In late November of last year, on the hills above the remote village of Muirkirk in south-west Scotland, three figures picked their way through icy bogland. The purpose of their expedition was to locate a memorial erected to the memory of the martyr John Brown, who was shot on his doorstep by Charles II’s dragoons for his allegiance to the cause of Scotland’s National Covenant. The site was remote in 1685, when Brown was killed, and even now it is hard to reach, accessed by a winding lane and then by a rather overgrown track which ambles over the sodden moorland.

Whatever the difficulties of reaching the site of John Brown’s memorial, we were very glad to do so in pursuit of footage for a new Banner of Truth four-part video series, ‘The Covenanter Story’. The Covenanters were Scottish Christians of the seventeenth century whose commitment to the kingship of Christ in his church brought them into direct conflict with the British state in the persons of the Stuart kings, men who believed themselves rightful rulers not only of the state, but also of the Kirk (church) and the conscience of individual men and women.

The videos, which are now available for free on our YouTube channel, relate the stories of four men whose martyrdoms shed light on different stages of the Covenanter struggle: James Guthrie (d. 1661), Hugh M‘Kail (d. 1666), John Brown (d. 1685), and James Renwick (d. 1688).

John Brown’s death is particularly poignant, and that for several reasons. Unlike the other three men, Brown was not a pastor but an ‘ordinary’ Christian—a man who made his living, such as it was, as a ‘carrier’, an early form of postman. Unlike the other three, his death was not a public execution, but an extra-judicial killing ordered by the brutal commander John Graham of Claverhouse (1648–1689). Finally, Brown’s death was strikingly foretold by Alexander Peden, the ‘prophet of the Covenant,’ and at his wedding, no less. Jock Purves relates the circumstances:

[Peden] had married the Covenanter to Isabel Weir in 1682, and after the simple Puritan ceremony had said to Isabel, ‘Ye have a good man to be your husband, but ye will not enjoy him long; prize his company, and keep linen by you to be his winding sheet, for ye will need it when ye are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody one.’ A Covenanting wedding! The Covenanter’s deepest joys ever carried the shadow of the Cross.¹

To see the still-lonely spot where Peden’s prophecy was fulfilled, and Isabel Weir violently bereft of her husband, was a sombre privilege indeed.

The Covenanters: Much maligned and much neglected

Raised in the south of England, I first came across the Covenanters in the secular historian Neil Oliver’s 2008 television series ‘A History of Scotland’. Oliver’s sympathy for the men of the Covenant was, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather limited. It was easy for him to dress them in the garb of ‘fundamentalism’, men fanatically and irrationally devoted to ‘King Jesus’ (he practically spat those wonderful words out at times!)²

This perspective on the Covenanters—the idea that they were unhinged religious zealots—first gained traction among their original enemies in church and state and persists to this day.

While we rightly reject this characterization, it must at least be conceded that Mr Oliver knows about the Covenanters. By contrast, very few within the evangelical church, including those who would describe themselves as ‘Reformed,’ have a working knowledge of these Christian witnesses. And this is a great shame, for they ‘belong to us,’ so to speak. Those faithful Covenanters who lived out a brave faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in evil days are our brothers and sisters. And while the Presbyterians among us have a special claim on their kinship, the fact is that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus may legitimately lay claim to them as spiritual ancestors. We confess the same essential faith that they did. More soberingly, we may soon find ourselves facing the same essential conflicts that they did. Let us learn from them with that in mind.

The Covenanters dared to uphold the sovereign claims of Christ in the face of the presumptuous counterclaims of the Stuart monarchs and their stooges in church and state. They paid the price in harassment, social ostracism, imprisonment, forfeiture of land and possessions, and forced exile and transportation to other lands. Thousands of them were killed: some in combat, others because of torture and harsh prison conditions, and others by execution, public or private. Thousands more were, like Isabel Weir, bereaved of loved ones.

A matter of stewardship

In producing these videos, our goal has not been primarily polemical. We are not seeking to defend the Covenanters in any systematic or thorough way from the claims of historians unfriendly to their aims and sceptical of their character or methods. There is certainly a place for such work, and readers interested in the cut-and-thrust of historical apologetics will find much that is still of value in J. K. Hewison’s remarkable two-volume study The Covenanters.³ Rather, our goal has been to introduce the outline of the Covenanter story, along with some choice highlights of Christian love, devotion, and sacrifice found in it, to a new audience. We wanted to provide an ‘on-ramp’, a user-friendly orientation to who the Covenanters were and why they still matter for us as Christians today. We hope, too, that the videos will signpost interested readers to books like Jock Purves’ Fair Sunshine and John Howie’s The Scots Worthies, which provide fuller accounts of great value for Christian instruction and encouragement.

As pressures increase on Christians in the Western world, may these videos serve the church by highlighting witnesses who, in an imperfect yet significant way, bore witness to the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who may with full justice be called ‘the faithful witness’ (Rev. 1:5).

You can watch the videos here, and sign up to our emails (UK/World list or North America list) to learn more about our books and ministry.

