Among his “Forty-One Letters on Religious Subjects,” John Newton included a mini-series on three distinct stages of Christian growth and experience, with one letter describing each. These correspond to “little children, young men, and fathers” (1 John 2). This letter 11 is about Christians in stage two—no longer new converts, yet not wholly mature.
“A Christian’s Experience: Stage Two of Three”
1. We know that God works in His people’s hearts, but His ways are inscrutable. Since believers’ experiences are so varied, I intend only to sketch some of the more important things we have in common. My last letter concerned the first stage of Christian experience. Now I would describe the second of three stages.
2. This second stage starts, I suppose, with a more settled assurance in Christ through a greater appreciation of His sufficiency as Savior. This assurance is a living thing and can grow even greater throughout our lives. It is based on Christ’s excellence and Scripture’s promises, not our spirituality or feelings. The first stage is characterized mainly by faith; the second, more by assurance, which is not exactly the same thing. With more assurance come more spiritual challenges. Predominant desire morphs into predominant conflict. Both desire and conflict are part of both stages, but it seems to me that the first decreases and the second increases. See how it was with Israel: frights as she came out of Egypt and songs when she finally saw a more complete victory. She may have thought her troubles were over, just like second-stage believers, but they had only just begun. A Christian, too, must pass through the wilderness to humble him, to test him, to expose his own heart to himself, and to show the greatness of God’s free grace.
3. Given how bad sin is, both to the Lord and for us, we might expect that He would expunge it immediately and bring us right away to perfect Christlikeness. Not so. Instead, to help us appreciate more keenly our need of His grace and wisdom, He lets sin ravage us for a while. Mortification of sin is a second stage Christian’s deliberate and persistent purpose. He is encouraged by a sense of his acceptance with God and security in Christ, but then learns by experience that try as he might, sin is deeply ingrained, the world is opposed, and demons surround him. The besieged believer in this stage knows about his spiritual resources, but it must be part of his experience to learn by a series of humiliating failures how difficult is the warfare. God is pleased to give this “young man” one proof after another of the hidden evils of his heart, with their tenacity, which are more than he ever could have believed without these miserable experiences. He comes to realize his depravity is particularly disgusting when it breaks out against so much light and love as he has already received by grace. Take Hezekiah for an example. He certainly was the Lord’s faithful and zealous servant for many years. After deliverance from the Assyrian army and from a fatal sickness, Hezekiah was truly grateful. Yet he still needed to learn how far he could fall, and so Providence appointed his last humiliation when he foolishly showed the Babylonian envoys all his treasure. So it is only when we have walked with the Lord a while that we come to the greatest distress about our remaining sin. This happens whether we fall into gross and public sin or not. The Lord makes some of His children examples and warnings to others. Thankfully, I have been largely kept from this, but I have no reason whatever to boast. I have had many spiritual advantages which have nurtured my assurance, and yet God knows how stupid, ungrateful, impatient, and rebellious I have been! Very spiritually-minded Christians have complained to me of the same things about themselves. Not every day and not necessarily early on, these sad struggles have their seasons by God’s appointment. There are times it seems He hangs us out to dry, and we are especially subject to harassment by the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is then especially that we learn from experience we can do nothing without Him. God is teaching His precious son to know, even better, himself and his Lord. He progressively breaks down all self-confidence and makes us more and more appropriately wary. He helps us prize more highly our moments of sweetest communion with Him. By multiplying His pardons to us, we come to love God more and more, and to be more humbly sympathetic toward our fellow sinners. Meekness grows hardy in this soil. By the end of this second stage spiritual experience, a Christian’s character is complete and he enters upon the third stage, spiritual fatherhood, marked by a very consistent correspondence between his heart and the spirit described in Ezekiel 16.63, “That you may remember and be ashamed, and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I provide you an atonement for all you have done,” says the Lord GOD.”
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By the grace of God, this “father in Israel” had passed through the second stage and been made so winsomely meek as he was. The artful complement to this letter is Newton’s immortal hymn, “I asked the Lord that I might grow” (Trinity Hymnal, #732). With poetic license, the last verse has the Lord explaining His way with the second stage Christian:
These inward trials I employ,
From self and pride to set thee free,
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st seek thy all in Me.
If you are passing through such deep waters, do not despair. Trust in the Lord and await the victory prepared for you. Ω