JOHN DUNN
Looking Within: Puritan Experientialism
Within the world of confessional Calvinistic churches there is a common thread found in many conservative Reformed, Presbyterian, and Reformed Baptist churches. It is the practice of scrupulous self-examination against the backdrop of the Mosaic Law. This practice is the heritage handed down from Puritan high-Calvinism and is popularly known as Puritan experientialism, experiential preaching, or experimental preaching. This approach to preaching and Christian experience was popularized by the scholastic Dutch and English Puritans who embraced a rigorous and often mystical pietism. I use the term mystical because there is nothing at all spiritual about mixing law with grace. The Holy Spirit is opposed to the flesh, and the Mosaic Law belongs to the fleshly age of the Old Covenant. Therefore, a religious system which imposes the Decalogue as a means of sanctification and thankful Christian living is not authorized by the Holy Spirit of Christ, who is the living inscription of Christ written upon our hearts.
Puritan Experiential Preaching
As the name suggests, experientialism is a pietistic philosophy which emphasizes the importance of emotional and mystical experience in the lives of believers. The goal of this philosophy is to cause people to experience the Gospel in a deeply personal and devotional way. The means by which this is achieved is through preaching that is focused on bringing people to intensely feel or experience their need for Christ. This is accomplished through preaching that is focused heavily on the Law and sin. This unbiblical philosophy teaches that it is necessary to bring people to depths self-despair, misery for sin, spiritual mourning, and deep repentance so that they will “flee” to Christ from God’s wrath. It is thought that men will not properly value Christ’s grace if they do not first know the wretchedness of their own sinful misery against the backdrop of the moral Law. Modern churches that espouse this diabolical philosophy can be characterized as overly serious, morose, legalistic, and hyper-Calvinistic in tendency. The people who attend these churches are often joyless, judgmental, non-evangelistic, and lacking in assurance. They don’t feel thoroughly preached to unless they have been made to deeply feel or experience conviction for some sin. It is for this reason that people from these circles are highly critical and suspicious of preaching which exalts the love of Christ, liberty in Christ, freedom from the law, or any of the great Christocentric Pauline truths. Such preaching is derisively called “gospel-lite” or “easy-believism” by these Old Covenant nomists.
Romans 3:20 declares that “Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin . . .”. But without continuing on to verse 21, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law”, Puritan pietists stop woefully short, insisting that their people must come to a thorough knowledge of their own sinful misery and despair through the Law. This penitential attitude is deemed as the hallmark of true Godliness and piety. It is the chief characteristic of many poor souls who are in bondage to this dark experiential way of thinking. It is evidenced most clearly by their lack of assurance, hesitant faith, and morose Christianity. This also explains why a disproportionately large number of conservative Dutch Reformed members in southern Ontario, whom I have had intimate contact with, are medicated for severe depression and anxiety disorders.
The primary cause of depression and anxiety among these church groups is the fact that the emphasis of the preaching in their churches is law centered rather than grace centered. They preach the Decalogue so strictly from the hand of Moses and comparatively so little about the infinite free grace of the believer’s present standing in Christ. Most of these dear people are not released from the bondage of Moses into Jesus Christ. They do not truly understand that they are not under the law of sin and death any more, but are now under grace and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Many of them have never heard explicit sermons about the realities of their present standing in Christ. They do not fully comprehend that there is therefore now no condemnation for them in Christ Jesus. They do not understand that the Law (as the Old Covenant schoolmaster) is now a dead husband to which they are no longer bound. They are unclear about the present realities of grace. This is evident because many still exist in legalistic rule-oriented spheres. They do not understand that they now stand in a completely different relationship to the Law after grace. Christ, being the end of the Law for righteousness, gives believers a full release from the Law so that they are now married to Him in a New Covenant administration, through His blood, and made alive to serve in the new way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code (Romans 7:1-6).