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The post On the Trail of the Covenanters appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

(1/13): Because Romans 13:1–7 is one of the few places in Scripture where there is sustained, direct teaching on the state and the Christian’s relationship to it.

As Lloyd-Jones says, ‘This is a subject that is not dealt with frequently in the Scriptures and that is what makes this passage a kind of locus classicus [‘classic place’] with regard to this matter.’ (p. 31).¹

(2/13): Because every generation of Christians needs clear and balanced teaching on issues of church and state.

Lloyd-Jones was at pains to counter the idea that becoming a Christian was a matter of adopting a ‘purely spiritual’ life that was uninterested in the affairs of the world that God had made. ‘As Christians’, he said, we ‘must not contract out of the world.’ (p. 34). That means, among other things, considering the state and our relationship to it.

(3/13): Because our generation in particular needs clear and balanced teaching on issues of church and state.

Christians in the West live at a time and in a place where high dependence on the state (for everything, it seems—health, wealth, security, education, and self-validation) coincides with very little reflection on the state’s true God-given purpose. We urgently need the counsel of God on this question, and Lloyd-Jones helps us to understand it. He is a sure guide through bumpy terrain that must nevertheless be traversed.

(4/13): Because Lloyd-Jones understood the world in which we live, and yet is not our contemporary.

When Lloyd-Jones died, Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, Ronald Reagan was US President, Phil Collins was in the music charts, and Ian Botham captained the English cricket team. In other words, it wasn’t that long ago. Lloyd-Jones speaks to us as one who knows the complexities and frustrations of the modern, globalizing world.

That said, while he lived recently, the Doctor cannot be considered a contemporary. Culture has changed exceedingly rapidly since he preached the sermons on which this book is based. And that is a strength, in this case, because his distance from us enables us to see, for one thing, that the essential points he makes have not changed and, for another, that some of his applications need to be adjusted or extended as we work them out in a different context.

(5/13): Because Lloyd-Jones was historically informed.

These sermons contain a wonderful if somewhat truncated history of the ‘church and state’ debate as it has rumbled on through church history. Lloyd-Jones was a keen historian, and his passion for engagement with the past shines through. But his interest was not merely academic; he insisted that we need the testimony of history if we are to live faithfully today:

‘We have the advantage of being able to look back and see the rival views and the interplay between them, and it behoves us to make full use of this opportunity. So you are now going to have a bit more history. That is not an apology, it is an apologia, or defence!’ (p. 94).

When the Doctor prescribes some history, it is always best to follow his instructions! And it must be said that Lloyd-Jones, in his historical survey,  strikes a careful balance, appreciating the efforts of men in the past whose circumstances were often complicated and pressured. Where necessary, he robustly disagrees with those who departed from the pattern of Scripture.

(6/13): Because Lloyd-Jones is insistent that Scripture should be our authority in all things and he is persistent in his pursuit of the true meaning of the text.

Lloyd-Jones does not rush to application. He insists that before we work out the teaching of Romans 13:1-7, we must understand its essential meaning and its connection to the flow of the epistle. He is clear: ‘true theology should always be based upon a careful and accurate exegesis and exposition and understanding of the Scriptures.’ It is just such exegesis and exposition that we are treated to in the Doctor’s teaching here.

(7/13): Because Lloyd-Jones was not afraid to make challenging applications.

The whole point of the Doctor’s exposition was to promote obedience to the Apostle’s teaching in Romans 13:1-7. Indeed, the Doctor claims that it is because this passage ‘deals more extensively with some of the practical problems faced by Christians in their relationship to the state than any other portion of Scripture’ that ‘it is of very great importance.’ (page 48)

Lloyd-Jones brought out these applications in various ways, sometimes by teaching great principles (see points 10 and 11 below) and sometimes by making very specific applications. An example of the latter is the way in which he taught the propriety of state-administered capital punishment in cases of murder. Lloyd-Jones knew that the question of capital punishment isn’t a fine ethical point to be discussed by academics: it is a matter of grasping what the Scriptures teach about the duty of the state. ‘The state,’ he says, ‘has the power to take life…granted to it by God’ (p. 60). He notes accordingly that, ‘Capital punishment is designed to maintain and to emphasize and to establish the sanctity of life. It has no vindictive quality in it at all…There is nothing that should so teach us the sacredness and the sanctity of life as the carrying out of capital punishment.’ (p. 61).

(8/13): Because Lloyd-Jones didn’t ‘do politics’ in the pulpit.

The question of whether pastors should ‘preach politics’ is being asked by many at the present time. The answer depends, of course, on what is meant by ‘preach politics.’ What Lloyd-Jones certainly did not do was to transform the pulpit into his personal soap-box. He didn’t vent, or cajole, or harangue. He was a servant of the Word (Christ) and of the word (the Bible). He aimed to teach no more and no less than what the whole counsel of God set forth. And in that noble aim we see his wisdom and true greatness as a servant of God and man.

(9/13): Because Lloyd-Jones didn’t ‘do pietism’ in the pulpit.

