The Whole Christ

Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters

Sinclair B. Ferguson

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781433548031
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie chrétienne

Since the days of the early church, Christians have struggled to understand the relationship between two seemingly contradictory concepts in the Bible: law and gospel. If, as the apostle Paul says, the law cannot save, what can it do? Is it merely an ancient relic from Old Testament Israel to be discarded? Or is it still valuable for Christians today? Helping modern Christians think through this complex issue, seasoned pastor and theologian Sinclair Ferguson carefully leads readers to rediscover an eighteenth-century debate that sheds light on this present-day doctrinal conundrum: the Marrow Controversy. After sketching the history of the debate, Ferguson moves on to discuss the theology itself, acting as a wise guide for walking the path between legalism (overemphasis on the law) on the one side and antinomianism (wholesale rejection of the law) on the other.

1

How a Marrow Grew

This story begins some three hundred years ago in a small Scottish town, at a meeting attended by perhaps a few dozen men. It records the progress of a theological conflict that grew out of a single question asked of a young man hoping to become a Presbyterian minister.

The question, however, had a sting in its tail.

Nobody knows who first thought up the question or who formulated its precise wording. Nobody knows who was first to ask the question or how many times it had been asked before. But it was intended to tell the questioner much more than the person who answered it might want to reveal.

Nobody at the meeting could have imagined what would happen as a result of the answer that was given. Nor could any of them have suspected that three hundred years later people would still be discussing it. If you had suggested to them that they were setting in motion the “Marrow Controversy,” they would have said (as people still do!), “The what controversy?”

So, where and when and why did all this take place? And what was the question?

Auchterarder

Some forty-five miles or so to the northwest of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, lies Auchterarder, population less than five thousand. Until a few decades ago the main road from Stirling to Perth ran through the long main street, from which the town was popularly known as “The Lang Toun.” The slow one-and-a-half-mile drive regulated by a thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit caused many a frustrated driver to be caught in a speed trap at its far end. Better by far to have taken a break in town and enjoyed a fine coffee accompanied by some excellent home baking!

To the outsider little seems to happen in Auchterarder.

Someone knowledgeable in Scottish family history might just know that much of the land in the area was once owned by John Haldane of Gleneagles, who had sat in the last Scottish Parliament and also, from 1707, in the first British Parliament.1

A few Christians might recognize the Haldane name. It was from this family line that the remarkable brothers Robert Haldane (1764–1842) and James Haldane (1768–1851) were descended. Robert would become the more famous in the annals of the church because of a remarkable awakening that took place among theological students in Geneva through a Bible study that he led while visiting the city. The Enlightenment-influenced theological faculty was so hostile to the informal gatherings at which he expounded Paul’s letter to the Romans that the professors took it in turns to stand sentry outside the Haldanes’ rented apartment. They noted and reported the names of students who attended, later threatening them with being barred from ordination!2

Haldane of Gleneagles. Gleneagles? This is the great estate that is now the famous Gleneagles Hotel and golf courses. If today the tranquility of Auchterarder is disturbed, it is likely to be because the hotel is hosting an occasion of international interest. It was here that the July 6–8, 2005, G8 Summit took place, when Auchterarder played host to world leaders and a veritable army of media and security experts. A report to the Scottish executive on the economic impact of this weekend gathering put the price tag at around one hundred million dollars.

September 2014 saw a similar invasion for the playing of the Ryder Cup, the biennial golf match between the United States and Europe, which now captures the third-largest television viewing audience for a sporting event, with spectators present from as many as seventy-five countries. Simply hosting the event had the potential to boost the value of the Scottish tourist industry by an annual figure well in excess of one hundred million dollars.

But three hundred years ago, Auchterarder and its people presented a very different picture. It was then a small mill town where most of its residents squeezed out a subsistence living as weavers, tenant farmers, and, for the women, as domestic servants. An extant set of accounts for the household of a local farm laborer indicates an annual income of $40.00 for the year, with expenditures of around $39.90. The wealth and publicity of a G8 Summit or a Ryder Cup would have been far beyond the wildest dreams of those who passed their days here.

In a rural Scottish village like Auchterarder in the early eighteenth century, nothing was expected to happen that would excite the interest of the wider world or be recorded in the annals of church history.

That is, until the regular meeting of the Auchterarder Presbytery of the Church of Scotland in February 1717.

Presbyterianism

Scottish church life has been dominated by Presbyterianism since the days of John Knox and the Reformation in the sixteenth century. In Presbyterian churches each congregation is led, or “governed,” by elders, usually one teaching elder (the minister) and a number of ruling elders,3 at best men of spiritual integrity and some measure of discernment and pastoral ability. The teaching elder was normally a university-educated, theologically trained man. The ruling elders had no formal theological education. They learned to be elders by years of receiving biblical instruction, by themselves being led by elders, and by a kind of osmosis as in due course they took their place in the company of longer-standing elders in what was known as the “Kirk Session.”

In addition to the life of the local congregation, the minister and an elder would regularly gather with representatives of other local congregations at the presbytery to hear reports and discuss matters of common interest and concern.

Beyond this simple structure lay a less frequent gathering of several presbyteries, known as the “Synod,” and also the annual national gathering of congregational representatives at the General Assembly. While each congregation was basically self-sufficient, and was led by its own elders, these “courts of the church” provided a sense of unity and a kind of ascending hierarchy of authority in matters of common concern or dispute.

The selection, examination, and ordination of ministers were all the responsibility of the local presbytery. With this in view candidates for the ministry were taken under supervision. Throughout the period of their training they completed prescribed exercises. These culminated in a final oral examination administered in the presence of the whole presbytery—any member of which might ask a question, and all of whom would eventually vote on the candidate. Daunting indeed!

A Narrative of Surprising Presbytery Meetings

Imagine then, that you have traveled back in time. It is Friday, February 12, 1717. The presbytery of Auchterarder is holding its monthly gathering. The agenda has now moved to the case of a young candidate for the ministry. He has already preached, presented the requisite church exercises, and completed his dissertation on a doctrinal point put to him in Latin. The trials can be rigorous. But this particular young candidate has completed all of the stages. Indeed at the previous presbytery meeting he had been licensed as a preacher of the gospel.

But now there is a problem.

Two meetings before this, on December 11, 1716, the presbytery had given the candidate his examination in theology. It had, however, postponed further consideration of him until the next meeting. And so, on January 15, 1717, he came before the presbytery again. He was now asked to sign his name to his answers to the questions the presbytery had put to him.

In the nature of the case in most presbyteries, patterns of questioning become somewhat stereotyped. In addition there are sometimes individuals who will ask their personal “litmus test” question. These are rarely straightforward. At best they challenge the candidate to take biblical teaching with which he is familiar and apply it to a question or situation with which he is unfamiliar. At worst they set theological traps. These need to be carefully negotiated.

The candidate before the presbytery of Auchterarder is William Craig. He has been caught in such a trap.

“The Creed”

As a candidate in the presbytery of Auchterarder, William Craig had been asked to agree to a statement that had become a unique hallmark of its examinations. Were it not for his response, it might well have remained hidden in the dust-gathering volumes of the presbytery’s handwritten minutes. The question itself came to be kno...