22 Jun 2014
Dear Phyllis,
In 1964 I was in a Christian used book store in Tacoma and found a copy of the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Out of curiosity, I bought the book and was surprised that I had stumbled upon a classic. For years I treasured it, and often felt it was the one book I didn't want to lose. But in 1990 my entire library of excellent Christian books all went bye-bye. Then five years ago, I was in the library of Karl Hoessel in Japan and noticed he had a copy of Rutherford's letters. I don't know if Karl knew what he was doing or not, but he magnanimously reached up, pulled it out, and gave it to me. What a treasure!
Charles Spurgeon said, in his opinion the letters of Rutherford were the closest thing to inspiration that he knew outside of the Bible. I would tend to agree with him. The letters of Rutherford are not something you read, but food you feed on. Rutherford frequently grieved that people held him in high esteem. He frequently wrote, “If people knew the inside of me and saw me as the Lord does, they would not look upon me with respect but with pity.” “Many people, are making my ones to be tens.” It was said that he would have written more except that he heard his letter were so popular that he refrained from wring some. Any true saint of God can sympathize with Rutherford and knows the divergence between what appears on the outside and the reality of the internal. But leaving that behind, I still a marvel that the Lord could take any son of Adam and reveal the glories of Christ to him to the degree of what it produced coming out of his pen.
Like nothing I have ever read his message was simple – JESUS. He had virtually nothing else to say. I marvel that page after page he flows on with the most exalting description of Jesus. He writes, “Let ten thousand of thousands of angels be created and let them all tire themselves wondering at the beauty of Christ. Then let them all begin again.”
When I read Rutherford I blush that I have ever thought of putting into words on paper (or electronically) on any subject I have written. The best things I have ever written are lamentable distracting from the main topic of all creation – the marvel of the Son of God. When Dave was five I took him to an air show at Yokota. They had an F-15 on display there. I was tremendously impressed when I saw this incredible aircraft and looked inside the cockpit. I was trying to explain to Dave what an amazing flying machine this was. At that time a Japanese worker rode by on a bicycle and Dave's attention went entirely to the bicycle. I thought, “This is what I think of Jesus”. He is such a marvel, and yet we are tremendously enchanted by the most ridiculous distractions. Even our most exalted words in praising Him are little more than mud balls thrown at a statue of Lincoln. Paul said an understatement when he wrote, “Now we see through a glass darkly”. It is a marvel that we see anything at all. But what we do see exceeds our ability to describe it or the limitations of human speech. Christ is beyond our thoughts. Oh if we have such blurred vision, should we not crave for better eye sight. When Jesus asked Bartimaeus “What wilt thou that I should do unto you?” he replied, “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” (Mk. 10:51). I wonder if there is any more vital request that we could make of the Lord than this. It is one of the most mind-boggling bewilderments of my life that there should be such a wonderful, accessible, beautiful savior, and there could be such a minimal response to Him. I can accept some of that due to spiritual blindness, but how is it possible that Christians have such a distorted, limited, view of Jesus?
I believe one basic explanation is that there is a vast difference between actually seeing something and reading about it. Looking at the Grand Canyon and reading about it are not the same thing. To look at it takes your breath away, It would seem evident that much of our Christianity and salvation is more academic than real life. As conservatives we look down our noses at liberals who dismiss the Scripture as being the Word of God. But in our conservative camp is there not considerably more instructed salvation than actual participation? It has often been said that the difference between the prophet and the scribe is that the prophet enters in beyond the veil to stand in the very presence of God; and comes out to tell us what he saw. And the scribe enters into his study and comes out to tell us what he read.
The thing that has impressed me so much about Rutherford is that the key note of his life was not for his evangelistic zeal, but the he was a man who was predominantly in love with Jesus. Like no one I have ever read before, he was a man who was in love with God. I don't recommend Rutherford to everyone. I fear very few people could understand what he is talking about. He was not a man who expounded the Song of Solomon but a man that the S. of S. was his life. Some of his language is down right offensive to the natural man, but he talks about the husband-wife relationship as who Jesus was to him. He frequently speaks of the Beloved and the Husband. But isn't this what salvation is supposed to be all about?
