Insights from
John Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography.
if you have not yet landed on a piece of
literature that will make you dread on the thought of religion, then you would
want to land on this small booklet by John Bunyan called 'Grace abounding to
the chief of sinners'If you happen to be an avid reader of Christian literature, John Bunyan may not be a stranger to you. An avid person and extremely religious. We know him from his famous writing ‘the Pilgrim’s progress’ John Bunyan was a classic English writer cum pastor who lived in the 17th century, a period where the church had begun experiencing reformation from the Roman catholism.
What strikes me the most about this individual was how religious he was and he captures this very well in his spiritual autobiography ‘Grace abounding to the chief of sinners.’
This spiritual Biography is a spectacular journey of John Bunyan’s spiritual endeavors One full of struggle, conviction, self identity crisis, egoism and finally spiritual triumph.’
This was a person who in his religious endeavors tried to become the perfect human being. Infact at one instance he indicated that in his prayers he boasted that there was no pious man in England than him .He was extremely captivated by piety and his once profane life suddenly began gravitating towards religiosity and extreme morality. He says that he did this with all his passion and he had all the pleasure of pleasing God with his own righteousness.
The story and Life of John Bunyan gives reference to this virus of religion that plagued the church ever since the medieval ages when the gospel was domesticated under the then Roman catholic church . Things as I see began going wrong way back.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation,,,,,, Rom 1:16 . The absolute singularity of the gospel is missing today’s church. Church programs and other biblical teachings that seem logical to our religious mindsets have taken place of the gospel. what am I saying,,, is that fiery teaching that you may ve come to know as ‘gospel’ really the gospel ?we may have good teachings that appeals to our estimation of who we think God is and really say that such a message is the gospel. One of my friends usually jokes that God created man in his own image but Man has created God in his image. This portrays how religion operates in the faculty of a God imagined in our own minds and presumed as the eternal God. God is not an image formed in our minds, neither is he an estimation we learn from religion. God is our eternal father and his invisibleness made manifest in the person of Jesus.
I ve heard of many teachings being presented as the gospel but has got nothing to do with Jesus and his power of resurrection and what he has done and accomplished for us. Probably you and I have not yet heard the gospel being preached in our neighborhood.
Paul says that if anyone even him preaches another gospel other than what he preached, such a person should be cursed ,,,(Gal 1:6-8)
When I read Bunyan’s spiritual biography I see exactly the virus that had plunged the church at his time. Paul also speaks of the same
Gal 1:6-8 Am surprised and astonished that you are
quickly turning renegade and deserting him who invited and called you by the
grace (unmerited favor) of Christ (the messiah) and that you are transferring
your allegiance to a different (even an opposition) gospel.
7. Not that there is (or could be) any other
(genuine gospel)but there are (obviously) some who are troubling and disturbing
and bewildering you with a different kind of teaching which they offer a gospel
and want to pervert and distort the
gospel of Christ (the messiah) (Into something which its absolutely not)
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should
preach to you a gospel contrary to and different from that which we preached to
you, let him be accursed (anathema, devoted to destruction, doomed to eternal
punishment.)(amplified)
Paul is
absolutely livid with any distortion in matters gospel. He is cursing anybody
who distorts the gospel that’s according to what he had preached. That’s
something I tell you.
Back to our
friend Bunyan, His encounter with the gospel is something outstanding. He was
amazed by four poor widows who were discussing the scriptures with a lot of
pleasantness, refreshing themselves as ones enjoying pleasant beams of sunlight
while he was shivering in the cold, afflicted with snow and dark cloud .[1]
At this stage
the gospel was scandalizing everything he knew Christianity to be about .
That’s what the gospel does by releasing us from the chains of religion and
self into a new arena of freedom. Freedom not to sin but from sin, making us dead to sin and being alive unto God. The gospel
falls on us like a ton of bricks pervading every area of our sorry lives. This
is grace abounding to the chief of sinners.
We must take
note that we should not promote a teaching that is in opposition of the gospel.
For that teaching even if it massages our religious ego its doom to fail
terribly. I will tell you that religion is facing a massive fall in today’s
context. People are getting bored with routines and regulations and yearn for
fellowship, for relationship.
People want to
be accepted and loved but in the eyes of religion this is another license to
sin, an absolutely preposterous estimation of human beings that we don’t see
people in the church as people loved but instruments of sin. How can the gospel
of grace be a license to sin?
Romans 6:1so do we bring back
competition between sin and grace? That’s what you want to do by
bringing the sin issue back.(kainos amplified)
The gospel is most certainly about the grace of God
that abounds to the chief of sinners. The heart and the engine of the gospel is
love and God is certainly in the mission of love. Lets exalt God by declaring
his goodness which abounds to all spheres of humanity. Blessings
Bunyan,
John. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Welwyn, UK: Evangelical
Press, 1978.
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