to such a large degree neglected the study of theology, making it the preserve of academics or ministers rather than the staple diet of our own Christian lives. In a new book from Christian Focus Publi­cations, Our Awesome God, the author, Professor Ken Campbell writes:

Instead of reading books about God and about doctrine, Christians — those who read at all, that is — study 'recovery' books, self-help books, ten-steps-to-a-­more-wonderful-you books, and simple fiction (p10).

If Professor Campbell is correct, then there is a great need on the part of Christians to look once again to the great objective truths and doctrines of the covenant provision of salvation. Our faith must begin with the non-reducible core of 'things most surely believed among us' (Luke 1:1), but must then add knowledge, without which there can be no self-control, patience, godliness or love (2 Peter 1:5-7).

This means a recovery of empha­sis on several points. It means the development of reading skills. In this TV and computer age, eyes and minds are not encouraged to read words off paper, but off a glass screen. Our reading habits are such that we find it difficult to contem­plate a book, especially a book on theology. Yet it is impossible to be a student of theology without being a reader. In our present climate we find ourselves in the privileged position of having good publishing houses producing good literature; yet there is no guarantee of a Christian public who will devour the books. The books need time, time to be studied and compared with Scripture; to be discussed and to be analysed. Yet the path of holiness can be forged out in no other way. The doctrines of the Word will create holiness and a desire for holiness. And holiness can be learned nowhere but at the feet of Jesus.