How vastly different is the experiential Puritan emphasis from the Apostolic record which shows sinners spontaneously and joyfully believing the objective Gospel GOOD NEWS, without entering into protracted periods of inward struggle and misery. This spontaneous, joyful faith was grounded in the declarative proclamations of Christ crucified, buried, risen, and exalted. There were no inhibitions in their joyful reception of this glorious message. There was no wondering whether or not it was for them, or whether or not they had sufficient evidentiary ‘marks’ to believe they were truly elect ones. So great was this objective Gospel GOOD NEWS to the first believers that it could not be contained for the power and joy of its message. Such immediate apprehension of these Gospel truths caused these saints to sound the Evangel of the Gospel far and near. The Biblical record clearly shows that those who believed the Gospel did so immediately, joyfully, gladly, and with abundant thanksgiving and selfless abandon. (Acts 2:41, 2:46, 8:8, 8:39, 13:32, 13:48-49, Romans 10:15, II Cor 4:15, Philippians 4:6, Colossians 2:7) It is no wonder that such an objective Gospel message powerfully turned the whole Greco-Roman empire upside down within one generation! Evidently, these early saints were far too presumptuous about their assurance. They obviously did not understand how serious we must take our religion, making a very careful examination of the inward ‘marks’ of legal obedience. Had they done so, they would not have been so careless to make such positive, universal, and objective proclamations of GOOD NEWS to those who may not possess the warrant to believe so freely.
Puritan Experientialism: The Lord’s Supper
The pietistic Puritan experientialism espoused by these churches is not only expressed through preaching, but also in their practice of the Lord’s Supper. Many of these churches believe that their people must be thoroughly prepared before taking the Lord’s Supper in a right manner. This “preparationism” involves a weeklong “season” of deep self-introspection and soul-searching to determine one’s own worthiness to partake of the Supper. Consequently, in these circles the Lord’s Supper has been elevated to a super-spiritual special event, whereby only the truly worthy (those who are mournful over their sins) may partake. This penitential approach to the Lord’s Supper has caused irreparably more harm than good in the churches that practice this Puritan experientialism.
The primary function of the Lord’s Supper is to strengthen and nourish the faith of the saints through corporate Body communion with Christ. However, the narcissistic experiential emphasis which is attached to the Supper in these circles serves to increase doubt and inner despair in the saints rather than dispel it. The primary focus of Supper preparation is themselves, rather than the beholding of Christ as the One who gives His body and blood to deepen and encourage faith. They forget the instruction Jesus gave, “This do in remembrance of Me,” not “This do in remembrance of yourself, as you recall how miserable and wretched you are this week.”
This wretched experiential Puritan emphasis as it relates to the Lord’s Supper can be examined further in the two part article which glorifies the practice, The Scottish Communion Season. It appeared in the periodical, Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, published by the Heritage Reformed Congregations:
http://heritagereformed.com/downloads/BSGT_2008_12.pdf
http://heritagereformed.com/downloads/BSGT_2009_1.pdf
It is disheartening to see that many conservative Reformed churches openly embrace, promote, and publish this type of faith-hindering material. This clearly confirms a profound lack of objective Christ-centered focus in their soteriological emphases. Furthermore, articles such as those mentioned above are pastorally irresponsible, as they portray the Supper as being an event reserved only for those who have had sufficient experiential evidences such as tears, tremblings, and other such emotional out-workings. Articles like these only serve to exacerbate the fears and trepidations that many poor souls have been conditioned to manifest in relation to the Supper and their faith in general.
Any self-imposed preparatory work, involving a myriad of devotional exercises in which one engages in order that he may be ‘qualified’ and sufficiently ‘readied’ to receive grace (either for justification or sanctification) is a legal form of works-righteousness, regardless of how pious and well-meant it may appear. This destroys the foundations grace.
Experiential Misery: The Miserable Puritan Inheritance
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it (Rom 8:24-25).
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (II Cor 4:18).
For we walk by faith, not by sight (II Cor 5:7)
Having thought long and hard about the present situation, I have come to understand that the problem with the scholastic high-Calvinism of the Puritans is that, while it rightly guaranteed the believer’s salvation (election), it offered very shaky ground for the believer’s assurance. The ever elusive Puritan assurance is founded heavily upon the believer’s ability to grapple with the moral Law and find within him sufficient evidentiary ‘marks’ of new obedience. Only after a lengthy process of judicial self-examination, against the backdrop of moral Law, a professing church attendee might begin to hope that he is becoming more holy and, therefore, truly one of the elect. Once his condition is validated with some degree of subjective seen evidence within himself, the church member then has the warrant to believe that Christ and all of His benefits might truly be his after all.