We must not assume that because Lloyd-Jones was not overtly political in the pulpit, that therefore he was a preacher or practitioner of ‘pietism’, defined as a strictly individual and devotional mode of Christianity which avoids public application. Lloyd-Jones knew that devotion was both public and private, and that the Christian is called to live out his faith in all of life. He taught individuals their duty. He also boldly set forth the duties of the state before the face of God.

(10/13): Because Lloyd-Jones taught godly subjection to the ‘powers that be.’

The default position of the Christian is godly submission to the ‘higher powers’ as they are ‘ministers of God’ (Rom. 13:6), even when those invested with the state’s power do not love God or follow Christ the King (as, more often than not, they do not). This is a challenging doctrine for Christians who suffer, Christians who care about the state of the world, and Christians outraged by evil. We are to pursue godly subjection. Here’s how the Doctor puts it:

‘We are not to look at them [‘the powers that be’] in and of themselves, but are to realize what they are and what has given them their being and their position. As Christian people, we are to honour them, respect them, put ourselves under them, as it were, and submit ourselves unto them.’ (p. 22).

This is challenging, indeed, and calls for grace.

(11/13): Because Lloyd-Jones taught a clear basis for godly resistance to tyranny.

Intriguingly, Lloyd-Jones did not teach that we ought to ‘obey’ the state. Or at least, he did not hold that this was Paul’s teaching in Romans 13. We are to be subject to the ‘powers that be’, yes, but not to yield them unqualified obedience. For ‘the powers’ are not the ultimate authority – that alone belongs to God. And just as Lloyd-Jones clearly teaches Christian subjection to the state, so also he teaches the limits of Christian subjection:

‘We are to be subject to the higher powers until they in any way come between us and our loyalty to God Himself and His commandments to us.’ (p. 53)

(12/13): Because Lloyd-Jones warned us to be ready to suffer.

One consequence of our godly resistance to the tyranny of the state may be serious suffering, even death. Lloyd-Jones notes of the early Christians:

‘…they were confronted with the choice – either they said, ‘Caesar is Lord,’ or else they were put to death. And they were very ready indeed to die rather than make that statement. At that point they rightly refused to be subject to the powers that be. They disobeyed them and were ready to suffer the consequences of their disobedience.’ (p. 53)

Lloyd-Jones is mindful that the faithfulness to God implicit in godly resistance to the state may cost some of his hearers their lives. Indeed, this is yet one more reason for being clear on these things:

‘For our own sake, and for the sake of our brethren who are struggling with these issues, perhaps even at the risk of losing their very lives, it behoves us to have clear ideas as to the teaching of the great Apostle.’ (p. 15)

(13/13): Because Lloyd-Jones preached on the state with a heavenly perspective.

He puts the whole matter this way:

‘We are to remember that as Christians our relationship to the state is, at its very best, only temporary. This is our position: ‘Our conversation’ – citizenship – ‘is in heaven’ [Phil. 3:20]. Now I have warned you not to misinterpret that and say, ‘Therefore I’ve nothing to do with the state.’ That is wrong. Nevertheless, it is our fundamental position that the place we belong to is heaven. That is our capital city. We are strangers here.’

And that, surely—the knowledge that we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s—is what will sustain us through our pilgrim days. It will help us to offer godly subjection to the state when we can, and godly resistance to the state only when we must.

Striking a faithful balance today

Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ teaching on Romans 13:1-7, found in the thirteenth volume of his series on Romans, is a sparkling example of grounded but passionate biblical exposition. Moreover, Lloyd-Jones teaches us on a topic that we can no longer avoid. Faced with a society which swings between the idolization of the state on the one hand and the utter denunciation of its operations on the other, Christians must evince a different attitude. We must recognize the God-ordained purpose of the state, the God-bestowed authority of the state, and the God-appointed limits of the state. Dr Lloyd-Jones can help us strike the balance faithfully.

Joshua Kellard is Communications Manager at the Banner of Truth Trust.

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The post 13 Reasons to Read Lloyd-Jones on Romans 13 appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

What is more, for this year the main sessions of these conferences, as well as a special Book Expo (with discount code!) will be accessible to those who register to join us online, via Hopin.

The Youth Conference is intended for young people over the age of 16 who are keen to explore further what it is to live the Christian life in an age profoundly ignorant of true Christianity. The sessions will range from the nature of the Bible, to the character of Christ and the free offer of the Gospel, to what can be learned from the outstanding 17th-century Puritan John Flavel.

The Ministers’ Conference is designed for men who are or have been in a ministerial charge in the local church. With this virtual invitation, we pray the conference will also be a blessing to others who may not be in ministry, but have a heart to live out and promote historic, biblical Christianity in our time. Our theme for this year is nothing less than the heartbeat of the Christian life,  communion with God, and all of its benefits.

To sign up to join us at the Youth Conference, from April 22nd to 25th, please click here. To attend the Ministers’ Conference as an online delegate, from April 25th to 28th, please follow this link. We do hope you’ll consider taking the time to join us.

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