Evangelicals Now
<< February 1999 >>

The Church and the Last Things - Great Doctrine Series

The Church and The Last Things
Great Doctrine Series
By Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Hodder & Stoughton. 248 pages. £10.99
ISBN 0 340 69395 9

This is the final book of a three volume series of doctrine lectures given by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones between 1952 and 1955, when he was minister of Westminster Chapel, London.
I confess that 'the Doctor' was one of my heroes, and at that time I went to hear him whenever I had a Sunday free from my own commitments in Islington. So reading this book has been a great delight. I can hear the tones of his voice! The lectures set out the biblical doctrines of the church and the last things, expressed with the clarity of a first-class mind, and the passion and the practical application of an outstanding preacher.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones is known to have ex-pressed a preference for teaching doctrine as part of regular exposition of the Bible; and soon after these lectures he began his masterly series of expositions on the Epistle to the Romans. But if you are looking for a series of popular and biblical lectures on the doctrines of the church and its sacraments, the Second Coming of Christ, the final judgment and the resurrection of the body, together with a detailed exposition of key passages about the last things in Daniel 9 and Revelation 20, this is an excellent book to study.
Although the Doctor has his own firm views on these doctrines, including some of the more controversial of them, his approach for the most part is a model of fairness and of humility before God and Scripture. He argues the case for believers' baptism; but he deals fairly with most of the biblical arguments for baptising infants of believers, even though he rejects them.
He is more dismissive of the Erastianism of the Church of England. ('Erastus, I regret to say, was a medical man . . . and unfortunately . . . started the pernicious doctrine that the Church is a branch of the State . . .') Those Anglicans who support the disestablishment of the Church of England will find encouragement from the Doctor.
At one point, the Doctor surveys three possible interpretations of the teaching about the Millennium from Revelation 20. He comes down strongly in support of a 'spiritual' or 'a-millennial' view . . . that is, that the 1,000 years in Revelation 20 is 'a symbolical figure to indicate the perfect length of time, known to God and to God alone, between the first and second comings of Christ'. He concludes that section of his lecture by saying: 'Consider the three views. Go through your Scriptures again testing them . . . May God give us all wisdom and understanding, and above all humility, as we consider these great notable and marvellous things!'
It is because of his humble approach to Scripture, as well as for the substance, content and application of these lectures that I warmly commend this book to all Christians who want to grasp more clearly what the Bible says about these great and important doctrines.

Gordon Bridger