In the quest for assurance, Puritan experientialism seeks to discover sufficient seen ‘marks’ within one’s self, in order to deduce whether or not he is showing evidence that he is elect. However, a proper New Testament faith is wholly objective. It is the whole-hearted and fully assured confidence in things unseen. Therefore, a Christian should never seek his assurance by looking within to find legal ‘marks’ of grace. These types of scrupulous preparatory exercises are completely useless, as they are apart from the Spirit’s initiating work of faith in the objective indicatives of Jesus Christ. Our only subjective experiences should be the true Spirit-wrought fruit (love, joy, peace) of believing what the Spirit-applied Word objectively declares about us. Anything else is doubt and sin.
Sadly, this particular stream of Puritan Calvinism has turned objective faith, in an objective Gospel message of free grace, into a deeply serious and introspective process of legal examination and preparationism. The Puritan believed that his predestinarian salvation could never be lost, but severely doubted whether he was truly elect in the first place, thus doubting his whole salvation. As a result, the troubled Puritan resorted to self-focused, law-driven experientialism to see if the ‘marks’ of holiness were truly in him, thus ending up in the same ditch of legal despair as the Arminian. While the Puritan believed his salvation could never be lost, he doubted whether it was truly his to begin with, while the Arminian who, believing his salvation could be lost, doubted whether it could be securely maintained. Therefore, as it concerned personal holiness and salvation, both schemes resorted to self-introspection to see if they were producing enough legal ‘marks’ of grace. However, both philosophies overlooked the objective nature of Spirit-authored faith, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, thus turning grace into a legal work of hopeless and self-focused despair.
Puritan Experientialism: The Spiritual Fallout
The effect of this paradigm of experiential misery is a spiritually stunted people who struggle with assurance of salvation, Christian joy, and identity in Christ. Such people will continue to struggle with these things as long as the main focus is ‘the Law vs. self’ and not pre-eminently Jesus Christ. Believers need their eyes fixed firmly and constantly on Jesus through the faithful exposition of rich Pauline (New Covenant) theology. Such preaching/teaching is not so much a declaration of what believers are in themselves (the seen), but of all that they presently are in the fullness of Jesus Christ (the unseen). This type of objective preaching is the only sure method of cultivating Christ-centered growth in the saints. The eyes of their faith must be made to see the unseen indicatives of all that they presently possess in Christ and not the many visible evidences and ‘marks’ of their own experiences. Therefore, true Christian experientialism is to experience Christ himself . . . Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).
It is interesting to note that the apostle Paul addressed all of his recipients as Saints, and not as miserable and wretched sinners, although he pastorally addressed their sin and error. Sadly, as a result of the Puritan experiential emphasis, many believers see themselves only as sinners, full of misery and abiding failure, without a liberating faith-vision to see the unseen spiritual realities of their position as presently justified, holy, accepted in the beloved, Spirit-filled, and adopted sons IN Christ.
With all of these rich Christological themes missing from the primary thrust of their preaching, these believers are left to reap the weekly outcome of feeling heavy-laden with sin, burdened with guilt, stung by the Mosaic law, sorrowful, inadequate as Christians, not measuring up to all the proper “marks” of puritan devotion, displeasing to God, lacking assurance, and not sanctified enough. Is this the joy of the Christ-centered, Spirit-filled Faith that the apostolic scriptures so boldly proclaim?
Puritan Experientialism: The Gospel Remedy
It is my firm conviction that a believer’s subjective experience must be firmly grounded in the well-laid Christ-centered indicatives of the Gospel. These Christological truths must be apprehended and applied by the Holy Spirit through a lively faith. Faith in the Christological truths of the New Covenant is the fountainhead of all true Christian experience. Without this Christ-centered focus of all that believers are in Christ, all other pietistic experientialism is man-centered and devilish.
Connected inseparably to a Christ-centered New Covenant perspective is the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Far too little attention is paid to the awesome scope of the Spirit’s reign in the New Covenant age in which we now live. He is the new and living way of holiness. He replaces the old way of the written code (the Law) with the holy power and presence of Himself. As He writes Himself upon the tables of our hearts, He reveals Christ to us and in us, making us more and more conformable to the image of Jesus, the very Law incarnate. The whole essence of the law of God is fulfilled in one word . . . LOVE. God is love. Jesus is love. This Divine love at work within us is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:8-10) and is only a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22). Therefore, the Spirit’s work is to write the love of Christ on the hearts of believers . . . God s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. 5:5). This Spirit-wrought love casts out all fear, including lack of assurance and fear of torment (I John 4:18). Love, being the work of faith (Gal 5:6), is the fountainhead of all assurance (Heb 10:22). Therefore, the essential nature of Spirit-wrought faith is joyful, vibrant assurance and the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:19). New Covenant believers possess righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom 14:17).