The central point in any marriage is the love relationship. The wife is just head over heals in love with her husband. He is all she thinks about all day long. Her greatest desire is to be with him. The driving force of her life is to serve and please him. This is Rutherford. Samuel Rutherford was a successful pastor in Anwoth, Scotland, but he was sent in exile to Aberdeen by the Prelate of the Presbyterian church. There he had nine years of silence. Even the clergy of that town were forbidden to associate with him. But he wrote, “My enemies have thought to send me to my prison, but they didn't know that this is the palace of my Lord Jesus”. He consistently refers to himself as the prisoner of Christ. He frequently complains that his dumb sabbaths weighed like a mountain of iron on his heart. He constantly complains of the sorrow and pain of his heart for his poor flock in Anwoth. But then speaks much of the Lord taking him into His house of wine and dinning with him on unspeakable feasts. He always refers to trails as a cross. But wrote, “For anyone who would fit that crabbed Tree (the cross) upon his back and take it upon his shoulder they would find it such burden as wings on a bird or sails on a ship”. He refers to the white side and the black side of the cross. But says that the Lord has perfumed his cross with the fragrance of Jesus. He had been shackled by golden chains. And remarked, “If the tinkling of my chains can be music of praise for my Lord Jesus then this is the most wonderful music in the world.”
Oh the language is the man! These letters are not the exposition of something he learned in his study, but the essence of a walk and a life with Jesus. It is a breath of such fresh air and the fragrance of such perfume as I have read in no other book. I love Andrew Murray. I love Watchman Nee. I love AW Tozer. But Rutherford is different. He speaks much about the fragrance of the breath of Jesus, the smell of His garments. If someone is not familiar with the S. of S. these expressions are meaningless. But to Rutherford it was real.
In referring to S. of S. 2:3-5 he lamented that he was concerned that he delighted more in Christ's apples than the Tree. He feared that he loved more the love of Christ than the Lover. In several letters he wrote, "If a contrast could be made, I would sell heaven and all my blessings to buy Christ.” He complained bitterly of the littleness of his own love for Jesus, and the smallness of his hands. He said, “To hold the love of God was like a child cupping his hands and trying to hold the ocean.” He complained that his own bucket was so leaky that he could take little water with him even when he was at the well.
Like many of the historical divines he speaks much of desertions. He complained, “His absence is cruel to me.” “I find Christ coming and going seven times a day. His visits are short but frequent.” To a brother he wrote, “Christ has His own gate where He may come in. We stand waiting for Him at one place, but He secretly comes in at another.'” These are thoughts and experiences that are generally frowned upon today, but the mighty men of God in years past found great fluctuations in the presence of Christ. As an explanation for the difference, I wonder if much of what we call the presence of the Lord is little more than imagination. And we are suppose to control our imagination.
It is true that the Lord has promised to always be with us, but I believe any honest Christian must admit the overwhelming sense of His presence fades in and out. Speaking on the positive aspect this, Rutherford said that His absences only increased the intensity of his hunger for Christ. And said it was a good thing to be filled with hunger. Many of the 17th, 18th, and 19th century saints spoke much of His absence. I am particularly fond of the immortal verse that Joseph Swain gave us in his hymn O Thou in Whose Presence.
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O Thou, in whose presence my soul takes delight,
On whom in affliction I call, My comfort by day and my song in the night, My hope, my salvation, my all! |
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Where dost Thou, dear Shepherd, resort with Thy sheep,
To feed them in pastures of love; Say, why in the valley of death should I weep, Or alone in this wilderness rove? |
3
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Oh, why should I wander, an alien from Thee,
Or cry in the desert for bread? Thy foes will rejoice when my sorrows they see, And smile at the tears I have shed. |
What more can you say? Oh to be filled with that hunger! Oh to have a heart that craves Jesus to the degree that Samuel Rutherford and hundreds of other experienced.
The reason this has become such an issue with me is in reading the letters of this man who lived 400 years ago, I am stunned with the difference of the Christ he spoke of and loved so dearly and the popular Jesus that is presented today. Worse than that, I wonder if my message isn't radically defective. It is easy for me to talk about the depravity of sin, or issues. We talk about Christian principled but do we present Jesus? Christ said if He was lifted up He would draw all men to Himself. I wonder if the reason so few are coming to Christ is because Christ is not lifted up. A year ago I determined to change my message and talk about the loveliness of Christ, and started a 12 point series from S. of S. 5:10-16. I got as far as preaching on six points and quit. I doubt that anyone got anything from those messages. I fear the problem was that I was more like the scribe describing what I read rather than the prophet describing what I saw.
And I am not impressed with the testimonies of self-proclaimed prophets the likes of Todd Bentley and others who claim they have been in heaven on various occasions talking with Jesus. Compared with the testimony of Samuel Rutherford those accounts seem utterly ridiculous.
No, I do not recommend reading Samuel to everyone. I fear most Christians wouldn't have the faintest idea what he was talking about. But to me His Jesus burns in my heart.
Dear Lord Jesus, take wide strides and haste Thy coming,
bill
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