Dr. Waldron in his latest entry has returned to Charles Spurgeon. He brings up the point that Iain Murray in his work The Puritan Hope examines Spurgeon's eschatology in some depth. Waldron states,
Murray shows, I think, that there are very real tensions in Spurgeon’s utterances on the matter of eschatology. These tensions are very difficult to understand coherently. Murray also shows that Spurgeon was not so confident about his eschatology as Swanson might leave one to think.
Well, Murray does assert that Spurgeon had a, "fundamental uncertainty in his mind" in relation to eschatology. He bases this almost entirely on Spurgeon's supposedly "disclaimers" in several sermons where he makes statements such as, "I shall not go into any details about when he [Christ] will come; I will not espouse the cause of the pre-millennial or the post-millennial advent" (MTP 27:390-91). However, I demonstrated (and even Peter Master's, no friend of a premillennial position, concurred) that these types of statements were an idiomic expression with Spurgeon whereby he was stating that essentially he was not going on a "bunny trail" that would divert from the main point of his sermon. I had a chat with Murray ( I had sent him a copy of my work, as he had been very generous in his correspondence with me) many years ago and he admitted to me in the conversation that I was "probably correct" in my reading of Spurgeon.
Beyond this I wrote what many correspondents in the last 15 years have concluded is the definitive work on Spurgeon's view of the millennium. Bob Ross, the owner of Pilgrim Publications, the great reprinter of Spurgeon's sermons and other writings refers to it as "the major work." It is located here at Phil Johnson's Spurgeon Archive Spurgeon Archive. It is also available here in PDF form on my Essay Page. Everyone can read it for themselves and judge the evidence I have assembled and if am correct in my assertions and complete confidence in Spurgeon's Premillennialism and his unshaking commitment to that position. One little aside, Phil Johnson told me a few years ago that this work is the most viewed article in the Spurgeon Archive.
Waldon states that he agrees with an unknown correspondent that I am guilty of "selectively using Spurgeon" and questions two previously discussed quotations. In the summary of the paper, Charles H. Spurgeon and the Nation of Israel: A Non-Dispensational Perspective on a Literal National Restoration I stated that Spurgeon believed that, "if the temple itself be not restored, yet on Zion's hill shall be raised some Christian building" (NPSP 1:213-14). This language seems more that clear. Also, I stated that Spurgeon believed that, "There may be even in that period [the millennium] certain solemn assemblies and Sabbath-days, but they will not be of the same kind as we have now" (MTP 10:439). Waldron only deals with the "ceremony" quote and proposes an understanding of what Spurgeon stated, that honestly, I simply do not understand in light of what appears to be another very clear statement.
It is clear to me what Spurgeon is asserting in this quotation. It's meaning was also apparently evident to Dr. Peter Masters, who in his work, "Spurgeon's Eschatology" (Sword and Trowel, Dec 1989, p. 30) used the larger quotation but actually eliminated the entire phrase about "ceremonies" with absolutely no indication that he had edited the quote; what another writer called an intentional, "manipulation of the quotation to his own end" (C. W. H. Griffiths, "Spurgeon's Eschatology" in Watching and Waiting 23:15 Jul-Sept, 1990). In the context of Masters' article the inclusion of that part of the quotation would have completely undone his thesis.
Spurgeon not only made multiple dozen postive statement affirming the premillennial position (as well as a national conversion and national restoration to their land); he also made explicit negative statements about post-millennialism and amillennialism. In commenting on Albert Barnes' amillennial interpretation of Revelation 20, Spurgeon stated, "Now I appeal to you, would you, in reading that passage, think this to be the meaning? Would any man believe that to be its meaning, if he had not some thesis to defend?" (MTP 7:346).
Coming next, a discussion of the idea of Waldron that Barry Horner and I have divergent views about "judeocentricity."
Posted by Narnia3 at May 23, 2008 7:39 PM | TrackBack