So what does this mean for our dear brethren who follow the ‘old Puritan paths’ of subjective experientialism? It means that they are not perfected in faith or love. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love (I John 4:18). We must earnestly pray that these misguided brethren would forsake the ways of the flesh, the Law, and the Old Covenant. We must pray that the Mosaic veil would be lifted from their hearts and that they would be miraculously turned to see the glory of the New Covenant and embrace the Holy Spirit of Christ as their only way of righteousness and godliness.
Gratitude: Christ-Centered Doxology
If our faith is objectively grounded in the blessed truths of the Gospel, by Spirit-worked grace, then this should cause us to enter into the richest and most fulfilling faith experience of all, DOXOLOGY. The following list represents the rich Pauline themes that I love to meditate on:
·The reality that we are freely justified and declared righteous in Christ’s blood, apart from the works of the Mosaic law, through the righteousness of faith. (Rom 3:21-23)
·The reality that we are crucified with Christ, dead to sin, and alive in Him. (Rom 6, Gal 2:20, 5:24)
·The reality that our old man is buried with Christ. (Rom 6:4)
·The reality that we are raised to newness of life by Christ’s resurrection, by the same Spirit which raised Him from the dead. (Rom 6:11, 8:10-11)
·The reality that we are now vitally united to Christ by His gracious and all-sufficient Spirit, the new ‘law’ which is written upon the tables of our hearts (II Cor 3), by Whom we have been forever sealed and sanctified. (Rom 8:13, 2Cor 1:22, Eph 1:13, 4:30)
·The reality that our new life in Him now avails believers to the immeasurable greatness of his (resurrection) power . . . according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. (Eph 1:19-20)
·The reality that we are presently glorified in His sight, seated in the heavenly places with Christ . . . for we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. (Eph 2:6, Col 3:3)
·The reality of our perfect standing IN Christ. (1Cor 1:2, 6:11, Heb 10:10, 14)
·The reality that we stand complete IN Christ, our living head. (Col 2:10)
·The saint’s perfect acceptance with God, IN Christ, as sons and heirs. (John 1:12, Rom 8:16-17)
·The declaration of emancipation, which states that we are no longer under Mosaic Law but under grace. (Rom 6:14-15)
·The reality that God freely justifies AND sanctifies, through faith in Christ. (Acts 20:32, Heb 10:10)
·The reality that the law is fulfilled in Christ and that we have been given a new principle of obedience (grace). This law is written on the heart, and not engraved in stone. We serve this law, not in the oldness of the letter, but in the new way of the Spirit, by faith, faith which works by love. (Gal 5:6, Rom 6:14, 17-18, 8:4, 13:8-10, IICor 3:3-18)
·The reality that the believer is now no longer under condemnation or fear. Peace has been forever ratified and declared in Christ’s blood. (Rom 8:1, IJohn 4:18-19, Eph 2:14)
·The reality that there is nothing that can ever bring railing accusation against those who are in Christ. (Rom 8:33-34)
·The reality that there is no person, or power, or situation which can ever separate us from God’s infinite love in Christ Jesus. (Rom 8:38-39, Eph 3:17-19)
·The reality that Christ freely loves us, welcomes us, and bids us to commune boldly with Him. (Eph 3:12, Heb 4:16, 10:19)
·The reality that the saints are to have confidence and assurance in Christ. (Col 2:2, IThes 1:5, Heb 3:6, 3:14, 6:11, 10:22, 10:35, IJohn 3:21, 5:13)
·The joyful expectation of the resurrection and heaven. (Col 1:5, Heb 10:34)
·The reality that we shall be wholly preserved in this life by the grace of Christ. (IITim 1:12, 4:18)
·The reality that on the Day of Judgment the saints will stand faultless before God with boldness and exceeding great joy, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. (IPeter 4:13, IJohn 2:28, 4:17, Jude 1:24)
The only appropriate experiential response to such glorious Biblical truth is DOXOLOGICAL praise, worship, and joyful adoration of the thrice-holy, Triune God who loves and keeps us by His matchless, unconditional free-grace, in Christ alone!
As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! Romans10:15.
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